Christmas Dinner Menu

Tis been the season for cooking and special dinners. More than any other time (and hopefully more to come), we've had family guests at the house visiting and eating!

Dinner was served on Friday, December 25, 2009. I used the Hebrew version to de-emphasize the obvious recognition of the date as this was a Shabbat meal first and foremost. But it was nice to share the evening with the special day.

This menu came from a collection of recipes centered around the Chocolate & Coffee braised short ribs. A special thanks to my friend Billy, the meatbroker, for supplying the high quality meat with which I cooked. Added to this came the Jean-Georges Vongerichten recipe for Mushroom springrolls. The rest flowed easily from these first two choices.

Here is the menu with a small 30 second video:

Menu:

Video:

The Big Finish! Share & View Often! Support Floods In

UPDATE: THURSDAY, AUGUST 13th

This list is getting longer! More support on its way! Get a friend to view the video! Thanks again!!

SO much activity leading up to the big announcement tomorrow by the producers of The Winemakers: Season 2 on who will claim the last spot. The decision will be based in part on the number of views the candidate's audition video received on YouTube.

Regardless of the outcome I judge my effort a success if only to feel the great show of support I've received from all sorts of people. Producers gave extra points and asked for special mention of a candidate's efforts from local media outlets and I've delivered thanks to the special efforts and show of support from:

• the wonderful people at Montaluce Winery and Estates - especially Oliver Asberger!
• the wine columnist of the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Gil Kulers via massive email
• Cliff Bostock, Creative Loafing's Omnivore via his blog (thank you!)
• Mara Davis, radio personality for one of the best music stations in the USA, DAVE-FM 92.9 via her blog and on air!
• Hardy Wallace, winner of Winery Murphy-Goode's the nationwide search for their Wine Country Lifestyle Correspondant via his popular wine and food blog
• PR femme extraordinaire and author, Melissa Libby, via her blog!
• The traffic to this blog
• All the followers (from 0) I received on Twitter - a great community of winos and foodies! Including people like @TradingGoddess!

As I mentioned before the process getting here has been a reward in itself. It's been alot of fun!

Video Update

As mentioned previously I am in the running for the last spot on the reality series airing on PBS called The Winemakers.

The producers on August 7th will make a decision on who that last person will be using criteria which, in part, is determined by the popularity (measured by number of views) of their audition videos.

Right now I believe I'm in second place behind Tammi Ramsey. You'll notice that I've placed a collection of the audition videos to the left. Take a look at all of them as a few, like Tammi's, are well made and give an accurate sketch of who they are. Just make sure to share mine with those you know!

As I mentioned previously the effort to make the video itself was a reward. I'm grateful for those of whom I crossed paths and for the newly found desire to continue blogging about the nexus of wine, cuisine, and social media.

Whatever happens I'll be in good company.

It's Official - The Hat is in the Ring

Below is the casting call video I'm submitting to the Producers of The Winemakers: Season 2.

Per their instructions I can land the last spot if the video below is seen by as many people as possible. Thank you for taking a look and going the extra step of sharing with someone you know!

On August 7, 2009 the Producers will tally which of the casting call videos were the most watched and then make a final determination.

Thank you to everyone who motivated me to try this and who helped me put this video together (Montaluce Estates, Brasserie JOEL, the Atlanta Braves, @kaplanbr, and many more) - most of all my friend Vincent aka @TraderAlamo. I give special thanks to my wife Stephanie for letting me play Peter Pan one more time. Maybe it will also inspire our girls to go for it once in a while.

D

Captured great footage for the video application I'm submitting in order to be the last of the 12 candidates in the running for Season 2 of PBS' The Winemakers. My twitter account for this purpose explains all of the ongoing details.

Many many thanks to everyone at the Montaluce Estates and Vineyard in beautiful Dahlonega, North Georgia. It's a top of the line multi-purpose facility for making wine, lodging, eating, and celebrating. My deepest thanks goes to Oliver Asberger, winery manager, for his invaluable time spent showing me the entire vineyards and the operations. His best line of the day, "I'm German - I love making propaganda!!!"

Here's one of the outtakes before it hits the editing room floor: