Food? Gifts? Booze!

[lsanderson]

The Gift Is in the Mail, and on the Web
By MARIAN BURROS

TWENTY-FIVE years after writing my first column on sweet, savory and useful mail-order gifts for the holidays — one filled with imported goodies — I’m amazed by how butchers, bakers and candy makers around this country keep coming up with delectable surprises. More

Feed Me
To the Things That Remain
By ALEX WITCHEL

YOU always remember your first time, but what about your last?

The last time you sat at a restaurant table, swaddled in warmth, just inches from the bread basket, a drink in one hand, a cigarette in the other. You took a good long swallow of bourbon, which soothed the raw edge of smoke in your throat. You looked at a menu that listed every cut of beef known to man, watched platters of golden cottage fries go by and raised your glass to 20th-century ecstasy, American style.

The date? Oct. 29, 2007. The place? Gene & Georgetti, a family-owned steakhouse nestled under the El in Chicago, in business since 1941. Chicago, God bless its retro heart, is the rough-and-tumble big city that has somehow managed to elude the smoking police. But on Jan. 1, it’s over. Out on the street with you, just like New York. More

Spirits of The Times
Bourbon’s Shot at the Big Time
By ERIC ASIMOV

IN the recent history of whiskey, bourbon would seem to have had a lot going for it. It’s homegrown, for one thing. Grass-roots acceptance counts for a lot when you are battling for shelf space. Bourbon has always been right up there with college football, Nascar and canned beer — the sort of whiskey that anyone can order without fear of being labeled effete or snobbish.

Yet, awareness is not always enough in the whiskey business. The days are long gone when “Dallas” ruled the airwaves and J. R. Ewing made bourbon and branch a household term. When bourbon distillers looked up 20 years ago they saw the market moving in two directions, both away from them. Affluent drinkers were exploring the wonders and complexities of single malts while younger bar-goers were turning to vodka and rum.

The dive in sales forced bourbon producers to accept that the whiskey market had changed. They might not be able to compete with vodka, but to avoid permanent relegation to the dusty back shelves of liquor stores, bourbon producers would have to find a way to attract the budding connoisseur class. More

Comments

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

Gene & Georgetti's is a wonderful restaurant. Two stories, traditionally you had to be someone to eat on the first floor, where everyone could see you as they were escorted to their tables on the second floor. Their waiters would talk of marbling the way a sommelier would talk about bouquet or vintages.

[marahsk.livejournal.com]

Chicago, God bless its retro heart, is the rough-and-tumble big city that has somehow managed to elude the smoking police. But on Jan. 1, it’s over. Out on the street with you, just like New York.

Good riddance, and about time!