You just have to love Gordon Ramsay. The feisty, outspoken, hot-tempered chef turned international superstar is the host of “Hell’s Kitchen” and “Kitchen Nightmares” and never fails to entertain on either of his hit television programs – no matter how vulgar his entertainment might be.

That exact vulgarity might be what has turned some people off from Ramsay. Calling his show’s contestants a “doughnut” or “big boy” might be funny in itself, but taken in context, the shar-pei look-alike might seem a bit more like a bully than a comedic friend. One of his comments, “It’s a (expletive) carrot, you doughnut!” suddenly loses its comical appeal when Ramsay’s bright-red face is screaming at you and throwing a saucepan past your head.

Make no mistake, though, when he compares food on a plate to baby vomit, it makes me laugh every time.

But one thing is certain: The man knows how to cook. My wife Monique and I recently had the opportunity to sit down and eat at Ramsay’s newest restaurant, Gordon Ramsay at the London West Hollywood. The color scheme of tans, grays, baby blue and pink somehow turns what might seem like a baby’s bedroom –without the vomit – into an elegant environment to enjoy some of the best food in all of Los Angeles. My beef fillet and Kobe short rib, cipollini onion and baby beets might very well be the best meal I’ve ever had in my life.

The trip to Ramsay’s place was followed shortly thereafter with dinner at Wolfgang Puck’s Postrio at The Venetian in Las Vegas. While I wasn’t worried about the owner coming around the corner and yelling the f-word at me, the culinary genius was similar in quality.

The point of this isn’t to mention every restaurant I’ve been lucky enough to enjoy, but instead to use this as a launching board into the newest department of Bakersfield Life that you will be seeing each month that we so cleverly titled, “Food and Wine.” The goal of this department is to give the reader a local look at the good life associated to food and wine.

For this department’s first article this month, I sat down with local wine experts Jeramy Brown, co-owner of Valentien Restaurant and Wine Bar, and the owner of Cafe Med, Meir Brown, for a pair of delightful conversations focusing on pairing wine with food. The best thing about the conversations I had with the Bakersfield Browns – who aren’t related, by the way – is that neither was stuffy when sharing their wine experience. In fact, they want to share their knowledge to help the city learn about the beverage they enjoy so much.

This month, the focus is on both food and wine. In the future, we might look more toward one or the other, or even concern ourselves exclusively on wine or food individually. Most importantly is that we want to bring you more ideas, experiences and luxuries from the culinary field and its connection to wine while tying a local connection to them.

Even though we don’t have a Gordon Ramsey or Wolfgang Puck restaurant in Bakersfield, it doesn’t mean that we don’t have access to some amazing culinary experiences right here in town and I look forward to sharing them all with you in the upcoming months.

So enjoy the new Food and Wine department. And if you don’t like it, please don’t call me a doughnut.