Looking up to the moon tonight, I wondered about when it would be full. It's about a week before the Blood Moon arrives. My son, the one in the picture above, fires up the grill and cooks a steak during the full moon. Something about his inner bio-dynamic.
Celebutantes with their bio-accessories newly re-tuned, and nillionaires alike, rushed the original Neiman Marcus last week, for their 100 year gala. Pursed lips and hip-replacements, manicured hands caressing flutes of Veuve Clicquot, not Prosecco. Shadowed by men in black with platinum cards, in case there was something they had forgotten to buy for their cottage closets in Highland Park.
“Go to this town, ask for the Chiavennasca.” I was mindlessly channel surfing, when I heard these words on the “Dirty Sexy Money” program. Fifteen years earlier I heard someone order a glass of Pinot Grigio on “Seinfeld”, and knew that was the moment. When I heard the word Chiavennasca, I was startled. What was really odd was the guy who was pouring the glass of Chiavennasca looked like Stanley Marcus. Worlds colliding. Probably not the next Pinot Noir, though.
“Loosen up baby, it’s grappa,” I heard a moment later on the same program. Chiavennasca and Grappa in the same evening, on netwreck TV? Meanwhile back at Cadillac Raunch, Dallas was blazing on Main Street. I really thought all those women disappeared after the 80’s. But then again, it is the 100th anniversary. Some of the partygoers looked like they were celebrating a few of their own milestones in time. It’s an interesting town, not a lot of introspection but a lot of glitz. Lots o’ sizzle, even if the meat on the bone has been dry aged a little too long. Money, money, money. God, I love the smell of this town.
So even if the TV program doesn’t kick start Gattinara or Grappa, it was fun just hearing the words Chiavennasca and Grappa. Or in the words of Bob Dylan:Now you're probably wondering by now
Just what this song is all about
What's probably got you baffled more
Is what this thing here is for.
It's nothing
It's something I learned over in England.
Harvest is winding down, people in the fields are gathering spent branches and vines and starting bonfires. Wine from the north is coming on down the through the foothills and chilling the nights and fogging the morning. The cycle is completing as we wind through another revolution around the sun. The little glass of grappa warms the insides and loosens the door of the mind that stares out from behind this screen.
Neiman Marcus gala photographs by Elizabeth Lippman