As of today, we’re exactly four weeks away from our due date (did you know that pregnancy is now measured in ten months? So we are technically “nine months” pregnant).
But that didn’t stop Tracie P from making her famous Chicken and Dumplings (from scratch, including the stock) for Sunday supper with the Johnson Family. That’s Donkey & Goat Untended Chardonnay in my glass, btw.
We are all healthy and our obstetrician is very happy with Baby P’s development. Her weight is just below the 50th percentile, “right where we want baby to be” said our doctor. But we are feeling a lot of fatigue and discomfort these days with the final “growth spurts.” Tracie P’s belly is getting BIG!
Aunt Holly brought delicious cornbread and brownies…
We are so lucky to be surrounded by people who love us and want to help and support us as we head into the last month of our pregnancy…
It’s a very special moment in our lives right now: putting the final touches on the nursery, making weekly visits to our OB/GYN, installing the car seats…
We are all happy and healthy and despite the discomfort in the final weeks of our pregnancy (we’re about 5 weeks away from the due date), we’ve been enjoying this special time of grace for us.
Tracie P is so beautiful and words cannot express the joy of watching her carefully fold all the baby clothes and arrange each little sock in the drawers of Baby P’s new dresser…
There’s gas in the car and extra toothbrushes are packed for our trip to the hospital. We don’t expect to be heading there anytime soon… but we’ll be ready when the moment arrives…
Tracie P, I love you so much… You are such a beautiful mamma…
When my buddies Yelenosky, Erickson, and I tasted this wine together last week at Jaynes Gastropub, the three of us were simply floored by how friggin’ delicious it is.
As you can see from the image, the wine — the product of spontaneous fermentation — is unfiltered. Beautiful, bright acidity, 12.7% alcohol (YES!), brilliant citrus notes, and a freshness and drinkability (as the Italians say) that made this wine disappear with extreme celerity.
But the thing I loved the most about this wine was how pure it is — ideologically and sensorially.
In a world where “California Chard” is a brand created through aggressive manipulation of the grape variety, this wine’s purity spoke to the true nature of Chardonnay as a relatively neutral medium for expressing the place where it is grown and the winemaker’s interpretation. In this case, the winemaker’s transparency — literal and figurative — allows the wine to express everything that has gone into it: just place and grapes. I can’t recommend it highly enough (especially for wine lovers and trade who are trying to wrap their mind around what Chardonnay really is).
Thank you Donkey & Goat for this wine and thank you Amy Atwood for turning me on to it. Love it…
The folks at Jaynes had flown me in for one night last week (my last plane ride of the year! yeah!) to lead a guided tasting of Italian wines for a corporate client. (I’ll post about an interesting experiment I conducted during the nearly 4-hour long tasting next week.)
Jayne shared her excellent mozzarella-stuffed arancini with me. And their newborn daughter Romy shared her contagious smile…
Tracie P and I are in the final weeks of our pregnancy and I’m very happily grounded, with no more travel scheduled until 2012.
We’re so lucky to have so many friends and relatives who have recently had kids: the hand-me-downs are great and more than anything else, it’s wonderfully reassuring to share the experience with our friends as we deal with the discomforts and the anxiety that the last weeks of pregnancy can bring.
I’m so proud of my beautiful Mamma P: she’s such a great mother to Baby P and she’s so courageous (in our birthing classes, they give us a taste of what’s in store).
It’s so true what people say: having a child will change your perspectives in ways that you cannot imagine until it happens to you. We’re living that every day.
And just when I thought I couldn’t love Tracie (Mamma) P anymore, I find that my love continues to grow as she bravely and so graciously carries our little girl.
I wish yall could see her… she’s just so beautiful…
Reading about “Prime Minister George Papandreou’s surprise plan to hold a popular vote on the Greek bailout” this morning in The New York Times, I couldn’t stop thinking about the above photo I took on the island of Santorini this summer.
The next day, the Greek parliament voted to adopt the measures. Today, I read in the Times that there’s a strong possibility that austerity won’t be embraced, that Greece will default on its debts, possibly going bankrupt and possibly leaving the Euro zone.
I’ll never forget how the folks I met on Santorini kept telling me the same thing: “It’s as if the Germans were invading us again, with these austerity measures and the bailout,” they said lugubriously.
I remember when dissertation advisor, Luigi Ballerini, told me for the first time (the first of many) how his father, an Italian soldier in the fascist army, was executed by German soldiers on the Greek island of Cephalonia after the liberation of Italy by the Allies in 1943 (Luigi wrote a cycle of poems about Cefalonia, published by Mondadori in 2005).
No matter who’s right or wrong, no matter how this mess will be resolved… has the post-war dream of self-governance and individual liberty come to a bitter end? It won’t be long before the focus of the international community shifts from Greece to Italy…
Where will this leave the farmer in the photo above? And how will explain all of this to Baby P when she arrives in December?
From the department of “that’s what friends are for”…
Lots of good folks came out last night to share well wishes and good thoughts on my last visit to Los Angeles and Sotto for the year.
Schachter pulled out all the stops, reaching deep into his cellar for his last bottle of 1996 Bruno Giacosa Barbaresco Rabajà (white label) — honestly one of the best bottle of wine I’ve ever had. True to the legacy of the Rabajà cru, this mighty wine — from what many believe to be the greatest vintage of that decade — delivered aromas of mint and tar and earthy, savory flavors before revealing delicate, sublime fruit…
Keep smiling, keep shining, knowing you can always count on me, for sure.
Later in the evening, Anthony, Lars (who was in from Chicago), and Dan came in for a late-night dinner at the end of my shift.
Dan brought a number of incredible bottles, including the 1990 Taurasi Riserva by Struzziero (classic blended Aglianico with no vineyard designation). I’d only ever tasted Struzziero back to 1993 (which we have on the list at Sotto) and I was blown away by the elegance and the balance of this wine, still so fresh and with the vibrant acidity that traditional Aglianico can deliver. Another best-ever wine, with gorgeous ripe red fruit and an ethereal earthiness that prompted Lars and me to call this top wine in the flight.
And now there’s so much more I see, And so by the way I thank you.
Although no show-stopper like the Struzziero Taurasi, the 1982 Chianti Classico Riserva by Antinori was fantastic — a wine, we all agreed, from a time before America, California, and Parker, a wine from a time when Antinori still made wine. Classic Sangiovese, with impressive acidity for a wine this old and delicious plum and red stone fruit flavor. It was a fantastic pairing for the sous-vide Wagyū tongue that chef Steve sent over to our table. Loved this wine and the now forgotten era of Tuscan winemaking for which it spoke to me.
My goodness… From my baby shower to all the hugs that the staff gave me before we said good-bye, from the camaraderie, solidarity, and thrilling wines to the wishes that our friends shared with me on this last trip to Los Angeles… I know that I never would have emerged from the darkness of my life before to reach this magical, blessed moment… what a year it’s been… someday I’ll tell Baby P all about it…
Oh and then for the times when we’re apart, well then close your eyes and know, the words are coming from my heart.
Made all my connections today and looks like I’ll be home tonight. It’s always so crazy getting back to the river city from europe and man, am I glad I’m gonna be able to wrap my arms around tracie p and tell her how much I love her!
My friend Stefano Spigariol and I have known each other for more than 20 years, since I first came to Italy to study Italian philology in Padua where he studied Latin. Like many of my friends from university days, he works in the publishing industry in Milan, as a publicist for a top scholastic publishing house.
He’s one of my best friends in Italy and our confabulatio always ranges from the erudite to the rock ‘n’ roll, from the sacred to the profane.
He, his wife Anna (a lawyer), and daughter Matilde live in a one-bedroom apartment near the center of Milan.
Last night, they had me over for dinner: cheese and charcuterie, bread and taralli, roast chicken legs, Veneto-style braised cabbage, and a caponata, paired with a bottle of 2009 Sordo Dolcetto — an old-school expression of the grape variety that Stefano picked up for less than Euro 10 at his local wine shop.
I can’t think of a better meal for my last night in Italy…
Thanks again, Anna, Matilde, and Stefano… I love you guys!
Whereas blogging is all about the immediacy of the medium (literally and figuratively), writing, recording, and releasing an album is a long process whereby the initial inspiration is transformed through a complex and articulated series of steps to final track — composition, demo, recording, overdubs, editing, mixing, mastering, printing, distribution etc.
In January 2011, when I wrote and recorded the first demo of “Freudian Slip,” which became the title track of the new CD, I had just returned from Houston where I had learned that Cousin Marty had been diagnosed with bladder cancer. If you’ve been following along here at my blog, you know the avuncular role he’s played in my life since I moved to Texas nearly three years ago: not only has he embraced me with the warmth of a long-lost and newfound cousin, but he’s also shared with me his gusto for all things enogastronomic.
Growing up a teenager in La Jolla, California, I didn’t have much of a relationship with father Zane, Marty’s first cousin: a classically trained Freudian psychoanalist, Zane was estranged from our family after an inquiry revealed that he’d been having sexual relations with his patients: an egregious and bourgeois transgression that began before I was born and that emerged publicly when I was eleven years old — a family catastrophe that received brutal coverage in the local and national media.
Finding and forging a relationship with Marty was like being given a second chance to have a father, someone who rejoiced in my successes and shared the burdens of my challenges in building a new life here in Texas with Tracie P, whom he adores.
When I found out that Marty was ill, I became depressed and stressed by the anxiety (a bitter twist of fate?) that I would lose this happy relation so shortly after it had been born. Marty had already brought so much joy into my life and thankfully he beat his cancer with flying colors. But at the time, the prognosis was uncertain and I selfishly let my fear express itself in a dark song I called “Freudian Soup” (the title of the earliest version).
When I sent it to my writing partner, Céline Dijon (my good friend and sister I never had, Verena Wiesendanger), she set about writing the lyrics as a dialogue between Zane and the woman who most famously sued him, changing the title to “Freudian Slip,” acte manqué in French.
Today, when I listen to the track, nearly a year later, the cathartic drum fill that opens the song (by Julien Galner of the Paris-based band Château Marmont), chills still run down my spine.
All but the vocals for this track were recorded in my studio in Austin. The arpeggiated harpsichord is the very same one from the original demo.
When he finished mixing the record this summer, Jean-Luc Retard (Dan Crane, the third element in our writing troika, my bandmate and friend since 1998) suggested that we call the album “Freudian Slip.”
Thanks for listening and for reading and thanks for the support… It means the world to me…
Here’s the video for the new single, “J’en Ai Marre (Had Enough)”, a song that Céline and I wrote about bullying:
As beautiful as Italy is, as fascinating the conversations, as delicious the meals, as breath-taking the wines… it’s really hard to be away from home right now. I miss Tracie and Baby P so much… On the plane across the Atlantic, I made this video to soothe my lonesomeness and homesick blues while I’m here. “The Story of Baby P So Far (to be continued)”… I hope you enjoy it as much as I do and thanks for letting me share it with you… Buona visione!
And on the subject of family matters…
A taste of Manischewitz for Rosh Hashanah — 11 percent alcohol, mevushal (i.e., cooked so that the wine remains kosher even if handled by non-Jews), “specially sweetened” wine, “containing not less than 51 percent Concord” grapes — inspired me to write a nostalgic post for the Houston Press on Friday, “Manischewitz, a Kiddush Cup Full of Memories.”
Driving back from seeing a client in Houston this week, John Denver’s “Leaving on a Jetplane” came on in one of my mixes and I just couldn’t hold back the tears. I knew that in a few days I’d be packing my bags and leaving again, heading back to Italy.
As we head into the last trimester of our pregnancy, it’s just so hard to say goodbye to Tracie and Baby P. (I was only supposed to be away for a week but the trip was extended when the Nonino family asked me to lead a group of celebrity mixologists on a cocktail tour of Friuli and Milan.)
This year has been a happy one for us, with our healthy pregnancy, business going well, and family and friends here in Texas who support and love us. Becoming close with all my long-lost Texas cousins has been such a blessing for me. The other day at Rosh Hashanah lunch, I told the Rosenbergs how much it means to me and they all just smiled and said, “that’s what Texans do.”
We have so much to be thankful for but saying goodbye to “my girls” this morning nearly broke my heart… I love them so, so much…
All my bags are packed I’m ready to go
I’m standin’ here outside your door
I hate to wake you up to say goodbye
But the dawn is breakin’ it’s early morn
The taxi’s waitin’ he’s blowin’ his horn
Already I’m so lonesome I could die
So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you’ll wait for me
Hold me like you’ll never let me go
Cause I’m leavin’ on a jet plane
Don’t know when I’ll be back again
Oh babe, I hate to go
