The Rake Magazine

Month: February 2004

  • The Funny Thing Is…

    With dark hair and a slightly rumpled appearance, Bob Daily has the low-key delivery you’d expect from a man whose job is not to seem overly amused by the jokes he writes for a living. Daily is a 1982 graduate of Carleton College, and a writer (and current co-executive producer) for Frasier. One day in late January, he left the balmy climes of Hollywood for an auditorium in Northfield, where he gave a talk called “Writing and Producing the Television Situation Comedy.” The live studio audience, as it were, was a capacity crowd of students. They asked the tough questions: How does one break into Hollywood? What is David Hyde Pierce really like?

    Being a network sitcom writer is not easy these days. Reality shows are hogging prime-time real estate, while cable TV is snagging high-profile awards and thumbing its nose at the banality of network shows whose characters can’t swear or discuss their sexual exploits.

    What’s a network comedy writer to do? For Daily, the situation isn’t as dire as it first appears. Good comedy, he notes, relies on more than shock value. One of the things common to most long-running comedies is writing that appeals to both the head and the heart, with jokes that work on more than one level. In other words, you can write a dumb joke about a smart subject, or vice versa, thereby appealing to both sensibilities. As an example, Daily offered what he thinks of as the perfect joke about highbrow post-modern composer Philip Glass.

    In the scene, Frasier, Roz, and scriptwriters B.K. and Ed are working on a documentary about space travel. As they discuss the possibilities for the show’s accompanying music, B.K. suggests the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey. The recommendation is vetoed by Frasier, who finds it trite., B.K. tries again. “What about Philip Glass? You know, go completely minimalist,” he says. “It’s like space,” Frasier chimes in eagerly. “Now we’re cooking!” The scene continues with the characters ticking off obscure composers while Roz grows increasingly agitated.

    “If we do a reference like that, we write it in such a way that even if people don’t know who Philip Glass is, they get it in the context and the attitude of the actor,” Daily said. “We don’t try to be snobbish, but if it’s constructed in the right way, you can do a smart joke without alienating your audience.”

    However smart, can comedy really compete against, say, a bikini’d babe eating live minnows? Well, sure. Daily regards intelligent humor as both the past and the future of the network sitcom. Television executives habitually underestimate their viewers. The longevity of the witty, classy Frasier has proven that a show need not pander to achieve mainstream success. Classic sitcom formulas can spell success, as long as the writing sparkles and the acting is superb—take Everybody Loves Raymond and Friends as two beloved examples.

    Despite their current dominance, reality shows probably won’t stay hot forever, Daily said. He cited a truism he learned from a friend: “Hollywood is a place where people run to wherever lightning has recently struck. As soon as people heard about reality shows, everyone ran to that spot, but I think most will disappear eventually.” Then, too, clever writers may begin to crib from reality TV’s playbook. Daily said he knows of at least two pilots being created presently that are ripping off Survivor—shows set on a desert island.

    Daily will put his theories to the test this May, when Frasier takes its final bow. He recently inked a deal with Paramount that gives him two years to formulate ideas for series and pitching them to networks, in hopes that one will make it on air. “The odds are always against you in something like that. But there’s a great tradition of comedy at Paramount—Taxi, then Cheers, then Frasier,” he said. “I want to keep that going if I can.” He hesitated. “Got any ideas?”—Erin Peterson

  • “I Snuck Into Fashion Week!”

    I had a ticket. I had a ticket, and a pseudonym. At this and all other New York City fashion week events, I was G— T—, a high-ranking executive at a nice Midwestern cosmetics firm for which I do some grunt work. I’m not sure what she does there, but she—meaning I—sure raked in the invitations. I’d even RSVPed, and now if I could just get up to the table of perfectly manicured hostesses checking people in for the Rosa Cha show, I felt certain they’d upgrade me from standing room to a seat along the runway.

    Really, they could have crammed a lot more people in if this were Glamorama and not the Bryant Park tents. In New York, if you don’t rate front row seats in clear view of the press, you don’t rate at all.

    I’d managed some pretty decent seats in earlier shows; at the Lloyd Klein show, I was briefly wedged behind super-socialite Jocelyne Wildenstein, the walking plastic-surgery cautionary tale who is openly referred to as “the cat woman.” I also had my nose in the hair of a lanky brunette who may or may not have had a bit part in Monster’s Ball.

    “It’s ahwlreddy 9:20 and the schedule says nine,” a Brooklyn-bred newbie next to me whined to her boyfriend. I gave her a withering look. “These things never start less than a half-hour late,” I said, not exactly trying to be helpful. A huddle of art students spoke in luscious Brazilian Portuguese on the other side of me.

    Rosa Cha swimwear does not quite cover the most beautiful butts in Rio, and was drawing a big crowd—whoops, there’s Ivana. Hold the phone, it’s Cuba Gooding. Hello, Beyoncé. Pick your seats, Toni Braxton and Venus Williams—but once the celebrities were all in, they were sure to usher in the designer’s countrymen, and me, of course.

    Except moments later, clueless Brooklyn and her date inexplicably appeared on the other side of the ropes, gliding into the darkened entryway. I saw strobe lights. I heard the jungle beat. I’d been shut out of Rosa Cha.

    I was supposed to be scoping out bathing suits for our campaign’s upcoming shoot in Miami, not craning to see past the two techies apparently tapping a direct stream on the lobby monitor. “Dude, did you see who’s in the front row? Pharrell Williams,” said one. “What show is this anyway?” Nerds. “Rosa Cha,” I replied, a little snottily. I wondered if that was rain I was hearing and if I shouldn’t just call it a night. The color on the screen was whacked and you’d need to wear three of those suits back at Lake Calhoun anyway.

    But it was raining, and raining hard, and we were all stuck there under the vestibule until it eased up, even the A-listers when they came samba-ing back from carnival. I talked to a young woman whose boot-cut Miss Sixty jeans, peasant smock, and Ducati head wrap struck the perfect balance between somebody and anybody, who told me that her Yorkie, Nikky, had watched three shows from the comfort of her bowling-bag carrier. “So how does she like this scene?” I asked. An amputee stumped incongruently by.

    Miss Sixty began to gush, then caught herself. “Oh, she loooves fashion… except for the noise, of course, and all these people, and…” she sniffed. She had a gold sand dollar around her neck, and dangly oversized monogram earrings.

    I did not ask what the P was for, nor the V. I did not ask who Pharrell Williams was, though his posse was blocking the door. Rain or no rain, I had not gotten into Rosa Cha, and I was out of there. “Excuse me,” I said, trying vainly to nudge past a hip-hopper with a snake tattooed on his neck.

    “Psst. That’s Pharrell Williams,” said someone at my elbow. I looked at him blankly. Outside on the steps, a herd of teen-aged boys with cameras jostled. “Pharrell, Pharrell!”

    “He’s my cousin,” one of them said, and looked at me hard, to see how gullible I was, and how starstruck.

    “Sure,” I shrugged, a Minnesota girl in the Big City. “Just folks.” And I crumpled up G— T—’s invitation and made a dash for the train. —Jennifer Gage

  • Incredible—and Yes, Edible Too

    Sitting at the Ideal Diner in the spring can be anything but. In this Northeast Minneapolis joint there is the counter and there is the cooking line, and that’s it. Perched on a prize stool, you are simultaneously warmed by the remarkable heat emanating from the grill and chilled by the rush of cold air from the swinging door behind you. But it is there, trapped in the nexus of fire and frost, that you might meet a wizened sage, your oracle, also known as the short-order cook. You may enter as a skeptic, sizing up the grease-stained apron and witnessing the alarming use of lard in the hash browns while perusing the spotted menu. But all you need do is clear your mind, center yourself and order two poached eggs on toast. His reply, “Adam and Eve on a raft, coming up,” signals that you are in the presence of greatness.

    Who else but a philosopher, a truth-seeker, would have such insight into the symbolism of eggs? He could have called them “two googly eyes on a raft” or “double sun in the clouds.” But he didn’t, he gave them monikers synonymous with creation. As the moist spring air whips the door open one more time, you may wonder if he has the answer to the ultimate question, the question of life itself: Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

    On the food timeline, eggs are as old as salt and water. Eggs, and the birds that laid them, were around before there were humans to write about them. The first domestication of fowl is believed to have taken place somewhere in India around 3200 BC. The Egyptians and Chinese both record egg production around 1400 BC.

    Although we agree when we speak of eggs we are speaking of chicken eggs, it is important to know that oology, the study of eggs, covers all kinds. So in the broadest oological sense, duck eggs are quite popular among enthusiastic egg-eaters, as are goose and quail eggs. Turkey eggs are rarely available to the consumer, as most are hatched, and ostrich eggs are sold primarily for use in very large novelty omelets. As for rattlesnake eggs, let’s just move on.

    It seems that as long as humans have been consuming eggs, they have been consumed by their spiritual nature, their symbolism and connection to the divine. The Phoenician creation myth tells of a very large egg splitting open, its two halves becoming heaven and earth. The idea of the egg as a self-renewing model of the cosmos is central to many ancient religions. Hindu writings tell of deities Brahma and Prajapati each forming an egg and then emerging from it. Egyptian hieroglyphics often depict the god Osiris being reborn from a broken eggshell. Probably the best-known legend is that of the Phoenix, which, in the tale from Greek historian Herodotus, died in a rage of flame and was reborn from an egg it had laid.

    Rebirth was a crucial belief among early civilizations, which celebrated it every year when the earth went through her own springtime regeneration. The sun’s return after a dark winter was a miracle, and the egg became emblematic proof of the renewal of life. Celtic tribes observed the vernal equinox with a feast including red-dyed eggs, whose shells were vigilantly crushed to ward off cold weather. With the spread of Christianity and the assimilation of local traditions, the egg came to symbolize Christ’s resurrection from the tomb, also celebrated in the spring. “Easter” is believed to originate from Oestar, an ancient goddess of spring and renewal.

    Eggs were among the first forbidden foods of Lent, making them a special treat at the subsequent Easter feast. In many Eastern European countries, people carried baskets of food, which usually included eggs, to church to be blessed before their preparation. It was considered a special gesture to give someone an egg, especially a decorated one. By the sixteenth century, the court of France was commissioning ornately decorated eggs from famed artists—an art form that reached its apex in the late nineteenth century, when the czar of Russia had his court jeweler, Carl Fabergé, create incomparable eggs encrusted with gold, crystals, and gems. As for the bunny? Blame those crazy pagans, who saw the rabbit as a symbol of fertility and new life, and kooky Germans, who believed that a magical rabbit would bring them a nest of eggs if they were good during Lent.

    Even without the symbolism, the egg is the perfect food. Nature designed it as a total life support system, so it contains nearly every nutrient thought to be vital to humans. The proteins in egg whites are of such high quality that they are held as a benchmark for all other food proteins. The yolk provides goodies like vitamins A, D, E, and B12, as well as folic acid, iron, and zinc. True, the yolk also contains fat and cholesterol, but as long as you don’t eat fifty eggs you should be fine. Nobody can eat fifty eggs.

    How your egg looks depends on who dropped it. Chickens with white feathers lay white eggs, naturally enough, while those from red-feathered breeds are brown. The yolk’s color may change with the diet of the hen—for instance, marigold petals are added to feed for a brighter yellow. Many of us have had the luck to crack a double-yolk egg, but few have cracked an egg with no yolk, which is rare but not impossible.

    Now that various diets are leading people away from carbohydrates and toward proteins, the egg is having a rebirth of its own. Some places, such as local favorite The Egg & I, will always bring you eggy delight. I say go soft-boiled and do some toast dipping. For a truly spiritual experience, try the soft scrambled eggs over cured salmon at Solera. How they get them so silky and delicate is a true mystery of life.

  • The Wages of Sin

    Say what you will about David Denby, at least he doesn’t pick his nose and eat it. We can make this postulation with a fair degree of confidence for the simple fact that, were he to engage in such behavior, he would almost certainly write about it. Denby is the sort of memoirist who believes that every personal action must be revealed and examined, no matter how repellent (or mundane).

    Thus, fourteen pages into American Sucker (Denby’s second memoir; his first, Great Books, chronicled his return to Columbia University at the age of 46 to reexamine the works of Western Civilization) we are treated to Denby’s brief-but-harrowing addiction to Internet pornography. Denby being Denby, this revelation is naturally accompanied by a disquisition on how Plato, Hegel, and Nietzsche might judge these activities, which is either comically self-important or one of the most ingenious meta-commentaries on masturbation we’ve come across in some time. Then, on page 53, Denby informs us of his inability to fall asleep without a cocktail of Xanax and NyQuil, the latter described as a “slimy, licorice-tasting liquid that provided an instant of nausea” (hey, Dave, they also make it in cherry, which goes down much easier). Incidents of impotence, acts of adultery, and even an extensive paragraph on his upset stomach and the successful treatment thereof (Tums and a bowel movement, if you’re scoring at home) follow on with depressing regularity. It gets so predictable that when Denby writes “I climbed into a king-sized bed, but I was unable to sleep,” the reader speculates on which of two possible remedies will be employed to meet the challenge: self-love or over-the-counter cold medication?

    Ostensibly an account of its author’s debacle on the rocky shoals of the New Economy, American Sucker seeks to place Denby in the role of the crash’s Everyman, in which he is swept up in the mass delusion of a never-ending expansion, then treated badly by the manipulative hedge-fund managers and stock analysts who withheld vital information or flat-out lied to the stock-buying public in a desperate attempt to keep the money flowing. Never mind that the average investor lacked both Denby’s loss-padding book deal and his personal access to the era’s key financial gurus (he lunches with Merrill Lynch stock evaluator Henry Blodget, dines with ImClone CEO Sam Waskal, and even scores a meeting with SEC Chair Arthur Levitt, Jr.). While briefly acknowledging the advantages he holds over his fellow losers, Denby still offers the grandly condescending hope that “some aspects of my behavior will inspire self- recognition…” Well, okay, maybe masturbating to the Internet rings a bell.

    American Sucker is a book that inspires sorrow, pity, and ultimately anger, but mostly for the reader who has to endure it. Dilatory, repetitive, and endlessly self-reflective (Denby cannot pass a street corner in New York without recalling how, six months earlier, he was on the same street corner, no doubt remembering an even earlier visitation at that identical location), the memoir meanders through the author’s divorce and what could charitably be called a midlife crisis. Denby wanders from tech conference to tech conference, willfully blinding himself to the glaring signs of impending market doom, and while he certainly wasn’t alone in this regard, it doesn’t speak well for Columbia University that an individual who passed through its marble halls twice could be so infuriatingly stupid. He searches for philosophical certainty and understanding, but ends up offering bootless profundities that are hard enough to read, let alone understand. (“Time, properly speaking, has no volume, no body; it has no speed.”) Inspired by the long-dreaded loss of his home—tragically, he was forced to move from a large Upper West Side apartment to a somewhat smaller one a few blocks away—Denby ventures into a bizarre extended metaphor concerning casual china (“When a teacup cracks, one thinks of death”), at which point the reader wishes this guy would just buy a red sports car and get over it already. (He does, in fact, spend several pages mooning over the Audi A6—whether this is simple automotive lust or a desire to demonstrate his understanding of Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class is an open question.)

    The low point—and in a book that shamelessly posits the “practical limit on greed” to be two homes and $5 million in liquid assets, that’s saying something—comes in a chapter titled, simply, “September 11, 2001.” The attentive reader, having felt rising dread as the chronology moves ever closer to that date, is compelled to read on, if only to see how Denby can take the nation’s darkest day and yoke it to his favorite subject (Denby). True to form, Denby suggests that one of the ways to combat Islamic fundamentalism would be to, well, send Denby overseas to “make the case for secularism, for free speech, for transparency… Who better than me?” Who indeed? Sadly, after deciding that such an endeavor is not to be, Denby at least vows that he will no longer “be quite as passive as I was before September 11.” Thus is born another knowledgeable investor.

    Denby is not a terrible writer; he’s not even a terrible thinker. There are flashes of insight here, but they’re so few and far between as to make the reader crave the next nauseous self-revelation, or something meretricious to add the vital spark to an otherwise sluggish flow of detail. (A chapter devoted to the physical workings of fiber-optic cable is sure to try the patience of even the most determined reader.) At one point, venting his anger at the corporate malfeasors whose actions directly affected his portfolio, Denby rails, “Some of the insiders stole from us—from ordinary shareholders, and in some cases from employees, too. They stole from me.” The reader, having lost countless hours to the writer’s ceaseless examination of the writer’s navel, can finally feel some empathy. After all, we’re victims too.

  • Seller’s Remorse

    Wisconsin Estate Sale, Antiques, Collectables, Linens, Furniture. Quality Household Miscellaneous. Pole Barn Full of Tools. Everything Must Go! Friday,
    Saturday and Sunday. 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

    I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to write one of those ads. But let me tell you, it’s pretty hard to make the words “household miscellaneous” jump off the page. And I had a personal stake in it, too. My parents, their sale. Last November, and I’m still having nightmares about it. But when I catch a case of the sweats at 3 a.m., it’s not my father’s illness I’m thinking about, or the inevitability of his physical decline. I’m not thinking about my mother’s heart, either, which breaks a little more each day as she tries to ease her husband’s suffering. I think about those things in the daylight, in my world, where it seems safer: A world of belligerent teens and gassy old dogs, of crackpot schemes, and my own husband, who I’m beginning to realize just might love me as much as he says he does.

    In the daylight, as tough as things can be sometimes, it’s easier to put life’s trials into perspective. It’s possible to look at them more as rites of passage. But the thought process that I employ to force my fears into submission dissolves as soon as I hit the sheets. In dreams I’m racing through a field of lidless Tupperware containers, chasing after buyers and screaming “ONLY FIFTY CENTS! FIFTY CENTS! FIFTY CENTS!”

    I get it. It’s the futility of the situation that haunts me. In sleep, it’s just transferred to a related event of tangible effort. I can’t make my dad better, and I can’t take away my mother’s pain. Any more than I can put a dollar value on a rusted coffee can full of nails.

    I decided to run my parents’ estate sale when I found out that the only person who ran sales in their community would demand 35 percent of the take. I did a mental tally of what they had left at their house, and in the words of Ed Kruse, well, the hell with that. Any and all profits could stay with my folks. I took a week off from work to get the sale ready. Dear friends and family rallied to the cause. Heavy lifting was done. Coffee was made and drunk. Eye-catching groupings of mom’s tchotchkes were arranged and priced. Joyce, a church friend of my mother’s, enlisted the help of her handy husband Dwayne, and he personally knocked signs in the grass along the highway, five miles in each direction so that no one could miss them.

    One of my biggest concerns was the pole barn. It was, indeed, full of tools—some old, many new and never used. It was also full of dreaded Halloween bugs, those nasty ladybug wannabes that crawl into every last crack and corner and never ever ever die. They go dormant, like Cher. There was no way I could hope to empty the barn—much less run outside to staff it anytime someone wanted to buy a pitchfork or a mower. The day before the sale began, a wiry little man arrived early in a big truck. Delbert said he’d heard there were some tools for sale, and wanted to know if he could take an early look. I walked him out to the barn and told him I’d give him a deal. Five hundred bucks if he hauled everything away: my dad’s landscaping tools, his fishing tackle, the jigsaw and workbench. And the bugs. There was a moment of silence while Delbert calculated the merchandise versus the job at hand. Then he turned to me and said: “I ’spect I’ll take it.”

    The sale was a huge success. I worked in a white heat, re-arranging wares after each wave of shoppers swept through. In the waning hours of the last day, the new owner of the house showed up. A single man with a classic car collection. My sister Tracy had brought a bottle of champagne, which we poured into paper cups. The three of us stood out on the deck, and toasted good old times and new ones to come. The man told us how nice that pole barn was going to be for his cars, and I laughed in relief, thinking of Delbert.

    We cleaned up, ran a vacuum, said our goodbyes. I was the last to leave, but not the last to see the place. Tracy would come back in two weeks with our mom, for the closing. I’m still coming to grips with the fact that everything must go.

  • The Lo-Res Scarlet A

    In America, every accused person is innocent until proven guilty, right? Well, we may profess such lofty thoughts, but the cold reality is that most people believe that if you are in jail, you gotta be guilty of something. Look no further than the way people have reacted to Alfonso Rodriguez, Jr., the prime suspect in the Dru Sjodin disappearance. From the very first moment Minnesotans saw him under the glare of television lights, manacled and wearing a faded prison-orange jumpsuit, he was as good as guilty. What’s more, Rodriguez became exhibit A in the argument for bringing back the death penalty to Minnesota. The hysteria surrounding Dru Sjodin graphically illustrates the dangers of publicizing crimes before they’ve been prosecuted, publicly identifying “criminals” before they’ve been convicted of anything.

    Dakota County recently created a website identifying who is in the pokey. I am normally a big First Amendment kind of guy, but I think such websites, in the guise of “keeping the public informed,” provide the kind of information that makes a mockery of the notion of presumed innocence.

    The website, called the “Dakota County Jail Booking Search,” allows anyone with access to a computer to search the Dakota County jail records to find “anyone that has been booked or is currently in jail.” Now, keep in mind that not only have these individuals not yet been convicted, many have not even made their first appearance before a judge. The DCJBS home page cautions that “information contained herein should not be relied upon for any type of legal action.” Wait, it gets even better. The Dakota County Sheriff’s Office admits that it “cannot represent that the information is current, accurate, or complete. Persons may use false identification information. True identity can only be confirmed through fingerprint comparison.”

    So, if the website information should not be relied upon for “any type of legal action” and in fact may be flat out wrong, why in the name of truth, justice, and the American way would any sane organization post it? Dakota County Sheriff Don Gudmundson reportedly believes that it will reduce calls from lawyers, bail bonds workers, and others who want to see if someone is locked up. Chief Deputy Dave Bellows told the Star Tribune, “a lot of people do call to find out if their husband is in jail…we are just trying to make this department a little more user-friendly.”

    Which users does Deputy Bellows have in mind? Does he really think that some distraught spouse looking for her husband will get an “I could have had a V-8” moment, pop on to the jail website, and find her Waldo? More likely, the web-site users will not be bail bondsmen and worried wives, but others—like landlords or the habitually nosy. And, given that African Americans and other people of color are disproportionately arrested in this state, this is very scary stuff. According to Robert Sykora, publicizing this information could lead to lost jobs and denied housing. Sykora, a public defender and member of a Minnesota Supreme Court advisory committee looking at Internet access of court records, thinks that easy electronic access to such sensitive information is the start of a very slippery and dangerous slope.

    I think Sykora is absolutely right. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1989 that the media could not obtain comprehensive FBI “rap sheets” from a central location. Why? Because the court decided that requiring people to physically retrieve this kind of information creates “practical obscurity” that helps to protect privacy.

    The jails are filled with the accused, not necessarily the guilty. An arrest is really only a criminal accusation, and to put an accusation online means that the accused have acquired the electronic equivalent of a scarlet A. Even if they are ultimately exonerated, there is a good chance they can be scarred.

    If “innocent until proven guilty” has even a ghost of a chance in our web-crazed society, we should accept that there is such a thing as “too much information.” We do not need to make access to arrest records easy. They are merely a starting point for legal action, not an end point, and the web implies that the case is already closed. Arrests should not be allowed to acquire the aura of established legal fact that a listing on the Internet can create.

  • Louie the Wine Guy

    I am delighted to prepare this inaugural “inside the industry” report in partnership with The Rake! Every couple of weeks, I’ll clue you in to the best opportunities to learn about, taste, and purchase wines in the Twin Cities and surrounding communities.

    Let’s start with our overview of free public tastings, which occur more often than you might think. While most better wine shops offer tastings during big sales, many others extend this service to customers every week.

    France 44, for example, hosts a tasting every Saturday from 2-5pm, with five to eight wines available. This month’s featured winery is Gundlach-Bundschu (check out the ’01 Mountain Cuvee!). (612-925-3252)

    Byerly’s Golden Valley similarly showcases a few special wines each week, poured by Connie (formerly with Surdyk’s for 15 years!) on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 4-7pm. Call the store for details on this week’s featured wines (763-544-8978).

    South Lyndale Liquors, one of my favorite shops, is featuring Echelon Winery, pouring six wines from the California Central Coast (Fridays, 4-7pm).

    If you want regular access to some rather serious wines, then you need to become one of Phil’s good buddies and join him on Friday nights at Hennepin-Lake Liquors. Phil is definitely a character, and his store offers an amazing selection and some terrific values. In browsing the narrow aisles of this place, you can’t help but absorb some knowledge about the world of wine. Phil’s tastings are not pre-planned, so count on an adventure; he tells us that he opens ten to twelve winesdaily, depending on “who stops in”. He also stands by the statement that he will beat anyone’s price in town—any wine, any time. So bring your favorite sale catalogue over and do some comparison shopping of your own.

    Other Tasting Events

    Advance notice is in order for a very special evening on April 16, presented by The Rake and sponsored by Excelsior Vintage (www.excelsiorvintage.com). The wine tasting party is the kick-off for Louie’s Wine Club, named after yours truly, of course. Our Napa Spring Wine Fling will highlighting more than fifty labels from Napa Valley, many of which are hard to find or not yet available in Minnesota. A strolling magic show, live acoustic guitar, and a special collection of Napa Valley photographs will add to the evening’s gala flair. Call 763-476-0699 for tickets; and see page 24 of The Rake’s April issue for more details.

    Tasting Notes

    My personal reaction (as opposed to tedious and pretentious varietal characteristics) to wines recently tasted at various venues (prices, if listed, are full retail):

    Ferrari-Carano Fume ’01: clean, elegant, great food wine. $14.99

    Ferrari-Carano Chardonnay, Alexander Valley ’01: one of my all-time favorites; rich and lush, with big oak and a loooong finish. Worth $30.

    Chalone Group Syrah Four-Pack: $72 (as far as I know, you can only buy the Jade Mountain as part of this series):

    Echelon ’02: surprisingly good; a nice value at about $13.
    Edna Valley: a bit lighter than the Echelon; not quite what I look for in Syrah.

    Jade Mountain: I can see why they “protect” this gem; very special. Worth buying the four-pack, even if you gave away the other 3 bottles.

    Chalone Estate ’01: wow! If not for the Jade Mountain, this wine would have been my top wine of the whole evening. Huge, ripe, & delicious!

    At a recent Pinot Noir tasting we sampled four labels:
    La Crema ’01($20)—always a standard by which I judge other pinots, smooth & light.

    David Bruce ’01 Central Coast ($25)—similar to La Crema, with perhaps a touch more elegance.

    Fess Parker ’99 American Tradition Reserve ($35)—yowzaa! Did this baby rock! It easily blew away the competition.

    Patz & Hall ’00 Russian River Valley ($40)— I had been looking forward to tasting this highly rated pinot producer for some time, and perhaps, this was a “bad bottle,” but I was very disappointed. I need to give Patz & Hall another try.

    Another disappointment was the ’96 Terra Valentine Cabernet—and in this case I tasted from two different bottles, so it was the wine, which was very light, even fragile. Perhaps it wasn’t fair to sample cabernet right after the blockbuster syrahs, but even the next day the T-V didn’t hold up as I thought it might.

    One particular tasting party ended on a happy note, sharing a bottle of Pirramimma’s stunning Late Harvest Riesling. I am always so pleased to introduce people to this wine, as I think it’s one of the very best values anywhere at about $16 (for 500ml). As much as I favor California wines, there is no better example, dollar for dollar, of late-harvest Riesling.

    Recently, a fellow customer at a wine store asked me to recommend the best Cab under $30, and I showed him one of the very last bottles from the great Gallo of Sonoma “Frei Vineyard,” ’97 vintage, which was a steal at $25.99. Later that evening, however, I had the pleasure of sharing a bottle of Gundlach Bundschu’s Block 13 Cabernet ($20). Simply beautiful! Had I tasted this earlier, I might have changed my mind.

    Best Retail Values This Week

    Sam’s Club & Costco

    These stores carry some really fine wines, as well as the best day-to-day prices in town. Many people don’t realize that the “member-only” policy of Sam’s and Costco does not legally extend to their liquor sales—meaning that anyone is free to purchase wine there. But do your homework before you go, as there is no staff at these stores to answer your questions. Which, of course, is where I come in. Here’s the scoop:

    Sam’s Club has a much larger selection than Costco, and usually the prices are a bit better, with a few exceptions. Here are some wines that Sam’s offers regularly, with comparative prices at Costco and MGM (who have the gumption to tout their great prices!).

    Kendall Jackson ‘00 Reserve Chardonnay: S—$8.88, C—$9.99, MGM—$12.99

    Columbia Crest ’00 Merlot/Cab: S$5.33, C N/A, MGM $7.99

    Rancho Zabaco ’01 H-Vines Zin: S—$9.84, C—$10.49, MGM—$13.99

    Ecco Domani Pinot Grigio: S—$6.83, C—N/A, MGM—$8.99 (sale price!)

    You might not expected to see higher-end wines at Sam’s, but here they are:

    La Crema ’02 Chardonnay: S—$12.87, C—$13.49, MGM—$21.99

    Sterling ’02 Chardonnay: S—$11.56, C—$11.29, MGM—$22.99

    Cambria ’01 “Katherine’s Vineyard” Chard (90 WS): S—$12.04, MGM—$18.99

    Stonestreet ’97 “Legacy”: S—$45.56, MGM—$99.99

    Stag’s Leap ’00 “Fay Vineyard”: S—$62.12, C—$62.99, MGM—N/A

    Dry Creek Vineyard ’01 “Heritage Clone” Zinfandel: S—$12.87, C—$16.49, MGM—$16.99 (sale price)

    Costco, however, can boast some wines I haven’t seen anywhere else, like Montes Alpha “M” ’99 ($56.99) and Montes Folly Syrah ’00 ($57.99), as well as two ice wines from Canada, Inniskillin Gold & Silver ($75 and $65, respectively).

    In short, an occasional visit to both of these “member’s only” stores is well worth the time.

    I tip my hat to the MGM store in Plymouth, for it has one bottle of the amazing Gallo of Sonoma ’97 “Stefani” Cab ($26.99), as well as two very special wines from Sterling: the ’00 “Diamond Mt Ranch” Cab ($48.99), which I sampled and loved at a recent Sterling Wine Dinner at Tejas; and the ’98 “Three Palms Vineyard” Merlot ($79.99).

    The Wine Bar Scene

    I’m currently recruiting “secret agents” to report in on favorite wine bars and restaurants that feature a newsworthy list of wines by the glass. Beyond Beaujo’s, Bev’s, and Bobino’s, my research has yet to mine the rich vein of wine gold I know is out there. Special rewards await those who contribute to this noble cause; e-mail or
    call in using the website below.

    And now… I’m off to Napa Valley to get inside information on new releases and new labels coming to our area. I’ll be back in two weeks with a full report!

    Contact Louie and get information about Louie’s Wine Club www.louiethewineguy.com

  • Don't Cut the Cheese

    If you were lucky enough to find a job during this jobless recovery, your orientation probably consisted of a short tour of the copy room and a long trip through the employee handbook. But if you’re Jessi Peine, your new boss sent you on a six-week trek across Europe, where you toured several cheese-producing farms, devoured pounds of cheese, learned about the aging process of cheese, drank loads of wine, and ate more cheese.

    Peine is a cheese specialist at Lund’s. Since her education abroad, and her installment at the Penn Avenue store, she has come to know her cheese-loving customers on a first-name basis. They bombard her with questions and cheese stories the instant she slips behind the counter and puts on the tall, white hat that designates her as a food expert. When I approached her the other day, she was huddled with a customer. “I just got back from Norway,” the customer bragged. “I shoved a cheese wheel in my jacket, and they never found it!” She’d successfully smuggled some gjetøst past the eagle-eyed customs officials.

    “As a kid who loved food, I always thought you could only be a cook or a housewife,” Peine told me. “I never knew you could do this. And I studied microbiology for a while, which is all about bugs. And bugs make cheese…”

    Yes, bacteria make cheese, and cheese is more popular than ever, especially artisan cheese. Like the secret societies of wine, chocolate, sushi, and even cigars, the world of fancy cheese is a complicated one. Peine’s job is to steer you in the right direction, which sometimes means not following your nose.

    First of all, “American cheese” shouldn’t be confused with American cheese. Cheeses made here are not necessarily inferior to, say, French cheeses. In fact, in recent years the most expensive and sought-after specimens have been produced in the U.S. “There’s a cheese called Pleasant Ridge Reserve from Wisconsin that is beautifully made, and their cows have acres and acres to graze on, which is very important, because the cows need a steady diet of fresh grasses,” Peine said.

    There’s only one problem with American cheeses: Due to FDA regulations, the milk has to be pasteurized (which means heating it to 161 degrees Fahrenheit). This adds a cooked taste to the cheese, and destroys many of the natural enzymes that cheese tasters celebrate. The alternative is to age a cheese for at least sixty days, which also kills most harmful bacteria. But because of what Peine calls an epidemic of food paranoia, most American farms will pasteurize instead of risking the aging process. “We’ll never taste a really fresh, unpasteurized cheese unless we’re in France,” Peine said.

    That said, we still can serve plenty of super-stinky cheeses that are dripping with bacteria. Peine doesn’t carry Limburger, the infamously stinky German cheese, because it fouls up her entire cheese case, and because, she says, there are better stinky cheeses out there. “There’s Taleggio from Italy, which is lovely. It just stinks to high heaven, but has a really nice and clean pure cheese flavor.” An ancient Italian cheese carried around the globe on the winds of World War I, Taleggio is creamy, rich, and buttery, and will make a fickle guest either love you or hate you, depending on his or her nose.

    Even if you’re serving a wheel whose mere odor will insure plenty of elbow room at the cheeseboard, it’s important not to overwhelm your guests with too many alternatives. Three to five cheeses are all you need, in a nice array of colors, textures, and milks. “Do a nice goat, sheep, and cow,” Peine counseled. “Sheep and goat have that lovely tang, totally different from cow’s milk.” Peine suggested serving Humboldt Fog, a funky-looking goat cheese from California that has a layer of vegetable ash between two layers of white cheese. “That’s the thing: Most of the ugliest cheeses taste the best. They’re not supposed to look perfect,” she said.

    There are other simple truths to be aware of: It’s best to pair cheeses and wines by region (reds and whites are both fine) and relative strength on the palate. Always make sure your cheeses are served at room temperature. (Enough with the food paranoia; Peine says cheese can sit out for hours, even days.) Also, never cut the cheese. “Let the guests cut what they want,” Peine said, cautioning against airing the cheese too much too soon. “Don’t let the hard work of those little animals go to waste!” Serve your cheeses with a fresh baguette or bland crackers. You do not want to overpower the cheese. Or you can just scarf it down on its own. “You don’t really need bread,” Peine said. “You don’t need crackers. You can eat it with a spoon if you want.” Face it: If you were worried about offending your more sensitive guests, you probably would have stuck with the cheddar cubes.—Molly Priesmeyer

  • H-E-Double Hockey Sticks

    We have a television in the office, a twelve-inch black and white job with rabbit-ears. This TV, recovered more than once from the garbage, is switched on precisely once a year: in March, during the state boys high school hockey tournament. We just can’t help it. If you were born and raised anywhere in this good state, from Luverne on up to Pigeon Falls, it’s in your genes. And even though management here is, in part, Iowan in both origin and practice, we rustics are indulged in a thousand different ways.

    But we are worried. One of our origin myths is taking a beating in the corners. We’re less concerned with Republicans throwing their elbows at our proud Scandinavian progressivism, and more concerned that Darby Hendrickson—the sole Minnesotan on the Wild’s roster, and the first goal-scorer at the Xcel Energy Center—has been exiled to the minor-league locker-room in Houston. Is the decline of real Minnesotans in the NHL evidence of globalism, a resurgent Canadian dynasty, or just the degrading local effect of Olive Garden?

    There have been other causes for concern. When the high school league agreed in 1991 to split the state into two divisions, we were gratified that twice as many kids would realize their dream of playing hockey live on Channel 9. On the other hand, we have to be honest and say it felt like a dissipation. How much longer would we get to see Warroad, pop. 1,722, come to town to thrash Edina, pop. 47,425? How much longer would we sustain the dream that all Minnesotans owned hockey on a spiritual level—that the talent pool of the suburbs would never dominate the frozen pond of the tundra town?

    Hollywood may come to our rescue with that most questionable proposition—the hockey movie (Slap Shot; Youngblood; Mighty Ducks; Mystery, Alaska…). There is no greater mythmaker today than the movies. Miracle has opened to widespread mirth, at least around these parts, and it’s no wonder. It is a throat-catching tribute to Herb Brooks and his 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team. That “Miracle On Ice” team won the gold medal with twelve certified Minnesotans on the roster, and a quorum on the bench, too. And while we tend to view provincialism and nationalism with suspicion, we figured, what the hell? This is our time, this is our place. If tiny Eveleth can take on the evil empire of Hill-Murray, why shouldn’t a bunch of amateurs from the Range stand up to a red army of Soviet pros? Our private war against the cold was writ large as a definitive moment in the Cold War.

    Have basketball, baseball, or football ever done that for us? Root all you like for the Wolves, the Twins, even the godforsaken Vikings. But give us hockey—the Wild, the Gophers, the International Falls Broncos. These teams are among the most admired in the country, in any sport, in any season. If a place can own something as ephemeral as a sport, Minnesota’s claim on hockey is surely stronger than Indiana’s on basketball, or Texas’s on football. We are the state of hockey, indeed.