I've been to plenty of wine pairing dinners but what about a dinner based around vodka. The Zyr Vodka Maker dinner at WIld Thyme in Southampton, NY on May 16 offers an entire meal that uses the vodka infused with a variety of flavors. It starts with hors d'oeuvres paired with a classic martini; followed by a martini of scallop ceviche paired with cilantro and jalapeno infused Zyr; curry seared Ahi tuna with a cucumber peanut relish with is paired with a peanut infused Zyr; American red snapper with white asparagus spears, brown butter and pistachio paired with Zyr infused with lemon zest; seared duck breast and foie gras with peppered melon and black olive vanilla sauce paired with an aged infusion of cantaloupe and pepper Zyr martini; a sorbet of wildflower blossoms; and finishes with a caramelized banana and chocolate spring roll with roasted almond ice cream paired with something they call a banana transfusion, a puree of banana blended Zyr digestif. This unique meal costs $85 and the phone number for Wild Thyme is 631-204-0007.
Imagine having the crown shown above placed on your head. You can't do that but you can get a rare glimpse at the ornate creation. The crown is part of the Czech crown jewels currently on display at Prague castle. The gold crown is studded with 96 precious stones including rubies and sapphires. The AFP reports that it was first worn by the Holy Roman emperor and king of Bohemia, Charles IV of Luxembourg, for his Prague coronation in 1347. The crown is being shown along the the scepter, imperial orb and other priceless objects. Czechs and foreign visitors have only been allowed to view the jewels nine times in the last century. This time it is to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the founding of the Czech Republic, the 90th anniversary of the foundation of Czechoslovakia and the re-election of President Vaclav Klaus and the object will be display for 11 days.
Tables of Ten:Dining for a Cause is a unique fundraiser held by the Avenues of Art & Design and Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood, CA on May 30. Designers, showrooms, restaurateurs and chefs set up tables on the outdoor plaza of the Pacific Design Center. Each chef creates unique cuisine for one table and each table is outfitted in extravagant design from distinguished designers and showrooms. This year's chefs include: Ben Ford of Ford's Filling Station, David Schanhals from The Palm West Hollywood, Javier Plascencia of Romesco, Yoshinura Kojima and Wolfgang Puck from Red Seven by Wolfgang Puck, Michael Bryant, David LeFevre of Water Grill, Kerry Simon from Simon L.A., Evan Kleiman with Café Angeli, Crustacean Beverly Hills, and Antonia Lofaso of SBE's Foxtail (and contestant on BRAVO TV's hit show "Top Chef"). Designers for the tables include Willard Ford of Ford/Brady, Leslie Frankenheimer for Architectural Digest, FIDM: Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, Hutton Wilkinson for Baker Furniture, Daniel Vandenbark for Dezine, Inc., Brooke Ziccardi, Michael Berman, Tracy Murdock, Karen Brady for RL Homes, and Inner-City Arts, featuring tables decorated by the children. Proceeds from Tables of Ten will benefit Inner-City Arts and kicks off the Avenues of Art & Design's 11th Annual Art & Design Walk. on May 31. The Art and Design Walk is a free event from 4 PM to 8 PM along West Hollywood's Melrose Avenue, Robertson and Beverly Boulevards. Over 300 fashion boutiques, design/furniture showrooms, fine art/antique galleries and restaurants will open their doors to guests offering special reception, food and entertainment.
I welcome any chance to write about the amazing Castello di Amorosa in Calistoga, California. If you want to spend an enchanted evening at this magical place, check out this years Young School benefit. Forever Young: Una Sera Incantata is The Young School's ninth annual benefit fundraiser and will take place on Friday, February 8 at the Castello di Amorosa from 6:30 until 10:30 p.m. The event includes a four-course dinner in the Great Hall as well as silent and live auctions. The lots, as you might expect for a non-profit school in the town of St. Helena, CA are wine-centric. The list includes many prized names including Cakebread, Far Niente, Grgich Hills and Clos Pegase. There are also several hotel packages including getaways to the Half Moon May Inn, Estancia La Jolla and the King Pacific Lodge, a floating eco-resort off the coast of British Columbia. There is also a raffle with 3 separate prizes for $100 each (you don't have to be there to win). The three prizes are a dinner for four at La Toque in Rutherford, a Tahoe vacation package at Plumpjack Squaw Creek for two nights for two couples and The Young School Family Wine Lot (two cases of wines made by the families of Young School students). Tickets are $125 per person.
The Plaza's Grand Ballroom is part of the revamp of the entire building, which has already yielded some of New York's msot lavish private residences. Great Performances and Delaware North Companies have signed a 25-year lease with Elad properties, the owners of The Plaza. The ballroom is being restored to reflect the way it looked in 1929 when the architectural firm of Schultze & Weaver designed it to replace the smaller ballroom of 1907. The ballroom will have two elaborate chandeliers, a stage and balconies on the north and east sides. The room is a neoclassic confection in white and gold with six mural which have been cleaned and conserved. The ballroom opens in December. It is open for events starting in January 2008. Pricing varies depending on the catering options but rental alone for the Grand Ballroom, which seats 500, is in the $80,000 to $100,000 range.
Festival del Sole, a ten-day arts festival is returning to the Napa Valley for a second season July 13-22. The festival lures top talent in the opera and classical music fields to wine country including mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade, violinists Joshua Bell and Nikolaj Znaider, sopranos Danielle de Niese and Lisa Delan, countertenor David Daniels, pianists Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Fabio Bidini and violinist Dmitry Sitkovetsky. Performances will be at the Lincoln Theater, Napa Valley Opera House and the Castello di Amorosa wine castle in Calistoga.
Also on the agenda are special lunches featuring local vinters and esteemed chefs such as Cat Cora and Gary Danko as well as winery dinners at places such as the Clos Pegase Winery, Darioush Winery and Far Niente. A festival pass to the entire event costs $6,000 per person ($2200 tax-deductible) but you can also buy weekend and day passes or tickets to individual concerts and winery events. The Napa festival is the companion to a similar event in Cortona, Italy on August 4-16.
The Stoli Hotel is not a hotel, let's get that out of the way first. Instead it is more of a twist on the pop-up store phenomenon. The Stoli Hotel opens today in Los Angeles as a month-long entertainment space. The Stoli hotel takes its design inspiration from the Hotel Moskva on the Stoli label. The Stoli Hotel will have a full-service concierge, a bar, a spa and a series of guest rooms inspired by the many Stoli vodka flavors for special events. There is a suite based on the Stoli elit vodka that will be VIP only. The hotel will host all sorts of festivities such as DJ nights with DJ AM, Samantha Ronson, Kid Millionaire and Danny Masterson, film premiere after-parties, concerts and magazine parties. After LA, the Stoli Hotel will hit other cities including, New York, Chicago and Miami.
Oh how I wish I were headed to Napa this weekend. If you need to chase away your income-tax-paying blues, Judd's Hill Winery just might be the place. On Saturday, April 14 they are holding the First Annual Judd's Hill Musical Bonanza, from noon until 4:00 p.m. The event celebrates the release of their 2005 Old Vine Zinfandel and Judd's band, The Maikai Gents Featuring The Mysterious Miss Mauna Loa, will perform as well as a variety of other bands including the tropical rock band APE and King Kukulele from Los Angeles, a comedic ukulele player. A barbecue feast will be served and all of the winery's current releases are available for sale and for tasting. A few hours and those nasty tax forms will be a distant memory. Tickets are $85 ($70 for Judd's Wine Club members).
Vince Neil, Motley Crue's lead singer, has a new gig. A while back I wrote about his foray into the world of wine. Neil now also has followed in the footsteps of another wild-haired rocker, and launched his own tequila. Neil's tequila is called Tres Rios and he will be appearing at the Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival on February 25 to show people how to make the perfect margarita.He will also be part of an auction that includes a case of signed bottles of Vince Neil's Tres Rios Tequila, two first class tickets on Delta Airlines to Las Vegas, a suite at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Las Vegas and an invitation from Vince to have drinks with him in person at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Las Vegas, dinner at the RIO at Café Martorano and a Vince Neil autographed guitar. Other auction items include the chance to attend Auction Napa Valley as the guest of Beringer Vineyards, a whole host of tempting wine lots, and the chance to have a dinner for 10 with another celeb-turned-winemaker, Lorraine Bracco.
We mentioned that singer George Michael was hired to play at a New Year's party in Russia for $3 million. What we didn't mention is that he was at the party for just over an hour. This is a classic example of the luxury party trend of renting rockstars (or other celebrities) to show up at parties. Christina Aguilera, Bette Midler and Robin Williams have done over the top birthday parties. 50 Cent and Aerosmith have done multimillion-dollar bat mitsvahs. "It's common knowledge that Bruce Springsteen and U2 won't do it," said the head of the corporate and private events division for Creative Artists Agency, but just about everyone else will.
The artists may be doing it for the money (at thousands of dollars per minute, who wouldn't?), but they're also making some people really happy by appearing at their special event. Is it worth the payout on the part of the consumer? That's for you to decide the next time you're throwing a million dollar birthday party.
It's not often that you get to tour a mansion in Beverly Hills but this weekend is the Showcase weekend for the Beverly Hills Garden and Design Showcase. The event takes place at the Greystone Estate and you can tour the mansion estate rooms decorated by American Society of Interior Designers LA Chapter and invited guest designers. Pretty on the outside too, the estate features gardens created by world renowned and celebrity landscape designers. This weekend's events include wine tasting, glass blowing, floral arranging and more. Tickets are $25 for the Showcase this weekend. I'm hoping to check out the house tour sometime in the next few weeks and promise to bring back lots of pictures.
We write about plenty of wine and food festivals but how about an event just for the cocktail. Tales of the Cocktail runs July 19-23 at the Hotel Monteleone in New Orleans and centers around the mixed drink. There are seminars, discussions, dinner pairings, bartending lessons and plenty of cocktail parties. Carson Kressley, star of "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," NPR's Kitchen Sisters and chefs Aaron Sanchez, Marcus Samuelsson and Suvir Saran of New York are among the presenters. The winner of the Tales of the Cocktail competition for this year has also been announced. Judges chose from 19 recipes using Bacardi Superior Rum, selecting Michael Brewer's drink which includes rum, lemon juice, lime juice, orange juice, pineapple juice, cilantro and avocado. The Drink in History package includes access to all seminars, cocktail events, the bartender's bash and a private mixology seminar with Marvin Allen of the Carousel Bar. This package sells for $275 and rooms at the Hotel Monteleone are selling for $88 per night during the event.
The Chesapeake Bay area offers all
sorts of delicious food (crabs and oysters spring immediately to mind). The 4th Annual St. Michaels Food & Wine Festival April 27-30,
which is being held at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum offers a chance to check out food and wine against a
beautiful seaside backdrop. The festival pavilion will be home to wine tastings, demonstrations, book signings and food
tastings. Events include a live wine, food and travel auction to benefit three charities and a champagne brunch on
Sunday. Tickets start at $35 for a single day pavilion ticket.
Food and wine festivals are always happily decadent
events but when an event is hosted by the Jumeirah hotel group, luxury takes on a whole new level. Th first
annual Jumeirah Festival of Taste takes place May 21-26, 2006 in Dubai
and features perhaps the most over-the-top dining event I have ever heard of. It is called the Ultimate Dinner Party
and will take four people on an unparalleled dining experience. It starts with a cocktail reception at the Jumeirah
Emirates Towers where they can mingle with the celebrity chefs participating in A Festival of Taste, then they are
taken by helicopter to the Burj Al Arab for a first and second course. A luxury car then takes them to the Villa
Beach Restaurant at Jumeirah Beach Hotel for a hot entrée. Then a limo takes them to the Pisces in Souk Madinat
Jumeirah for the main course, followed by a short walk to Napa for dessert, coffee, cigars and digestifs. The evening
ends with an overnight stay in a suite at Burj Al Arab and a morning breakfast as well as a receive a gift from
Jumeirah to commemorate the night. The party costs AED 100,000 for four (around $27,230). Other more traditional events
that are part of the festival include cooking demonstrations, wine tastings and book signings. The festival kicks
off with the ‘1001 Nights Meet the Stars Opening Event’ which includes a champagne reception,wine tasting,
live cooking stations featuring renowned chefs and live entertainment.
Celebrities have been known to cart their dogs
around to events but now PETaPOTTY, a company that sells sod-topped places for dogs to go to the bathroom, is hosting
SkyBark, a Los Angeles event where you are encouraged to
bring your dog. SkyBark, on March 25, will include local bands and a silent auction to raise money for the New Leash on
Life animal rescue. The event is being held in association with the underground “art-club,” Hangar 1018 and
will be held on a large rooftop deck with views of the L.A. skyline and a doggy night-care area with PETaPOTTYs.
Tickets are $20 per person and $10 per dog in advance or $30 per person and $15 per dog at the door.
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Vince Neil,
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