I have no idea how to chop wood. I don't know how to check the oil on newfangled cars. But every time I saber a bottle of champagne, the crowd goes wild. "It must take incredible skill and practice to execute that", they must think. In reality, it's very easy.

In 90 seconds --assuming you own a Champagne Saber-- you, too, can impress your friends & family with this sophisticated party trick. 

Wingtip is about to introduce a high-end Cheese Plate this week that features the Berti Italian Cutlery 7-Piece Cheese Knife Set, so cheese has been on my mind. Sunday brunch across the street from a bookstore led to a purchase of Culture magazine (which is about cheese, not culture!). That led to a subscription for the club so we can all learn more about cheese. 

Now I'm reading cheese blogs, and I came across an entry describing tours of the cheese-aging caves at Murray's Cheese Shop in New York. Naturally, then, the next thought is that we need to have a cheese-aging cave at Wingtip. Done deal, right? 

Not so fast. Today, the New York Times has a point/counterpoint article on the aging of cheese (affinage is the French word for the aging of cheese). The counterpoint, as you can imagine, basically describes it as a "crock". That is a direct quote. 

If we should be keeping fine cheeses in a humidity-controlled and temperature-controlled environment, we'll do it; if we shouldn't, we won't. But just when I got it in my head that we'd have an excuse to build another cave, I'm torn. 

Thoughts?  

The last thing I want to do in this economy is suggest that anyone should lose their job, even if they were responsible for creating something like this. So instead, whomever decided to DISCONTINUE it should get a promotion.

There's so much wrong with this product, I don't know where to begin.

1. This is not "an electric martini maker for the martini lover;" a true martini lover will hate you for buying them this.
2. I've never seen a "professional" use a cocktail shaker like that. 
3. As a glutton for punishment, I decided to read the manual so you wouldn't have to. In the "Recipes" section, it lists a Cosmo, Pomegranate-tini, Citrus-tini, Sour Apple Martini, Chocolate Martini, and 7 other abominations that should not be considered martinis before listing the Manhattan!
4. And I can only imagine the marketing genius that suggested they include "007" in the product code to add to the coolness factor. I imagine that if someone made James Bond a martini with one of those, he would shoot them in the face.   
   

Ok, no he didn't. Well, he may have, actually. But probably not.

Day 3 in Paris, and I'm shocked it took us that long to pay a visit to the Hemingway Bar at the Ritz Paris. Aside from being a favorite haunt of Ernest Hemingway, and being tucked away toward the back of the Ritz, and the old school decor, it was also the home of Colin Field, voted The World's Best Barman in 2001. Many of his cocktails are still on the menu.

I ordered the house Manhattan, which interestingly enough, is served in a wine glass. And after I had a few sips -- but not too many sips -- I noticed a shadow that read "Schott Zwiesel" on the tablecloth. Now, Schott Zwiesel has been making some of the finest stemware on the planet since 1872, but I doubt it was being used at this bar in Hemingway's heyday. Nevertheless, there was a certain sense of pride that we sell the same stemware that is used at such a world famous bar.

If you're not familiar with the stemware, you should introduce yourself here.

If you're not familiar with the bar, pull up a stool here. 

I would venture to guess that I have spent thousands of hours of my life in a room with a Periodic Table of the elements. Science classes since at least junior high, if not earlier, and of course all of high school. I was never particularly fond of science (or math for that matter), but I did always like the Periodic Table. I took even more pride in it after learning that the University of California, Berkeley - the finest public university in the world - has more elements named after it than any other. 

But I would never hang a Periodic Table in my home. Or office. Or anywhere, really. And these days, my only interest in science involves studies that document the benefits to drinking more wine. So you can imagine my enthusiasm for a poster that looks like a Periodic Table but is all about grape varietals. The DeLong wine maps are for the adult that still longs to hang a poster on his/her wall. 

We just got one of each of these framed for Wingtip's wine cave, and taking them into the club took me back to a first day of school. Now if I can just find my old Star Wars lunch box...

Since it's the third Sunday of the month, it's the day I finally get to read the Journal of Agriculture & Food Chemistry*. In it is an article that flies in the face of the way champers is often poured at bars & restaurants. According to "scientists", the superior way to pour champagne is to pour it like beer: at an angle, close to the side of the glass so as to preserve the bubbles (a.k.a. sunshine & lollipops).

We will definitely adjust the way we are pouring champagne at Wingtip even though, admittedly, Dr Liger-Belair and his colleagues have not finished "constructing a mathematical model to describe CO2 discharge during the champagne pouring process".

You can read the BBC's coverage of the findings here.

* As I'm sure you guessed, I saw the headline on BBC News. I normally don't get to the JAFC until the 3rd Tuesday of each month so I hadn't even seen the article yet.