Safe

I saw Safe tonight. I liked it. A lot. I still love relatively smart action films.

My two favorite whites tonight

Calcari is Xarello. Do you know WTF Xarello is? No? That's totally cool. It's a grape. It's a minerally, fairly dry, crazy amazing grape. If you see this on a wine list, forget about pairing, just buy it! Ours is from Perés Balta.

Then, holy shit! Felicité from Aarde Valley in South Africa tastes like an islay whiskey. Un-fucking-believable. It's smokey like a lapsang souchong but it's white, and you know what? It's Chardonnay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And get this: It's unoaked!!!!!!!¡!!!!¡! So amazing.

Radio Lab

I'm in love with RadioLab. In case you didn't know, I'm kind of a nerd, and I like being that way. It's a show about curiosity, and I'm a curious person. If you don't know about RadioLab, go to their website and download all of their podcasts and listen to them while eating a dinner late at night. I listen to RadioLab when I wake up and eat "breakfast," and my wife and I listen to the podcasts together when we get home late at night.

 You will LOVE RadioLab if you like thinking.

Drinking Liberally

We host Drinking Liberally at the Darjeeling Café every month. Normally, I have to work on those nights, running around a lot, serving, but last night we had enough people on to make possible for me to hang out with all the liberals. We talked about the local elections, and we talked about the coming big time election in November, but we also talked about all sorts of other things. I got a little drunk on wine.

One of the conversations we had was about Richmond. I like Richmond a lot. But downtown Richmond is kind of a ghost town. It doesn't make sense to me. It seems like the perfect place to open a restaurant. There's a big college, and there's the capitol. Doesn't that mean there are tons of eaters? Why is everyone going to lunch carts in Richmond? The restaurants I went to Richmond were all empty if they weren't chains, and the lunch carts were slammed. I loved the independent restaurants I went to. So what gives? We didn't really get to answer it.

Anyway, Drinking Liberally is totally great. I wish I could hang out more often with the liberals who come to drink. They are open and friendly, and they are interested and curious, and I like them.

Here's a link if you want to know more about Drinking Liberally.

Our New Wine Bar

Our new wine bar is under construction. Scottie Scott is building it in Staunton out of local walnut. It will have rounded edges and be totally beautiful.

We were at the workshop yesterday checking everything out, seeing the progress, and I snapped some pictures with the iPhone so I could share it with all of you. We're supremely excited.

We'll be having a grand opening of the wine bar on the 25th of May. Woo-hoo!

This is the story board for the project.

You can sort of see how it's coming together in this shot.

I can't wait for all of you to see it!

Wine 4 n00bs

Tonight we had our first wine 4 n00bs class. Rob Gardner from Margaux & Co. guided us through Alsace with samples from J. Fritsch. We had their Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris, Riesling, Riesling Grand Cru, and Gewurtztraminer. Fun and information was enjoyed by all.
I did a little lecture about the culture, architecture, food, and beauty of the Alsace and Strasbourg and Colmar. Chris Philpot did a n00b speech about what he was excited to learn. People really reacted positively.
Lots of wine professionals showed up, so I ended up hanging out with Kim from Kroger, Greg from Barren Ridge, John from Ox Eye, and others who will probably be angry I'm not mentioning them. What a cool night. I'm a bit giddy about it all because I had such a good time. Thanks to everyone who came! It was truly a pleasure to host it. Sorry my Power Point presentation was lacking when I used Google to do the slides. Can't wait to see you next month.

Picture an Embryo / Collaborate with Scientists

I love Science Friday, don't you?
For some reason, this video wouldn't work on my phone, but it works on my wife's laptop, so I finally got to see it after hearing about it on NPR a few weeks ago.
I think these pictures and the artwork are pretty incredible, and I wish I knew more scientists so that I could collaborate with them to do cool artwork or poetry projects.

I want to collaborate with a scientist. Is there a scientist out there who needs a poet/writer/graphic designer/musician or would like to have tea with one?

Belgian Congo Ale

So the brew master at Devil's Backbone is a history buff and likes to have a bit of fun with his beers, and he created this delight: Belgian Congo Style Ale. Suppose the Belgians abroad had behaved like the English in their colonies. The English wanted English Ale in India, but it spoiled as ballast on ships in transit. Their cure: add more of the natural preservative hops, accidentally inventing IPA. It took a long time for anyone to really actually like India Pale Ale, but they eventually did.
Now what if the Belgians did the same thing with Belgian Ales to get them to officers in the Congo? Well, you would get something like Devil Backbone's CPA. Isn't that awesome?
I am thrilled to have it at the Darjeeling Café. It's really delicious, one if the best things DB has created. It's refreshing and complex and most of all drinkable. I could put away a few of these in one sitting easy. Plus, it's local Virginia beer, and that's good for everyone.

Girls at Darjeeling

These ladies are Rockin out on Saturday at Darjeeling. Hell yeah.

Reading Liberally at the Restaurant

On Thursday we discussed Unscientific America by Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum at the restaurant for Reading Liberally. The book depressed me because it paints a rather grim picture of the current state of the union, and I don't think there's much hope in it. On the other hand, I know it isn't that grim. Sure, there are way too many people who think Noah's Ark was real, but look how far we've come. The world is becoming a better place all the time. 50 years ago, black people had to sit in a different part of the movie theater in Staunton, and they had to enjoy a different park, too. If that's not moving toward a more enlightened public, I don't what is. There might not be very many people who care about science, and there probably should be more, but aren't there more today than there were 50 years ago? Mooney says no.

I disagree. I was looking forward to his chapter called "Bruising their Religion" because I wanted to know how a Bright can speak with a person who believes in the demented idea that a magic man in the sky made humanity from mud. I often think that I am more like a "New Atheist" than I am anything else. But it occurred to me while reading this book, that I haven't had to talk about evolution in ages and there isn't any way to talk to insane people who refuse to accept facts. Maybe I'm not confronted by crazies as often as I was in Orange County, CA, but maybe there are just fewer people in general who actually believe the Old Testament is real. Why do I even need to think about that part of science. I'd rather trip out about cool space stuff and talk with people about sci-fi things that look like they might be the coming reality. I talk with my friends about RadioLab and Science Friday and NPR and politics and technology and wine and coffee and tea and beer and all sorts of things that are awesome. I know some people who go to church, but we never talk about Jesus except that, yeah, I read the Bible, and I think it was a good book and can engage on some level in the same way I engage in discussions about Moby Dick.

Anyway, I am writing this right before the Friday night dinner rush, so I have to go. It's really very cool to host Reading Liberally at the Darjeeling Café, and I hope if you live in Staunton, you can come discuss the next book with us: The Wealth of Nature. The one after that (June's) will Drift by Rachel Maddow. Good discussions will follow. I love this part about owning a restaurant.