Pardon My Asking What's New

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final. ~ Rilke

Leave it to me to find reassurance in poetry. Moral: When life throws up roadblocks, find a way around them. And, yes, there's a metaphor somewhere in there.

My first message of the day Thursday was from a Frenchman, wishing me happy Beaujolais Nouveau day. My second was from my parents, asking if I was free for lunch Friday since they'd be in town for a car repair. Granted, I already had Beaujolais Nouveau dinner plans Friday evening, but what's one more meal out?

On that subject, my favorite comment ever was the friend who sincerely asked, "Does your apartment even have an oven?" Well, duh, where do you think I dry my gloves after cleaning snow off my car?

After picking the 'rents up at the dealership out on godforsaken West Broad Street, I drove them right back into the city, past scores of chain restaurants, to take them to Garnett's. Not because there's a sandwich named after me there, although there is (the Bon Vivant), but because I knew the combination of well-made sandwiches and killer desserts would be right up their alley.

What hadn't occurred to me was not just how mobbed Garnett's would be at mid-day on Friday, but how noisy. Dad dealt with it by sucking back a South Street Brewery Virginia Lager while Mom complained about the incessant chatter and unpleasant frequency of the table of millennials behind her, wishing for it to cease and desist.

If there's one demographic they don't spend much time around on the Northern Neck, it's millennials.

But they loved their sandwiches - the Colonel and the Dutch Aunt, which probably somehow reflected their personalities - especially the side of housemade pickles. It took all three of us to conquer a massive slice of crumb-topped blueberry peach pie, but we managed just barely.

Meanwhile, I listened as they exchanged their typical differences of opinion. Dad doesn't hear something said and Mom claims it's because he has selective hearing. He swears she talks so softly no one can hear her and eats like a sparrow. She thinks he talks too loudly and he says he's just making his point. If I've heard them say these things to each other once, I've heard them hundreds of times and I only see them once or twice a month.

Which means they've both heard it all thousands of times. Apparently after 62 years of marriage, there's a fair amount of repeated conversation that's just accepted as part of the bargain. On the other hand, he continues to hold doors open for her and she's always noticing when he requires something.

More belongs to marriage than four legs in a bed. ~ Rilke 

After returning them to the dealership, I had only a brief afternoon to work before meeting Holmes and Beloved for dinner and their annual bacchanal starring Beaujolais Nouveau.

When I strolled into his house, they'd already cracked the first bottle of the young wine. On the counter sat additional bottles for future sipping because Holmes believes it should be consumed in copious quantities while you can get it.

After the ritual toast to the harvest (notably France's overall smallest since 1945), we piled in my car to head to Camden's to check out the new all prix fixe, all the time menu. Naturally, our meal was to be accompanied by the star of the evening, in this case, Manior de Carra Beaujolais Nouveau (but only after a pretty funny exchange with the hostess who'd seated us), although I couldn't resist a celebratory glass of Cava to start.

The hardest part of any prix fixe menu is choosing three courses while observing the paramount rule of dining with friends: no one duplicates an item. We lucked out there because there were so many appealing choices to work from.

For starters, we had a sensational salad of watercress, house bacon and pickled cauliflower in champagne vinaigrette, turkey liver mousse to die for (the grilled bread was just a way to get it to our mouths) and a savory bleu cheesecake with honey that made Holmes, who'd never even heard of such a thing, a believer in savory cheesecakes.

Please, I made my first savory cheesecake when Clinton was eating Big Macs in the White House and people joke about my kitchen? Get with the program, man.

I hadn't gotten together with Holmes and Beloved since the first week of August, so there were plenty of updates on both our sides to discuss. Holmes shared stories and Beloved showed photos from their trek to St. Michaels, Maryland, where they'd done some memorable eating and drinking at an Italian trattoria called Limoncello that they highly recommended.

Don't talk to me about Limoncello unless it's in Sorrento, Italy where the best lemons in the world grow and Limoncello was birthed. I've only been once, but I'm ready to go back any time.

Alas, conversation was derailed when our entrees showed up. He-man Holmes had chosen London Broil and was soon crying uncle about how good it was but how large the portion size. My crispy-skinned pecan-smoked chicken thighs got a nice sweetness from apple slaw, but I could also appreciate the well-cooked black beans and rice that shared the plate.

But top prize went to Beloved's melt-in-your-mouth steelhead trout over creamy polenta and peas, a wondrous combination I intend to return for so I can eat the whole thing rather than just have a couple bites.

Meanwhile, Holmes had heard scuttlebutt and was seeking confirmation, details and rationale. A lot can happen in 3+ months, friend. A good portion of our entree conversation was given over to the Leonardo painting that just sold for $450 million, with Holmes insisting that if turns out to be a fake, Christie's should be fined heavily and put out of business.

When it came time for our final course, the choices were easy but finishing was more challenging after gorging ourselves on the first two courses.

There was no way I was getting anything over than the chocolate butter walnut-crusted chocolate torte I've been devoted to (for, what, 16 years now?) and Beloved got the same. Only Holmes opted for lavender creme brulee and scraped the bowl clean as we finished up the last of the Beaujolais Nouveau.

We rolled out of there determined to have a record-listening party despite our overfed state, only to run into a roadblock as we came across the Lee Bridge. There must have been a dozen cops, lights on and flashing, lined up, along with a sign alerting motorists that a traffic checkpoint was just ahead.

It wasn't that my alcohol level was too high at that point, but we were intent on starting the party, so I seamlessly slid over to the Second Street exit and in no time we found ourselves settled into Holmes' wood-paneled man cave for the next four hours. Beginning with Linda Ronstadt's classic 1983 album, "What's New?" so beautifully arranged by Nelson Riddle, we got off on the unlikely subject of crinolines because of the album cover photograph of her in a strapless pink gown.

From there, we zig-zagged through their Plan 9 and estate sale record finds, which, given Beloved's old soul status and musical taste, meant all kinds of gems from the '50s and '60s. At one point, Holmes presented me with an early Christmas present (Joni Mitchell's "Court and Spark"), a shame since that is the sole Joni Mitchell record I already own.

Errol Garner's "Paris Impressions" may have been my first album of harpsichord music by a multi-talented jazz pianist. "The Swingin's Mutual!" by Nancy Wilson and the George Shearing Quintet sounded like a happening 1961 party in Manhattan. We gave Earl "Fatha" Hines' "Live at Buffalo" record a shot but Beloved soon gave it a thumbs down, deeming it not right for a swingin' Friday night.

Holmes took us in a new direction with the Giorgio Moroder-produced Bowie song "Cat People," although somehow, I was the only one of the three who knew who Moroder was. Clearly they'd checked out of popular music by the Flashdance period. As is his habit, Holmes slid in some Stephen Stills via the CSNY classic "Deja Vu."

That's the beauty of a listening party where the host not only has multiple formats - record, CD, cassette - but extensive collections of music for them all. Since we take turns choosing, the fun of it is trying to play something that'll surprise, impress or please the other two.

And the music is really just the background for a wide-ranging conversation about what's going on in everybody's life and the world beyond. Tonight that included the tsunami of men finally being challenged on their inappropriate behavior toward those of us with girl parts.

Beloved shared the recent saga of one of Holmes' friends ostensibly going in for a goodbye hug and groping her like he had a right to. "What the hell are you doing?' she'd accused him. It's barely been a month since a male friend I've known for 6 or 7 years took the liberty of placing his hand inappropriately low on the small of my back (aka the top of my butt), to which I rather rudely asked, "Is that your idea of making a move?" and shut him down.

Friendship has its priveleges, but that's not one. I've got no problem with a man's hand being in that place as long as it's the right man, preferably someone who appreciates that undersung curve.

Love is like the measles. The older you get it, the worse the attack. ~ Rilke

Tonight, the swingin' was mutual, the food was superb and the Beaujolais Noveau was drinkable. I don't know that you could ask for more the day after the third Thursday in November.

Well, of course I could, but I'd be discreet enough to ask for it silently. Final feelings and all...

What Lovely Fervor

A good daughter cooks and bakes for her mother and answers her father's questions before going out to play.

"What band sang 'Highway to Hell'?" he asks from the family room. AC/DC, I tell him

"Who was the 'Originator'?" When I say Bo Diddly, he fills in the crossword blanks with a satisfied smile. "Ah, yes!"

At this point, Mom gets involved. "If you need any more assistance, you'd better ask her now before she goes because I can't be of any help to you on this stuff."

I assume that she means she doesn't know anything about music history. "I blocked out that whole rock and roll period!" she says with disdain, although the truth is she's been to multiple Neil Diamond concerts and some of her favorite songs are by Stevie Wonder.

It's all rock at this point, Mom.

Today's road trip to the Northern Neck had been motivated by Mom's bridge luncheon tomorrow, so I'd spent my time helping make chicken noodle soup, chicken salad and a Viennese torte, all of which took a solid three hours and endless conversation.

Answering Dad's questions takes seconds, and that includes him asking me about my love life.

As parents go, mine are pretty cool.

After driving back through a series of rain squalls, I consider my evening's options and decide that Quill Theater's historic play reading series wins out because it's "Luminous One: An Evening with Ethel Barrymore" and I know nothing about the woman besides that she's a distant relation to Drew.

It doesn't hurt that it's being presented at the Branch House and while I've already seen the new exhibit, I certainly don't mind seeing it again. To my amazement, I overhear a woman say she's lived in Richmond for 17 years and never been in the building.

"What is this place?" she inquires of her clueless friend. Tragic.

I, on the other hand, am enchanted to find the heavy leaded windows are open on this unusually balmy, wet November evening, allowing the moist air inside. This fact alone makes the evening special.

The one-woman show, ably written and directed by Melissa Rayford and starring the reliably impressive Melissa Johnston-Price is set in Richmond and kicks off with its premise.

"I've been asked to write a memoir. Horrors!" Ethel exclaims, standing next to a typewriter. From there, she reminisces about some of what's happened in her life, never writing a word.

She talks about her grandmother who "experimented with marriage" (haven't we all?), her memories of going to the Jefferson for the wedding of Charles Dana Gibson and Irene Langhorne, saying, "By the time she married, she'd had 60 proposals," and dancing on the Jefferson's rooftop garden the night before.

And, like my Dad, Ethel's father kept his word count to strictly what was necessary. When she cabled that she was getting married ("I was constantly trying to let myself get married and it never worked"), he responded with, "Congratulations. Love, Father."

When she broke the engagement and cabled her father the change in events, he responded, "Congratulations. Love, Father."

Turns out Ethel's life involved Winston Churchill, Henry James, the Duke of Manchester, Teddy Roosevelt and Spencer Tracy while wearing black, white and gray clothing because they were cheapest.

Apparently the Barrymores are known for two things: mismanaging money and drinking excessively.

In a particularly telling moment, Ethel complained about the current generation expecting art to be an instantaneous pleasure. As if. Or, as Ethel put it, "If you don't like it, you need to figure out why!"

When the reading ended, we broke for a dessert buffet and mingling. In the course of commiserating about the evils of Verizon, I manged to devour four little sweeties, as my Scottish friend would say, followed by chatting with a handsome stranger.

My mother and her sweet tooth would be proud.

A panel discussion followed, where we gleaned obscure tidbits such as the fact that if Drew Barrymore's children become actors, they'll represent 300 years of Barrymores in the profession. And how Ethel's hair was imitated just like Jennifer Aniston's was a century later. That the Barrymores gave each other red apples on opening night.

Yet another fine Ethel-ism: "You grow up the day you have your first laugh...at yourself."

The logical place to end my evening was celebrating the third Thursday of November, also known as the day Beaujolais Nouveau is released and as good an excuse as any to visit Amour, enjoy some young wines and sample Beaujolais Nouveau sorbet (while patting myself on the back for missing last night's guests).

Not only is this years' Georges du Boeuf Beaujolais Noveau far better than the usual bubblegum-flavored sipper, but one of last year's Noveaus has aged amazingly well and how often does that happen?

My favorite French teacher and part-time model tries to convince me to consider modeling in local fashion shows and I wonder how I would like being looked at for wearing clothes not my own. The entire bar discusses the difference in "cruise people" and "boat people."

In the strictest sense, I qualify for neither. On the other hand, I've been proposed to eight times, I've experimented with marriage and I've laughed at myself for as long as I can remember.

And you know what I'd hear from the Northern Neck about that?

Congratulations. Love, Dad.

Broad Appeal

A person can only celebrate so many beverages in one evening, but I tried my best.

Seeing as how it's Cider Week, who better to give my attention to than our own urban cidery, Blue Bee?

Upon arrival at Camden's, I was given a seat at the bar, next to the cider maker herself and on my other side, a guy whose first choice of beverage is cider. I don't think I've ever met anyone of that opinion. Like me, he eschews beer, but cider beats wine for him (to each his own).

Looking around the room, I recognized a few faces - the beer geek, a couple I'd met at Secco and chatted for hours with, a woman I'd once interviewed for.

One thing was clear, though, this wasn't a millennial crowd for the most part, so I suggested to the staff that the music be adjusted accordingly and we got shifted to the Luther Vandross station ("I'm liking these slow jams," one of the servers observed, bobbing her head).

The cider lover turned out to be a fine conversational partner as we ate and drank our way through five courses, beginning with house-smoked salmon with dilled cream cheese, red onions, capers and sippets. When our plates arrived, he looked at me and asked how we were supposed to eat it. Like a bagel, I suggested.

Paired with the mouth-watering salmon was Blue Bee's Hopsap Shandy, a hop-infused cider that did nothing for me because I don't care for the taste of hops. It wasn't hard to find someone to take it off my hands, though.

Aragon 1904 was paired with roasted buttercup soup with pepitos, house-smoked bacon and cumin cream which had been drizzled into the shape of an "A" and debate ensued as to whether the letter was a nod to the cider or the chef's initial.

Meanwhile, I was gleaning all kinds of things from my dinner partner. A metal fan since elementary school, it had only been in the past five years that he'd begun exploring other kinds of music - Bastille, Explosions in the Sky  - to great success, despite lingering Pantera adoration. He'd even been asked to tour as part of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra.

An Oregon Hill resident and proud of it, he allowed that Jackson Ward had its charms, too, but admitted being skittish about Church Hill.

When we got to grilled swordfish over apple and napa cabbage slaw with Charred Ordinary, he told me it was the first time he'd ever had swordfish. Considering we'd been talking about restaurants and he'd been to almost every place we discussed, it was a tad surprising.

When he overheard me mention that I didn't have a cell phone, we got off on the topic of device overuse and he surprised me with his disdain for how common that is among younger generations (younger than him, that is). As an example, he talked about seeing parents out with their kids and all of them were on phones or using games with no real interaction.

He was of the opinion that we've already raised a couple of generations without any measurable social skills and that this does not bode well for the future. So he was preaching to the choir. The coolest thing he told me all night was that when he goes out to eat with friends, he insists on a "no Google" rule throughout the evening. Delaying gratification is impressive.

The course he'd most been looking forward to arrived next with chipped duck on a shingle (roasted duck stew on puff pastry with grapes and micro greens) alongside the lovely pink Mill Race Bramble, a beautiful pairing.

When I asked him where he worked, he told me upstairs as a graphic designer, something he'd enjoyed doing since he was young. The only problem had come about when he tried to work at home for a while, finding it lonely because he's so social and unproductive because there were always distractions (guitar).

Since I'm also social and work at home, I suggested that he might feel differently down the road after working a regular job for years like I did.

I also mentioned how I walk first thing every day to get out and about and go out every night for socializing, two things that keep the walls from closing in on me and that he hadn't been doing.

Dessert was pumpkin cheesecake with Gorgonzola whipped cream and a glass of Harvest Ration, a dessert cider made from bittersweet apples. The name comes from a time when Virginians working the harvest would get a daily ration of cider (for hydration) and brandy (for aches and pains). Why do I guess that this is no longer the case?

One of the servers made my day when she told me that a very cool writer she knows who lives in Austin had just posted a link to a Style Weekly story on her Facebook page. When she'd checked the byline, she'd seen it was one of my pieces. "So you've got broad appeal," she said.

The beer geek had come with photos from his sojourn to Maine and New Hampshire, sharing dozens of images of breweries, a sculpture garden, a wedding he attended, a Frank Lloyd Wright house he'd visited and some beautiful shots of Portland and the bay, a place I still recall from a childhood vacation there.

One of the organizers of Fire, Flour and Fork stopped by to chat, soliciting my opinion of the classes and demonstrations I'd attended. Like me, she'd been terribly impressed with the lunch counters screening and discussion.

The happy couple I'd met at Secco came by, too, again suggesting that we meet up for more conversation, something I'd relish given how much fun they'd been last time. "The only reason we came to the cider dinner was to make contact with you again," she joked.

As the crowd began to thin, some of us turned our attention to "The Whistler," the 1944 movie showing on the screen. When one of the servers commented on how old the film looked, he was told it was from before he was born.

"Thriller" was before I was born," he announced, silencing the room. Wait, there are people legally drinking who were born after Nirvana's "Nevermind"? Wow, just wow.

By then it was getting on to time to head to Amour Wine Bistro for their annual Beaujolais tastings. They're smart; knowing that the Beaujolais Nouveau can't legally be released until the third Thursday of November, they always hold a party beginning at 10:30 on the Wednesday night before.

The idea is to savor some of the Cru Beaujolais before doing the requisite sipping of the bubblegum-flavored juice that is Nouveau. A plate of charcuterie was the ideal beginning.

Arriving about 10:45, there were already a dozen people in place and over the next hour, the restaurant all but filled up with people out late on a Wednesday night, including the cast from "Mame." Lots of familiar faces, in other words.

We began with a flight of four half glasses that included a Domaine des Carra Beaujolais Nouveau from 2013, aged a year until it was not only drinkable but delicious.

My favorite of the bunch was organic: Chenas Cave Saint Cyr 2010 but I also enjoyed sips of Brouilly Joseph Drouhin 2011 from someone else's glass.

Restaurant friends showed up unexpectedly, joining us at our little table in time for tasting of the Beaujolais Nouveau 2014 and the high spirits that permeated the room by that point. A restaurateur stopped by to pour a taste of a Beaujolais Blanc made from Chardonnay grapes, a uniquely lovely wine to experience.

Glasses were swept from the tables before 2 a.m., but a group of dedicated wine lovers lingered, chattering about all the good things we'd tasted and how much fun the party had been before spilling out into the cold, empty Carytown streets.

So, I've officially done my part to celebrate the arrival of Beaujolais Nouveau. I've spent a meal saluting cider.

It's up to the rest of you now.

Third Thursday Eve

The moon is not in the seventh house, but in Gemini, my sign, which meant I needed two lively ways to spend my evening.

The first came courtesy of one of my favorite husbands, loaned to me for the night by his charming wife who, unlike me, does not eat everything.

We agreed to meet a Magpie, but only after he asked if he, a middle-aged suburban guy, would be safe parking and walking in Carver.

I didn't deign to respond to such nonsense.

Once there, we found the music set to a Stevie Wonder station, meaning Bill Withers and Curtis Mayfield, "Superstition" and "For Once in My Life" and fine by me.

After acquiring his standard well-bruised martini, the husband and I listened to the specials with an ear for what was irresistible.

Our amuse bouche arrived: tempura crawfish over curried sweet potato puree, one perfect bite of kick-ass flavors.

We got off on a tangent about the upcoming exhibit at UR, "The American Dream, Right?" about the influx of Russian Jews to Richmond in the late '80s and early 90s.

Yea, who knew?

I impressed him with my recent forays to the Hebrew cemetery and the unusual "consort" gravestones I'd seen.

Not only was he surprised to hear about them, he was able to recommend the archives at Temple Beth Ahaba as a place we could go to research the women.

Now that's an invaluable friend, not just because like me he eats anything, but because he can help up my nerd quotient.

The first dish to come out was the General Tso's sweetbreads, lightly breaded, slightly spicy and served with crisp-tender broccoli.

You really couldn't ask for an easier way to eat thymus glands.

Next up was one of the night's specials, braised beef cheeks over apple ranch dressing and topped with shaved brussels sprouts (my second of the day) and oyster mushrooms, an earthy combination ideal for this too-cold-for-me weather.

That led to a discussion of heat, with my friend saying he was always turning the thermostat down at work, leaving the women to complain that they were cold.

Like his wife, I tend to get cold easily but even so, prefer a cool room to sleep in, unlike his wife.

"I don't know why she wants the room so warm when I'm like a radiator in bed," he mused.

Warm men and cool women, that's a combination that's worked for centuries, at least according to my Mom.

I suggested ordering the root vegetable salad, to which my friend showed little enthusiasm, but I assured him he'd be impressed.

Midway through the beautifully colorful dish of sliced red and yellow beets, radishes, fried sweet potato chips and goat cheese with house ranch dressing, doubting Thomas looked at me and acknowledged, "Oh, my god, this is the best thing yet."

I may have pointed out that I told him so.

He told a hilarious and touching story about a friend who discovered after years of dating women that he actually preferred men, the realization coming after he met a certain man ("I met him and the room stood still").

When my friend asked him if it took any adjustment going from female to male, he said with masterful understatement, "I had to get used to that little stubble on his upper lip."

Don't we all?

About the time we stopped laughing about that, our final dish arrived and, man, it was a doozy.

Pig's head torchon Philly cheesesteak-style, complete with sauteed onions and peppers on - wait for it - a mini Amoroso roll.

Let's just say it left a properly greasy stain on the black and white checked paper in the basket when we scooped each of our halves up

Died. And. Gone. To. Heaven.

The properly soft roll, the lightly oiled pig, the oozing cheese, it was divine and then some.

The only way it could have been improved was with a good story and my friend had one.

He'd been telling me about how his extended family requires him to make certain dishes for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, stuff he'd prefer to forget, stuff like green bean casserole.

Oh, no, I laughed , not that canned soup abomination.

The very one.

The funny part was that two years ago, his mother had mentioned casually that that recipe was hers. They thought she was joking, but no.

As a young bride she'd been given a bunch of recipe cards from married women, all of dishes guaranteed to "keep a man."

One of them was the canned green bean, canned mushroom soup, canned onion ring classic, a card she still had, albeit yellowed and stained.

She had no idea until two years ago that the recipe had been on the back of cans for decades.

"You can imagine how much we made fun of her," my friend shared.

We were too full for dessert and soon my friend began yawning, still unused to a job that requires a 6:30 a.m. wake-up call after years of being on his own schedule.

I watched as he headed toward southside and I made tracks for Carytown.

It was, after all, only a matter of hours until the Beaujolais Nouveau would be released and while I'm not interested in drinking juvenile wine all the time, once a year it's a fun way to spend an evening.

Plus Amour wine bistro was starting the Wednesday part of the evening with a Cru Beaujolias tasting, necessarily saving the nouveau part of the evening for when it's legal, namely after midnight.

When I arrived, there was only one guy there for the tasting, but he hospitably  gestured to the stool next to him and introduced himself.

Before long, the owner donned a beret and a colorful Georges Duboeuf tie, the combination leading to a discussion of stereotypical Frenchmen and Pepe Le Pew, a character with which he claimed to have no knowledge.

Still, he looked very dapper.

I started with a flight of Cru Beaujolais that included the earthy Beaujolais Village Domaine des Nugues 2010, the elegant Fleurie Domaines des Nugues 2009 and the smooth Julenas G. Duboeuf Chateau des Capitans 2011, with the guy next to me mocking my ability to down the flight.

Slow and steady wins the race, my friend.

Before long lots of others came in to join the fun, couples mostly including his wife and a couple of her friends who'd just come from a wine dinner.

Many people were enjoying the sparkling Gamay Domaine des Nugues and loving it, but it got to be midnight before I got to it.

Once the bewitching hour struck, it was all about the nouveau and in short order, I tried them all: the mass appeal Georges Duboeuf Beaujolais nouveau, Manoir du Carra Beaujolais nouveau, the lovely Domaine Descroix Beaujolais nouveau and Manoir du Carra Beauejolais Villages nouveau.

Everyone acknowledged that 2013 wasn't a particularly good year for wine and the dominant notes of banana attested to that. Or as one guy said, "By the new year, this'll be vinegar."

That's why we were drinking it tonight, kids.

A highlight of the evening was hearing the French owner pronounce "village" with an American accent. Our vowels are so flat-sounding.

The music was notably not French for a change with Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby and Michael Buble crooning at us as everyone became everyone's friend and chatted across the room.

There were bad jokes about escargots, the color green and a ball, there was one woman repeatedly rhapsodizing about the fig goat cheese (which after a while got mangled to "fake goat cheese") and much discussion of the quality of restaurant service in Richmond.

Conclusion: not enough people who truly want to be service professionals, unlike in major and European cities where service is a worthy career.

Prosciutto quiche and Camembert and leek Croque Monsieurs were savory accompaniments to the flights and eventually people were sharing their food like we were at a party and not a restaurant.

By the end of the evening, the guy next to me was telling me why I should start following him on Twitter and why I should start tonight.

You know, with the moon in my sign, I think I have bigger fish to fry than reading  about why you don't eat sweetbreads and how you're a furnace in bed.

And what is it with guys bragging tonight about their heating abilities in bed?

Besides, I've got recipe cards too mister, so I've got ways to get a furnace man of my own.

Cans optional.

Anti-Nouveau Beaujolais Thursday

Here's one more way the French have it over us. We make a holiday of the fourth Thursday to overeat and watch football. They make a holiday of the third Thursday and drink new wine. Can you say "way more fun"?

Today's event at Barrel Thief was a two-fer: the wine shop was doing a 2010 Beaujolais Cru tasting and the guys at SausageCraft were there doing an anti-Nouveau Beaujolais tasting. How great was it having gamay and pig competing for my attention? Luckily I had plenty for both.

The purpose of the tasting was to experience something other than the usual supermarket swill which has become synonymous with Beaujolais Nouveau. To that end, they were sampling Beaujolais Nouveaus from each of the ten Crus of the region.

The crowd was comprised of lots of wine geeks, one from a wine shop in Williamsburg even, and wine-lovers like yours truly. Flying the company colors and sipping away were the Boathouse, Ellwood Thompson and Secco.

The couple next to me provided a lot of entertainment value, mostly him and his corny jokes, so I had company from the start. My friend was late arriving, so I tasted the first five wines while waiting for him (only because the manager told me to start without him and I always do what I'm told).

Finally he arrived and we could taste together. To allow him time to catch up on his tasting, I strolled over to the SausageCraft table where Brad was cooking up pork belly sausage made with Beaujolais and made just today. New wine, new sausage, it was a relationship for the ages.

The sausage was full-flavored with just a trace of herbs and wine. Cooked up hot and smelling so good it made it tough to focus on the wine at times, it was the clear star of the evening. No one could agree on which wine was best, but everyone was raving about the incredible sausage.

And, not that I know anything about wine (other than I like to drink it), but my votes for best go to the Domaine Cheveau 2008 Saint Amour (from the smallest and most rare of the ten Cru villages) and the Jean-Paul Thevenet 2009 Morgon, a wine so to my taste that I took one sip and said to my friend, "Taste this now."

As we were walking out, I picked up my pace because I was running behind to meet friends. "Triple-booked tonight?" he asked. "Just double," I told him. But still late. What if my date thought I stood them up? I wouldn't be able to live with myself.

Stop #2 was the Belvidere to meet one of my very favorite couples for a catch-up session. Unbelievably, we hadn't seen each other since Folk Fest because of their crazy work schedules. Imagine, people who put work ahead of play; I like them anyway.

I ordered the house-smoked salmon, always perfectly executed at the Belvidere and, because I knew I couldn't top the Morgon, a Don Julio for sipping. Now we could talk.

This is a couple who eats out as much as I do, so we ran through a comparative chat about places we'd all been since our last rendezvous. Even when we don't eat together, we seem to share the same opinion of how a restaurant is doing. We talked about their plans to spirit me to the West End soon (and not against my will it should be noted).

They too asked me about my big news and I shared how that was going. They're polite enough that they didn't make any snide remarks about my slow-moving progress like some friends I could mention (you know who you are).

We ended with a discussion of how so many people they know at work go through the motions of Thanksgiving only because they feel it's expected of them, not because they enjoy any of it.

See, that's my point exactly. Wouldn't it be whole lot easier to get behind a wine drinking Thursday holiday and avoid all that dysfunctional family holiday stuff entirely?

My only problem would be giving up the stuffing, but only because it has sausage in it.

When it comes right down to it, it's always about the sausage, isn't it?

Rhetorical question, mind you.

Barrel Thief for Beaujolais Nouveau

It being the third Thursday of November and all, Theater Goddess and I met up at the Barrel Thief at Patterson and Libbie to drink some just-released young, fruity wine, like far too many other people probably did today.

It was as good an excuse as any to celebrate the harvest, in this case, that of Domaine Vissoux Beaujolais Primeur.

No fancy yeasts or added sugar, this Beaujolais Nouveau was clean and ripe tasting and would undoubtedly be a nice addition to the Thanksgiving meal. But neither of us is in charge of bringing the wine to Turkey day, so the sipping was purely for our own enjoyment.

Meanwhile, we asked the kitchen for a variety of dishes that would work well together and would complement our Green and Red Zinfandel "Chiles Mill Vineyard" Estate and were rewarded with an array of smoked salmon, cheeses, olives and a balsamic reduction dipping oil with bread.

Assorted chocolate truffles had to follow.

Conversation on the shelf life of unhappiness and the possibilities of happy endings ensued, while the bottle of wine was emptied.

So now that the Beaujolais Nouveau has been released, we can welcome the coming of colder weather and the upcoming holidays.

In theory anyway, since, while walking the beagle upon my arrival home just now, the temperature in J-Ward was a balmy 65 degrees.

Not that I'm complaining.

I'm just saying, I, for one, will be sleeping with my bedroom windows open tonight.