28 Feb: Insane Winery Lunch AND Chocolate Para Fanaticos

Crazy lunch that Jill created a slideshow for in an attempt to capture PART of it. And dinner later included the irresistible Chocolate For Fanatics.

So after the dinner last night that had us both practically falling asleep during the waning courses of the meal, we got up at 6am of course. This was so that we could head to the airport in Santiago and fly to Mendoza for the final stretch of the trip.

The flight was quick and our guide dropped us off at our hotel but our room wasn't yet ready. The road in front of the hotel was one way until last week but now is clearly painted with a yellow line for a lane to go the other way. As our driver turned onto the street to drop us off, cars were driving the wrong way straight at us and he had to honk and wave multiple times for them to move over to the correct side of the line. Ok. Since our room wasn't ready we hung on the free wifi for a bit until he returned to take us to/from Familia Zuccardi, a Bodega (winery) in Mendoza.

What a hilarious ride we had. Anything quoted is from him. "Good wine doesn't make you drunk. If you drink cheap wine, you'll get drunk." Later along the way he asked us to explain "white trash" which had us laughing quite a bit. He asked if "rednecks" was termed from being out in the sun unprotected.

He asked where we were from and when we said Seattle he said "Super Sonics" and he isn't the first to have that strong association. I had to explain that the team was sold and moved (not merged with another team like he thought at first when I explained things) to Oklahoma City. SHOCKED. "Oh My God! For me, Seattle is same as SuperSonics!!"

He asked more questions after the shock wore off. I explained that Howard Schultz sold the team to someone he knew would move the team. "I imagine people want to kill Howard Schultz!" (Re-emphasizing that this is not the opinion of Marc and Jill but of a fan who lives in Mendoza, Argentina) Then later, "Now that you tell me this, I can't take coffee at Starbucks anymore."

So he dropped us off and the insane lunch began. They did a traditional grill of many things with plenty of wine but words can only tell so much. They brought out some white wine (Torrontes and Chardonnay/Viognier) to start and some *amazing* empanadas to start. Then several huge salad plates with delicious food and the red wine started. We had Syrah, Bonarda, and Malbec along with this wonderful food that included them bringing out meat 3 times and they asked if we wanted more later on too. Since we were asking questions about the wine, the sommelier brought out some wonderful Tempranillo too.

After all of this, we got dessert and a dessert wine called Tardio. Keep in mind that this was our lunch for the day. I had a coffee because the food was so good that I figured the coffee would work and I've basically not taken coffee this trip because it has NOT been good. Those are the written words, but perhaps watching the slideshow of this lunch would be better.

Now, we ALSO got a tour of this winery and there was an Irish couple on the tour so we had a great tour with them along with the guide who is from the States but doesn't get to speak English very often anymore. Every winery tour still seems to teach us something. They are experimenting and several of the wines are really good.

We were taken back and given a break at our hotel. We walked around a bit and the city is so busy with locals and just a real town. It was fun to walk around.

Eventually we got taken to our dinner at a place called Francis Mallman 1884. We both were't quite sure where we were being dropped off, but once we walked into the courtyard, it was this amazing building that was impressively restored from the late 19th century. The dining areas were quite cool but I think only Jill (or perhaps some of our photos) can describe them. This meal was wonderful too so let's just say were both full from these two meals.

Jill asked for the dessert menu because she figured something would entice me. She tried to get me to go classic Argentinian with dulce de leche but I couldn't be talked out of Chocolate Para Fanaticos (Chocolate for Fanatics). Three chocolate things appeared on a plate untarnished by fruit as it should be. This plate was as wide as a fork or spoon and definitely longer and full of chocolate goodness.

The taxi home featured a driver who visited Atlantic City and won. He used the proceeds to drive across the country through Chicago ("cold!") and to Vancouver, BC.

15 Feb - Buenos Aires --> Ushuaia

On the seventh day, we (kind of) rested... 5am wakeup call... This was painful after being up past midnight for our final night in Buenos Aires. Ana met us in the morning and helped us get checked in then we parted and stood in line to check bags.

Once through security, Jill wandered around to find some post cards. She spoke in Spanish - at least for the pleasantries - to someone who worked at the shop. She will soon surpass me and I studied Spanish while she studied French. Hint: don't trust the US school system whatsoever regarding foreign language instruction.

He asked where she was from. She said Seattle. He said: Seattle Supersonics of the NBA? After some laughing she then had to try to explain to him that they have moved and no longer play in Seattle but rather OKC. She tried to geographically explain this. This goes down as today's "You can't make this stuff up."

The flight featured endless "Just for Laughs" Gags (Canadian) type of clips similar to Candid Camera and most were hilarious and needed no soundtrack to see the people set up and then laugh at themselves.

Our guide Gabriel picked us up at the airport and ran us by a place to get some sandwiches and then to the hotel. We changed in 20+ minutes and then went for a hike up Martial Glacier. He told us on the way to the hotel it was only a 3km hike, so we packed lightly. Then on the hike we realized it was 3km practically straight up from 1100 feet to 3000 feet to a glacier and we had the return hike too (another 3k down). In addition, it was COLD and blowing like crazy as well as sprinkling on us at about 40 degrees which neither of us really prepared for given the 3km "hike".

On the plus side, the views were outstanding. We also now know to prepare for anything down here so close to Antartica when it comes to weather and terrain.

We went to dinner just a 12 minute walk up the hill from our hotel. Jill had a Centolla Crab (King Crab of the Southern Hemi) and we both had "Chez Manu" items although Jill had the seafood version and I had the lamb (cordero) version. We sat next to an aquarium that had some great stuff in it including a huge crab and something they call a "Fish Frog" which was huge and goofy looking.

"Green" by R.E.M. is 25 Years Old.... Wha????

Yes, that awesome album/CD/tape (whatever format you had when it came out) is now 25 years old. How the heck did THAT happen? Wow. It's 5 o'clock somewhere, right? Of course I will age myself some more and indicate that this brings me back to the years of Massapequa High School... Oy!

Many of our regular readers are baseball fans. And almost every baseball fan complains about how absurd the scheduling is for their respective team. Great little "30 for 30" on the husband and wife team who did the scheduling by hand.

I wouldn't say that I am a huge NBA fan. I lost interest in the Knicks thanks to the idiocy of James Dolan and his blind loyalty to Isiah Thomas. I know some of the players, particularly the ones on the marquee teams, like the Miami Heat. I was pleasantly surprised to come across this article by Chris Bosh in WIRED about the virtues of being able to write code. He also mentioned an interesting non-profit called 'code.org', which has some really interesting ideas about incorporating programming into education. Check it out.

Remember the adage "don't run 1/2 marathons on back-to-back weekends"? You don't? That's probably because most people do not need someone to tell them that. They just are smart enough not to do it! Unlike moi. Yep, ran the Snohomish River Run the week after the Nike 1/2 Marathon and let's just say it was a fight the whole way. Legs had no mojo and missed my PR by ~40 seconds. A bit disappointing, but given that I was sick for most of October and the hard 13.1 the previous week (even though it wasn't race pace), I can't complain too much.

Final races for the year seem to be a 5K in about a week and a 4-miler about a week later. Then I think I will be good. I look forward to spending some time building up at CrossFit and working on a project that has been in the works for a few weeks.

We have been doing some fun things on the home cooking front. Picked up a new cookbook from "Gramercy Tavern", a long time favorite of mine in New York. Then I do some experimenting with a cookbook from a wonderful place in Sydney that we ate at called "Quay". 

One of the birthday gifts that Marc picked up for me was "Modernist Cuisine At Home". Interesting take on cooking because it is written as if cooking is more about the science as opposed to some of the art involved. I like a little bit of both. We actually went to an exhibit currently showing at the Pacific Science Center showcasing some of the photography used in the book. Definitely unique.

Even with all of the science, I have been able to use the cookbook on a few recipes over the past couple of months and look forward to using it for a dish in celebration of a close friend's birthday. Lucky me!

Title IX, Microsoft, Yahoo! and JDRF...

It's that time of the year where we shamelessly plug our annual JDRF dinner being held at Chez Beck. It's on Saturday, September 28th. Feel free to drop me an email if you are interested in attending. It's a multi-course dinner paired with wines with ALL proceeds going straight to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. If you cannot attend and are interested in donating, feel free to donate using this link. BTW, we are already halfway full so snag your spot(s)!

For those of you who are interested in Title IX or the advancement of women in the sports field in general, I have been catching up on ESPN's series called "Nine for IX". People like Pat Summitt, Lesley Visser, Mary Decker Slaney, Katarina Witt and Venus Williams are profiled. It's well worth the $10 to download the series off of iTunes and watch the episodes. The different shows have been educational, cringe-worthy (in terms of how much some women put up with) and humorous. Note that one or two of the episodes may be a bit graphic for younger viewers.

It's brought back some great memories, particularly watching the '99ers (1999 US Women's World Cup Soccer Team) due to catching those games with Lisa, my sister, and a good friend, Keri back at Giants Stadium. The final was absolutely riveting and I remember watching with Lisa, and by the time overtime came around, the very packed sports bar switched from watching baseball to the women's final. Absolutely awesome.

As I was catching up on some reading, I stumbled upon this profile of Marissa Mayer in Business Insider. It's a long read, but I found it engaging and well written. It doesn't say Mayer is a savior, but I also find that it doesn't go the typical "well the woman is a b***h because she is forceful with what she wants". That said, the title of the article is more salacious and infers it is some kind of big expose. No, I haven't seen the Vogue spread yet. She's rich, relatively young and very successful. Mayer will be well presented in the magazine.

I found I was more intrigued by Mayer's style and her career outlined in the article than by Sheryl Sandberg's "Lean In" circles advocated in her book. Sandberg's statements did not resonate with me at all as she seemed to say you had to either be a mother of children or completely dedicated to your career to be 100% fulfilled. Plus what did she actually do in her highly influential positions at Google and at Facebook to make those companies more equal in terms of pay for men and women? Or being promoted to higher positions? I don't begrudge her success but she could have led by example which would have been way more powerful. Don't tell me. Show me.

As for the latest with Microsoft and SteveB leaving, I have no idea who will replace him. The recent re-org does present an interesting question for the CEO candidates. Are they going to have to commit to the strategy that he spent over a year working on, or will they be able to create their own strategy? SteveB's departure was long overdue, and clamoring for other unpopular execs (but popular with Steve) to leave has started in earnest. Guess who? :-)

But I do wonder how employees feel given that they were still trying to figure out how things were going to shake out for them in the recently announced re-org, and now will wonder what a new CEO will want to implement? I am sure Kara Swisher of AllThingsD will have her sources working overtime to find out the skinny.

SteveB: Since you made around $800 MILLION yesterday just because MSFT soared due to your retirement news, how about you save the taxpayers of Seattle some money and just pay for the arena for the Sonics yourself? Thanks!

Accountability anyone?

Accountability was a theme for me this week.

This was a pretty eventful week in baseball - one perfect game by Roy Halladay, one "almost perfect game" by Armando Galarraga (more on that in a bit) and Ken Griffey, Jr.'s retirement. As someone who is pretty familiar with Halladay from his days of pitching with the Toronto Blue Jays and how he dominated the toughest offensive division in MLB, I thought this was just another reason that he should be a lock for the Hall of Fame – for the non-baseball fans, only 20 people in the entire history of baseball of 100+ years have achieved this accomplishment. I hope he does not get burned by not having a gaudy win total because he was on a team that didn't generate much offense while he pitched for them.

Griffey's retirement was bittersweet. I was actually fortunate enough to be at the game where he got his last hit, which led to a walk-off win for the Mariners. I did mention to my colleagues at the game when he came up to bat that if he won the game for the Ms, he would retire right after. As soon as the hit happened, I felt sad that Marc wasn't there with me. Griffey is probably the reason why Marc got into baseball. It took about 10 days for Griffey to release a statement about retirement. I believed it was time for him to retire and didn't think he should have been signed in 2010, but with all of that said, I was bummed that Marc didn't get to see him play this year. The walk-off was one of those moments that should have been shared with Marc, even if I was at Safeco Field for a work function.

Now to the "almost perfect game". To sum it up, Galarraga retired the 1^st 26 batters of the opposing team. To get a perfect game, you need 27. The 27^th batter hit a ground ball and was erroneously called safe when he should have been out, which would have given Galarraga his perfect game (the 21^st in MLB history spanning over 100 years). The replays showed the batter was out by a good margin within 20 seconds and outrage hammered Twitter, Facebook and every other social media outlet known to the world.

Now baseball doesn't have instant replay for this scenario, so the only way the call could be overturned was if another umpire saw it differently. Jim Joyce probably had the best angle, so that wasn't going to happen. Joyce went into the umpire's room in the stadium and asked to see the replay. He was horrified by what he saw and immediately sought out Galarraga to apologize. Note that when the call was made that the batter was safe, Galarraga didn't argue at all and kept his composure. Joyce wanted to make his apology in-person and he faced the man who he robbed of being a part of MLB history. Bravo, Jim Joyce although when people say he "manned up", it makes me gag.

While it is great that Jim Joyce was immediately accountable for his mistake, I think it is sad that accountability is now the exception, as opposed to the norm. Everyone is praising Joyce for doing the right thing, but shouldn't people be accustomed to doing the right thing? What does it say about society today when we are shocked that someone owns up to their mistakes? Read here about more graciousness the next day, which will probably make me a fan of Jim Leyland and Galarraga for a long time (except when they play the Yanks, of course).

Peggy Noonan of the WSJ (disclaimer: I am a huge fan of her writing) wrote an eloquent column linking baseball, the "almost perfect game" and the fact that there is an instruction gap in our country about accountability. She put it as, "What was sweet and surprising was that all the principals in the story comported themselves as fully formed adults, with patience, grace and dignity." Too bad our elected officials (both parties) do not have the ability to demonstrate the same qualities as they try to figure out how to solve some of our nation's woes.

Accountability is a big thing for me. I was brought up to be accountable, although there were times I screwed up on this when I was younger and paid the price. While I am not perfect, if someone calls me out on something, I'd like to think I am able to acknowledge where I wronged someone and do what I can to make things right with the individual(s).

This week, I ended a friendship with someone who felt that they didn't need to be accountable even though they screwed up in a major way and multiple times. Their ego got in the way, which, in retrospect, I suppose is why this person was on thin ice to begin with. I won't say it wasn't a difficult decision, but it was something that had been brewing for some time so I had come to grips with it some time back. When I finally made the decision to end the friendship and communicated it to this person, they finally decided to own up to their actions. Up until this point, this individual had been given multiple opportunities to be accountable and they refused. It wasn't so much that they refused; they also deflected responsibility, which is also bad. When you finally get to the point that you decide to end a friendship, apologies don't really resonate.

Maybe this person will take a page from Jim Joyce and learn what accountability really means. Maybe they won't. But accountability for when you mess up is pretty important. None of us are perfect, so it's a pretty good idea to learn early on how to take your lumps, be humble, learn the value of apologizing and yes, be accountable. Normally I don't cover such personal topics on the blog, but given the events of the week, it just seemed appropriate. Life is too short to associate with people who do not understand how you treat meaningful folks in your life. Onwards and upwards!

And RIP to another high-character role model - John Wooden. Most of us could only aspire to handle ourselves with the dignity and class that he lived by.

Some Progress, But We Still Got Some Work To Do.....

Click here for the Jeffrey update - Jeff is my super-sized nephew born on Monday!

Let's rewind to last week because I wanted to talk about race relations.  There were 3 events last week that indicated how far we, as a nation, have come and unfortunately, how far we need to go.

First let's talk about the positive - Jackie Robinson.  Mr. Robinson ha been credited with breaking the color barrier in baseball by being the first African-American player in the game.  Mr. and Mrs. Robinson endured lots of hateful remarks and threats for breaking barriers, but remained classy and dignified throughout all of the hate.  People today can learn a lot from them.

Unfortunately Mr. Robinson died from diabetes complications in 1972 at the age of 53.  His widow, Rachel, has continued his legacy by establishing the Jackie Robinson Foundation which helps minorities attend 4-year universities.   Now when you look at the baseball diamond, you see people of all different races and nationalities which is no small part to Mr. Robinson's influence.

Unfortunately we had a couple of events over the past week, which also indicated how far the U.S. needs to go in racial relations.  The whole "Imus in the Morning" thing was absurd on so many levels.  I don't know why Mr. Imus felt a need to denigrate the women on the Rutgers basketball team in what was supposed to be a time of celebration for them.  I hope Mr. Imus doesn't have daughters of his own because I wonder how he would feel if someone disrespected one of their achievements on national radio.

So Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton (who both incidentally never apologized for all of the hurt associated with the Tawana Brawley hoax) called for Mr. Imus to be fired.  The networks obliged after also listening to their employees' feelings on the matter.

Now move over to the Duke lacrosse case, where we had a prosecutor who played on racial tensions in an election year.  Mike Nifong, the prosecutor, made infammatory statements that riled up national support because of allegations that 3 Caucasian college students had raped an African-American woman.  Reverends Sharpton and Jackson were on the case calling for justice for the woman and inciting protests, etc.  I, along with most of the country, believed that these students committed rape based on the D.A.'s statements.  My bad, for sure.

And guess what - after over a year, a new prosecutor who took over from Mr. Nifong basically states that a "rogue prosecutor" wrongly withheld key evidence that would have exonerated the subjects almost a year earlier.  One of the former suspects talked about how fortunate he was that he could afford representation that could expose the D.A. (Nifong) for what he was -  an "overreaching prosecutor".... makes you wonder about people who can't afford comptent legal representation.

But while the Reverends called for action on networks for Mr. Imus and got it, they never apologized to the lacrosse players who were wrongly accused - just like in 1987 with the cops in New York whose lives were ruined by the false allegations in the Brawley hoax.  In my mind, people like the Reverends do not help move forward racial harmony but only continue to incite hate.  Racism goes both ways and there needs to be some acknowledgment of that.

TGIF and OTBN..... Woo woo.

Well, I am glad we made it to Friday. A lot of interesting food articles were discovered this week, so we'll get to those in a sec. Lots to say - what a shock.

First off, I want to say that my thoughts and prayers are going out to the Edwards' family, as in John Edwards who is running for President. John Edwards' wife, Elizabeth, recently announced that her cancer has returned and it is an incurable form. The good news is that a pretty decent quality of life can be maintained with the right treatment. That being said, it has been consistently reported that Mrs. Edwards was adamant about her husband remaining in the campaign. What galls me is that I can't believe some people are criticizing this family for their decision. It is their own decision and none of our business. Do people not have enough things to worry about? I still have no idea who I am voting for, but obviously I am pulling for the Edwards family as they deal with this news. For the record, I thought that Mr. Edwards was the better Democratic candidate in '04, but that's not giving him a lot of credit when you compare him to John Kerry.

I used to work at Merrill Lynch in their Research Technology area, and we supported all of the equity and fixed income analysts. With all of the regulatory scrutiny recently, everyone seem to be calling for the demise of sell-side research. Clearly this indicates it is not as close to death as people might think. I kind of think of the same thing when people talk about the demise of Windows (yes, that Windows). OK disclaimer - I work on networking technologies (this is another technology I support) on Windows at Microsoft. But why would I work on a product that I did not believe would be successful?!! DUH!

Lisa, my sister who is a guidance counselor in a middle school, has a tough job. Middle school education was the subject of a recent article in the New York Times. Check it out. Incidentally, I am going down in flames in my bracket for the NCAA Men's Tourney. I went the upset route with Duke. Big mistake. HUGE! The Women's Tourney is way more interesting with upsets. Go Marist!

OK - on to some entertainment to lighten things up a bit. I talked about Manny Ramirez auctioning his grill off earlier this week. Well I guess his auction violated eBay policy because they could not verify it was actually him. Too bad, Manny. Goes back to YCMTSU. :-)

R.W. Apple, Jr. keeps living on. He was the subject of a recent article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Mr. Apple's last piece is a glowing portrait of his favorite spots in a story headlined "Savoring Seattle," published in the spring issue of Town & Country Travel. I have blogged about him in the past here and here. He was a kick and seemed like he would have been a really cool person to listen to.

Article in this week's NYT Dining & Wine section regarding cooking with wine. Ian and I took many cooking classes together, and our first one was a paella class at Peter Kump's (now known as the Institute of Culinary Education). I remember the instructor, Shirley King, vividly, and most important, she taught us a very important lesson - keep in mind this was very early on in my cooking days. If a wine is not good enough to drink, why cook with it? I have used that philosophy for years, but this week Julia Moskin argues that you can cook with really poor tasting wine. I suppose you can, but why? There are so many excellent and inexpensive bottles of wine out there. Gosh - that was a fun class. I remember that Ian was massively hungover from too much port from that class.

Speaking of Ian, he always talks about "offroading" in the kitchen. This article talks about that, and I have to say - when you improvise on a recipe under pressure AND it works, it is pretty darn cool.

OTBN is tomorrow, albeit a month late because of the move. I am psyched. More on that on Sunday when Marc and I recover on the couch.

Sports update anyone?

This made me fall over laughing.  You go, Natalie Gulbis!

So the Red Sox finally got their man, but here's something interesting about what the key stat is for Dice according to the Japanese culture.  Hmmmm.... I guess we'll find out if it means anything.  Anyone know what Hideki Irabu (aka Fat Toad according to George Steinbrenner) had for a blood type?

We have to have a minimum of one YCMTSU instance in this entry.  "Hi, uh, coach.  I have some stiffness in my elbow and I am not sure if I can pitch in the playoffs tonight.  Been working hard on my mechanics and technique.... just don't know what's wrong."  Well, how about not playing a virtual rock star on Guitar Hero on your PC?

More MLB pitching news - does anyone remember John Rocker and his comments about the No. 7 train on the NYC subway being in Sports Illustrated?  Well I guess Mr. Rocker is now writing a book and complains that Jeff Pearlman (author of said article) is a "liberal Jew from New York" and things were taken out of context, blah, blah.... whatever.  T.O. always claims that he is a victim of the press too.  Yeah, if you're not anti-semitic then tell me why you need to mention that Mr. Pearlman is a liberal Jew.  Good luck having enough intellect to get your book published.

Moving to the NFL, how about this?  A quarterback, who is picked as a No. 2 in the overall NFL draft in '98 (Peyton Manning was No. 1, I believe - good pick Colts), and has an awful career in the NFL, and now may have a movie being made about his life.  Yes folks, we are talking about Ryan Leaf.  Is there really nothing else to talk about?  I'm sure Marc's friend, Todd, will be lining up to see that one.  Todd is a big Chargers fan. 

Isiah Thomas, you make me ashamed to be a New York Knicks fan and I never thought I would say that about any team that I followed since I was a kid.  You must have some dirt on David Stern to not get any fines or suspensions in your role in last weekend's brawl.

Finally and I don't know if this falls into more of the sports or entertainment category, but the Sports Guy from ESPN has his opinion of which Rocky movie was the best of the lot.  His description of him seeing "Rocky II" as a kid is priceless because it was so spot on.  I guess this is to honor the latest installment, "Rocky Balboa", which is coming soon to a theatre near you.  Unbelievable.  Yeah, I'll be at the movie theatre to see that one.  NOT.