MARIANI’S
Virtual Gourmet January 21, 2018
NEWSLETTER
Bang's
Drive-In, Chariton, Iowa (Library of Congress)
❖❖❖ IN THIS ISSUE MÁLAGA, PART FOUR By Gerry Dawes NEW YORK CORNER HAKKASAN By John Mariani MASTER CHEF PAUL BOCUSE DIES AT 91 By John Mariani SOME COLD FACTS ABOUT OLIVE OIL By John Mariani NOTES FROM THE WINE CELLAR SO YOU WANT TO HOLD A WINE TASTING By John Mariani ❖❖❖ MÁLAGA, PART FOUR By Gerry Dawes
Sardines roast at Espeto Pedregalejo Beach, Málaga
Frequently during my
peregrinations in Málaga’s Old Quarter, I saw
signs pointing to the Picasso Museum and to his
natal home, announcements with photographs of
Picasso on them, drawings and
photographs in restaurants (like the ones at
Casa de Guardia and El Chinitas), Picasso
reproductions in souvenir shops and even
refrigerator magnets of Picasso as a mature
artist. There is also a bronze statue in the
Plaza de la Merced of Picasso seated on a bench
with a pencil and a drawing pad.
But, though Pablo Ruíz Picasso was born in
Málaga in 1881, he lived there for just the first
ten years of his life. Because of his
father’s fragile economic circumstances, the
Picasso family moved to A Coruna in Galicia for a
few years, then to Barcelona. Picasso returned to
Málaga for the last time after Christmas in 1900,
moving permanently to France in 1905. After the
war, Picasso kept the vow he made to never return
as long as the Fascist dictator Francisco Franco
was alive.
So, while the city has every right to promote
itself as Picasso’s birthplace and to promote the
excellent Picasso Museum, there is very little
substance to Picasso’s early life there, and the
statue in the Plaza de la Merced of a middle-aged
Picasso on a bench in Málaga poised to make a
drawing could never have occurred as depicted.
During
our
stay, we spent one day outside of Málaga, visiting
the good La Torre olive oil producing facility and
orchards, then to Cortijo de la Fuente, a Sierras
de Málaga winery making unremarkable wines, and on
to the Stone Age dolmens in Antequera, one of
Málaga province’s oldest and most interesting
towns. The
high point of the excursion was a marvelous
restaurant in Antequera, Arte de
Cozina, ensconced in the charming patio of a
17th century building. Here chef-owner Charo
Carmona and her son, Francisco (left), are
cooking exceptional modernized versions of area
classics, some with recipes dating from the 16th
century, though it’s highly doubtful that they
ever tasted as good then as they do now from
Charo’s kitchen.
Her food exemplifies the best of this style of
retro-Spanish cooking. She gives out cards
with descriptions from the old cookbooks that
inspired various dishes. Carmona offers classic porra
antequerana (similar to the thick
gazpacho-like Cordoban salmorejo),
served
in three different versions (right)
accompanied by thin strips of toasted bread: porra de
tomate, a thick gazpacho-esque locally
sourced ecological tomato-based soup-sauce-dip; porra blanca,
a white garlicky version; and local orange-based porra de naranja.
She offers five kinds of gazpacho, including the
traditional tomato-based classic, one made with
organic green asparagus, ajo blanco
(white garlic gazpacho), one with almonds, and a
Sephardic-inspired one with yogurt, cucumber,
parsley, walnut and onion.
That
evening, dinner was in stark contrast to the lunch
we had at Arte de Cozina. We were
bussed to Benalmadena (16 miles west of Málaga) to
the Michelin one-star cocina de
vanguardia restaurant, Sollo,
in, of all places, the DoubleTree by Hilton Resort
& Spa, the domain of budding rock-star
Brazilian chef Diego Gallegos (left).
Gallegos learned a lot about river fish,
particularly trout and sturgeon, when he worked in
Río Frío, a mountain river fish farming town where
he sources his trout, sturgeon and sturgeon
caviar.
Gallegos also raises many
of the fish he uses in his dishes. His
restaurant overlooks the Mediterranean, and we
visited his pisi-factoria,
where fish were being raised in large tanks to
become part of
the 18-course menu, with dishes like
“Yogurt Protein with Piranha Slice Sumac and Black
Olive Powder” and grilled fish mixed with
“Sturgeon Blood Sauce and Ramen Soup of Catfish
Whiskers and Skin.”
If these dishes don’t sound particularly
appetizing, perhaps a snack served on a dried,
chopped off sturgeon head won’t either. Fortunately,
for the traditional Spanish cuisine lover in me,
most of my experiences were centered on the
traditional aspects of Málagan cuisine.
On a prowl around the Old
Quarter, we stopped for breakfast at La
Málagueña, where we were served piles of
crisp churros (right),
a fried-dough pastry called tejeringos in
Málaga (the name has its base in a double entendre
having to do with an “injector,” a syringe or jeringo
in Spanish; you can fill in the rest). Loops
of hot tejeringos,
stacked several inches high on a plate, come with
cups of thick, rich Spanish-style hot chocolate or
coffee.
We moved on
for what would be a peripatetic, unique
multi-course desayuno-tapas-almuerzo
meandering across the Old Quarter.
We toured the Ataranzas
market, then stopped at nearby Antigua
Casa de Guardia, where we sampled copitas
of Málaga wine with clams on the half shell,
steamed langostinos,
mejillones
(mussels) and skewers with anchovies, pearl
onions, pickles and olives. Many of
the group went on another museum tour, but I opted
for meeting up later at Uve Doble,
the eponymous “W” for chef-owner Willie Orellana (right), whose
very good food features tasteful modern
twists on classics such as a Spanish tortilla de
patatas trufada al momento (left), the
classic potato omelette with truffles, and fideos negros
tostados (left)
with calamarcitos
de Málaga, a smallish macaroni-like pasta,
toasted, “blackened” with squid ink and cooked
with baby Bay of Málaga squid (below).
Orellana also intersperses his menu with
internationally inspired dishes, such as swordfish
ceviche with avocado grown in the nearby Axarquia
region and deboned suckling pig with cous cous. Wine
offerings on the blackboard at Uve Doble are some
of the most inspired in the city.
We settled on the outdoor terrace of Las Acacias
and ordered two dozen sardines, communal plates of
salad and bottles of cold Spanish Rosado, and we
ate and drank just a few feet from the
Mediterranean with the smell of the sardines and
the sea, the embers of the cooking coals glowing
in the night, and beyond, the lights of Málaga,
just three miles down the coast to the west.
On Pedregalejo
beach, I had gained a new appreciation of Málaga,
one that I regret not taking more advantage of in
my youth. But
better late than never, or as Spaniards say, “Mejor tarde
que nunca,” As late as my
re-discovery of Málaga may have been, I plan to
make up for lost time and put this magical city
high on my agenda for future travels.
Photographs
by Gerry Dawes©2017 ❖❖❖
NEW
YORK CORNER
By John Mariani Photos by Spherical Communications HAKKASAN
311 West 43rd Street (near Eighth Avenue) 212-776-1818 While
the NYC food media never admit to it, they
harbor a long-time prejudice against Asian
restaurants when it comes to what they should
look like and cost. Whereas in Beijing,
Bangkok
and Tokyo—and you can throw in Las
Vegas and London—some of the finest Asian
restaurants are very grand and very expensive;
in NYC, Chinese, Thai, Korean and Japanese
restaurants are not supposed to rise above
being a
storefront eatery and should never cost what
an upscale European or American does.
Exceptions in NYC include sushi restaurants
like Masa and Nobu, where the sky’s the limit
with prices, or celebrity chef places like buzz-worthy
Mission Chinese, where Drunken Style Whole
Fish costs $50 and Whole Beggar’s Duck $100.
Which brings me to Hakkasan, the NYC offshoot of
the London original that has spawned locations
in eight other cities around the world. By
any standard the Theater District Hakkasan,
opened in 2012, has one of the most remarkable
décors in the city: Designed by French
architects Gilles & Bossier and evoking
similar motifs in the other branches, Hakkasan
is an 11,000-square-foot warren of rooms of
varying sizes that give guests the feeling of
winding their way through a mysterious place of
shadow and light, carved Indian mahogany,
Chinese screens, silk banquettes and white
marble walls and tables, with an open kitchen in
the flanks. Table settings, silverware and
stemware are of very high quality; service is
very cordial, if sometimes slow; the 380-label
wine list, under sommelier Nicole Cheon, far
exceeds that of most other Chinese restaurants
in NYC. And all the food is beautifully
presented on a variety of china.
Yet, typical of the responses to Hakkasan when
it opened in 2012 was that of Pete Wells in the
Times,
who called it a “multi-million-dollar exercise
in Orientalism,” itself an archaic term best
scrubbed from a politically correct newspaper.
Wells went on to claim, “It wouldn’t be hard to
muster a mob of New Yorkers outraged by a
restaurant that asks $48 for grilled Chilean
sea bass or wok-fried lamb chops. After a few
days of pickets out front, Hakkasan would cave
and drop its lunatic prices.” Well,
Hakkasan did not drop its prices and shouldn’t
have. Nor have angry mobs stormed the front
door. For not only is this a very beautiful and
grand restaurant, but the food is superb,
beginning with an array of jewel-like dim sum
offerings that include scallop shumai, bamboo dumpling,
prawn and Chinese chive dumplings, Shanghai siew
long bao, Morel crystal dumpling, and fried or
pan-seared items like turnip cake ($8) and
crispy duck roll ($14). A
Hakka platter of dim sum is $26; vegetarian dim
sum $22.
All
the Hakkasan restaurants are overseen by Chef
Tong Chee Hwee and International Executive Chef
Ho Chee Boon, so the menus overlap to a great
degree. If
you liked the crab and corn soup in Dubai,
you’ll like it here ($11); if the signature
crispy silver cod with Champagne and honey sauce
pleased you in San Francisco, it will do so in
NYC ($42).
Stir-fry pea shoots were silky with abundant
garlic ($18), and udon noodles with duck in XO
sauce ($16) were cooked to a texture to absorb
all the flavors.
Tofu is one of those foods that on its
own is patently boring, but adding Szechuan heat
and spices with minced beef makes it come alive
and its creaminess a pleasure ($22). Wok-fried
lamb tenderloin ($32) never lost its own flavor
within the enhancement of a chili bean sauce.
One of the “small eat” dishes I loved was crispy
pork belly ($23) cut into bite-size cubes—twelve
of them—and set on the plate with a ribbon of
yellow mustard, but for the moment off the new
menu.
Hakkasan is now in competition with the
just-opened DaDong in Bryant Park, itself an
extravagant branch of a Shanghai original, to
serve the best Peking-style duck in NYC. Needless
to say, New
York magazine’s Adam Platt has already
accused DaDong of “Michelin-fueled ambition and
style” and slammed its $98 Peking duck. Since
I have not eaten
at DaDong, I would not make a comparison to the
version I had at Hakkasan, but I would compare
the latter’s to the best I’ve had elsewhere in
NYC, its skin as crackling as a candy wafer, its
meat moist and velvety and its steamed pancakes
impeccably light and thin ($88). You
can also have your Peking duck in two courses
topped with Chinese Kaluga caviar for $258, but
that is a wholly unnecessary extravagance, and
the caviar only lends a fishiness to the duck.
One never expects great desserts ($15) at a
Chinese restaurant but at Hakkasan every effort
has been made by pastry chef Alexander Zecena to
change your mind with a coconut and lychee
mousse with coconut tapioca and coconut lime
sorbet; and a matcha apple custard bun with
apple sorbet and custard cream. Hakkasan’s
size and theatricality fits well into its
location off
Times Square, but it is the food and the
sophisticated way guests are greeted and guided
to their table, and then ceremoniously served
that makes it an attraction on its own. NYC’s
food media should wake up to the fact that
Chinese food and décor at this level is well
worth paying for. Open for lunch and dinner daily. ❖❖❖ SOME COLD FACTS ABOUT ITALIAN OLIVE OIL An Interview with Giovanni Colavita By John Mariani
For most consumers who love olive
oil distinguishing among “virgine,” “extra
virgine,” “soprafino virgine,” “cold-pressed,”
“olio di sansa di Oliva,” “olii varii” and “olio
nuova” can be daunting. Italy has D.O.C. standards
that more or less conform to those of the
International Olive Council, which controls 95% of
the world’s production. The EU also has an olive
oil regulatory agency, and the U.S. only updated
its own standards since 1948 in 2010. With so
much vagary about a product that is not easy to
test or to assure national provenance, there is,
of course, a good deal of fakery and false
marketing within the industry, and even some of
the world’s bestselling companies have been
accused of falsifying data and labeling, including
the world’s top selling 100% olive oil, Colavita.
(In Italy only Bertolli sells more.)
I sat down with Giovanni
Colavita, president and CEO of Colavita (right), to
discuss not only accusations against Colavita
that were sparked by a report by the University
of California Davis Olive Center, but
also the general state of the olive oil industry
today. Q: Can you give me an
answer to the recent controversy about mis-labeled
olive oil? A: The 2010 study done by UC Davis
regarding what they alleged was mislabeled olive oil
was financed by the California olive industry. The
study did not
conclude that the oils it tested were fake or
adulterated. Although the study alleges that certain
oils that they tested did not meet requirements for
“Extra Virgin,” that alone does not mean the oils
were fake or adulterated. Also, the 2010 report has
been completely discredited. The testing methods
employed in the report had been rejected as
unreliable by the International Olive Council, which
is operated under the auspices of the United
Nations. Furthermore, for the subjective taste
component of the tests, samples of all brands were
sent to be tasted in Australia, where olive oil has
characteristics uniquely different from European
oils, rather than to Europe, where most of the
tested brands were produced. Finally, a California
law firm dropped their lawsuit based on the 2010
report when independent testing could not reproduce
the report’s findings. We spent a lot of money to
fight the accusations, but our family name was being
questioned. Q: It seems that an overwhelming amount of
olive oil currently purchased and consumed in the
U.S. is extra virgin. In fact, it’s difficult to find anything that
is not labeled “extra virgin” on the
shelves. What exactly constitutes the
category? A: Virgin Olive Oil results from
pressing olives that are over-ripe or have been
bruised, and therefore have a high acidity,
ranging from 1% to 4%. This type of oil has not
been treated chemically. Extra Virgin Olive Oil is
the highest grade of olive oil available, the result
of the simple crushing of the
olives which have been washed and separated from
the leaves. This is by far the best product
offering the widest range of perfect flavors and
aromas with a maximum acidity of 1% (1 gram/100g
of free oleic acid). Extra Virgin Olive Oil must
meet the highest standards of flavor and
aroma. The olive oil produced
earns its “Extra” star if it has less than 0.8 grams
per 100 grams of free oleic acid and exhibits
superior taste, color, and aroma. Ordinary Olive Oil
is a blend of low-quality virgin olive oil that’s
refined using mechanical, thermal, or even chemical
processes in order to actually be fit for
consumption. Q: Can you explain what you mean when you
say, “Olive oil production is controlled by the
mills, not the farmers.” A: In Italy, differently from Spain and California, most olive growers have very small plots of land, so most of them produce small quantities. They then sell their olives to local olive mills that press the olives and produce the olive oil, which is then purchased by companies.
A:
My job is to guarantee quality and price.
Origin is important for me, but what is even more
important is the quality of the oil, regardless of
where the olives originate. In May of 2016,
Colavita’s Premium Selection extra virgin olive oils
were granted permission to use the North American
Olive Oil Association Quality Seal, thereby
elevating the line to the highest status possible as
ranked by the International Olive Oil Council. The seal certifies that
the Colavita olive
oil has been tested by industry
professionals for quality and authenticity and
satisfies both criteria. To maintain the seal and
high status, participating brands must agree to have
samples taken from random retail locations twice a
year. This ensures that seal-holding brands sustain
high quality oils perpetually. Q.
You say that
except for DOP—the Italian designation meaning
denomination of protected origin—all olive oils
must list where the olive oil in the bottle comes
from, e.g., Spain, Greece, Tunisia, etc. But I
recently visited a gourmet grocery in NYC that
stocks dozens of very fine, expensive oils, yet
few of them had a designation of origin, despite
having different notations liked “produced in
Italy” and “packed in Italy.” Please explain
Master Chef Paul Bocuse Dies at 91 By John Mariani
Paul Bocuse, certainly the most celebrated French chef of the so-called la nouvelle cuisine movement, died on Saturday at the age of 91. If anyone can be called a giant in his industry, it was Bocuse, although he preferred to be called the Lion of Lyon, where he had his famous namesake restaurant. I met Bocuse a few times and interviewed him once, though I never got to eat at his flamboyantly baroque Lyon restaurant (left). I doubt he spoke more than ten words of English and he had none of the savoir-faire of colleagues like Roger Vergé, Michel Guérard and Louis Outhiers. Bocuse was not an attractive man—his face looked like a fallen soufflé—but in some ways he was the very image of a French chef. Happily photographed in his whites and high toque, he was a stout, big-boned fellow (although he lost a good deal of weight later in life) who looked as if he could out eat everyone at the table. Indeed, at a birthday bash held for him by his friend Jean Banchet at Le Français outside of Chicago that I was privileged to attend in the 1990s, Bocuse never flagged as course after course came out, even while much younger chefs who flew with him from France drooped with jetlag. Although a true innovator and creator of signature dishes like his truffled chicken poached inside a pig’s bladder and his truffle-and-foie gras soup beneath puff pastry (right), Bocuse was never comfortable with the excesses of la nouvelle cuisine, dismissing it as “mini-portions on maxi-plates.” He was very much a traditionalist and in my interview with him he told me, “If every chef tasted his own food, we would have better cuisine.” He was a champion of ferreting out the very finest ingredients and respecting their natural flavors. As he became more famous, awarded the French Legion of Honor medal by President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, Bocuse was less and less in his kitchen, and when asked who cooked at his restaurant when he wasn’t there, his response became a mantra for every chef, good and bad, who defended not cooking in his own restaurant: “The same person who cooks when I am there cooks when I’m not.” That statement was at radical odds with the long tradition of chefs who rarely ever came out of their kitchens and whose names were barely even known to his guests. Bocuse, as much as anyone, changed that perception, saying, “You’ve got to beat the drum in life,” when critics said he had become more of a self-promoter and product seller than a true chef. Indeed, he put his name on glassware, pots and pans, pepper mills, wine and Cognac, even cigarette lighters. He joined with Vergé (left) and Jean Troisgros to open a restaurant at Disney’s EPCOT Center in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. They made a fortune from it, which allowed Bocuse to maintain a wife and two mistresses, as he wrote about in his autobiography. As he passed into his seventies Bocuse had become part of the pantheon of great master chefs who were widely revered and highly influential beyond merely creating great food. He came to epitomize what a chef could achieve beyond the stoves, a man of great ebullience, joie de vivre and with the capacity to revel in his own success. Though Bocuse has been out of the limelight for the past decade, the fifty years preceding could rightly be called the Age of Bocuse, and his legacy is confirmed by the hundreds of younger chefs—some of them now in their sixties—who look up to the grand of Lion of Lyon.
é é ❖❖❖ NOTES FROM THE WINE CELLAR
SO YOU WANT
TO HOLD
A WINE TASTING By John Mariani "Bottle Shock" (2008)
I once knew a wine writer—always with a buzz on—who exulted that he’d tasted his way through 120 wines at an international exposition. Now, my job as a wine writer has its joys, but tasting my way through 120 wines, or 50 wines—which is about par for a judge at a wine competition—is not one of them. Such a slog is not only hard work but palate fatigue sets in early, so that the 46th wine you taste is never going to have quite the luster of the third, and by number 75 you are in agony and in need of a shower. Still, holding your own wine tasting at home, or in a restaurant, can be one of the most convivial of pleasures, as long as you go about it the right way, starting with whom you invite. Basically, there are three kinds of people who drink wine: those who kind of like it, those who truly love it, and those who regard it as a study in one-upmanship. Only the second type is any fun at a wine tasting, especially if you’re going to be serving some expensive wines, which the first group will shrug at and the third will sniff and go into a discourse about a wine’s Ph level or a vineyard’s trellising techniques. Once you’ve chosen your jolly group (please skip the black tie request!), there are certain guidelines that make such tastings a great deal of fun. • I recommend serving six wines. Fewer is hardly worth the effort, and more becomes a bore. If this will only be a tasting, the amount sampled in each glass should be no more than a couple of ounces, so one bottle will serve for about eight people; if you plan to consume all the wines afterwards, you'll have more than enough for that number of people. • Will it be a blind tasting? If so, cover each bottle with a paper bag to hide the labels, making sure the shape of the bottle is not evident. (Pinot noirs and rieslings always come in distinctively shaped bottles.) Number them and keep the list of names and numbers out of sight. • If it’s not a blind tasting, rather than have a random selection of wines, choose one region, say Tuscany, or a single estate, say, Jordan cabernet. If the former, a horizontal tasting of a single vintage will give interesting insight into the differences of wines from the same region; if the latter, have a vertical tasting, that is, from different vintages of the same wine. • Use standard wineglasses for all the wines and pour only about an ounce or so to begin with. Later your guests can enjoy whatever they like. • Have plain water available to help clear the palate between wines. • Crackers or bread is traditionally made available, also to clear the palate, chosen because they are bland and do not interfere with the wine flavors. But I believe it is much better to serve crackers like Saltines or bread like focaccia whose salt works as salt always does—to perk up flavors. I’ve also found that a little fat, along with the salt, brings out much more depth in wines you taste, so put a sheer amount of salted butter, or olive oil, on the bread. It works wonders. • If you are serving the wines with dinner—and I heartily recommend you do so—keep the food very, very simple, like mild cheese, chicken broth, a steak, or, if you’re tasting white wines, fillet of fish. • You might have guests taste all the wines prior to dinner—remember, you’re only sampling six—then match them with dinner. For the real point of tasting wines is that they go best with food, and with few exceptions, aren’t worth much without food, not even a glass of Champagne without at least a canape. • During the discussion, try to keep the conversation lively (remember, you didn't invite the wine snobs to lecture anyone), and it’s a capital idea to have a few choice observations from great writers handy for toasts like these: —“No nation is drunken where wine is cheap.”—Thomas Jefferson.
•Print out the names of all the wines for guests to take home. •
Finish
every drop of every wine you open.
“It was
a table for ten: Esther and I and our two kids, Esther’s
sister Hannah (who lives in Oxford now) and her four
(count them, four) boys, and my youngest sister-in-law,
Florence, who is a woman of many parts and is currently
trying her hand at car journalism, so showed up halfway
through the meal, yodeling across a crowded pub, `I’ve
got a convertible red Bentley out here the size of a
f***ing bendy bus. Can I stick it in your drive?'”—Giles
Coren, “Western’s Laundry,” The London Times (12/30/17) ❖❖❖
Any of John Mariani's books below may be ordered from amazon.com. The Hound in Heaven (21st Century Lion Books) is a novella, and for anyone who loves dogs, Christmas, romance, inspiration, even the supernatural, I hope you'll find this to be a treasured favorite. The story concerns how, after a New England teacher, his wife and their two daughters adopt a stray puppy found in their barn in northern Maine, their lives seem full of promise. But when tragedy strikes, their wonderful dog Lazarus and the spirit of Christmas are the only things that may bring his master back from the edge of despair. WATCH THE VIDEO! “What a huge surprise turn this story took! I was completely stunned! I truly enjoyed this book and its message.” – Actress Ali MacGraw “He had me at Page One. The amount of heart, human insight, soul searching, and deft literary strength that John Mariani pours into this airtight novella is vertigo-inducing. Perhaps ‘wow’ would be the best comment.” – James Dalessandro, author of Bohemian Heart and 1906. “John Mariani’s Hound in Heaven starts with a well-painted portrayal of an American family, along with the requisite dog. A surprise event flips the action of the novel and captures us for a voyage leading to a hopeful and heart-warming message. A page turning, one sitting read, it’s the perfect antidote for the winter and promotion of holiday celebration.” – Ann Pearlman, author of The Christmas Cookie Club and A Gift for my Sister. “John Mariani’s concise, achingly beautiful novella pulls a literary rabbit out of a hat – a mash-up of the cosmic and the intimate, the tragic and the heart-warming – a Christmas tale for all ages, and all faiths. Read it to your children, read it to yourself… but read it. Early and often. Highly recommended.” – Jay Bonansinga, New York Times bestselling author of Pinkerton’s War, The Sinking of The Eastland, and The Walking Dead: The Road To Woodbury. “Amazing things happen when you open your heart to an animal. The Hound in Heaven delivers a powerful story of healing that is forged in the spiritual relationship between a man and his best friend. The book brings a message of hope that can enrich our images of family, love, and loss.” – Dr. Barbara Royal, author of The Royal Treatment. ❖❖❖
❖❖❖
FEATURED
LINKS: I am happy to report
that the Virtual
Gourmet is linked to four excellent
travel sites: Everett Potter's Travel Report: I consider this the best and
savviest blog of its kind on the web. Potter is a
columnist for USA
Weekend, Diversion, Laptop and Luxury Spa Finder,
a contributing editor for Ski and a frequent contributor
to National
Geographic Traveler, ForbesTraveler.com
and Elle Decor.
"I’ve designed this site is for people who take
their travel seriously," says Potter. "For
travelers who want to learn about special places
but don’t necessarily want to pay through the nose for
the privilege of staying there. Because at the end
of the day, it’s not so much about five-star
places as five-star experiences." THIS WEEK:
Eating Las Vegas
JOHN CURTAS has been covering the Las Vegas
food and restaurant scene since 1995. He is
the co-author of EATING LAS VEGAS – The 50
Essential Restaurants (as well as
the author of the Eating Las Vegas web site: www.eatinglasvegas.
He can also be seen every Friday morning as
the “resident foodie” for Wake Up With the
Wagners on KSNV TV (NBC) Channel 3 in
Las Vegas.
MARIANI'S VIRTUAL GOURMET
NEWSLETTER is published weekly. Editor/Publisher: John
Mariani.
Editor: Walter Bagley. Contributing Writers: Christopher Mariani,
Robert Mariani, Misha Mariani, John A. Curtas, Geoff Kalish, Mort
Hochstein, and
Brian Freedman. Contributing Photographer: Galina
Dargery. Technical Advisor: Gerry McLoughlin.
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