THAT’S STANLEY TUCCI (left) and Anthony Shaloub as a pair of devoted but mismatched brothers running an Italian restaurant in the film Big Night. Primo (Shaloub) is a gifted chef who longs to express himself through his mastery of classic Italian cuisine; bro Secondo (Tucci) just wants to fill the dining room at the Paradise…
All posts in December 2012
Please have snow and mistletoe and claret under the tree . . . .
THIS FOURTEENTH CENTURY manuscript illumination shows just-picked grapes being hustled from the vineyard and dumped into vats where empurpled treaders are already frantically at work. It was customary for medieval artists to compress events that happened over time into a single frame – but I like to think that in this case they may have…
Austerity measures
PACKING UP A CASE of wine for a Central Bottle guest recently, I reached back in to re-arrange a pair of wines so that the Argyros Santorini Assyrtiko wasn’t adjacent the Kuntz Mosel riesling. When the customer threw me a quizzical look I explained my behavior this way: These days, we’re trying not to put…