A MALBEC COINCIDENCE
In our monthly tasting group at George and Gail Heron's house (owners of Stockton's Fine Wines) we assembled for a sampling of Argentinian Malbecs, a wine we don't know much about. What an assault on the senses!These were all big wines, inky dark, high extraction, with ripe fruit, robust tannins, and spicy, high alcohol endings. Thankfully none were overoaked. I usually spit everything in such tastings but even with mouth exposure alone I thought I could get inebriated.Some time during the tasting Gail pointed out that the Malbec clone brought to Argentina was a softer version of the grape that[...]
TESTICLE DILEMMA
This is not about testicles. It is about my relationship with my editor, Mim Harrison. As a doctor and surgeon I expect my patients to defer to me in important matters of technical know-how, such as what specific surgery fits which illness. Likewise, I have been deferential to Mim in her revisions, choices of words, titles and compositional re-arrangements. It was thus with much dismay that I discovered an obstinate difference of opinion between us and, at first, I dug my heels in. It was with a story entitled Testicle Talk. I loved the catchy title and so did my[...]
TURKISH WINE; A SUCCESSFUL SPLASH IN SAN FRANCISCO
Introducing Turkish Wine Renaissance, the brochure said, referring to the world’s only wine exporting Muslim country as The Newest Oldest Wine Region. I was at Troya, my favorite Turkish restaurant in the swank Fillmore district of San Francisco, with Larry and Mariko Johansen, proprietors of Stockton’s Wine Wizard’s, for the first ever trade event staged in the City by the Turkish wine industry. The fledgling effort, hosted by a group of major Turkish producers, importers and San Francisco distributers, attracted much interest, tasters filling Troya shoulder to shoulder. It featured ten major producers representing all the wine regions of[...]
READY TO PUBLISH
In keeping with a deadline I sent for my self when the year began, my short stories anthology is ready for publication. It has a tentative name, coined by my editor Mim Harrison. She also recommended a line-up of stories with what she considered stronger ones in the lead and finale. The title story, Appassionata, the strongest one, will be in the center. The lead stories were On The Night Bus To Fethiye, Nightmare and Jarvis in Plastics. The latter began as Circus Plasticus but when I extended my Jarvis stories to a trilogy we changed the name to link[...]
SAUMUR-CHAMPIGNY, A CLASSIC, YET A NEW DISCOVERY
It cannot be a coincidence. Two San Francisco bistros two weeks apart, two wines from the little known appellation of Samur-Champigny, both outstanding, both bargains. At Monsieur Benjamin, the hip Hayes Valley spot recently opened by chef Corey Lee, of Benu fame, where the wine list is mostly in three digit prices, I hesitated before ordering the cheapest red on the list. I was dining with Larry and Mariko Johansen, owners of Wine Wizard's in Stockton. I did not know much about Saumur, except that it is in the Loire Valley. Neither did Larry. We figured it must be[...]
JONATHAN RESPONDS, AT LAST
At last, a reunion with Jonathan Hodes, neurosurgeon in Louisville, Kentucky, and a good friend from my UCSF days in San Francisco, who had a major role in my memoir Dogmeat. We met some sixteen months after the book was published. Until then his silence about my book was deafening. Had I offended him in any way?Writers can't help but aggrieve those closest to them. If you write about what you know -and you should - and if what you write is interesting and edgy, it is inevitable that some acquaintance, friend, relative might be displeased with how they were[...]