Wine and Spirits Travel

I’ve been attending the Food Network South Beach Food &Wine Festival and the Atlantic City Food & Wine Festival for years, so when the opportunity came up to cover the Aspen Food & Wine Classic , I was excited. I had heard nothing but good things about this event and was ready for my first trip to Aspen. It wasn’t easy getting to Aspen. I had to take three flights just to get to Vail, where I was meeting my friend Lisa. She had decided to drive up and the timing worked out perfectly to pick me up at the airport and make the scenic one and a half hour trip to our bed & breakfast in Aspen. We didn’t arrive until about 9:00 pm and had to change quickly to get to two of the first night’s parties. The first was downtown on the rooftop of the Dancing Bear . We saw Rick Bayless, but most of the other guests had already departed by the time we arrived, so we just stayed a short while before getting back in the car and heading up the mountain. The Jose Andr

One of my Chicago bucket list items for the longest time was to have dinner up on The Terrace at Trump and watch the fireworks over Navy Pier. It didn’t go exactly as planned, but it did turn out even better than I expected. I was with Cocktails and Joints publisher Dale Winespeare for some meetings (and eating) in Chicago. We were staying at The Trump and had plans for dinner at The Terrace. Unfortunately, it was a windy night and it was closed off, but we ended up with a tour that finished in front of a perfect window table., which still provided a perfect view. We didn’t have to make any decisions as Executive Chef Michael Fiddler was ready with a sampling of the menu he created for the summer season. We started with some cocktails from the creative menu, I with a delicious Exotic Ginger (Belvedere, St. Germain, Cointreau, muddled ginger, white cranberry juice and lime) and Dale with a Berry Genever (Bols Genever, lilac, lemon and muddled blackberry) he really enjo