“As years passed away I have formed the habit of looking back upon that former self as upon another person, the remembrance of whose emotions has been a solace in adversity and added zest to the enjoyment of prosperity.” – Simon Newcomb

photo credit: EatonAlive ©2012

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Adrienne Lecouvreur as Cornelia by Antoine Coypel. (1723)

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“It is no more necessary that a man should remember the different dinners and suppers which have made him healthy, than the different books which have made him wise.  Let us see the results of good food in a strong body, and the results of great reading in a full and powerful mind.” — Sydney Smith

Reading is something most of us take for granted. But for many Americans, literacy is skill that hasn’t been mastered, the lack of reading comprehension limits their potential.

On May 16, 2012, support the San Diego Council on Literacy’s work in the community by attending the third annual Eat. Drink. Read. event where favorite local San Diego chef’s will be serving delicious dishes inspired by their favorite works of literature.

A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway is Chef Matt Gordon of Urban Solace’s pick, Whisknladle’s Chef Ryan Johnston singled out Playing for Pizza by John Grisham, Chef Ron Oliver of the Marine Room chose Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins, A Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles inspired Chef Trey Foshee of George’s California Modern, Beyond the Reef by Todd Strasser was Chef Craig Jimenez of  Craft & Commerce’s choice, journey with Chef Miguel Valdez of the Red Door as he explores Homer’s The Odyssey, and the classic The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck stirred Chef Camron Woods of Amaya at The Grand Del Mar into culinary creativity. These are just a few of the books, chefs and restaurants that are featured at this year’s Eat. Drink. Read.

In addition to the gastronomy and libations, there will be a Silent Auction where you can bid on a plethora of items, including a magnum of Bruliam Wines Rockpile Zinfandel (a Wine Harlots favorite). The ticket’s are $60 USD and are available from San Diego Council on Literacy. Join us in supporting literacy, deliciously. Eat. Drink. Read.

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painting Flora by Evelyn De Morgan (1894)
oil on canvas
in the permanent collection of the De Morgan Centre, London, England

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“Let us celebrate the occasion with wine and sweet words.” – Titus Maccius Plautus

Wine producers of the world would like you to grab a glass of malbec today, on Malbec World Day, and toast to the magnificence of malbec. The grape originated in France during the Roman occupation two thousand years ago. After the phylloxera hit Europe in the late 19th century and the frost of 1956 which killed more than two-thirds of the malbec vines, France’s plantings of malbec have been reduced, but still has favor in Cahors. Introduced to Argentina 1868, by agronomist Michel Aimé Pouget, it has taken hold, with the largest planting of malbec in the world. Chile produces malbecs, and the United States is dabbling in the varietal. If you haven’t tasted malbec wines, they are a delight. The malbec wines are a dense inky violet, with a medium body, flavors and aromas of berries, cherry, plums, with earthy rich depth and black pepper spice. Open a bottle of malbec today and celebrate Malbec World Day.

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“If you were to die tomorrow, what single dish, what mouthful of food from anywhere in the world or anytime in your life, would you chose as your last? What would be your choice for your last meal on earth?” – Anthony Bourdain

A simple premise. A deceptively difficult challenge to master. What would be your defining meal? The single repast that bids farewell your earthly existence, a culinary celebration as you shuffle off the mortal coil?

Published in 2007, My Last Supper: 50 Great Chefs and Their Final Meals by Melanie Dunea pose this question to fifty of our greatest culinary geniuses and their answers are poignant and illumining. The portraits of the chefs are truly amazing, as revealing of their personalities and character as their prose. This is the perfect book for your coffee-table, to spark your own game of “My Last Supper” at your next dinner party. Check out the My Last Supper website, with additional photos and recipes from featured chefs.

My favorite twist on the game came when a group of food and wine journalists were stuck due to a mechanical breakdown on the side of the road in France. It didn’t take long for us to be rescued, but in that time Fred Minnick and Richard Auffrey were conspiring on who should be the first victim, if help didn’t arrive, and the group had to go all Donner Party and resort to cannibalism. I offered to take one for the team, but Minnick demurred, saying I was a friend, and I shouldn’t be the first course. Auffrey opined that the vegetarians should go first, as “grass-fed tastes best.”  Luckily we were back in civilization by dinnertime, and carnage was averted. (And I didn’t have to test the bonds of friendship and see where I really stood on the food-chain).

In the book, the chef’s last meals are invariably simple, basic, delicious food from their childhoods. In the past I’ve picked roast chicken, or a French traditional baguette warm from the oven with cheese and chacuterie, but today I pick a cheese burger off the grill, dressed with tomato, lettuce and onion, with steak fries and a pint or two from Iron Fist Brewing. Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die…

photo credits of My Last Supper bookcover and portrait of Anthony Bourdain: Melanie Dunea ©2007

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“Eat, drink and be merry. For tomorrow we die.” – Bibical mash-up

One hundred years ago, the Titanic struck an iceberg on her maiden voyage and sank into the icy Atlantic taking 1514 passengers and crew to their final resting place.

The Heidsieck & Co Monopole Blue Top Champagne was the official Champagne of the R.M.S. Titanic. If you’re going down with the ship, going out with style seems the way to do it. Sober, not really a great plan. But the Titanic had the booze supply covered. The ship’s manifest listed 1,000 bottles of wine, 850 spirits bottles, 191 liquor cases, and 20,000 bottles of beer. And their last meal? Over the top opulent. Rick Archbold’s book Last Dinner On the Titanic: Menus and Recipes from the Great Liner details the menus of that fated cruise. The Armchair lists the menu for evening of April 14, 1912 in the first-class dining room.

And for those of you who are scandalized by the Wine Harlots prodigious alcohol intake, in a crisis, we might outlive you, based on this cautionary Titanic tale. Charles Joughin was a chef on the Titanic, during the evacuation he stocked the lifeboats, heroically helped the passengers to safety and refused a seat in the lifeboat himself. He returned to his cabin and awaited his fate, relying heavily on this friends Jack, Johnny and Jim (Daniels, Walker and Beam). After awhile, he ventured to the top deck and fell into the briny Atlantic. Most of the passengers who were submersed in the frigid water perished, but it is theorized that due to Joughin’s elevated blood alcohol level it provided protection from the hypothermical waters. (Living in Southern California, and not venturing onto boats often, the Wine Harlots risk of hypothermia is low, but you can never be too sure, and like the Boy Scouts, we want to be prepared).

Raise a glass today in honor of those to lost their lives in the pre-dawn hours a century ago.

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Painting by Alphonse Mucha for Heidsieck & Co. Champagne 1901.

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“Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity.”  — Voltaire

photo credits: EatonAlive ©2011
The Wine Harlots feeding frenzy was part of a press tour sponsored by Planet Bordeaux.

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After a lovely wine lunch at Planet Bordeaux we said our goodbyes and settled into the chauffeured car and off to our next appointment.

Marc and Agnés Lurton are the owners of Château Reynier, in the Entre-Deaux-Mers region of Bordeaux. Lurton,  a member of one of the pre-eminent winemaking families of Bordeaux, has been making wine at Château Reynier since 1996; the estate has been part of the family’s heritage for over four generations. The farmhouse, built from limestone excavated from the wine cave, is in the path of the St. James Way, and was once used as an inn by weary travelers on their pilgrimage to the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, Spain.

After a quick photo-op in the vineyards, and a peek into the tank where the 2011 vintage was fermenting, we ventured into the two thousand year-old caves, which beckoned with untold stories.

Then we got down to the business of tasting. “I don’t like use the term ‘Bordeaux Superior’ as it implies there is inferior. And Bordeaux is not,” says Marc Lurton as he pours. The wines are elegant and approachable. As a special treat we tasted tank samples of the just crushed 2011.

The Lurton’s have a certain fondness for the United States, as they were married in Las Vegas, (but not as I had hoped by an Elvis impersonator) when Marc was appreciating as a winemaker in California. Unfortunately, their wines are not available in California or Nevada at this time, but if you’re lucky enough to be in New York or New Jersey, make a pilgrimage to your local wine merchant.

photo credit: EatonAlive ©2011
This experience was part of a press tour sponsored by Planet Bordeaux.

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I looked out across
The river today
I saw a city in the fog and an old church tower
Where the seagulls play
I saw the sad shire horses walking home
In the sodium light
I saw two priests on the ferry
October geese on a cold winter’s night
And all this time, the river flowed
Endlessly to the sea

The teachers told us, the Romans built this place
They built a wall and a temple, an edge of the empire
Garrison town,
They lived and they died, they prayed to their gods
But the stone gods did not make a sound
And their empire crumbled, ’til all that was left
Were the stones the workmen found

And all this time the river flowed
In the falling light of a northern sun

“All This Time” by Sting from the album Soul Cages

The wine caves at Château Reynier are transfixing. We arrived on an unseasonably warm late-autumn day; the caves were welcoming, enveloping us with their cool embrace. The caves were first excavated 2000 years ago, during the Roman occupation of Gaul. Later, in the 15^th century, as the caves were expanded, the limestone was used to build the family farmhouse. Words and pictures can’t adequately describe how awe-inspiring the cave was. Limestone and earth protecting the precious barrels of Bordeaux, infusing the wine with two millennia of history and heritage. The walls whispering secrets only ghosts can hear. Then walking back into the sunshine and heat, the spell is broken…until you uncork the next bottle of Bordeaux and the enchantment returns.

Wine caves at Chateau Reynier with owner/oenologist Marc Lurton.
photo credit: EatonAlive ©2011
The Wine Harlots brush with history was part of a press tour sponsored by Planet Bordeaux.

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“This coffee plunges into the stomach…the mind is aroused, and ideas pour forth like the battalions of the Grand Army on the field of battle…. Memories charge at full gallop…the light cavalry of comparisons deploys itself magnificently; the artillery of logic hurry in with their train of ammunition; flashes of wit pop up like sharp-shooters.”  –  Honore de Balzac

Cappuccino at Caffé Calabria, North Park San Diego, California.
Photo credit: copyright EatonAlive ©2010.

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“Here cometh April again, and as far as I can see the world hath more fools in it than ever.” —  Charles Lamb

 Image of The Fool from the Rider-Waite tarot cards, circa 1909.

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“It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.” — Charles Dickens

photo credit:
North County San Diego, California
EatonAlive ©2010

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