Wine and Spirits Travel

I was lucky enough to time my New York visit with the Colorado Tourism Harvest event and it was quite a preview into my trip to come. The event was held at The Little Owl venue down in the Village. It’s an interesting space that’s being used for pop-up dinners, with an open kitchen and plenty of room to mingle. I took my daughter, Sam, along and we spent some time mingling. I was excited to see Anna Watson, who was the lead on my trip to Champagne & Burgundy (she’s now working in the food industry and has a great blog, The Yellow Table ). I have to say that I was extremely impressed with the food and drinks at A Taste of Colorado Harvest event. There was no fish at all, so I was able to try everything. The food was prepared by Chef Justin Cucci (left), who oversees the food at the Denver restaurants Linger and Root Down . The menu was clever and fresh and consisted of passed oversized Hors d'oeuvre that highlighted what’s fresh in the state right now: COLORADO C

No, winter hasn't come early. In fact it's nearly 100 degrees in Central Illinois right now. 25 Degrees refers to a brand new burger lounge in downtown Chicago that's filled with mouth-watering food and plenty of wine and spirits. The Chicago restaurant was opened by  Joe and Mac Boumaroun, brothers who had previously owned the Lebanese restaurant  Aladdin's Eatery in Chicago. They were intrigued by the concept of an upscale burger place and this particular chain had taken off on the west coast. They are putting it all together with acclaimed chef Tim Goodell, who has added a few things to the menu (like the Potato & Three Cheese Fritters) that are unique to this location. The official opening was just last week and it looks like a place the windy city will see around for a long time. The 25 Degrees is the difference between a medium-rare burger and one that is well-done. The latter is my preference and the Wisconsin sirloin was cooked to perfection, jui

I spent the morning interviewing some of the Food Network’s best before the activities of their Atlantic City Food & Wine Festival began. It was casual and fun, and I had a chance to get to know Pat and Gina Nelly; Robert Irvine; and Sunny Anderson, as well as catch up with Guy Fieri, who I’ve done stories on for a number of publications in the past year*. (You can see my Los Angeles Confidential piece here .) I have to say there wasn’t an overinflated ego in the room as everyone talked about the importance of getting kids to make healthier food choices. After the interviews, my daughter Sam and I headed over to the Robert Mondavi Grand Market. This year they added an Italian Village section (not all Italian, but certainly full of tasty booths) to spread it out a bit more. As always, there is more food and drinks than you can possibly enjoy, so I suggest everyone allow for at least two trips there. This was my first visit during the 2011 festival and I navigated my way o

As strange as the title of this post sounds, it’s a rundown of my first full day at the Food Network Atlantic City Food and Wine Festival . And what a fun day it was. The events weren’t starting until the evening so I used the time to catch up with Michael Green , former Gourmet Magazine editor and current wine and cocktail guru. We had drinks in Trinity Pub at the Shops at Caesars. We were joined by Michael’s partner at Liquid Assets , Andrew Levine, for a fun and informative discussion on the Food Network Festivals (they work closely with Food & Wine Magazine as well as Food Network on all of them).  I was disappointed that I didn’t have any of their seminars on my overbooked schedule, but vowed to catch them at one of the future events . My daughter Sam joined me at the Pier Shops for lunch before we headed to change hotels. As much as I loved Harrah’s (and there’s a lot to love), the events I would be attending were mostly down at the Boardwalk so we were changing to Sh

After many years as a (magazine, web and book) tennis writer, I found myself without full time work in that field in 2008.  I was lucky enough that I had the experience and opportunity to continue my work as a writer, but I needed an additional niche to fill my schedule (not to mention my pocketbook).  I stumbled upon the obvious one purely by accident. Let me begin with the beginning. I have been a writer for as long as I can remember, working for magazines even while I was a “kid” in school.  One of the things I did to push my career forward was to join the staff of the C.W. Post Pioneer .   It was a wonderful experience to be on the newspaper staff then (where I worked my way to Managing Editor), but it led to an even more exciting opportunity now. In January of 2008, there was a reunion at C.W. Post of past editors of the newspaper and magazines.  I hadn’t seen anyone in years so I thought it might be fun.  It was by chance that I met former fellow Pioneer editor Frank Col