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Archive for the ‘eating & drinking – well’ Category

being a slut has its perks ;)

Sorry to disappoint – the headline was meant to be titillating – but a bit misleading…  I am only polyamorous  when it comes to professional food 🙂

It all started a couple of decades ago, in a strange twist because I was still friends with an ex-boyfriend so was taking him for a birthday dinner.  But he was an ex and I wasn’t terribly rich so took the advice of my roommate at the time and took him for dinner at Allegro, a restaurant in an obscure location only open for about four months.

It was the first restaurant Michael had owned instead of working at and the effort was obvious.  I enjoyed the meal so much I was back again a week later… and he asked my opinion on my entrée, on the general prices, etc.  AND he remembered where I had been sitting a week earlier, what I had ordered and that I had been with the guy with the backpack.  I was impressed!

I had never had a restaurant of my own before.  Michael added a layer to my life that I hadn’t even been aware I needed 🙂 It all started with Allegro.  I brought everyone I knew.  I became such a regular no one blinked an eye when I was behind the bar.  Once I got invited to the Christmas party in January and everyone was trying to figure out if I was staff.  And I learned the most important lesson: talk to the staff!  Bond!  Create a relationship.

It’s why my friends love to go for dinner with me.  Many of those bonds were revisited during my birthday celebrations.  And meals were extra special.  Morgan, the teenager previously mentioned, declared that Neil at boneta was the coolest person she had ever met!  Neil is pretty cool.  I would have to agree 🙂

And one of the really special rewards that I get these days, having spent many years following people I like from restaurant to restaurant… is that sometimes they pop up again in an unexpected places.  That’s what happened last night.

I went to the restaurant at the Opus just before all the birthday festivities started so that I wouldn’t have to cook – and more importantly – deal with dirty dishes, since I had cleaned the apartment for the entire day.  The meal was great so I went back last night.  It was just a break between work shifts and I hadn’t eaten all day so I was there really early.  Which is when you might get to meet the chef roaming around outside the kitchen!

And it was Paul, whom I’ve known from a couple of other restaurants.  He is a great chef.  And a super charming great guy.  He wanted to buy me dessert.  But sugar isn’t really my thing (I didn’t even eat my own birthday cake – and it was incredible cake!) so we negotiated for cheese… I got this stellar plate of Italian cheese and cause I was now a friend of the chef, a glass of incredible red wine not normally poured by the glass.

And what is the takeaway?  Proper flirting is one of the tenets of a great civilization.  Learn how to do it.  Tip well.  Talk to the staff.  Take a night out and make it memorable.  And then you, too, may have a photo of yourself in the kitchen at Gordon Ramsay… it all started with a conversation about the menu…

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eating & drinking - well

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the art of parties

No Japan on the birthday soundtrack but definitely an important part of my musical youth.  You have been spared my opinions lately because the birthday party that inspired this blog was on Mar 10th.

I decided to obsess over the details and organize it like a Prussian.  I could have just chilled and people would have had a good time.  But I didn’t want it to just be a random birthday party; I wanted it to an event!

I appreciated lots of people would just have a good time and the details would be lost on them.  But some of the assembled who share my obsessions – music, photography, travel, classic cocktails, French patisseries, fine cuisine – and balloons – would take notice and appreciate the extra effort I had put into the party.  And it worked!  I think it will be a fond memory for most of the guests.  I have no voice today and shut down the Tiki Bar.  Obviously I got my money’s worth out of the event 🙂

As Okkervil River will tell you, “it was the flaws that made us have fun”.

The slide show didn’t play in the right order but the jumbled order captured the crowd’s attention and got them talking.

No one danced but we got a brilliant moment where a few people who heard that song at every party in their youth shook their booty to AC/DC’s “You Shook Me You All Night Long.”

I spent $200 on balloons, which might make you question my sanity.  There were 99 luftballoons – 50 filled with helium and 49 filled with air.  I had people helping me madly set up so the plan was to release the helium balloons so they would float to the ceiling but instead they got arranged around the room in bouquets.  The error became a better idea.  At the end of our private party at 10, I got scissors from the bartender and released 50 helium balloons.

As the bar flooded with all the people who had been waiting in line outside, the purple balloons rose to the starry dark blue ceiling like planets floating in place.  It looked fantastic.  I totally got my money’s worth watching everyone in the bar playing with the balloons.  Some girl named Johanna who was also celebrating a birthday got to wear a balloon her shoulder.  At the end of the night I gathered the few remaining balloons on the floor and floated them into the crowd on the dance floor.  And then I went over to the extraordinary bartenders Scott and Chris and had them make me a “purple balloons” (the party’s signature cocktail) and savoured the end of a party that would have made Japan proud – and that people should remember for the next decade…

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eating & drinking - well, life philosophy

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drinking like a pro ;)

If I didn’t like boys so much, I would know nothing about wine 🙂  One of my mother’s favourite stories is her recounting of my first day at school.  She was hoping I was there to learn something but when asked about my first impressions, I just listed the cute boys – in order.  The analytical skills obviously kick in early…

It was an Australian boy who said he would teach me about wine if I would date him.  It seemed a pretty decent exchange since at the time I knew approximately two wines and neither was especially memorable.  The wine education went well and I ended up in Oz circa 1990.

For wine aficionados there are few better places to stumble upon.  In those days, Monty Python made fun of Australian wine (they were WRONG!), the wineries were not owned by corporations and they made one of each and people made fun of you when you spent more than $7 on a 750 ml bottle of wine.

There are a lot of negative aspects to getting old but one of the sweet spots is taunting young Aussie wine drinkers with my introductory experience.  I would rock up to a winery and they would just pour me one of each… we started with Riesling and ended with Cabernet Sauvignon – or sometimes even Port.  It took me years to not pronounce Gewurtstraminer like an Aussie (i.e. wrong :)) because that was how I first heard the word.

When I moved back to Canada in 1992 with my 100 bottles of incredibly cheap Aussie wine (including my favourite, which was actually from New Zealand – the most expensive, Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc for $11 a bottle because I found it before Wine Spectator did :), I couldn’t find any decent Australian wine in the market place so decided to explore Chile, starting at A…

This year Chile was the feature country at the Playhouse Wine Festival so it was a wonderful visit to my past.  Because I have been working so much in the past few months, I had no time to make a plan for my tasting so decided to just chill and revisit lots of old favourites, try a few new things and spend lots of time talking to the people pouring the wine.

It really helped me remember why we should all drink wine.  Long ago I went to this same event with a work colleague, back when I knew very little, and discovered he had worked in a wine shop to pay for university so I flitted around the room with him trying to absorb it all.

But the part I remember the most is his favourite wine – chosen for memories of those he had shared it with, not its terroir.  That is what I really love about wine.  Drinking it with friends.  The memories.  The stories.  Pros do not drink alone.  Wine geeks love my story about finishing a bottle of Catena Zapata Nicolas out of plastic cups in the Mendoza airport – but for me it’s really a story about travelling to Argentina with my friend Kerry shortly after my dad died.  There are so many bottles of wine that have been part of the narrative of my life.  Open a bottle and make a toast to someone important to you…

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eating & drinking - well, life philosophy, travel stories

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random encounters with strangers…

I know children are taught NOT to talk to strangers.  And talking to creepy strangers offering you candy when you are 7 not advisable… but eventually we all have to talk to strangers.  And learn how to figure out if they are creepy 🙂

At some point in this dialogue we will discuss how painfully shy I was as a child but at present we are just going to focus on how I overcame it – and became a pro at stranger talk… I talk to strangers all the time, more frequently when I travel.  I will provide my tips for hanging out in bars at some later point – and not in the way you might envision 😉

My three days at the wine festival offered countless opportunities to talk to strangers and we will continue to explore this theme for a little while.   But first I want to note a specific encounter, which really highlighted the delights of stranger talk…

On Friday night I was busy buying wine and got to the tasting lounge quite late so there was a gigantic line, which I joined.  I didn’t know anyone and am so exhausted from work right now not talking to strangers was OK too…

But I was surprised and impressed when the guy behind me reached for a plate and instead of just taking it, he handed it to me – and then handed me a fork.  Real manners.  Such a lost art in the age of twitter.  He got my attention so I checked him out.  He was also really well dressed.  It went with the manners.  I live in a city where manners and dressing up are pretty rare so I was intrigued.  I ended up sitting with his friends to eat my dinner and exchanging some interesting words.

But he was just a random stranger so I didn’t expect to see him again.  I was back on Saturday and he wasn’t there but shortly before I was due in the proper tasting room, he and one of his friends from the night before arrived.  And waved at me.  So I chatted with them a little.

And ended up spending my evening in the tasting room with them and some of their friends.  What really impressed me was how gracious they all were.  They had made friends with the people at the Riedel booth so we wandered the tasting room with gigantic glasses, which we carefully returned at the end of the night.  The two guys I had met in the Gold Pass Lounge ran wine samples to the staff trapped in the booth demonstrating to people the difference a glass made to the taste of a wine.  And the most fantastic unexpected pleasure for me was that one of their friends has Japanese parents and an impressive knowledge of sake.  I had always thought I wasn’t sure about sake but you just need the right guide.

These are the wonderful unexpected adventures you embark on by talking to cute strangers 😉  Talking to strangers can change your life.  Try to do it at least every couple of months.  It will add a spark to your everyday life – and once you get good at it, some of these strangers will become friends…

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eating & drinking - well, life philosophy

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the wonderful world of vintage port

I have been busy drinking over the past few days so am behind on my public commentary.   It hasn’t been a “lost weekend” type of drinking adventure but rather a snotty wine connoisseur experience.  One of the local theatre companies decided decades ago to organize a wine festival as a fundraiser.  It has become possibly the best wine festival in the world for regular folk.

I started drinking wine at a relatively young age so have been attending for a few decades now.  The fact that I own a number of vintages of port attests to the fact that I am a pretty serious wine collector.  I was drinking a few wonderful ports at the festival and had some memorable conversations about port.

Lots of people will die never even knowing that vintage port exists.  It is definitely not the beverage of white trash.  In my twenties I vaguely heard that people bought vintage port when their children were born to drink on their 21st birthdays.

But the first time vintage port became real for me was in 1993 when my ‘born in 1963’ boyfriend started explaining to me what a great vintage 1963 was.  I still knew nothing but I really loved him so I went to Marquis Wine Cellars and spent an insane amount on a bottle of wine that might be corked.  It was 30 years old at the time and there was no guarantee on it.  We broke up before I even got to try it.  Buying great wine for men that I never get to drink a bit of a theme in my life 🙂

It did mean though that vintage port remained merely a concept for me.  I had never actually tasted any!  In more or less the same time frame one of my friends started dating this older Frenchman who was a wine expert.  So when she told me Francis said we should buy some 1994 vintage port I just did it!

It ended up being one of the best-uninformed decisions of my life.  I knew Francis knew wine.  It wasn’t very expensive.  I knew it wouldn’t be ready to drink for decades.  So I just stuck it under my bed waiting to figure out what I had done.

In 1998 I moved to Germany and acquired a European family, with a basement in which I could store my wine!  The new in-laws were very impressed with my vintage port but concerned it wouldn’t be ready to drink for 30 years!

I realized I better start buying more while I was young 🙂  So I started paying attention, which led me to salivate outside a wine shop in Lisbon in 2001 where I could see a Niepoort vintage port Wine Spectator had rated almost 100 points – but they were doing inventory and it was Europe so no one was willing to just sell it to me and reduce the inventory.  It was my last day in Lisbon so I just had to stare at it fondly.

A short time later I was at a wine dinner showcasing the young Turks of the Douro producing red table wine in addition to port.  Dirk van der Niepoort was at our table.  My friend said I should tell him my port story.  So I did… he told me the new vintage was even better!  And then he produced two glasses with a flourish and set them in front of us – “1863 – don’t tell anyone!”

I also made friends with the Portuguese trade ambassador by talking about my trip to Lisbon and my love of port… so he gave me his ticket and I got to attend a sold-out vintage port event that included a taste of the most expensive vintage port in the world.  It was delicious.

So it is only good karma that I did something nice of my own with a bottle of vintage port.  I saw this guy on Friday night in the Gold Pass tasting lounge – and wondered why he looked so familiar.  Luckily he remembered why he knew me.  His brother lives in northern BC so when he is in town he makes the most of it.  That was the year I was learning about Burgundy so I took them to meet some of the winemakers I had befriended in the afternoon.  We kept going after the festival ended and when the final bar closed I invited them to my house to drink a bottle of vintage port.  It’s so much more fun to share.  And you can end up with a story you can also share – and use to inspire others…


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it’s the end of the world as we know it :)

 

Apparently 2012 is quite the year to be celebrating a milestone birthday!  The movie came out just as I was having a non-significant birthday so was inspired to host a grand party for 50 since it might be the last one all the guests will ever attend  😉  Conveniently R.E.M. already wrote a theme song for me!  Music… theme songs… a big element of my life…

My poor guests are going to be subjected to the soundtrack of my life.  I think anyone with an interest in music has a soundtrack but most people don’t realize it.  Mine has been inspired by a number of events.

First, the fact that as a teenager I had atrocious taste in music, so my transformation into someone with better musical taste was not a casual event.  Second, I live in the city that hosted the 2010 Winter Olympics and when I went to the free Blue Rodeo concert by myself (because Feb is insanely busy for me work-wise and the visit was spontaneous), I realized almost all my boyfriends had a Blue Rodeo song and I could re-live my entire romantic history gratis – with fireworks at the end!  The final inspiration was my astonishing realization that some people don’t care about music.  It is not their form of cheap therapy.  When my dad died, choosing the right music to play at his funeral created a family crisis.  He was this guy to whom I owe so many of my best qualities but I had never appreciated the dude didn’t care about music.

But I do! Truly, Madly, Deeply… one of my favourite films.  And, while music may have not been on my father’s radar screen, my love of cinema is totally him…

So my guests will be subjected to images, sounds and words – all carefully chosen by me – at my birthday bash.  But at least there will be free food and booze… and I will do my best to keep the world from ending 😉

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artsy stuff, eating & drinking - well

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Mr. Dressup taught me how to throw a party

It has been suggested that I am pretty good at parties…  I guess the test will happen in a few weeks…  I’ve learned a few things about hospitality over the years but my first party demonstrates the perils of letting your children watch television unsupervised 🙂  You would need to be old and Canadian to know who Mr. Dressup is but he was a huge role model in my childhood.  And one random weekday Mr. Dressup and his friends had a party.  It seemed really cool – especially because it seemed to be a great excuse to eat cake and drink Kool-Aid.  And, as my mom would tell you, in those days I was a fussy eater and began every meal asking what the dessert was… it was just a strategic plan to see whether it was worth getting through the main course…

But to get back to the party concept… Mr. Dressup did not mention that you needed to clear it with your mother – or your caterer – before you threw a party… so I just ran around the neighbourhood inviting every child that I knew to a party at my house at a specific day and time.  I DID get that part right 😉  Needless to say, my mother wasn’t too impressed when about 20 children descended on our backyard looking for cake.  I explained I was throwing a party!  She explained that party planning involved more than just inviting the guests… but she is an amazing mom so she produced Kool-Aid and some kind of fun food.  Maybe the mini chocolate bars she used to stash in the cupboard to feed her own habit 🙂

SHE is the reason my first party was a smashing success.  And I think I have learned a few things about parties, guests and hospitality over the years.  I am sure there will be more party stories… hey, I almost had a helicopter land on the roof of a penthouse.  I nixed that plan but the party was still dramatic enough for reality TV… which had not yet been invented… but you will have to keep reading if you want that story 😉

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eating & drinking - well, life philosophy

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