Thanksgiving is still a few weeks away, but for me Halloween really marks the end of Fall. The pumpkin patch has been picked cleaned, the apples have all been harvested, and the bright colors of autumn have mostly faded away. However, like every year there are plenty of harvest memories to be cherished. The slideshow below helps us remember just a few of those moments (it advances automatically but may take a few seconds to load).
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
Maker’s Mark held a “Maker’s March” for ambassadors along Cheapside Tuesday night, with drink specials at Skybar, The Bluegrass Tavern, Wildcat Saloon, Cheapside and the new Parlay Social.
Some places you just never plan to see. No matter how much you’ve heard about them, they just never seem to make it onto you “must go there someday” list. Too many other destinations beckon more loudly, more forcibly, for your attention. For me San Francisco was one of those places, and it was definitely somewhere that I would have never made a conscious effort to see. So it was only by chance and through a business trip that I ever made it to the city at all. Now, the problem with business trips is you never have enough time to do and see everything you want to. Your schedule is rarely your own, so the best you can hope to do is cram in as much as possible before, after or in the free moments between your “official” reasons for being there. That was how I came to San Francisco and those were the circumstances under which I would have to operate. I was determined to make the best of it I could.
Truthfully, I had mixed feelings going in. If ever a city invoked strong emotions among warring factions, it was San Francisco. Whether my biases came from the East Coast or the right-wing, I came to town – fully prepared by my own prejudices – to hate the place. Despite that, everyone I talked to was confident my experience would be the opposite of what I expected. So it was with some guilty sense of prejudging a destination that I set about making the best of what I was sure would be a mediocre trip.
With limited time to do and see an entire city, I had to make some decisions on what I would intentionally leave off my “to-do” list. First thing to go: The Golden Gate Bridge. My focus was, not surprisingly, going to be on San Francisco’s culinary and whiskey scene (the latter warrants its own treatment in a separate blog post). The downside, I had a very busy schedule while in town and thus would be held – somewhat hostage – to the area immediately around the Moscone Center. In short, if I couldnt’ walk to it during my breaks and brief free time in the evening, I wasn’t going to see it.
I can’t say that visiting San Francisco next week is one of those “bucket list” items for me that everyone seems to talk about so much these days. However, the chance to enjoy some of the best the city has to offer is hardly an opportunity one passes on. What I now about San Fran could easily be summarized on the back of one those vintage postcards. Read the rest of this page »
Few activities are so overtly American during the summertime than the backyard barbecue. Granted, what 90% of Americans are actually doing is more properly called grilling – not barbecue – but whichever activity you enjoy, there’s a pretty good chance you spend a good portion of your summer evenings cooking outdoors.
A recent poll on Epicurious.com asked what famous person or persons – living, dead or fictional – would you invite to your backyard barbecue (click here to see the original article). The poll is similar to one that prompted a summer blog post last year, that one involving who would you invite to your next dinner party (see “Look Who’s Coming to Dinner“). As school starts back and the summer barbecue session winds down, I thought it worthwhile to contemplate who would make the cut on my idea barbecue list. The rules, as I saw them, were that I could invite no one I included on my previous Dinner Party list, which left off some obvious fan favorites like Anthony Bourdain. However, I thought it only fair to spread the culinary love and develop a completely new list of invitees.
