Thanks to the crumbling dollar, the US is losing yet another transatlantic battle of the richest. According to The Guardian, it is no longer home to the world’s most expensive shopping street. New York’s Fifth Avenue was replaced by London’s Old Bond Street, where annual rents per square foot are $1,400.
Bad news for the competitive New Yorkers. Good news for shopaholic Londoners, already booking their Christmas-shopping air tickets to New York.
Here’s a mini companion to my earlier post on cheap beer via brewery tours. While brewery tours make me want to take up accordion playing or something, winery tours make me think of fine art. There is a sensuous quality about wineries–an elegance if you will. Like brewery tours, winery tours are a great way to imbibe without spending a lot of money.
When a friend of mine lived near San Francisco we made a trip to Napa Valley on one of my visits. We hit one winery after another. I love the buffet quality of a counter with wine bottles lined up and a server at the ready to take you on a tour ranging from sweetness to musky dry.
Winery tours and tasting fees vary, but so does the extent of what money will buy you as well. For example, the Benziger Family Winery has a Biodynamic Vineyard Wine Tour for $10. Quite a deal of you think about how a tour is a lesson in sustainable agriculture.
Other wineries may charge you for a wine glass that you get to keep like Twomey Wine Cellars. At this winery, for $5 you get a glass and tastes of several wines.
Because the wineries vary in what they charge for tasting and the how to book a tour protocol, check beforehand. The Web site Napa Valley Vintners has a page that lists the wineries with tours and tasting, plus links to each winery’s Web site. There’s also a map of Napa Valley to help you plan your tour.
I’ve also wine tasted in Upstate New York and at a winery near Sag Harbor on Long Island. Whenever you see a winery sign, chances are you can have an impromptu wine tasting. My impromptu tastings have been free, except I always buy a bottle to take home.
You have heard these urban legends: You are never more than six feet away from a rat in New York. There are as many as 96 million rats in the city. Even the least conservative reports suggest there are at least 250,000 of them. The truth is nobody knows how many rats there are, but everyone agrees that there is more than enough.
I, personally, don’t mind rats. I think they are kind of cool. They are the essence of what New York is: squirrels stripped down to their most efficient form. Who needs the cute furry tail, really?
Rats get a bad reputation. They are associated with poverty, dirt and disease. The video of rats scurrying around a Taco Bell/KFC in the Village don’t help. People are apparently afraid of rats biting them. Meanwhile, research shows that you are ten times more likely to get bit by a fellow human being. Makes you look at Suzy from Marketing in a whole new light, doesn’t it?
Sex and the City might be long gone from HBO but its spirit is alive and well in the West Village of New York. At least its less glamorous offspring–Sex and the City tourism–is.
Yes, women from all over the world come here to make a pilgrimage to 66 Perry Street, Carrie’s brownstone apartment (which was actually supposed to be on the Upper East Side), where she used to sit on the stoop and contemplate her love life. They then go around the corner for the infamous Magnolia Bakery cupcake, which–please don’t crucify me for saying so–is completely overrated, especially considering the 100-yard-long line of people waiting to get their hands on one. (They should be selling those things at post offices to make people form lines and wait patiently. They might actually do that if Sarah Jessica Parker tells them that’s what she does.)
NY Times writer Gerri Shanahan was complaining in her article this past Sunday about the busloads of the show fans pulling up at 66 Perry daily to take pictures on the stoop because they are “like so like the characters”, sans the good shoes, of course. Somehow, I don’t feel bad for you, Gerri Shanahan. Perry Street is one of New York’s prettiest and, honestly, I would take it even with the Carrie-wannabes on the stoop.
Growing up, fondue was a fixture in my house — a delight for a cheese-loving family and a bit of nostalgia for my dad who spent a large amount of time living near Switzerland. His version of the traditional melting pot involved lots garlic, wine and stinky cheese and man, was it ever good.
And if like me, you can appreciate a good fondue, you might want to head to the New York area next month, when Swiss cheese producer Emmi will try to break the world record for largest fondue. Served from a giant pot, the fondue is expected to feed around 3000 lucky people. Now that‘s a lot of fondue forks. Lucky diners will also be treated to live Swiss-themed entertainment in the form of yodelers and alpine horn players … perhaps even the Ricola dudes?
The last record-setting fondue was served in 1998. It consisted of 732 kg of cheesy deliciousness.