On the List: Dinner at Danko

Last Tuesday's dinner at #1 SF Hot Spot Gary Danko did indeed live up to expectation. Hell, who am I kidding, it way exceeded expectation.

Wine highlights included a Lewis Chard, an 03 Turley Zin, the 02 Leonetti Cab, and the piece de resistance, a 1998 d'Yquem (the high scorer of the evening at 95 points).

And the food was good too. Between the foie gras, the duck confit, and the Lemon Herb Duck Breast with Duck Hash and Rhubarb Ginger compote, I'm sure I ingested a flock of the fowl birds. The creme brulee trio was an outstanding accompaniment to the d'Yquem, and the farmhouse and artisanal cheese selection was an event from the moment the cheese sommelier appeared to describe the happy cows that roam the Irish hillside.

All in all a memorable sensory experience. Not sure it was worth the clams that were forked over at the end of the night (and that subject begs a whole series of questions about the absurdity of expense when it comes to consumable items), but a grand night in the city. The quintessential San Francisco experience, I do believe.

A Bit of a Book Review

Just finished "Torture the Artist," by Joey Goebel. I purchased the book after hearing a Seattle librarian recommend it on NPR a few weeks ago. That concept about great art being only produced by persons/products of great suffering is one that's intrigued me for years (and I used to think I was being original when I voiced that question out loud at dinner parties. Turns out, not so much). I kind of buy the notion that to inject vivid, sincere emotion into ones writing, poetry or painting, one has to have experienced one of the greats highs (winning an Olympic championship say, or triumphing over death) or great lows (these are much easier to name: betrayal, humiliation, true fear) of the life experience.

Even though I buy this premise, I don't buy this book as being a great work of art. It's another of those great concepts that showed great promise that gets foiled by an author with delusions of greatness. I do not know much about Joey Goebel, other than the rumors about him being a minor player in a mediocre band. I bet these rumors are true, b/c the book comes across as being written by someone in just such a situation. Someone that is, who hasn't experienced artistic greatness, and chalks up the lack of success not to his shortcomings but to the shortcomings of his audience. Remember that old adage about blaming the victim?

The main character in this novel likes to define his lesser characters according to their pop culture preferences. Therefore, a woman who likes reality TV and banal everyday trash pop music is of course a shallow trollop. While this appears to be the common wisdom of our day, it's ridiculous (not to mention hypocritical) to define people in such a superficial manner. Some of the smartest people I know do indeed watch reality television. They will quickly admit that it's an indulgence, and they'll voice guilt about spending their time that way, but they're watching it, nonetheless.

In the end, the concept of schooling artists through torture and deprivation carries great potential for a fiction novel. Ranting about pop culture for 200+ pages in the guise of said concept quickly grows tiresome, stale and boring. Kind of like mediocre music and tepid television.

Those Silly Germans

Three things I learned today at a German wine tasting at Dee Vine Wines:

1. The Germans are nearly as bad as the French when it comes to not wanting their wines' labels being deciphered by the average consumer. Case in point: we stared at two identical wine labels for 45 seconds trying to figure out how they were different before noticing one digit (in a string of 9) that seemed to tell the story. (the story being that one was tasted third during a blind lineup and the other was tasted fourth). The price difference between the two was something like 5x.
2. A Kabinett is not something you hang in your kitchen.
3. The service at Gary Danko is second to none (the fact that this is the first line of impression recited by a recent patron makes me wonder what the food is like).

Bonus thing: razor wire can be used indoors.

Thinking and Drinking

When I first heard about this course on the "philosophy of wine" I scoffed long and hard and furrowed my brow in earnest trying to figure out what the hell that meant. The philosophy of wine....the philosophy of wine...hmmm. Are we talking about the deep thoughts invariably leaking out of the inebriated brain? Or maybe it was just misstated and they meant to say the philosophers who drank wine. All those Greeks and Romans who used their skilled palates to both orate and imbibe, perhaps simultaneously. That would make sense.

But no, it's actually this fascinating sounding class being newly taught at UC Berkeley Extension. And they're spending significant time on language, which is a topic that's been a thorn in my craw for a few weeks now (as in, where did the language come from. Why are the words associated w/ wine descriptions the words associated with wine descriptions? Is it really all about UC Davis? Really?) They're also going to cover cultural context and current trends and controversies. Talk about a fresh, fun way to approach a staid and dusty topic.

The guy who's teaching this is a fascinating one himself. Quite the philosopher it seems, and passionate and tenacious. He conceptualized andcreated the course, and single handedly made sure it got into the catalog, within the span of a few months.

If I wasn't so busy...if I didn't travel so much...if I wasn't so averse to sitting in an overly lit classroom for hours at a time, particularly on nights of the workweek...I'd have signed up 19 days ago.

See how that works?