06/19/10

F&W Blog: "Secrets of Wine and Food Pairing"

Every year at the Food & Wine Classic, I have something of a revelatory moment. Since I’m not the most educated of oenophiles, the little tidbits that lead to these ah-ha moments are often quite simple, and I believe I heard my keeper for 2010 at a seminar on Saturday morning.

Here it is: “The first sip of wine is often the most misleading.”

The speaker was Marnie Old; the seminar was “Secrets of Wine & Food Pairing.” Old, according to my F&W “Tasting Notes” book, is the author of “Wine Secrets,” a collection of bits of practical wine advice from 40 world-renowned wine experts. She was once the director of wine studies at New York’s French Culinary Institute, and the seminar was an abbreviated version...

Posted at 06:30 PM | Permalink | Comments: 1

06/18/10

F&W Blog: “French Wines & Cheeses: Perfect Pairs”

As I made my way to the “French Wine and Cheeses: Perfect Pairs” seminar on Friday, I figured, what could epitomize the Food & Wine classic in Aspen more than French wine and cheese pairings? I mean, does it get more foodie-fied than that?

It seemed I wasn’t the only person who saw things that way:  They were turning people away at the door.

While I don’t consider myself a wine expert, I am definitely a huge fan of cheese (as long as it’s not American, which, technically, I don’t think even qualifies as cheese).

While we’re at it, according to dictionary.com, cheese is “the curd of milk separated from the whey and prepared in many ways as a food.” Thought we should just put that on the table. Seriously,...

Posted at 05:50 PM | Permalink | Comments: 0

12/28/09

Public Enemy No. 1

Aspen saw an absolutely unforgettable performance last night at Belly Up by one of the most influential, important and legendary groups of all time: Public Enemy.

Chuck D, Flavor Flav, Professor Griff, DJ Lord and the S1W crew offered the audience a reminder of how powerful hip-hop can be. It was a smaller version of PE; their performances for much of the last decade have often featured a bigger band, including a horn section. But for me, the pared-down PE was even more special. The one-DJ-three-rappers-and-four-stage-minders arrangement and the ridiculous intimacy of the 450-capacity Belly Up made the...

Posted at 04:41 PM | Permalink | Comments: 1

12/03/09

Filling the Voids

The combination of opening day at Aspen Mountain and Snowmass, Thanksgiving and the women’s World Cup ski races made for an energetic start to the season. Some bemoaned the lack of snow, but anyone with perspective knows that the skiing was more than satisfactory for late November.

What likely surprised folks who were back in Aspen for the first time in a year wasn’t the sparse snowcover, but the abundance of empty storefronts. The blackness of the former D19 space coupled with a curiously unopened Pacifica made for a dead spot next to Wagner Park, where things are normally quite hopping, and there are many other prime retail spaces currently sitting empty. In fact, Aspen's vacancy rate...

Posted at 02:21 PM | Permalink | Comments: 0