Veritas NYC

I was really looking forward to this. Everything was in place.... Selma was in town from Montreal and I havent spent time with her since May. I had 3 full days off with no professional obligations in sight (thank you Thanksgiving), and a reservation for two at Veritas. Life was good.

My only experience with Veritas on 20th/Broadway was hearing Alan spout off about it every once in awhile when he was dropping names and bragging to others about how connected he was. He would always use that voice that spoke something like "You are a plebian and know nothing, I bet you've never even been to Veritas". Assuming everyone knew what that was, and I've seen firsthand a few people who didnt, but pretended they did. He didnt actually say those words... but I'm sure that's what people heard. I've also heard Tony Bourdain refer to it a few times on his shows or in his columns or whatever... so I guess they've been a pretty big deal.

Well, they are. Service and staff work like Jagr and Gomez (they dont necessarily need to see you over there wide open in the corner for the puck to end up on your stick for an easy tap into the net). Food was tremendous. Selma is going through a no-red-meat thing so the tasting menu was ruled out, but 3 courses (app/entree/desert) gave the good impression and we closed the place down without even being nudged once. I had grilled octopus (rockstar status) and the lamb main course. Selma did not. Fluke sashimi and something else.. I was busy.

I made numerous attempts to befriend Yoshi. I greased him appropriately when he brought our Cliff Lede "Poetry" and pulled the cork. I thanked him each time he topped off our glasses (even though the bottle was cold and needed a lot of air, so just when I'd get it to where I was enjoying it most.... I'd be smiling and thanking him anyway for the refill). After dinner Selma ran into some old friends at the bar (to include the sommelier for a new restaurant which was already on my list, so I'm psyched!).... she still had half a glass so I thought I'd ask Yoshi for a "taste" of something so I wouldnt be standing empty handed. He smiled and did that thing people do who realize they're being rude but think the smile is enough to make it ok. He might have been smiling because he knew I just spent $550 on dinner and was about to spend another $25 on a glass of something called "Cortina" that blew and did it's best to ruin my palate. To no avail. Dinner was too strong.... and everyone else in the restaurant too good at their profession to allow it. I suppose I shouldn't be too hard on him, he was very busy kissing the ass of some other sommelier from some other restaurant.

Sorrily Sifting Sorted Statistics

That title doesnt really make sense; at this point I care very little that it doesnt.
I really like that I used a semicolon there. I'm not sure if I've ever used one before.
Also unsure if it's even used properly. As you can see, I'm feeling a bit irreverant right now.

Norman Mailer died. I'm a reader and I prefer American writers and reading from an American male perspective, but I'm not really a huge Mailer fan. I always found his lust for life interesting, he married six times and stabbed his second wife nearly to death. You gotta have some passion to stab your wife. She wouldnt press charges against him so he never did any time for the crime, which makes me wonder if that would even matter anymore? If the cops roll up to your brownstone in Brooklyn to learn you stabbed your wife..... does it matter if she doesnt want to press charges against you?

Not that I plan on stabbing my wife, or living in a brownstone in Brooklyn. I plan on not living anywhere. Geronimo was quoted as saying "I was born on the prairies where the wind blew free and there was nothing to break the light of the sun. I was born where there were no enclosures. " Am I talking about marriage? or jail?

Discovery Questions

The Discovery Question should always lead to something you want to sell, so don't increase the scope of the conversation to the point where you waste your and your prospects' time. Finally, the most important questions are follow-up questions. After you get an answer to one of the following questions, ask "why?" Also, when you are following up and probing, probe for feelings, not just for an expected line. Ask people how they personally feel about things. Furthermore, if you ask the right probing questions, you can get people to think about their problems from a new perspective and to think more deeply about their problems and potential solutions.

Obviously, I didnt write the above paragraph. It's really step two (ish) in the steps to effective and efficient selling.

Should have asked some. I pray to God (whomever she may be) that somewhere along the line I dont find out I'm discovering for the wrong reasons.

The Evil Empire

Being a Yankee fan is like being an American. Everyone is aware of what you're doing, everyone is quick to bad-mouth you, everyone blames you for all the evils, but when you come to town even the smallest markets sell out their crummy seats.

The analogy being that for such a crap country, people sure do break their asses to get into it. They also have no trouble allowing us to forgive their debts, and come to their aid when something goes wrong that is too large for them to handle themselves. Baseball needs the Yankees.

Let's just say I'm confused about what happened. Certainly in basic terms our pitching could be blamed (Thanks Roger! How's life, Carl Pavano? That bicep holding up ok, Andy? Where did you go, Wang?) Does offensive need to be discussed? You could shove our whole lineup in one inch of copper tubing.

I'm always going to be a Yankee fan. I survied the eighties. I understand George Steinbrenner better after having watch The Bronx is Burning, and empathize with the frustration that must come with being up in the box watching over a billion dollars invested fall flat on it's face (maybe not a billion, but sometimes it sure feels like it). Like G.W. we will collectively continue to do what we believe is right, and just hope the rest of the world sees that we have set goals, and we're doing our best to accomplish them, for it's own sake.

Lure

Ok, I got one. Not really interested in who you are. Even less interested in where you're from. Lure in SoHo is all about the food.

You might get it twisted when you venture downstairs to find a restaurant deco'd out in a cruise ship theme. You might even wonder if you've been caught in a tourist trap. But once that smiling face of the professional staff member pops up at your table, you settle back and relax to enjoy what will certainly be a meal to remember.

You start to wonder why the whole space doesnt smell like Fulton Fish market. It's obvious someone from this place represents Lure down there every single day and picks some very fresh fish to be prepared for their guests. The wine list smacks the ass of those who assume you need to buy within the confines of the local distributor's allocated allotment. I saw some very proud names on the legal page sized document, and all of them sat proudly, anxious to accompany your meal.

I'm getting away from naming producer names (Araujo), and describing dishes (Branzino). But I like it when courses come together like a symphony. I like it when service leaves you alone to enjoy what you've ordered. I like it when they insist you order desert, and I like it even more when they tell you it's gratis. If you want me to come back to your restaurant, treat me with respect for the money I'm spending, help me enjoy my meal by being aware of my mealtime needs, put a plate of poppin fresh food in front of me, pour (decant) me a bottle of wine that is produced by a person and not a wine corporation, and buy me desert. Winner, Winner, FRESH SEAFOOD OF ALL TYPES delicious dinner.

From the feedback I get from you (thanks), I know some of you follow my lead on your dining experiences. Lately I've been guiding you away from some less than wonderful establishments, and that's my job too. If you're in New York, go downtown.... spend some time walking around SoHo (when I was a kid it was dangerous, when my dad was a kid it was all textile factories), have a drink and some oysters at Blue Ribbon on Thompson, but save your appetite for dinner at Lure. Shelly Buck is the sommelier and she gets it. Introduce yourself.

"I'll be your Huckleberry"

I'm not entirely sure what that title means. It's from a time long ago (or a place far away). But Val Kilmer uttered that line in the movie Tombstone, and the hair on the back of my neck went straight up.

Doctor John Henry Holliday came from a large, close knit, family from Georgia. He was just a touch too young to serve the Confederate Army in their war with the North, and that is said to have had an effect on the way he was raised. Without strong male role models, he was said to foster a reckless streak not found in young men of that place and time.

After dentist college in Pennsylvania, he returned to Georgia to apprentice and practice in the towns where his people were well known. Back room poker games and other ways to take chances were readily available to him, and he was recorded to have done well in all of them.

Around the time he was twenty, he woke up with the common symptoms of Tuberculosis. After a period of denial, he committed a crime in Northern Florida while on convalescence, and from there headed west fleeing to SouthWest Texas.

He spent the rest of his life dodging his illness and the other dangers in the still untamed West. He used whiskey to dull the pain of his body, sore and weak from the constant spasm of cough.

He moved about frequently, usually avoiding the law that sought him for the disagreements that left other men dead. He befriended a reluctant Marshall named Earp, and with the Earp brothers took part in one of the most famous gun battles in the history of the West. Solidifying his place in the minds and imaginations of all of us who dream about what it would be like to be free.

Fellini No Like

They're still making Western's. 3:10 to Yuma is a story about courage, dignity, and re-evaluation of one's self. I go pig shit for Western's. I'd sit through almost any of them again, and some of them really sucked. But I like the simplicity of the value system. This is wrong, this is right. You dont do this and get away with it, and you do this when you're pressed against the wall.

A whole lot of us have forgotten how simple it is to do the right thing. If it's business, relationships, or even everyday situations that call your judgement into question. So many people now chose what's in their own best interest over what is obviously the right thing to do. Like somehow a culture from somewhere has infected the rest of the planet, and left us with a relentless pursuit of our own self interest. I look out for such behavior. I normally try and avoid it, but this is the United States, and even more this is New York; so you're going to step in it sometimes.

Christian Bale plays what would begin as the hero in this film. But Russel Crowe plays the bad-guy who transforms as if he's experiencing a catharsis right before our eyes. He seems like he takes some shots at redemption towards the end, but negating the existence of evil is always a big mistake.

At the risk of ruining it, he gets bathed in purity when he tells the story of how his father was killed over "a shot of whiskey" when he was just a boy. He goes on to reveal his mom packed them up and rushed them to the train station with the intent of giving them a fresh start. She set him down on a bench with a bible and told him not to stop reading that book until he was through with it. He did as he was told and lifted his head to find his mom gone, after three days had gone by. ********(one day Forrest just started runnnnningggg.......)********

I wasnt perfect, but it was good. I heard a newswoman report that Crowe was a film-crew favorite and it was Bale who wouldnt associate with the minions and only flew in for his sequences (by helicopter). It was reported (by above mentioned newsperson) that he would only speak with those he had shots with, and would speak to them only during the shooting of those scenes.

I love 5star hotels and helicopter rides as much as the next guy, but why be an asshole?

Every Man has a Plan

I cant remember the last good picture I took. It's been years.

Jillian's?

I dont have a photo for this place, only because I couldnt find it on the web. I couldnt find it anywhere.

Which made me happy. I might just have the name wrong, I have to have the name wrong, because there is no way this place goes along simply by word of mouth. Or maybe it does.

I've been stopping into Jillian's for years. It's right on Purchase Street in the center of Rye.
It's been the cherry on top of a whole bunch of sick weekends spent at the Concourse D'Elegance in Greenwich, weekends in Westport with friends that inspire, and just too good to pass up or pass by when in Westchester County.

I had to go grab a Maybach from Nick Faldo. I may sound overly familiar with Mr. Faldo only because we spent some time chatting at the Master's, and because I have a crush on his assistant (Maria). My dad actually has a good story about Nick (ask him sometime).

I took my time getting to Rye. Bus to Port Authority, Metro North to Rye, nothing to it. And when I landed, I was physched. I get to eat at Jillian's. Albeit alone, I didnt care. I sat at the bar and watched the end of the Yankee game (they leave men on base), I had a Bloody with the salad they pile on top, and I looked around, all good.

Red Snapper pan fried (which means they just use enough olive oil to get that nice brown coating), Ceaser salad with more than enough pecorino romano cheese, and one lightly grilled shrimp. Normally I'd bitch and moan about only getting only one shrimp, but in this case, it was enough. Life was good. Lunch was great.

Afterwards I sat in the Starbucks next door. I had time to kill and contemplated hustling a ride up the hill to the Westchester Country Club. I drank my coffee, read some of my book (Heat by some cat who willingly took a monkey job in Mario Batali's kitchen) and ventured out and up the hill to the course. I had solid fuel to burn, and that don't suck.

Nick came out from the announcer's tent and said "Billy.. you need a towel!".
I responded without a thought "It's all good, mate" in my best South African drawl.
"Cheers" and in the air coming towards my head came the Tiffany Sterling Silver key ring on which the Maybach gets it's life energy. And off he went.

And off I went.

Red & White

I used to work at Friday's. We had to wear red and white striped shirts and got scolded if we didnt have enough "flair". Flair was what they called stupid buttons and advert pins to make us stand out, to celebrate our individualism. Which was complete and utter bullshit because no matter how much you did to those stupid shirts you could still plainly see they were red and white striped and we were all exactly the same. Just like the menu. No matter where you go every Friday's you pop into will have the exact same menu, and be running the exact same disgusting frozen drink specials. They call it consistancy, I call it "The End of the World".

Last Saturday I was at a party in the new Wolfgangus Puck restaurant at the Borgata. I couldnt stop thinking about Friday's. It had a better decor, the staff was better, and it is nice to have food so close to a poker table, but Friday's stuck in my head. The place was mobbed. The food was just fine (you have to expect to pay out the wazoo as soon as you give the casino valet your car keys) and the wine list was the same you'd get absolutely anywhere else (only at a 200% mark-up instead of 100%). But it was a TGI Friday's, without the stripes.

I dont have a solution. I'm not even sure it it's a problem. And good for old Wolfie Baby, a good chef with a whole bunch of charisma and now he's an international franchise (ahum... Friday's.. cough cough>. There's something to be said for cranking out a product people seem to want, or think they want, or thought they wanted?

Sending Circles Into the Sky

Every once in awhile there seems to be an abysmal hole in the sky that opens up and pulls you through. Popping out the other side you feel like Captain Kirk as he acclimates himself to his new surroundings; phasers on stun.

The new universe is foreign and the ground is soft beneath your feet, but you know you must walk or risk dying of stagnation. Of all the deaths, stagnation has got to be the worst. Being eaten by a shark would imply you set out on the ocean with great anticipations of fun and adventure. The same would can be said had you perished in a plane crash. Now I know you could be on the plane for some stupid meeting in Detroit, but let's just say for the sake of this blog you were going to Tahiti, cuz I think at one time that was some sort of hot-spot destination (I'm not even exactly sure where Tahiti is). Dying en route is far more sexy than dying cuz you were afraid or indecisive about moving forward. That's just sad. Even more sad than if you were to survive a plane crash in the ocean only to be eaten by a shark.

Sometimes we feel like we're dying. Even though there is no obvious cause. Sometimes we know what's best, but we hide from it knowing full well it's the only way. Taking the bull by the horns doesnt sound too good to us, so we dont.

(NOTE: The girl in the photo is in no way related to my stupid rant. I just wanted something to cheer me up.)

Here's the Best thing about Mikki

She's in love with Ross. Ross is in love with her. It's actually kind of nice to see people making it happen.

We went to Pazzo Pazzo in MoTown on Thursday night. Lots of pretty folks (and lots of Jersey Idiot Morons), and it was so thick you needed a little piece of bread to soak it all up. Mikki is what you could call a "facilitator". She puts people together. She's not shy, and she inherently knows how to have a good time. It was something she was born with, and being a rockstar on the NYC party people circuit enabled her to hone her skills. It's always fun to roll with Mikki.

We met some Pharma cats who just couldnt help but speak to each other in German. Hayden was from Iceland and spoke a whole bunch of languages and I suspect was a little put off by me and Ross being so familiar and what he had to think was crude (fork 'em). It was hawt as balls outside but they wanted to smoke so we dealt. I was enjoying the moment and told Mikki (like an asshead) that I liked Ross better, and that set her off. She's getting sick of bringing her boys into the fold only to have them run off and develop non-sexual crushes on her future husband.

She's a girl and they like attention and if you even insinuate that it might be threatened they throw shit-shows and if you're vested you had best step up and fix it or you wont have a Mikki no more.

And that's how the story goes. Forgive the vague Bjork reference, I couldnt help it. I loved the sugarcubes and always will. Some monkey jerkoff gave me crap for having Depeche Mode's "Policy of Truth" as my text ringtone on Wednesday at poker. He said it was "gay". He and I ended up splitting the pot that night, had I not been 6 beers through and in the land of VOZ, I would have handed him his ass head's-up.

Moral of the story? I have no idea.

This will be our last goodbye

But you dont care,

so I wont cry.

This is actually my second attempt at this post. My first was scathing and was basically a lash out at the guy who hosts Park and Orchard in Rutherford, New Jersey. I went to click the "publish post" command and got an error message, then went back to an empty screen. My friend Mikki says it's destiny and the way it's supposed to be, and she's smart so I'll just let it go.

I'd be lying if I told you he didnt have a powerful negative impact on what was otherwise an awesome night, so I wont. But I will tell you about what is ordinarily one of New Jersey's very best restaurants.

Park and Orchard must have been an auto body or gas station or something in it's past lifetime.

But now it cranks out fresh and unique meals to people who all seem to really appreciate it. Like any great restaurant anymore there's still the mangagalupe in shorts and a Tshirt, but for the most part people dress appropriately and the atmosphere is very crisp, very clean, and downright delicious.

I come here for lunch whenever possible. It's a little less crowded and I love lunch. Italians live their worlds around lunch, it's a nice way to live. Park and Orchard lives it's life to be different from the other restaurants that have found success in one of the most competitive (and densely populated) food service markets in the world. They've succeeded, and they've done so on their own terms.

I could mention the Grand Award they got from WS. But who cares. It means nothing.

What I will mention is that this guy has the stones to put wines on the list he wants his guests to enjoy. There are the standards, but then there's a whole bunch of stuff you've never heard of. Right up my alley. Buddy would like my wine list, I should send it to him. You could put just about any of my producers in a room with him and he'd probably come away with a new best friend. But that's the beauty of my winemakers, they're actually people.

We only had time for appetizers since we were going to be late for the show by the time we got sat, but they were remarkable. Some mussels, some stuffed mushrooms, a little tomato salad, plate of fresh mozz with the balsamic you pay a whole bunch for, the carpaccio.... everything was nice. The chick who got our table was a little bit in the weeds, but she was stellar, and her colleagues stepped right in to help her out (they were less busy... hmm?). We ate, we paid, we raced to the Meadowlands and saw the Police. Missed two or three songs, but whatever. It was fun. I made a new friend that night, got to see one of the bands that made up the soundtrack of my teens, and didnt get arrested. Overall.... a success.

Tourists Don't Know Where They've Been

And Travelers don't know where they're going.

If you had a choice to go anywhere; where would it be?

If someone or something came down (or up) out of nowhere and granted you the freedom to launch off to a place you've never been, where would you chose?

I dunno either. Brasil comes to mind first (for obvious reasons). I'd also like to take in Scandanavia. Especially now while it's 100degrees here in NY. I hear it never gets above 76 in Copenhagen, and that sounds like Heaven right about now.

With all the options the world presents it would be impossible to pinpoint where exactly the ideal adventure would be. If you developed the inner thirst to wander the earth, would that put you that much closer to God? My God has told me more than once she'd prefer I ventured into myself to find the answers to the questions I frequently ask. I try all the time, but always seem to come up remarkably short. Where there is clarity and feeling would be my ideal destination. Is that a place that can be reached by plane?

My role over the years has changed dramatically. The floundering (bouncing on the dry dock desperately seeking life/water/oxygen) has numbed my ordinarily good senses and dignity.

It begs the simple question; should I hit the road?

All New.... All The Time

Two new producers added to the list this week. The first, KitFox, is a little larger than the standard AVAWine.com winery, but the story and passion were there so we went ahead and posted them. It's an interesting story (the Vogel Family), I strongly suggest you check them out.

The second is Fantesca. Husband and wife team with the passion caught deep. They realize some expert help would go a long way, and they go out and get a father and son outfit that now produces stuff they can proudly put their names on. Classic but familiar story, although the ending never bores me.

Have a look for yourself, and if you have the means I strongly suggest you pick up a few bottles.