IN THIS ISSUE
13 CHANGES AIRLINES MUST
MAKE AFTER COVID IS OVER By John Mariani
NEW YORK CORNER
LOVE AND PIZZA
Chapter Forty-Eight
By John Mariani
NOTES
FROM THE WINE CELLAR
WHY DO SO MANY WINES COST
WAY MORE THAN THEY SHOULD?
By John Mariani
❖❖❖
13 CHANGES AIRLINES MUST
MAKE AFTER COVID IS OVER
By John Mariani
As I’ve said
before, there is every reason to believe the
travel industry will survive and thrive after
the current pandemic recedes. It is going to
take longer than anyone could have imagined a
year ago, and the all-clear horns won’t be
sounding any time soon. But people are anxious
to get back to some kind of normalcy by which
they can travel to places they know and don’t
know, dine at favorite and new restaurants and
forge new adventures. On the assumption that the way to rebound
from disaster is to not repeat the mistakes of the
past, instead to innovate in ways that will truly
appeal to potential travelers, the airline
industry, more than any, needs completely to
re-think policies that are the result of decades
of putting profit over comfort and service. Indeed, it is laughable even to refer to
the airlines as a “service industry.” The fact is,
almost no one looks forward to airline travel,
which begins with the agony of getting to the
airport, standing interminably on check-in and
security lines, then enduring delays and
cancellations based as much on algorithms as bad
weather. Here are some critical things the airlines
have to do if they have any chance of bringing
back the kind of high traffic they enjoyed for the
first two decades of this century. One, re-engage with travel agents
who have been left in the cold by airlines who cut
off their commissions—especially since getting a
human being to answer the phone at the airline
itself is daunting. A good travel agent is an
enormous resource, not just for the client but for
the airline that gets his/her business based on
recommendations, packages and fares only agents
can arrange. Two, stop the idiocy of changing
fares daily, even hourly, to meet supply and
demand. You don’t go to the supermarket expecting
the price of ice cream or steak to fluctuate
throughout the day or overnight, but on-line fares
are a miasma of complexity. Commit to fares on a
monthly or seasonal basis and keep them there. Three, increase the number of
business class seats and reduce their prices.
So-called “Premium” seats above “Coach” are, by
and large, a rip-off, although Delta’s premium
seats are a good model to follow. Four, since the volume of air
travel is not likely to return to the same levels
as before, and jumbo jets sit empty on
the ground, re-configure seating more to resemble
what the relatively comfortable seating in the old
707s and 747s used to be like, rather than the
sardine can configurations used today. Modern
aircraft are made to maximize numbers and profits,
not comfort or convenience. Five, restore food service as the
norm for any flight longer than two hours. It had
been one of the few parts of flying people looked
forward to (even if the food was dreck), and
people feel insulted being tossed a tiny biscuit
or Twix bar. Six,
bring back having magazines available in all
classes, not just the banal airline magazines that
are now nothing more than ads for the destinations
the airline flies to. And while they’re at, just
cut the airline president’s page in which he/she
hypes industry statistics and always insists they
are improving with one thought in mind, to fly you
safe and comfortably to your destination. Seven, use this Covid down time to
re-think the logistics of the check-in and
security lines. Sensible weight restrictions on
how much a passenger can carry on must be adjusted
upward, after years when bag size and weight
requirements have shrunk radically. And paying for
baggage at all is despicable. Increase— rather
than decrease, as they have been doing—overhead
bin space, which is something every passenger
complains about not having enough of. Eight, make universal rules
about passing through detectors, so that in one
city you have to remove your shoes,
belts, laptops, iPhones while in another you do
not. Nine, do away with—and some airlines
have—flight change fees, which are possibly the
most odious of money-grabbing swindles the
airlines perpetrate. Ten, get rid of “no refund” tickets,
which are designed to disadvantage travelers in
every way possible, not least assigning them the
worst seats on the plane. Again, some airlines
have seen the light on this one. Eleven, provide enough seating
in the waiting areas, not least because ofthe
frequency of delays. Twelve, logistically shorten
the distance of one arrival gate from a departing
gate for a connecting flight that the airline
knows fifty people are going to rush to get to. Thirteen,
and perhaps most important, require airline
captains and crew to make very regular, timed
announcements about any delays and wait times,
even if new information is not immediately
forthcoming. Every five minutes is little enough
to ask, simply to be re-assured that all is being
done to re-assure passengers.
None of these recommendations will cost a
lot of money. And many are merely returning to a
time when service counted in order to court a
passenger’s business. Today, with the exception of
some of the Asian airlines’ exceptional business
and first-class service, the concern of most
airlines is to fight it out to be the least
obnoxious among them. People want to travel, but they
really hate the ordeal of flying to get somewhere.
Until airlines realize that, it will take much
longer for their business to bounce back.
❖❖❖
NEW YORK CORNER
By John Mariani
LOVE
AND PIZZA
Since, for
the time being, I am unable to write about or
review New York City restaurants, I have decided instead to
print a serialized version of my (unpublished)
novel Love
and Pizza,
which takes place in New York and Italy
and involves a young, beautiful Bronx
woman named Nicola Santini from an Italian
family impassioned about food. As the
story goes on, Nicola, who is a student at
Columbia University, struggles to maintain her
roots while seeing a future that could lead her
far from them—a future that involves a career
and a love affair
that would change her life forever. So, while
New York’s restaurants remain closed, I will run
a chapter of the Love and Pizza each
week until the crisis is over. Afterwards I
shall be offering the entire book
digitally. I hope you like the
idea and even more that you will love Nicola,
her family and her friends. I’d love to know
what you think. Contact me at loveandpizza123@gmail.com
—John Mariani
To read previous
chapters go to archive
(beginning with March 29, 2020, issue).
LOVE
AND PIZZA
By John
Mariani
Cover Art
By Galina Dargery
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
After getting out
of school for the summer, Catherine did go to
Paris on her own, sending antique postcards to
Nicola, with one-sentence messages about how
fabulous the city was and how she had “much to
tell.” When she did return at the end of June,
Catherine and Nicola got together for lunch at
Da Silvano in SoHo.Catherine asked her where she’d been
traveling, but Nicola waved her hand and said,“Oh,
y’know, two days here, three days there. I want
to hear about Paris.” Catherine began with exuberance, telling
Nicola about the beauty of the city and how the
weather was consistently good throughout her
three-week stay.Having been to Paris with her parents
years before, she had little to say about the
usual attractions and said that the city was
overrun with tourists lining up to ascend the
Eiffel Tower and taking up every square inch of
the room in the Louvre where the “Mona Lisa” was
hung. “And, oh, Nicky, you would have loved the
food!I
never had a bad meal. The neighborhood bistros
are so terrific, and, y’know, how you always
said ingredients count in making a good dish?Well,
I could taste what you meant every time I had a
stalk of asparagus or a plate of mussels, and,
oh my God, the strawberries! I thought I’d died
and gone to heaven.And at
the bistros you can still eat so cheaply and
have really terrific food.” “Did you eat at any of the three-star
restaurants?” asked Nicola. Catherine’s face suddenly turned glum.She
lowered her chin, looked at her friend and said,
“Oh, Nicky, you're going to want to kill me.” Nicola could not imagine what Catherine
could possibly have done to make her say such a
thing. “Why would I want to kill you?” Catherine pushed herself back from the
table, paused and said, “Well, here goes. I did
get to one of the three-star restaurants with
someone you know.” “Who?” asked Nicola, thinking the only
people in Paris she knew were some of the
fashion crowd. “Giancarlo.”Catherine
winced when she said the name, expecting Nicola
to sink into her chair.But
Nicola’s gaze was steady, and she let Catherine
go on. “I was just walking along the Seine one
day, minding my own business, when I hear
someone call my name.I turn
around and it’s Giancarlo on the other side of
the street.He ran across and came up to me, asked
how I was and asked how you were doing.” “What did you say?” “I told him you were doing great, working
very hard modeling and that you still intended
to go to grad school next
fall.He
seemed very pleased to hear it.” “Did he say anything about me?” “Yeah, he did.He
said that you were a wonderful, beautiful woman
and that he was sorry it didn’t work out for the
two of you.” “That’s it?” “Not really.We
kept talking and walking along the river—it was
around one o’clock—and he asked me if I’d have
lunch with him.” “What was he in Paris for?” “Business.He’d just flown in from Turin and was
going to be in Paris for a few days.” “So you had lunch with him.” “Yes, we just caught a bite at a bistro
called Benoit on the corner.” “So what’d you talk about?” “Milan, mostly. He said he was struggling
to hold his family’s business together but
thought he was over the worst of it.” “How’d he look?” Catherine
wanted to say “gorgeous” but settled for “very
good. He had on a nice tan suit and one of those
button-down shirts.” “So, for this I want to kill you?” “No, Nicky. I guess the afternoon got
away from us.Turns out my family knows a lot of people
his family knows, and we started to compare
notes and, well, we just got on very well.And
then he said he had meetings until eight o’clock
but would be honored if I’d have dinner with
him.” Nicola remained silent, tilting her head
as if to ask, “So?” “So he took me to Taillevent, one of
those three-star places he said his father
always took him to. Frankly, I found the place
pretty stodgy.The décor was very posh but very
old-fashioned.The owner and the entire staff greeted
Giancarlo as a V.I.P.,and
within seconds they’d brought out some
Champagne.” “What’d
you wear?” “Oh, just a linen shift, nothing too
fancy.” “And how was the food?” “Oh, Nicky, it was sublime.Foie
gras, a beautifully cooked turbot, I don’t know
how many desserts.” Nicola was still quiet, waiting to hear
whatever it was Catherine was about to say. “And afterwards, Nicky, I went back to my
hotel and he went back to his. I swear, Nick,
that was all. He said he’d love to see me again
some time if our paths crossed, he gave me a
kiss, and that was it.” “Well, if that was it, Catherine, why
would I want to kill you?” “Oh, Nicky, it’s just that what you went
through with Giancarlo—and I know you were
really crazy about him—I thought I was somehow,
I don’t know, betraying our friendship by
spending all that time with him.Afterwards
I told myself I should have said no to dinner.” Nicola smiled at her friend and said,
“Catherine, if nothing happened, nothing
happened. And, y’know what? Even if something
did happen, I wouldn’t want to kill you.Rough
you up a little maybe.” Catherine sort of laughed. Nicola said, “Hey, Catherine, he’s an
attractive guy, and, in a way, I could actually
see the two of you together.Obviously,
you’re more in his class”—the word made Nicola
uncomfortable—“than I’ll ever be.But
what’s more important is that I am way over
Giancarlo.Yeah, I was crazy about him, but the
whole affair—if you can even call it that—taught
me as much about myself as about his kind of
man.We’re
from two different worlds, and no matter how
much Giancarlo goes on about distancing himself
from the ‘old ways’ and not caring about being a
marchese,
it’s in his blood, and that blood is still
blue.” Catherine, still being conciliatory,
said, “Well, it’s not like I’m going to be
dating the guy, Nick.” Nicola took her friend’s hands and said,
“Catherine, I really wouldn't mind if you do.Not
that I think Giancarlo could handle someone like
you. You’ve got too much independence in you.He
needs someone who will fit in and keep the
Cavallacci flame glowing brightly. But, hey, if
you want to see him again, I have not the
slightest problem.” And Nicola
truly didn’t.Sitting with her tall friend in that
little eatery in SoHo, clinking their glasses of
wine and saying “Cent’anni!” brought a
civilized ending to the Giancarlo Cavallacci
episode.But,
when Nicola thought of Marco di Noè, the book
still seemed open, its pages flapping back and
forth.
WHY DO SO MANY WINES
COST WAY TOO MUCH?
By John Mariani
The
wine industry’s term for a “premium wine” is
one that costs about $15, which may come as
a surprise to those who peruse their wine
shop shelves and find that few wines not
bottled in jugs by the largest commercial
wineries come close to that low price. Of
course, there are a few really, really cheap
wines for under ten bucks and there are some
very good wines that run from $15 to $25,
which, quite candidly, is a lot of money for
the average wine drinker to shell out for a
casual dinner several nights a week. And
from there things go askew, with wines that
for no reason at all sell for $50 to $100,
and then way upward from there. Many Napa
Valley Cabernets now sell for in excess of
$200. Since all wine essentially is nothing
more than fermented grape juice, what could
possibly make wines cost so much? The simple
answer is supply and demand, even though many
of the world’s most prestigious wineries play
fast and loose with how much they produce and
how much they sell, sometimes in the gray
market. In advance of the Millennium,
Champagne producers warned—quelle
horreur!— that there simply wouldn’t be
enough of their bubblies to go around because
the demand would be so great. Guess what: It wasn’t. There were
oceans of Champagne stored in their caves
(left) available at all price levels.
Many people avoided the hiked-up prices of
Champagne and drank Italian prosecco or
Spanish cavas. And after the recession hit in
2009, with demand down, prices fell, too, with
a lot of wines that once sold for $100 marked
down to half that amount or less. In some countries, like France, the
number of bottles allowed to be produced by an
historic appellation is restricted, so as to
keep producers, even in a highly productive
vintage, from upsetting the market prices.
Nonetheless—and this is a very good thing—the
bottled oversupply was not allowed to carry a
premier cru label but the same exact wine
could be sold under a secondary label at a
fraction of the price. In many cases, especially in Burgundy,
where merchants called negoçiants keep the
market in balance, some do very well with that
segment of the market. In Burgundy’s
prestigious Côte d’Ôr, which produces famously
expensive wines like Romanée-Conti, La Tâche
and Richebourg, the amount of red wines in any
vintage rarely tops 13,000 hectoliters
(343,000 U.S. gallons), which is actually
several thousand bottles more than they used
to produce before 1985. Romanée-Conti makes
only 500 cases (6,000 bottles) each year,
selling for $12,000 and up per bottle.
Bordeaux’s Lafite-Rothschild produces 35,000
cases overall, although, given the year, the
premier cru wines of the estate may number
25,000 cases, which is a whopping 300,000
bottles, each of which sells for about $1,000.
The
question, though, is not whether such wines
could possibly be worth that kind of money,
assuming there is a market for them, but what,
aside from relative supply, is it about them
that would allow producers to charge such
prices? The easy answer is that such wines
have, over centuries, earned reputations for
excellence that exceeds those wines of the
same region that come from the same soil and
grapes. This is where “terroir”—the most
cherished and marketable of terms—comes in. It
refers to the unique confluence of soil
composition, sunlight, rain, temperature and
other agricultural factors that consistently
make such wines taste as wonderful as they do. A case in
point: Once, standing on the roadside that
cuts through the Côte d’Ôr (above), a
vigneron gave me grapes off the vine to taste,
and, being from the Côte d’Ôr, they were very
good, with ample sugar and acids. Then we
moved up the slope of the vineyards, no more
than a few yards, and tasted those grapes.
Hmm, even better. Higher up, where the
hillside gets optimum sun, the grapes tasted
best of all, rather like Goldilocks finding
her ideal porridge. But then, the vigneron
took me just a few yards to the left, where
the grapes didn’t have much flavor at all. He
said that that terroir—right
next to the first vineyard—had never produced
superior grapes. I understood very clearly at
that point the importance of micro-climates
and terroir. And those far superior vineyards
on the Côte d’Ôr were the most costly as real
estate. So, too, the prime terroirs of
California’s Napa Valley now sell for
astounding prices. According to Napa
Valley Register, “To own a piece of the
choicest land on the valley floor, a buyer
will have to pay an average of $310,000 per
acre, compared to $270,000 in 2014.” Which
is why the old cliché holds true: To make a
small fortune in the wine business, you have
to start with a big fortune. Yet,
in order to keep the supply small for the
market, these estates, which may not have even
a twenty-year pedigree behind them, sell their
wines for $200 and up. Granted, that doesn’t
come close to Romanée-Conti or Lafite, though
a so-called “trophy wine” like Screaming Eagle
in Oakville can fetch up to $2,000 a bottle. Screaming Eagle is an example of how
the market responds to wine media ratings—the
highest being 100 points—by publications like
Wine
Advocate and Wine
Spectator, whose declaration ofa
“wine of the year” may cause its price to
triple or quadruple as a result of publicity.
No other agricultural product can make that
claim. There will always be those—and they are
usually not
true connoisseurs—for whom price is no object,
reminding me of Oscar Wilde’s observation of a
cynic: “A man who knows the price of
everything and the value of nothing.” In so
many cases,
you do get what you pay for, which is a label.
Back in
the late 1990s every casino restaurant in Las
Vegas clamored to stock Chateau Pétrus, a
Pomerol that some wine media exalt as the
finest in the world, year after year, which in
a wine shop can cost $4,000 a bottle. Double
or triple that on a Vegas wine list and you
can pretty quickly assume who’s drinking
Pétrus. Or, more to the point, what Taiwanese
high roller has it sent free of charge to his
comped suite, hamburger included and fetched
by a "wine angel" (below). To come back down to earth—and mindful
that there is, indeed, a sucker born every
minute—one has to question why of, say, twenty
different Barolos or
so-called “Super Tuscans,” from the same
hillsides in Piedmont and Chianti, some cost a
very reasonable $40 while others cost $600.
Again, the price of real estate figures into
the equation, and there is no question that
the best wineries do tremendous research to
find the best varietal clones to plant, which
will cost more than others. Also, the wineries themselves may be
state-of-the-art, multi-million- dollar
investments that might also include tasting
rooms, small hotels, even golf courses. Then
there is marketing, advertising and schmoozing
with the wine media, who are expected never to
turn up their noses at a prestigious label.
Believe me, I’ve had a lot of those wines and
some of them have gone south fast, especially
the high-alcohol wines of California and,
increasingly, Spain and Italy. The fact is, even if it all begins as
fermented grape juice, several other factors
go to making it a really good wine, but
it is certainly not a Maserati or an
Aston-Martin, where the intense
workmanship and price of research and
materials is as evident as their beauty. One
glass of wine looks pretty much like every
other glass of wine, and winemakers, who are
very, very dedicated, only have so much to
work with. I can tell you this:
There are bad wines, good wines, very good
wines and extraordinary wines. But between
very good and extraordinary there are
innumerable wines from many countries in the
global market that are priced right, and these
days, with the pandemic still keeping people
from dining out and restaurants and hotels not
re-stocking their cellars, there’s never been
a better time to find some real bargains.
❖❖❖
THINGS OUR GRANDMOTHERS USED TO SAY
BUT WERE NEVER ACTUALLY TRUE
"It Is Really Cathartic to Make Dough."—"Klancy Miller Relaxes With
Cinnamon Rolls," New York Magazine (2/12/21)
❖❖❖
Sponsored by
❖❖❖
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.
“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.
Modesty forbids me to praise my own new book, but
let me proudly say that it is an extensive
revision of the 4th edition that appeared more
than a decade ago, before locavores, molecular
cuisine, modernist cuisine, the Food Network and
so much more, now included. Word origins have been
completely updated, as have per capita consumption
and production stats. Most important, for the
first time since publication in the 1980s, the
book includes more than 100 biographies of
Americans who have changed the way we cook, eat
and drink -- from Fannie Farmer and Julia Child to
Robert Mondavi and Thomas Keller.
"This book is amazing! It has entries for
everything from `abalone' to `zwieback,' plus more
than 500 recipes for classic American dishes and
drinks."--Devra First, The Boston Globe.
"Much needed in any kitchen library."--Bon Appetit.
Now in Paperback,
too--How Italian Food Conquered the
World (Palgrave Macmillan) has won top prize from the
Gourmand
World Cookbook Awards. It is
a rollicking history of the food culture of
Italy and its ravenous embrace in the 21st
century by the entire world. From ancient Rome
to la dolce
vita of post-war Italy, from Italian
immigrant cooks to celebrity chefs, from
pizzerias to high-class ristoranti,
this chronicle of a culinary diaspora is as
much about the world's changing tastes,
prejudices, and dietary fads as about
our obsessions with culinary fashion and
style.--John Mariani
"Eating Italian will
never be the same after reading
John Mariani's entertaining and
savory gastronomical history of
the cuisine of Italy and how it
won over appetites worldwide. . .
. This book is such a tasteful
narrative that it will literally
make you hungry for Italian food
and arouse your appetite for
gastronomical history."--Don
Oldenburg, USA Today.
"Italian
restaurants--some good, some glitzy--far
outnumber their French rivals. Many of
these establishments are zestfully described
in How Italian Food Conquered the World, an
entertaining and fact-filled chronicle by
food-and-wine correspondent John F.
Mariani."--Aram Bakshian Jr., Wall Street
Journal.
"Mariani
admirably dishes out the story of
Italy’s remarkable global ascent
to virtual culinary
hegemony....Like a chef gladly
divulging a cherished family
recipe, Mariani’s book reveals the
secret sauce about how Italy’s
cuisine put gusto in gusto!"--David
Lincoln Ross,
thedailybeast.com
"Equal parts
history, sociology, gastronomy, and just
plain fun, How Italian Food Conquered the
World tells the captivating and delicious
story of the (let's face it) everybody's
favorite cuisine with clarity, verve and
more than one surprise."--Colman Andrews,
editorial director of The Daily
Meal.com.
"A fantastic and fascinating
read, covering everything from the influence
of Venice's spice trade to the impact of
Italian immigrants in America and the
evolution of alta cucina. This book will
serve as a terrific resource to anyone
interested in the real story of Italian
food."--Mary Ann Esposito, host of PBS-TV's
Ciao
Italia.
"John Mariani has written the
definitive history of how Italians won their
way into our hearts, minds, and
stomachs. It's a story of pleasure over
pomp and taste over technique."--Danny Meyer,
owner of NYC restaurants Union Square
Cafe, The Modern, and Maialino.
❖❖❖
FEATURED
LINKS: I am happy to report
that the Virtual
Gourmet is linked to four excellent
travel sites:
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. Publisher: John Mariani. Editor: Walter Bagley. Contributing Writers: Christopher Mariani,
Robert Mariani,Misha Mariani, John A. Curtas, Gerry Dawes, Geoff Kalish,
and Brian Freedman. Contributing
Photographer: Galina Dargery. Technical
Advisor: Gerry
McLoughlin.