What's Marshall King up to this week? Find out in today's Dining A La King.


Cue the fruit flies.

It's winemaking season in Elkhart County.

Dominic and Sarita Cataldo got two semi-loads of grapes from California for about 75 customers. Most of the grapes are cabernet, but whatever variety, they get crushed and then pressed a number of days later. It's messy, sticky work to make the juice that over time becomes wine.

The grapes arrived last week. Pressing will likely happen, at least at the Cataldo household, later this week.

The wine won't be ready until long after that.

It's fun to be part of this group of people who either crush and press themselves or get juice from the Cataldos to turn into wine. The varying conditions in basements and garages across the area and the choices winemakers make in terms of oak and other additions make the wines vastly different.

• Antojitos Mexicanos, 102 Middlebury St., Elkhart, is under new management. Brett Coppins owns the restaurant, but Linda Soto is no longer overseeing it. The hours are now 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday to Saturday. Breakfast is being served and new items are on the menu, Coppins said.

• Pizzeria Venturi, 123 E. Lincoln Ave., Goshen, made a splash last week when an Esquire blog included it in a list of the “most life-changing pizzerias in America.” Eric Kanagy, one of the owners, said he doesn't know how the magazine found Venturi, but a photo of one if its pizzas was on the Oct. 11 post launching the reader poll. The results posted Thursday put Venturi 15th on the list. Lou Malnati's in Chicago topped the list.

“When you look at the list, it's pretty impressive,” Kanagy said. “It's a neat validation of what we've created.”

The wood-fired, thin-crust pizzeria is the only one in Indiana, Michigan and Ohio to have an Italian certification verifying it as Neopolitan-style pizza.

The restaurant gets customers on a weekly basis who drive from more than an hour away, Kanagy said. He said people are spending money at Venturi in part because it's part of a thriving city. He said he hopes the Goshen City Council won't cut “quality of life” funding. He's rather pay for trash fees than lose funding for a city forester and First Fridays, which he helped found.

• Kelly Jae's Cafe, 133 S. Main St., Goshen, will close just for a few days while owners Karen Kennedy and Kelly Graff take a vacation Friday through next Tuesday. The restaurant will reopen on Oct. 31. “It's our own personal 'fall break,'” Kennedy said.

• There are still tickets available for Taste of Downtown Goshen. The event will showcase food from a number of Goshen restaurants on Saturday to benefit Center for Healing & Hope. Tickets are $44 per person. The deadline to sign up is Tuesday. Information/reservations: 574-534-4744 or info@chhclinics.org

• Bristol Public Library raised more than $275 with a cupcake contest and sale on Oct. 15, according to Dawn Janssen, president of Friends of the Bristol Library. Beth Browning of Bristol won the taste portion of the competition with sweet potato cupcake with a brown sugar frosting and candied pecans. Pam Keyser of Goshen won the appearance category with s'mores cupcakes. I helped judge the contest along with Ross Hougland, Jill Swartz and Amy Ubaldo, who all work in Bristol.

• York Elementary School is having an Empty Bowls Project dinner Tuesday using bowls students in kindergarten through third grade painted. Donations will be accepted for the pottery. The bowls symbolize the empty bowls in the community, according to art teacher Rachelle Judd. The meal of soup and bread will be free to the school's families. The money collected will go to the Middlebury Food Pantry.

• 17 Cuisine is open at 54595 C.R. 17, Elkhart. The menu includes a big range of items, including sandwiches and pizza at breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as burgers, steaks and seafood. Prime rib is offered on weekends, according to Becca Cornell, who owns it with her husband, Darren. The two previously owned and operated DC's Pizza & Subs and DC's Burgers. Hours are 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., but the couple hopes to open 24 hours. Phone: 574-296-1742

• Ran out of room in today's Quick Bites to talk about my favorite pumpkin items this year, so look for that next week. But if you want to tell me about your favorites, you can do so on the Dining A La King Facebook page.

Marshall V. King is news/multimedia editor and food columnist for The Elkhart Truth/eTruth.com. You can reach him at mking@etruth.com, 574-296-5805, on Twitter @hungrymarshall or via Facebook.