So Long, Farewell, All You Sexy Bitches!

There's a sad sort of clanging,
From the back of my car,
As wine glasses clank together,
They may not make it far,
An absurd little bird,
Is pooing on my hood,
Damn if I had my gun,
I'd fix his feathered ass good,
Coo-coo, coo-coo regregfully he tells me,
Coo-coo, coo-coo but firmly he compells me,
To say goodnight,
Coo-coo to all of you,
So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodnight,
I hate to go and leave this pretty sight...

But alas, my fair feathered friends, after (OMG) fourteen years in this town we call Denver, I must kiss its beautiful booty goodbye. This saturday morning I am heading to Paonia, an itsy bitsy, teeny weeny town on the western slope of CO, to chill wit ma mamma for a few until I head for France at August's end. Although it feels kinda strange and a little sad to be leaving the place I have called my home since I was legally old enough to drink, blessed be the day, I have a marvelous sense that I am on the brink of embarking on what could possibly be the greatest adventure of my life thus far. Nonetheless I will miss Miss Denver and my sisters and friends who live here. I will miss the fabulous back to back dining room and amazing food at Frution; the ceaslessly wonderful fare from Mr. Forman and staff at Table 6; everything about Sasa; the food, the patio, the great atmosphere and the people of Domo; drag queen brunch at Bump & Grind; I will miss picknicks at Cheesman Park; the zoo, the baseball games; the Fillmore; and amongst many other things, I will miss the Cowboy Bar (except for the fucker who stole my coat last time I was there). Denver has been a great place to be and so, au revoir et salut my sweet city, I will miss you.

P.S. I will be blogging from P-Town - tiny town, 2000 peeps, fruit, coal and absolutly no idea what will happen next, tune it. And also while gallavanting about France where I will be harvesting grapes, learning as much as I can about wine making, and hangin with the local farmers, winemakers, chateau dwellers, and Parisians. So subscribe to Le Blog and lets stay in touch shall we! Peace out all you sexy bitches.

On The Importance of Good Stuff

I know you have all been suffering terribly and waiting with baited breath wondering where I have been since my last post which I deleted because it was not only depressing but also a waste of all of our time. Anyhow, you will be happy to know that all is well. In fact, the more time I have had to think about the things that are really important to me - aka: food, wine, family, true friends & good times with food, wine, family and true friends, the less I think about the stuff that doesn’t matter so much. On that note, I have a few good friends in fact who remind me of that every time I spend time with them. One (and you know who you are you beautiful lady) is also the proud momma of my favorite kitty in the whole wide world, a sister in my love of food and wine, and one of the most wonderful and strong women I know. I had the great pleasure of sharing a glass of wine and some kick ass conversation with her just this week. Not to mention a horror story about the moving of the couch from hell, but I'll save that gem for some other time. Another is a friend who, no matter what I am going through, or how damn grumpy I am, or how many times I don’t pick up the phone and only respond with one word text messages, is always there for me with a smart ass remark, a gorgeous glass of wine, or something delicious to eat - and who somehow manages to make me laugh on even the dreariest of days. So I guess I just want to say thanks to all of you who inspire me, make me laugh, make me smile, give me hope, give me hugs, talk the best of shit with me, and take the time to drink and eat good things with me. You are my inspiration and I love you dearly.

Whoopsie Daisy

A friend of mine emailed me to tell me that I misspelled Jacque's name in that last blog so I wanted to say whoops and correct my mistake. Although I fancy myself kinda good at some stuff I think perhaps I may be kinda bad at some stuff too. Spelling for example. When I was twelve I entered a spelling bee and choked on the word gauge. I cried about it for days and it reminded me of another time when I was even younger and broke a large glass jug of milk when removing it from the fridge. Being the big baby that I was then, and still am, I started to cry. My mom hugged me and said "no use crying over spilled milk". So true too. All I can do is try to be better going on down the road and not fret over things Ive done poorly in the past. By golly, I think that finally, at age thirty-five I have become comfortable with the fact that I am hopelessly, and wonderfully flawed. C'est la vie, I think that in this world of airbrushing, liposuction and fake tits, maybe I'm a little more interesting for it. No? All that aside, I will try not to misspell Jacque's name again but that's just because I love him.

Itsy Bitsy Dogs and Great BigBeautiful Wine

I had the pleasure just last week of meeting and dining and drinking wine with the lovely and talented Cathy Corison of the Corison Winery in Napa. I can honestly say that I had never heard of the wines nor the woman before that night so when told the dinner was themed around California Cabs I was all like "well la ti fuckin da, this will be super special". (Total bitch am I!)That is not to say that some good wines don't come out of CA, but I find that a good deal of them are over-priced and under-impressive. So, with no expectations for greatness but a very strong desire to get my drink on, I headed over to the Synergy Loft. Upon arrival I was handed a glass of bubbly and the night was off to a decent start. After sweeping the room, my attention was drawn to a very tiny lady with very tiny feet. Why do I mention her feet you ask? Am I a pervert with a foot fetish? Well, maybe but that's another blog. Anyhew, I do look at feet, mostly my own, and that's all you're gettin. So here is this cute little lady with feet so tiny I wasn't sure how she didn't topple over and this, of course, turned out to be the winemaker Cathy Corison. A little intimidated at first I sauntered over to say hi but resisted the urge to ask her to take her shoe off so I could get a better look. We chatted only briefly and then it was time for the dinner to start and for me to shut the hell up and sit down. Cathy spoke for a bit about her wine, her philosophy (to make artisan wines with both power and elegance that is) and her beliefs about wine. It was then that she said something that really resonated with me. She said very simply that wine means nothing until you drink it. And as I sat there sipping her wine, her gorgeous, elegant and really quite breathtaking wine, I started to think that maybe this tiny footed little vixen of a winemaker was on to something. My previous mind set of oh big deal, California Cabs, was lost in a sea of scintillating, sultry Cabernet sexiness. Somewhere around the second course, once the wine began to warm and do its thing, I finally got up the nerve to do it. I went over to Cathy and I said hey, you've got really small feet and Ive got freakishly large ones, hows about taking your shoe off so I can get a picture of our feet side by side? Now I really wasn't sure if she was going to call security or just turn and run as fast as her tiny feet could carry her for fear I was up to something fishy, but like a real sport she said okay. So we both de-shoed mid-dinner and I had Jeremy take a picture of our feet. I learned my lesson that night that Jeremy can't take pictures because the idea was to show how tiny her feet were by using my boat of a foot as a comparison. You know, like the use of a dollar bill next to a foot print in crime scene investigation, right. But I did get the photo, perhaps not exactly what I was shooting for, but it is pretty cool and I am seriously considering hanging it on the Wall Of Fabulousness in the wine shop right next to the picture of me and my hero Jacque Pepin . Thanks Cathy, you're a peach of a person, a great sport and one hell of a good winemaker!

Open That Bottle You Sexy Bitch!

A very nice gentleman recently asked me what I was doing for Open That Bottle Night this Saturday. Open That Bottle Night says me, what the hell is that? Feeling momentarily not quite at clever as I fancy myself to be. He proceeds to tell me about this insanely cool, annual, worldwide tradition that has been happening ever since the year 2000. On a particular Saturday night each February people all over the world -friends, couples, whoever really, gather to open, enjoy and tell the stories behind very special bottles of wine, champagne and spirits. This of course is subjective and could mean a bottle that commemorates an anniversary or a special date, or a bottle that you may have been saving for a special occasion but that you can’t quite seem to put your finger on. Well my sistas, my brothas its time to cowboy up, quit your whining, turn those frowns upside down, time to shit of get off the pot as the saying goes, because Open That Bottle Night, or OTBN, is the special occasion you have been waiting for. This Saturday night is the night when all bets are off and you, along with peeps everywhere, will be ripping corks out of those super, duper, cherished bottles that you all know you have been dreaming and drooling about all of these years, and you are will thoroughly enjoy every sip dammit! It doesn’t matter if its not a 1964 Chateau Mouton Rothschild that’s been laying under your bed for the last ten years, a bottle of Giorgio Rivetti’s very best juice, or even a frickin bottle of Boon’s Farm Strawberry Hill, mmmmmmm, Boon’s Farm…because it’s not the level of fancy pants that counts, it’s the memories, it’s the company, it’s the night. On this night I will be raising a glass, of something stunning I’m certain, to all of you and wishing you well. Salute!

The Snail That Lives On My Dining Room Table

I woke up yesterday morning to find a snail on my dining room table. I'm pretty sure he came out of the small pine tree I bought for Christmas, pretty much killed am now trying to bring back to life. Not sure how I felt about a slimy little snail on my dining room table, I placed him gently back in the plant and went to work. When I came home there was no sign of him. When I woke up this morning there he was again, same spot, just chillin. As I got ready I started to think about this. A snail living, part time anyhow, on my dining room table. Was this OK? Or was it fuckin gross? And then I started to think about it from a culinary point of view and it dawned on me that I love escargot. Escargot, the French word for snail, is prepared by removing the snail from its shell, gutting it, putting it back in and cooking it with butter, garlic, wine, maybe broth. A tasty delight indeed, however, before I got too gung-ho about cooking my new little friend for a snack I had to remind myself that not all species of snails are edible. And so, because I am not all that keen on the idea of dying just yet, he will live. I suppose he could be good company. After all he is far more agreeable than a boyfriend, he doesn't shed hair (just slime) and he wont take time in the bathroom when I need to get ready in the morning. OMG, I may have just found the perfect roomy and new BFF! Will keep you posted...

Vegemite Just Makes Me Feel Sexy...

We all have favorites when it comes to food and drink right. Well recently I have been noticing that some sometimes some people convince themselves so completely that they hate one thing or another and little by little they manage to think themselves into a gastronomic rut. For example they might think that they only like Merlot but it has to be from Napa and not from anywhere else because they once had a Chilean wine they didn't like. Or they will only order chicken teryaki at the sushi place because sushi is raw and it looks weird and, even though they've never tried it, they just know they hate it. It becomes an ever worsening moronic mind fuck that they inflict upon themselves until the world, so full of color and flavor, becomes black and white to them. Sometimes I cant decide if I should cry for them or just give em a great big bitch slap when this. Its just so sad. There are too damn many amazing, interesting, strange and wonderful things out there to taste and they will never get to experience them if they keep themselves incarcerated whitin the walls they've built around themselves. Now don't get me wrong, I too have things that I really like, such as Vegemite, saying sasparilla, eating with my fingers, Fernet Branca, sushi, drinking wine out of old jelly jars, falling asleep to the lull of Silence of the Lambs, my sweet new sheets, puppies of every flavor, all things Cuban, making out, surprises and red nail polish on my toes. It is, however, and will always be my life's ambition to eat, drink and try new things every chance I get. I don't mean any of this in an Eddy Hascal kind of way but with the utmost sincerity. Quite frankly, the more unusual the better. I say to life bring it on because I'm not going down without at least attempting to fully and completely satisfy my insatiable lust for living.