Saturday

Aug 11, 2001

savoring wine, food and friends

I won't say that I spent all day preparing for my bash, but it was close. Fun, though. I got this idea I had to have these glass hanger things for everybody and every wine. So I had to design them, print them. And I had to print the menu. I think I overlayed my page on the WEB where I had the desserts right and had to fish that from memory (and an e-mail). I fretted over spelling names right, spelling wines right, getting vintages right. But it made the event, the actual savoring of food, wine and friends, all that much more fun.

We spent a few minutes in the morning at Grape Vine Market, picking a second bottle of Champagne and picking a few on sale beers for me. FFP convinced them he was in a VIP deal even though his card was home in a drawer. With the result that the beer and the tax was essentially free. I think they should have a tax holiday for fine wine, that's what I think. (My dad did wait until the tax holiday to buy some new casual slacks. At Academy. He bragged that he was throwing away his old brown ones. I knew them, he said. The ones where the pull on the zipper had broken off and he replaced it with a paper clip. The paper clip got tangled with socks in the wash. So, yeah, he was actually throwing them away. And to think that someone once told FFP he married money. Hrrumpt. Hmm...how did I get on that tangent?)

It's hard to know what to eat during the day when lots of good food and wine await in the evening. Lots of black coffee. Water. We decided to lay a base of sauteed Salmon and salad.

As time for my party approached, I made a list so I wouldn't forget anything. Wines, menus, cameras, batteries, pens, paper, wine glass tags.

At the restaurant, we set everything up and tried to brief the staff on the wine order. So many wines, so little time. We challenged their dish washing skills this night.

It's always slightly tense waiting for people to show up, but we stood around and drank a 1989 Veuve Clicquot La Grand Dame. The late comers only got (only??) the 1993. I had a little of both and personally couldn't tell the difference.

A speech. It was my birthday so I made one. It was all about how you can only really savor wine and food with friends and you experience a lot of life through friends. I said that I'd never:

• skiied down a mountain;
• built houses, apartments, lakes or run heavy machinery;
• built a multi-national business;
• lived in Berlin for a year;
• been inducted into a tennis hall of fame;
• been to a psychiatrist (let alone thought of being one);
• been a sports agent;
• managed hundreds of people;
• welded anything;
• had Michael Dell sing happy birthday to me;
• become a chocolate expert;
• been to South America;
• eaten at a three-star French restaurant;
• been a flight attendant;
• lived in Washington;
• influenced people in Washington;
• had a sports car;
• had an earthquake knock on my door.

But, I said, I have friends who have. And they are in this room!

We plunged then into the courses. Caviar. Scallops. Foie Gras. (Ah! And with a 1970 Château D'Yquem to try with it. All golden caramel, it was.) Then a main course and dessert. If you really are interested enough in the food to keep reading, click here.

There were conversations. Talk about who in the room fit all the categories of my 'I've never...' list. Talk about wine collecting, how long we'd known LB, the arts, current events. It had everything a wonderful party should have and it was the best birthday present ever.

beautiful Bordeauxs stand up against each other

"The dinner table is the only place where we are never bored during the first hour."

Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, Physiologie du goüt

JUST TYPING

I thought early in the evening: what if I type whatever comes into my head right here after all the good wine, food and fellowship?

And then when the time came, I went to bed instead!