New Year, New Look, New Content

The new year is the time for changes, right? Last year, just about this time, I decided to ramp up the posting here on Mango & Ginger, and I created a little bit of an editorial calendar for myself. After a year of Trendy Mondays, Quotable Tuesdays, Artsy Wednesdays, Old School Thursdays and Dictionary Fridays, I took stock of what I wrote in 2009, and I've decided to make a couple of new changes.

The first one, probably the most noticeable, is the new header. I love the one the minx designed for me last year, but for some reason I'm just feeling a little minimal these days. Maybe it's because my house is stuffed full of so many toys that all of my dreams of having a fabulously streamlined interior have been shattered. If I can't have it in real life, at least I can embrace virtual minimalism.

Those of you who are especially observant may also notice another change in the header: the subhead. I've ditched the research and added a little design. I find myself thinking and writing more and more about design lately, and less and less about research, so the change seemed natural.

And, with that, here's the new weekly calendar for M&G posting:

• Trendy Monday (Same as before)
• Ideabook Tuesday (I'll feature one of my houzz.com ideabooks and write a little about design)
• Artsy Wednesday (Same as before)
• Old School Thursday (Again, same)
• Thursday Links (Just a handful of links to stuff I find interesting)
• Entertaining Friday (Entertaining tips and ideas, party recaps, etc.)

So there it is. Happy 2009!

Quotable Tuesday: Alinea

It wasn't until I got to The French Laundry that I recognized food as it could be in an artistic way, in an individual expressionist way, and then it really caught fire. Once I got a taste of that, and what it did to me personally, how satisfying it was to come up with a new dish, that became my style, that became what was most important to me, constant creating. - Grant Achatz

If there's one thing I've learned from writing this blog it's that I believe food - and everything else, really - is at it's best when it exists somewhere in that vague space between art and science. It's there naturally, really, since the process of cooking is chemistry but the act of cooking is creative. But some chefs (both home and professional) seem to search harder than others for the discipline's golden mean.

Grant Achatz is, obviously, one of those chefs.

My brother got me the Alinea cookbook for Christmas. It's so intense. The photography is beautiful and the recipes are challenging. Maybe not in their individual steps, but in that they have so many steps, and that most of them require some sort of ingredient that you can't readily pick up at the Giant (not my Giant anyway).

But in it's intensity, the book inspires and, if nothing else, I love the essays at it's start.

Overall, it's a breathtaking read and one I'd recommend for anybody who loves to cook, or who simply likes to think about cooking.

Quotable Tuesday: Christmas

Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childhood days, recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the traveler back to his own fireside and quiet home! - Charles Dickens

Dickens' Christmas is much like Proust's madeleine, no? And with that, here's what Alicia spent yesterday doing, with the help of the Barefoot Contessa (these are her coconut madeleines):

Quotable Tuesday: Lists

Pick up any national magazine, flip through the pages, and count the number of short articles you see. They can include those little 3-inch fillers, short quizzes, 400-word “how-to” articles or resource boxes. Editors love them. - Joan Stewart, writing a list of ways to get published

A lot of writers complain a lot about how lame lists are. They're all over national pubs and, OK, some of them are really pretty pathetic.

But, you know, the more I write, the more I kind of like a list. Maybe I'm a hack, but I find lists really satisfying. Easy, yes, but who says writing has to be total hell? Also, don't tell anyone for fear of me ruining my literati cred, but I love reading lists.

This is probably why four of the last five Examiner articles I've written have been lists. They're not bad, though - all holiday party and gift ideas. Possibly even helpful, if you're looking for something to buy me, at least.

Are lists really that bad?

Quotable Tuesday: Christmas Dinner

“In my experience, clever food is not appreciated at Christmas. It makes the little ones cry and the old ones nervous.”- Jane Grigson

While I know that British food writer Jane Grigson has it right, I sometimes think it's kind of too bad. In my mind, it would be fun to cook a crazy, fancy Christmas dinner.

Of course, then I remember that by the time Christmas rolls around, I'm a big ball of stress, thanks to all the parties and the shopping and the birthdays (mine, Cooper's, my brother's) that fall in the days right around the holiday. There are too many people to see and too many things to wrap for me to really worry about cooking some sort of fancy meal.

Speaking of which, I have done exactly zero shopping. This is the first year that Dixon's really grasped the concept of Christmas, too, so expectations are running high.

I guess it's a good thing we got our abomination of a gingerbread house out of the way last week. That's one less thing for me to worry about right now.

Quotable Tuesday: Santa Claus

"Will you come visit me in Florida, Santa?" - Madison Wnek

Last night, Cooper and Jen and Bill and I took the kids to the Towson tree lighting. The ceremony itself was fun, but not all that exciting (it's great to watch the lights go on, but it really only takes a few seconds) but the real fun came a few hours after the event was over.

See, Santa and Mrs. Claus arrived at the end of the ceremony. Ever since Halloween ended, Dixon and Maddy have been talking nonstop about Santa Claus. I have heard "ask Santa for that PLEEEEAAASE?" from Dixon about fifty times a day since the end of October. Maddy even has her very own personal elf, Sugarbelle, monitoring her behavior in anticipation of Santa's arrival. They grasp the commercial nature of the season. Not surprisingly.

So we expected a lot of excitement at the first glimpse of the real Santa. Dixon and Maddy were ready and waiting, perched on Bill and Cooper's shoulders, chattering away about Santa Claus when all of a sudden, Santa's firetruck approached (lead by a holiday-themed Ben Franklin, for some reason we couldn't quite grasp). We expected screams, squeals, wiggles.

We got...nothing. Dixon and Maddy both just sat, perfectly still, staring at Santa and Mrs. Claus. It's possible that one of them managed a faint wave, but that was about it. No words and definitely no desire to give Santa a hug or to say "Merry Christmas".

Which was fine. We didn't want to push it. But as it turns out, maybe they were just hungry.

While all the less fortunate parents followed Santa into Ridgely Ferrin to chat about Christmas lists or whatever, we hightailed it over to Strapazza and found a booth (and tried to remember how people fit in that restaurant when it was just the one room - it was so small!). We ordered the kids some pizza and the grownups some wine, got some crayons from our very sweet and abused waitress, and settled in for some dinner and possibly even conversation.

Then, about an hour into dinner, it happened. Santa and Mrs. Claus rolled through the restaurant, just making the rounds, handing out a few candy canes. At this point, comfortable in their seats and fortified by pizza, Dixon and Maddy were finally ready to talk to Santa. And they certainly did. Waving hello, shouting "Merry Christmas", generally squealing "Santa! Santa!" like tweenie girls at a Jonas Brothers concert (as an aside: Jonas Brothers, least appropriate Cowboys halftime show ever?). In short, they were excited.

And Santa and Mrs. Claus, well, they delivered. Lots of "ho ho hos" and reassurances to Maddy that Santa would, in fact, find her at her grandparents' house in Florida.

Dixon's still glowing this morning.

Oh, and the food? It was good. So was the service (and believe me, I would've been dreading waiting on our table - three kids under three? No thanks.) But all of that paled into comparison to the big Santa sighting.

Quotable Tuesday: Kitchen Art

(I wrote this a while back for the Design Public website, but I don't think it was ever used, so I'm reposting it here.)

My kitchen sees a lot of use. I cook an actual at-the-stove meal at least once a day (sometimes twice) and I am not neat doing it. I envy chefs who keep their stoves and counters spotless while they sauté. I don’t.

The flip side of this is that I also really love art and I think the kitchen – where people always hang out – is an ideal spot to showcase cool pieces. Fun, irreverent stuff that may look out of place in the living room just feels right in the kitchen.

Nobody wants to ruin their prized paintings with olive oil spray or the after-effects of a particularly steamy mistake. But the kitchen is for cooking. So how to reconcile?

In my case, with distance. I’m lucky to have a big wall far from my stove, sink and counters – that wall is now home to a favorite painting. If your floor plan doesn’t allow you to put space between your art and actual cooking area, look for hardy framing options, go for sculptures or cool mobiles that add interest but stay out of the way, or focus on inexpensive and resilient art – and cook away.

****

I was thinking about this article this morning, when I wrote this:

To me, "kitchen art" is in a category all it's own.

I'm writing these days for a new home design website called houzz.com. It's a cool site (and I am saying that not just because they hired me, though of course in my eyes, that makes them sooo cool).

You use the site as a place to create "ideabooks" - collections of images of spaces that inspire you. The idea is that these virtual ideabooks can replace the sloppy tear sheet folders that accumulate when you're into design. Of course, I'm sure I'll never be ready to totally give up my tear sheets (or my stacks of magazines) but it's always nice to have another source for design ideas.

Quotable Tuesday: Bahamas!

I am sure I will feel at home in the Bahamas. I've been involved in gambling in the Bahamas. I've been involved in gambling in Nevada and I've been involved in banking. - former American Ambassador to the Bahamas, Chic Hecht, on his qualifications for the job

I'm not much of a gambler, but I'm pretty sure that I'm going to feel right at home in the Bahamas, as well.

Tomorrow morning we leave for a long weekend on Grand Bahama Island with Mike and Alicia and Jen and Bill. Our plan is to spend a lot of time sitting on the beach, to drink many drinks out of coconut shells, and to eat a lot of fish.

Sadly (kind of), I won't be bringing my laptop, so M&G will go without update for the next few days. But I'm sure once I return I'll have lots of good food stories. And a tan. Well, maybe on the tan. But definitely on the food stories.

Quotable (Video) Tuesday: Voting for Free Starbucks

It just so happens that my plans for today involve voting then going to Barnes & Noble, where a Starbucks is conveniently located.

But here's where I take issue with this commercial: it suggests that if we all cared on November 5th like we do on November 4th, the country would be a better place.

I'm pretty sure, though, that the real winners in that scenario would be the therapy community. It's our ability to not care so intensely all the time that keeps the country moving.

But I digress. Today: voting.

Quotable Tuesday: More Rain, More Soup

“To feel safe and warm on a cold wet night, all you really need is soup.” - Laurie Colwin

It's raining. Again. So I think we might have soup tonight. Again.

I'm all for fall, and we've had great weather this year. Sunday, in particular, was amazing. But I'm a little bit over the rain right now. We have things to do today. Things that apparently include making soup. Or buying some - the easy way out is sounding pretty good right now. Thank God for Atwaters.

Quotable Tuesday: Michael Ruhlman on Stock

Ultimately, well-made stock is the ingredient that definitively separates home cooking from the cooking of a professional.

A couple of weeks ago, inspired by Mr. Henry, I ordered a copy of Michael Ruhlman's The Elements of Cooking, a simple book on cooking basics that is loosely based on the structure of Strunk & White (which I loooove - though I know that's not always obvious in my writing).

The very first chapter in Ruhlman's book is about stock - something that (as embarrassing as it is to admit) I'd never made. I decided it was time to remedy that.

So last Friday night, I roasted a chicken, and saved the carcass in preparation. Yesterday, I put my chicken bones, along with some celery, onions, carrots and parsley, to work. Then, to test my work, I made French onion soup for dinner. I use Jacques Pepin's recipe. It's stock-heavy and I make it frequently, so I figured that Cooper and I would be able to really get a good idea of how the homemade stock differed from store-bought (as a point of reference, I usually buy either Nature's Promise from Giant, Kitchen Basics, or the Trader Joe's organic brand).

Making the stock wasn't difficult at all - the only tough part was that it needs to cook for a long time, so we were stuck at home for a big chunk of the day. Ruhlman doesn't provide an exact recipe, but I drew from his advice and from the Julia Child recipe in The Way to Cook - the recipe my mom uses.

Tasting the stock just after I strained it, I realized it was much, much more delicate than anything that comes in a box. Its flavor was subtle, but certainly apparent. I was excited to see how that would translate to the onion soup.

Now, I sometimes mix beef and chicken stock for my onion soup, but that wasn't going to work out this time, if we were going to evaluate the homemade stuff. Because of that, I also stuck with vermouth, over red wine, for my deglazing.

I worried a bit that it might be hard to detect anything new about the homemade stock, since melty gruyere is pretty intense. I shouldn't have, though. The delicate flavor and sort of lighter feel of yesterday's stock was apparent, even under a bubbly crust of cheese. All of a sudden, my old, store-bought stock-made onion soup felt like a salty TGI Friday's version of the dish.

Which is gratifying, I guess - it's nice to know that if you spend three and a half hours cooking something, it was worth it. At the same time, this makes it that much harder to think about using store-bought stock next time.

I mean, I'm sure I'll get over it, next time I want some onion soup but I don't have a) a half-day and b) a chicken in my fridge. But still, I'll know what I'm missing.

Quotable Tuesday: van Gogh's Artificial Light

As I write this article, three electric lights illuminate the space around me, but that doesn't leave me more impressed by them. It makes them fade into the background. Even as artificial lighting becomes something that we cannot live without -- to paint a picture, to take a nighttime stroll, to write an art review -- light itself becomes something we take for granted.

Van Gogh's pictures, with stars and moons and setting suns that shine as big and bright as lamps, but only as big and bright as lamps, record the moment when this happens. Light has stopped being a force. It has become one more datum in a modern life.

In today's Washington Post, Blake Gopnik writes about a new MOMA show that showcases van Gogh's nighttime scenes. Gopnik starts out cynical - another van Gogh show designed to part fools from their money in exchange for a Starry Night-themed mousepad? - but quickly admits that the show ultimately changed the way he looked at van Gogh's work. Instead of considering van Gogh in the tradition of Old Masters who use light to craftily illuminate their subjects, van Gogh is a new breed of artist, one for whom artificial light is something of a subject in itself (deliberate or not).

And how is this about food? Well, it's a stretch, but Gopnik mentions the democratizing effect of light in terms of gathering places (including cafes). Not long before van Gogh was painting, only the very rich and aristocratic had much opportunity to gather at night in well-lit spaces. Cheap gas light changed all that, and likely changed the social dynamic.

Sometimes it's helpful to be reminded that cell phones and email and the internet weren't the first game-changing innovations out there.

Meal Recaps: The Past Few Weeks

It's a busy week, so apparently I'm kind of ditching my daily format. So no scrambling around my magazines and books and websites for a Quotable Tuesday quote this morning. Instead, some housekeeping. I've done a lot of eating over the past few weeks and it's time to report back.

In chronological order:

The Modern: As previously mentioned, about a week and a half ago, I went to New York with Missy and Sarah and Gilly as a semi-bachelorette celebration for Missy (sans veil or candy necklaces). Friday we went shopping and on Friday night we had dinner at The Modern, the restaurant at the MOMA.

The MOMA is one of my favorite museums ever, and I'd heard great things about The Modern. It did not disappoint. The space is open and busy but cool and if we'd been eating before sunset we'd have had an amazing view of the sculpture garden, as we sat next to a wall of glass (our reservation was at 9:30 - that's what happens when you make plans the week of).

The service was impeccable - attentive but not annoying - and the food was pretty fantastic. A few highlights:

- My pre-dinner cocktail, the Modern Martini, was a combination of cilantro-infused Tanqueray and fresh lime juice. Crazy intense and certainly only for people who already love cilantro. But refreshing, too.

- Amazing gifts from the chef, including tiny blue cheese purses and smoked salmon and caviar bites, among other things. I can't say no to an amuse-gueule.

- I loved my first course, which was a surprisingly rich sweet pea soup with a parmesan tuile and barley that added interesting texture.

- So much foie gras. Sarah ordered a foie first course and I had the foie gras and squab "croustillant" as my entree. It was so delicious, so rich, so savory...and almost too much. I could barely choke it all down.

- A thousand desserts, including little cookies and candies and something off the menu itself. I was trying to find something light, so I opted for maple ice cream with apple, pear and quince marmalade. It was not so light, but it was fantastic.

- A little citrusy breakfast bread, given by the hostess as a gift upon leaving. So thoughtful, right?

So that was The Modern. The next morning, I got up early and took a train back home, then went to my parents' house for my grandmother's 90th birthday party. That was a bit of a shift in gears - if dinner Friday night was fresh and modern, dinner Saturday was as traditional a family dinner as possible. Stuffed mushroom caps and cheese and crackers, grilled tenderloin with bearnaise, Julia Child scalloped potatoes with onion confit, a baked creamy spinach concoction and yellow cake with chocolate icing for dessert. I made the potatoes and mushrooms and spinach - all successfully, fortunately. The mushrooms and potatoes I could pretty much do in my sleep, and I'd made the onion confit a couple of days ahead of time, but the spinach I sort of made up as I went along. Fortunately, it didn't turn out either dry or cold or overly soupy. Luck, mostly, I think.

Since then, I've also made this red onion soup. It's not as good as my regular onion soup, courtesy of Jacques Pepin, but it was pretty good. It needs more salt than you'd guess, though, and could probably do with an extra shot of cheese.

Over the weekend, I did some additional cooking, with a helper. But that will be another post...

Quotable Tuesday: Honey

I'm tired and feeling sort of uninspired this morning, so I'm just going to link to this post of Mr. Henry's:

Is there anything in the house more soothing, more satisfying, more sustaining to body and soul than honey?

I love honey and I also think Mr. Henry is a great writer. This post, in particular, is a good example of his approach - the type of content and style of writing that make his blog one of my favorites.

Quotable Tuesday: Bourdain News

Two Bourdain blog quotes that definitely make me happy:

For an upcoming DC show, author George Pelecanos’s superb Washington based novels--and his work on the greatest dramatic series EVER on television, “The Wire” formed a kind of center of gravity.

One of my favorite things about No Reservations is the never-ending creativity that goes into the graphic elements of the show. That kind of variation in look takes time...and it adds a lot. Also:

What else is coming up? And where?

It’s (finally) back to Vietnam. The Philippines.. The Azores. Thailand. Provence. Sardinia. And a Detroit/Buffalo/Baltimore hybrid show which (I hope) will pay low rent homage to Curtis Hansen, Vincent Gallo and John Waters respectively (There will NOT be a Pink Flamingos finale, however). Ethiopia (we hope) Cuba. (We hope) . Back to Beirut (eventually). And beyond.

Baltimore! And John Waters' Baltimore (not David Simon's)! Ohhh that makes me happy.

Quotable Tuesday: Out of Season

If you're lucky enough to be Irish, you're lucky enough. - My neighbor's bumper sticker

Maybe it was a walk down the street last week that, for whatever reason, inspired me to make the least end-of-summer meal I could imagine. Or maybe it was just that I was feeling ready for fall (and it was rainy last week). Either way, last Monday, I made this beef and stout pie, touted in a recent Williams Sonoma catalog.

Stilton, beef, carrots, onions, Guinness and a pastry crust. How totally seasonal of me.

But, you know, it was pretty delicious - especially the leftovers. Maybe not the ideal dinner for a humid day, and maybe about ten times as much food as Cooper and I could eat on our own, but the dish had flavor.

Unfortunately, it was also time-consuming, and I've made beef stews that taste just about exactly the same, but that didn't require an entire afternoon chained to the stove. I'll modify this recipe to make again, I'm sure. But maybe next time I'll wait until it actually is cold outside.

Quotable Tuesday: Le Petit Prince

“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” - Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince

I have a little bit of a Petit Prince obsession. I have a copy of the book - in French - even though trying to read in French gives me a headache. Poor Dixon has no choice but to let a Little Prince doll hang out in his room (it was a gift from my sister). It's next to his Little Prince bookends (a gift from my friend Alison).

It's such a nice, simple, sort of lovely book and my favorite quote is the one above. Of course, none of it has anything to do with food.

But I started thinking about the book last night because I was thinking about my French classes in high school. Junior and senior year, I had this teacher named Mme. Hamerstrom. She was so funny - kind of a goofy lady who was always smiling and who had crazy red hair. She had pretty much no control over her classes (and I had her for French IV and AP French - not exactly classes populated by the biggest troublemakers in school). She had endless patience, though, and never seemed more than exasperated when we called her at home to admit that we hadn't paid any attention all semester and really needed her help to study for the exam. (We really were good kids. She just made it easy to take advantage.)

Junior year, to get an A in her class, we had to read Le Petit Prince and come in after hours for a small group discussion on the book. I'm pretty sure I actually went to that study group wearing a bathing suit, just so she'd know that I was anxious to get out of school so I could lay out.

Somehow, despite my active effort to not learn anything, I ended up really enjoying her class, I have a passable knowledge of French (reading it, at least - I have a terrible accent) and I developed this Petit Prince obsession.

And here is how this is about food: Mme. Hamerstrom let us have fetes in class at least every other Friday. Sometimes more frequently. Fete day meant that we didn't have to do any work, and we got to eat leftovers from my friend Mandy's job at Vie de France, as well as other nominally French treats we brought in.

One of those treats, though, was pretty legitimate, and it's something I still eat. One of the girls in class, Sarah, had just moved to the US from Belgium and she'd spent some time living in France, too (her French was waaaay better than ours). During our first fete, she brought something so simple that we almost laughed at her, except that a) she told us that people actually ate it in France and b) it tasted really good.

And when I say simple, I mean really, really simple. All she did was slather some chocolate frosting (out of a can) on a baguette.

Healthy? No. But really pretty amazing. It's delicious and, for whatever reason, I was daydreaming about that exact snack last night. Which got me thinking about Madame and her crazy good-heartedness...and Le Petit Prince and his childlike existentialism.

Quotable Tuesday: Design Public

Summer cocktails taste better out of a pint glass or jelly jar plastered with not-so-scary monsters or old school cartoon characters.

Is it kind of strange to quote myself? Well, it gets the job done, anyway.

I've linked before to the Design Public blog, Hatch, but maybe not to Design Public itself. It's a San Francisco-based retailer of cool, modernish furniture and accessories. My favorite purchase from the website is this mobile that we have hanging over Dixon's play area in the basement. Because it's never too early to appreciate Danish design. Especially when it's bright yellow and under $50.

Anyway, back to my quote and the monster glass. One of the things I like about Design Public as an organization is that they're a store, but they're also very content-driven (which explains the blog). Recently, they've started expanding their website and newsletters with short, blog posty articles by bloggers and Design Public fans. I've written a few so far, and my first went online yesterday. I wrote about summertime tables (without, I am pleased to say, using the word "tablescape").

And, seriously, how cute are those monster pint glasses?

Quotable Tuesday: Then and Now

Harvey Wallbanger
Then: Galliano, a vanilla-and-anise-flavored Italian liqueur, is the key ingredient in the Harvey Wallbanger, the era’s essential brunch cocktail.

Now: This fall, Galliano will reintroduce its classic formula. Mixologists are updating the cocktail, as in this Humpty Dumpty from Johnny Raglin at San Francisco’s Absinthe.

Have I been writing too much about the September Food & Wine? Maybe, but I can't help it. I actually meant to write about this yesterday, as Trendy Monday, but in my weekend blur I totally forgot about it.

But aren't the 70s back? I mean, if Mad Men has caused a renewed interest in the early 60s, then a combination of Bottle Shock and Swingtown (which Becky from Hatch has been all over, design-wise)and a whole bunch of people turning thirty (like me...two and a half years ago) has startled us into fond memories of the 70s.

I loved this "then and now" feature in F&W (including the Harvey Wallbanger quote from above - I picked that as a quote just because I remember, as a kid, thinking that "Harvey Wallbanger" was hilarious-sounding). Now, even though I was born in the 70s, I don't think I have an overly romantic view of the decade. I'm pretty sure I'm glad I'm living now, not a few years ago.

But everybody loves a little touch of disco, right? Right?

Quotable Tuesday: Robert M. Parker, Jr. on Baltimore

When I first began writing about wine 30 years ago, there may have been five or six great restaurants in Washington, DC and virtually none in my hometown of Baltimore. Today, there are 30 or 40 top restaurants in DC, and even Baltimore now has at least a dozen top restaurants.

The September Food & Wine, which arrived in my mailbox yesterday, is one of the better issues I've received. It's the 30th anniversary issue, with a number of articles dedicated to summing up the past 30 years (it also includes the best "fast" recipes of the past 30 years, many of which I remember and most of which I'm sure I'll make someday).

Legendary wine critic Robert M. Parker, Jr. was tapped to write an article about the changes in the wine world over the past 30 years. As it happens, Parker founded Wine Advocate in 1978. It's an interesting and informative article, and made me so glad to have started drinking wine during what Parker calls a "golden age."

One of the elements that has influenced the dramatic improvement and growth of the wine industry is, according to Parker, the growth of the restaurant culture. His offhand reference to Baltimore comes under this heading. It caught my eye partly, of course, because I live here, too, and because I was just writing yesterday about the growth of food in this region.

But also, I noticed it because I don't remember ever reading in Parker's F&W writing such an explicit mention of his "hometown." Funnily enough, it came on the heels of a conversation Cooper and I had with Chuck, our neighbor who's also a landscaper and has just saved us (and by that, I mean "saved Cooper") from having to do a lot of yard beautifying. We were talking generally about property and Chuck mentioned a piece of land he'd seen while doing some work at Parker's house which is, apparently, amazing. Cooper's mom's been to the house, too, for a garden club lunch with Parker's wife (about five years ago).

Neither Chuck nor Patsy are super into wine, so I think maybe they weren't as starstruck as I was just by hearing about their visits. Really, I'm pretty sure I'm famous now, at least in the wine world. After all, two people I know have met Parker. Isn't that how it works?