Not much into the hard stuff myself, I figured some of y’all, the hard core yuppie types (OK, that’s probably me, too) might be interested in what’s to do about whiskey. These are not your run of the mill throat burners, no we’re talking smooth, dark elixirs including the rather exorbitantly priced Macallan Fine and Rare Collection, 1926, which fetches around, oh, $38,000 per bottle. For more information, we turn you over to sister site Luxist who has posted a piece on these fine beverages that are way, way out of our price range.
Portland Beer Festival
It costs just $4 to buy your own mug, then it’s only $4 per beer after that–and there are 72 varieties of beer on tap, so you’d better get cracking.
Portland, Oregon will be holding its 19th annual Brewers Festival July 27-30 this year. Over 50,000 beer lovers will be at hand to deeply inhale the aromatic hops of their beer before gently sipping the elixir and allowing it to tenderly roll across their tongues to awaken their taste buds–after which they will spit it into a bucket, rinse their palate, and move on to the next sample.
Or, more than likely, they will simply pound that mutha!
Menupages DC
Are you one hungry Capitol Hill staffer? Do late nights with the President’s Cheif of Staff seem to go on forever so that by the time you’re out of the office you’re dying for a good revitalizing meal? Well, you’re in luck, the folks at Menu Pages have expanded their online offerings to Washington DC.
I’ve used the site a couple of times in the past to help find good restaurants in my hood (the West Village), and am usually very content with what I find. The lists here are broken out sensibly by cuisine and/or neighborhood, and they are satisfyingly complete. They also cover outlying neighborhood which are often underserved by other online restaurant sites. Give it a looksee.
Miracle in the Andes: Rugby Players Eating Rugby Players
Whenever I go backpacking with friends, the conversation occasionally comes around to who we’d have to eat if a storm blew in and we became stranded. It’s been generally accepted that my buddy Kevin would be too gamey, so he’s out. And I’m a little too lean to provide any type of worthwhile sustenance, so I’m at the bottom of the list as well. So I got that going for me.
Such horror became reality for a Uruguayan rugby squad and their family and friends when the plane they were traveling on crashed into the Andes in 1972. Of course, the tragedy was made into the bestselling book Alive and later, a popular movie. The book was written by a journalist, however. It’s a fascinating read and rather gory at times, but nonetheless put together by an outsider who was not there.
Now, for the first time, one of the survivors has penned an account of his own experience on the mountaintop. Nando Parrado, who lost his mother and sister in the crash, has waited 34 years to tell his story of what happened during those 72 days of freezing, starving, and… eating. This harsh reality of what really happens when a plane crashes makes Lost look like some absurdist fairy tale.
Outside Magazine has printed an introductory excerpt of Miracle in the Andes which you can find here. The book itself was released May 9th so check your local bookstore.
Southern California Foodies
There are some vacations in which the entire trips should simply be spent eating. Naturally, this makes sense in parts of Italy and France, but Southern California?!?!?
I was pleased to discover an article by Kate Krader in the April edition of Food & Wine in which she dives into a culinary tour of my homeland, and man did it make me hungry.
This wasn’t just any tour, however. With the cachet of the Food & Wine label behind her, she was able to enlist the help of local (celebrity) chefs and wine experts in Los Angeles and Santa Barbara.
The result is a delicious, mouth watering expose of places that don’t just get a thumbs up in local guidebooks, but are actually beloved by pro chefs and sommeliers who know their sh*t.
If you’re traveling to LA any time soon and also happen to be a foodie, this is a must read. I was saddened to discover, however, that I’ve only been to one of the places mentioned. But since my dream is to get Kate Krader fired in the near future, take her job, and write about these restaurants myself, I’ll soon be checking them all off my list.