Gritty Chicken

Gritty Chicken

The floor was greasy that day my friends.   There’s an old saying that goes something like this. Comedy is when you stub your toe. Tragedy is when I stub my toe. The incident that night in the kitchen was actually both. But it made my wife Carla laugh. In fact,...
Vin Blanc

Vin Blanc

Photo by Andy Anderson “Whenever life begins to crush me I know I can rely on Bandol, garlic, and Mozart.”   Jim Harrison   Recently I reread Jim Harrison’s last book called “A Really Big Lunch.” If not familiar, Harrison was a prolific writer of poetry and...

Me and Ashurnasirpal

Tom Standage’s “History of the World in Six Glasses” is a good read. Standage writes for The Economist and has published several books. This is by far my favorite. The book frames history from the stone age to the 21st century through each of...

Wordless Wines

Though it may surprise you, I’ve only been to Paris twice. Both times were on the same trip in the fall of 1987 when my wife Carla and I went to Europe together for the first time. We stayed in the City of Lights at the beginning and end of our trek. Never...

The Stuff of Dreams

Leonora Carrington: And Then We Saw the Daughter of the Minotaur 1953 The restaurant business. You may leave it at some point, but it never leaves you. And working in the business for any length of time will inevitably curse you for life with restaurant nightmares....

Assistance Offered

One of my more memorable sommelier experiences happened early one Saturday evening at the Cypress Club. I was working with the late and great Randy Goodman that night. It was early in the shift and a party of four had just been seated on the main floor. The two...