All I Want For Christmas Is...

'Tis the season to be jolly! Fa la la la laaaaaaaaa la la la laaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! 

This is MY photograph. It is copyrighted. Please don't try to steal it. 


I've said it before... I'm a simple woman (eyeroll, snicker). And because I know you are just dying to find out what I want for Christmas (and my birthday, which is Tuesday the 13th ... hint hint!!) Here you go! 


I also happen to think these would make fabulous gifts for ANYONE! 

Luce & Hawkins - Pinot & Burger

I cannot believe I forgot to publish this... sigh...

Better late than never.

I need to preface my tale with the fact that I hadn't planned on going to Luce & Hawkins tonight. But I was in a bit of a foul mood after what turned into an emotionally rather trying day. I'm human. I have those sometimes. And I JUST WANTED A @%^K&*) BURGER! On the North Fork, that means Luce & Hawkins. It is by far the best burger out here. They have ruined me for sure. 

La Torricella - Food, Wine and Comfort with a Spectacular View of the Langhe

A brief apology for the long hiatus! Sorry. I've been packing and moving and storing and packing and traveling! I've finally landed in the GORGEOUS Piemonte region of Italy and am living in Dogliani until December. Don't hate me.

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As my incredible good luck (aka very hard work and careful planning) would have it, I was on a three-day educational tour of the Langhe for my budding culinary/wine tour business (WARNING! Shameless plug alert!)  SAVOR - Food | Travel | Wine  (site still under contstruction...please be patient and gentle with me!) when I first had the opportunity and pleasure to visit lovely La Torricella, a beautiful small agriturismo, a working winery with guest rooms and a restaurant, in the heart of the Langhe run by the equally charming Pressenda family, the whole family: mother, father, 2 sisters (chef and winemaker), brother and son-in-law!

I was first greeted by this spectacular view of the Alps in the distance. This is really what it is all about here in Piemonte --- Family, friends and the table...fantastic food, great wine, all in a gorgeous setting.

Really, I could just stop right there and be perfectly happy, but I won't! It just keeps getting better and better and BETTER! 

Koyaanisqatsi

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My dear friend Khan Duong of iKhanh Studio (It is worth your time to check out his photos.) posted this video on his Facebook page the other day.



Khanh gets it. Here is what he said in response to the video:

Beautifully executed visual and music combo..Reminds me of "Koyaanisqatsi"

In the Hopi language, the word Koyaanisqatsi
means "crazy life, life in turmoil, life out of balance, life
disintegrating, a state of life that calls for another way of living".

Yep. That sounds about right. I think that not enough of the rest of us "get it." The people I'm meeting here in Italy get it. Maybe Italians in general just get it! (I'm starting to think this.) I also think I'm beginning to get it. I had an amazing day yesterday and I'd like to share some of what it taught me. I spent the day driving up to a little village called Sampeyre in Italy. Then we drove up into the foggy, chilly mountains high above the village to the home of Quinto, an amazing cheese maker. It made me think to myself that if more people would only take the time to invite friends and family over for a meal more often, take the time to create that meal with love and care from ingredients raised, grown with love and care, that the world would be a much different, better place. Yes. Yes, that sounds totally cheesy. I know it. I don't care.




Here is how we spent our day:

We got up early and had our caffé and biscotti and left the house at 9:30.
We stopped at a great little bar on the way for an aperitivo at around 11:30
We stopped in 2 adorable little mountain villages and bought some incredible gnocchi-like noodles to serve later and some bread, stumbled upon a small event in a square with a brass band. We listened to all kinds of music in the car and laughed and told stories and jokes the whole way (about 2.5-3hours all told.) It seemed like half an hour!







We arrived at our destination at around 1pm and were greeted by Diana and Orso the sweet cattle dogs, a couple of hunters and our dear host Quinto who makes very literally the best cheese and butter I have ever tasted.

We started off with some artisanal salumi and Quinto's delicious cheeses and butter with the bread we just picked up an hour before. Wine of course! Started off with Armonia from La Bruna a delicious, light dolcetto. Lots of stories, laughing, talking, eating, drinking and general merriment.








After this we dug into the delicious beef and potatoes Quinto had been cooking all morning. We got into the San Luigi DOCG dolcetto di Dogliani 2007 from La Bruna for this one. Medium body and delicious. Perfect with the beef! Delicious! More stories, more joking and laughing. Some cookies for dessert with caffè corretto. Then off for a nice walk with Quinto, my new friend Nadia and the cattle dogs Diana and Orso to find his happy Alpine milk cows.


We found them:






Talk about happy cows... the cheese and butter from these glorious beasts is incomparable.






















After our walk, we came back and somehow managed to eat even more! This time some spaghetti with salumi, white wine, shaved parmesean and a little bit of tomato. Simple and perfect. More bread, more cheese, more wine. Now the Luigina from La Bruna a nearly opaque blend of barbera, merlot and nebbiolo and sublime with the salumi and strong cheeses.

This is when the real fun began! After dinner we pulled out the digestivo and the harmonica! Yes, NOW it's a party! Turns out that Bruno and Quinto are fantastic singers and harmonica players! Not the time to forget the video camera! And NOT the time for the camera battery to die. But, you know... sometimes these things happen. Sigh... You'll have to take my word for it that there was a lot of laughing and carrying on!








What is my point with all of this? I mean, sure... it is fun; the food is inspired; the wines are delicious. But what am I getting at? I'm getting at slowing down, at taking time, at change of pace and venue, at sanity, balance and a better way of living. Can we do this every day? Probably not. But I'd like to encourage you to do this:

Invite your family and friends to your home often. MAKE TIME FOR THIS on a REGULAR basis. This is what life is for as far as I'm concerned---to share sweet moments together. And really, most of them are sweet if you think about it. If you are really THERE for it. Invite your friends, family, even strangers into your home, into your life, into your heart. I think this could change the world. Really. (Yes, there I go getting all cheesy again.) Try spending a little less time in front of the tv, a little less time complaining, thinking about useless arguments, or busying yourself with unproductive pastimes.

Pick up a cookbook. Go to your grandmother's house. Invite your sisters over, your best friends, some coworkers, a stranger. Leave your door open (haha depending on your neighborhood of course!) Set an extra place at your table (you never know who might pop in.) Cook together; eat and drink together; laugh and sing and be silly together. Spend a long day/evening together. I think you might be amazed at the restorative effect this will have on everyone it touches---simple but profound effects---a few more subtle smiles on the faces and in the hearts of people throughout the day as they remember the good times around the table with the people they love best.





Now, run along, call your friends, your family and invite them over for some food, some wine, and really spend some time together. Take a walk, play some games, sing songs, be silly together, laugh and hug each other.

Musings on 2009 and Happy New Year!

2009 was, for me, a year inspired by social media and so… here I am blogging with the rest of the world. So many people are blogging, tweeting, facebooking, but there are some people who really inspired me this year I want to share them with you.

Topping my list would have to be Hardy Wallace of Dirty South Wine
and @dirtysouthwine and @goodetobefirst on Twitter. If you are in any way involved with the online wine scene, surely you know him as the winner of the monumental Murphy-Goode contest for a social media guru. I had the privilege to meet Hardy in the good ol ATL before all the hullabaloo began. We tasted some wines at the fantastic Dynamic Dish @dynamicdish restaurant. I had been reading his wine blog for some time and really appreciated his whimsical, even hilarious, style and approach to wine. “Wine is meant to be crunk!” is on the banner of his blog. Hardy is an inspiration to me, not so much for winning the MG contest---that was never in doubt in my mind---but for his fantastic, warm personality, great sense of humor (also wildly evident in his blog) and his love for wines that really say something to him. Hardy’s unbelievably inspired, fun approach to wine writing and his enthusiasm for sharing that with everyone else are contagious!

And who can resist that smile?!

If you haven’t already clicked over to check him out, here is one of my favorite posts... really, read it! Hardy RAWKS!

Next, THE social media guru himself, Mr. Rick Bakas



@rickbakas and @stsupery on Twitter, his blog, and now, social media manager for St. Supery, inspires me for his professional, impeccable, ubiquitous (in a great way) social media presence. He is the model social media pro in my book, balancing the professional and the personal while maintaining both his own and St. Supery’s social media presence. Everything he posts contains something of value. If you don’t already follow him, you are missing out on the best role model EVAR on how to really knock your social media presence out of the park. Watch what this man does, follow suite and you can’t help but succeed.

When I think of all the online wine companies that emerged this year, one stands out above the crowd---Vintank.


Bursting onto the scene with their initial white paper on social media in the wine industry earlier this year, they have cranked out successful project after successful project for clients like Cruvee, Vin65 and just announced today: Brixiom Systems @brixiomsystems on Twitter a CRM system specifically tailored for the wine trade. I’m keeping my eye on Vintank in 2010. So should you.

I'd be remiss if I left Chris Brogan off my list.
He is the author of has a great, informative website and newsletter. Everything you ever want and need to know about how to use social media for yourself and your business.

There are an amazing number of people I’ve genuinely enjoyed connecting with on Twitter, but a handful of special folks come to mind---people I particularly would love to share glass and a good meal with one day: the flock @megmaker of Maker's Table blog, @forlornhopewine maker of mindblowing CA wines , @remycharest wine case and food case blogs @randallgrahm needs no intro but is winemaker at Bonny Doon & author of Been Doon So Long. Also inspiring to me are @theunknownchef (great rants!) @winebratsf (seems like a barrel of monkeys & we could get into trouble together!) @alicefeiring (LOVE her book and blog) & @zacharycohen (prolific AND interesting posts, great food blog Farm to Table) and also some new REAL LIFE friends I’ve made thanks to social media: @sisarina Branding/PR/all around fantastic woman @pulpologist awesome travel writer @suzielin wine PR @wineharlots awesome blog @robynwebb fabulous cookbook author/nutritionist/do-gooder.

Now, being a woman who loves wine, I cannot CANNOT leave out my favorite wines of 2009. As for a lot of people, I turned to what I would consider great deals for the money. For me these were mind-altering AND good values: Christian Chaussard’s Patapon – totally wild with aromas and flavors of ink, spice and pine trees. Thierry Puzelat’s Le Telquel (and really anything else he makes)---I liked it so much I was inspired to ridiculous poetry. Renardat-Fache Bugey Cerdon, anything Arianna Occhipinti makes, including e.v. olive oil (the benchmark to which I hold all others and as yet unrivaled for me,) something (and I can’t believe I didn’t snap a photo or write it down but it was late and NOT the first glass of the evening as is often the case here) I shared with many out of a 3L at The Ten Bells (hands down THE COOLEST wine bar I’ve ever visited Jorge rules!) and a total surprise for me as I generally prefer a dry Riesling: Weingut Spater-Veit Riesling Piesporter Goldtropfchen Auslese 2005 probably the lovliest thing I tasted all year---Delicate body, slightly sweet, very highly perfumed, just beautiful.

As I look forward to 2010, I’ll be looking back to my inspirations from 2009 and gleaning the best of what I can learn from all of them and put it to, hopefully, good use and forging ahead to share the best of what I find in wine, food and life.

I can’t wait to see what lies ahead---new location for me, new friends, new restaurants, new vintages on all my favorite wines, and my favorite of all---the happy accidents, new discoveries. Happy 2010 everyone! May you have a prosperous and truly joyful new year!

Wine Opheila
– a woman who loves wine