Serge the Concierge

15 Days Motorcycle Wine Tour de France, Naps Included?

My friends at Kermit Lynch have been posting their Tour de France Wine of the Day when the inspiration comes.

On July 15, they picked a 2008 Cheverny Rosé, Domaine du Salvard by Delaille from the Loire Valley (pictured below) for Stage 11.



Out of curiousity, I went to check if anyone else was matching wines with the Tour de France stages.

Nothing came up, instead I unearthed a 15 Days Motorcycle Wine Tour de France (by AdMo-Tours) taking place from September 2 to September 16.

Intriguing

Are naps included?

July 14, It's Bastille Day, Velo Solex, DS and 2CV cruised New York Streets (July 12)

July 14, it's Bastille Day.

2 days ago, the weather was perfect for the annual Solex and Citroen ride around New York (video, part 7 below).

On Sunday, July 12, a flock of VeloSolex, classic Citroen DS and 2CV cruised the streets of the Big Apple.

Even Catherine Deneuve rode a Solex as the 1973 picture below (courtesy of Velosolex America) shows (it was part of my July 2008, Besides Petanque Bastille Day story).

More than nostalgia, good clean fun!

Hot Dogs as America in DC from Fenway Frank and Chicago Red Hot to NY Deli Dog

I was looking up details on an exhibit of a British Icon from the 60's and came up with a slice (a bun) of Americana.

Call it food as history if you will, the Courtyard Cafe at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC picked as its summer feature, Hot Dogs as America.

Here is what's it's all about:

"As a special tribute to America's favorite pastime and a warm up to Nationals Baseball Family Day, Saturday, July 18, the Courtyard Café will feature three authentic hot dogs from baseball cities across the country during the month of July from 11:30am–3pm daily. Specialty dogs are $5.95, a plain dog is $4.95."

• New York Deli Dog-- New York City's delicatessen tradition brings us this great natural-casing beef frank topped off with sauerkraut and deli mustard.


• Chicago Red Hot-- a jumbo Vienna Beef frank on a poppy seed bun, is "dragged through the garden," topped with mustard, relish, onion, tomato, dill pickle, peppers, and a dash of celery salt.


• Fenway Frank-- boiled and grilled Fenway-style, a beef hot dog served on a New England-style bun and covered with mustard and relish.

Will the Chicago Red Hot look and taste like those offered by Red Hot Chicago (picture below)?

Are they pairing them with New York, Boston and Chicago beers?

Another reason to visit DC this summer...

Young Person's Guide to Tanabata, Star Festival at Japan Society, NY, July 12

Rather than offer a lecture on Tanabata, the Star Festival, the Japan Society in New York decided to stage a play on July 12 at 2pm.

Here's the program:

A child-friendly theatrical performance introduces Japan's famous Tanabata legends (Hikoboshi and Orihime) in an interactive setting with songs and dance by performers from Theatre Arts Japan-KIDS-. Afterward, participants will make paper ornaments and their own traditional tanzaku, thin paper strips for writing wishes and to hang on bamboo branches.

Recommended for children ages 3-10 and accompanying adults.

Tickets:
$15 per family (up to five people), $10 per family, including at least one Japan Society member.
Space is limited. Advanced ticket purchase is highly recommended.

If like me (until today) you never heard of the 'Star Festival' here's what Wikipedia has to say about it:

"Tanabata (七夕, tanabata^?, meaning "Evening of the seventh") is a Japanese star festival, derived from the Chinese star festival, Qi Xi (七夕 "The Night of Sevens")．

It celebrates the meeting of Orihime (Vega) and Hikoboshi (Altair). The Milky Way, a river made from stars that crosses the sky, separates these lovers, and they are allowed to meet only once a year on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month of the lunisolar calendar. The celebration is held at night, once the stars come out."

In related news, from July 6 through 10, 2009, the Consulate-General of Japan in Houston presents the Tanabata Festival through origami, wish-cards, and traditional decorations in the atrium of The Shops at Houston Center.

Muza-Chan (a Romanian expat in Japan) in Customs and traditions of Japan - Travel impressions from last years Tanabata (July 6, 2009) gives us her take on the event.

I took the liberty to borrow one of Muza-chan's photos from her piece (above) taken at the Asakusa Shrine as an illustration.

Tradition and culture on the menu of Tokyo Thursdays # 95

Previously: Anime Expo 09 opens in Los Angeles, Covers all Trends from Shojo to Seinen

June 17, The Grapes They Are A Growin at Chalk Hill Estate, See for Yourself

The team at Chalk Hill Estate gives us a snapshot of how the grapes they are a' growin via Twitpic.

This is Chardonnay in case you wondered.

Patience at work...

Want to share snapshots of your own vineyard with us, send them in.

Harlem comes to London, Jazzonia & Harlem Diaspora at Chelsea Space (July 1st)

The people at Chelsea Space were kind enough to invite me to the pre-opening party for Jazzonia and the Harlem Diaspora on June 30.

I doubt I will have a chance to hop on the plane to London though.

A program that takes its name from a poem by Langston Hugues has to be great.

Here's what's it's all about (in their own words):

"In a Harlem cabaret Six long-headed jazzers play. A dancing girl whose eyes are bold Lifts high a dress of silken gold.

This stanza from Langston Hughes' paean Jazzonia(1923) is a poetic riff on the vitality of New York's Harlem and an ode to African-American cultural history during the ‘Jazz Age'. Harlem, real and imagined, challenged boundaries, racial, sexual and indeed musical. Throughout the inter-war years a diaspora of black artists arrived in Europe, epitomised now by Josephine Baker at the Folies Bergère in Paris. By the late 1930s London was the next gig.

In this show at CHELSEA space the London legacies of singers Adelaide Hall and Elisabeth Welch, who both had been in Paris with ‘La Baker' are re-united with Jazz Tap legends Chuck Green and Honi Coles. George T. Nierenberg's classic film "No Maps on My Taps" (1979) was the catalyst for a renewed wider interest in artists originally from Harlem.

Vestiges of lives and of performances, a syncopation of the highs and lows of the 20th century against a backdrop of the Modernist movement reverberate from a variety of archives and reminiscences. The genesis of this exhibition was in a conversation with David Gothard. In the 1980s Gothard re-introduced these stars, by then in their 80s themselves, to live and film audiences during his artistic directorship at the Riverside Studios, Hammersmith.

Archival footage, photographs, correspondence, posters, programmes and recordings ‘perform' around what is absent and what is present: ‘freedom' and improvisation with the voice and with the feet offer an aural history of African-American Modernism."

Jazzonia and the Harlem Diaspora opens on July 1st and runs until August 8, 2009.

Opening Time
Tuesday - Friday: 11am - 5pm
Saturday: 10am - 4pm

The exhibit is curated by Diana Rodriguez and Judith Waring and unless I am wrong the Event is Free.

Riverwalk Jazz Jazz Notes offered a radio program on the same topic in 2002.

Since I have no illustration yet for the show, I chose the cover of Langston Hugues book 'The Best of Simple' as a stand in.

Related:
Mick Jones (Clash) Aladdin Cave turns into Rock'n Roll Library at Chelsea Space (London)

40th Anniversary Exhibit of John and Yoko Bed In for Peace in Suite 1742 at Beatles Story (Liverpool)

Remember 'All we are saying is give peace a chance', well as The Guardian reports with a Photo Gallery, we are marking the 40th Anniversary of John and Yoko Bed In at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, Suite 1742 to be specific as the hotel's history notes.

The Guardian pictures by Gerry Deiter are part of of an exhibition, Give Peace A Chance: John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Bed-In For Peace, a traveling exhibit showing at The Beatles Story in Liverpool until 15 August, 2009.

Another example of music tourism

A book under the same Give peace a chance title by Joan Athey was recently published by Wiley (cover above).

Related: Ian Hunter (All the Young Dudes) Turns 70, Almost Fell Off My Rocking Chair

Dreaming of Gaudi, Let Your Eyes Wander through a Magic Photo Stream

Calling this Photo Stream The World's Best Photos of Gaudi (on Flickr Hive Mind) does not show modesty.

Should it?

In any case let your eyes wander through these many examples of the magic world of Antonio Gaudi, Barcelona's architect extraordinaire.

Amongst all the pictures on display, I picked the 'sepia' toned photo of La Pedrera ('the quarry') on Passeig de Gracia by Toni Camara who was kind enough to let me use it.

The iron wrought lamppost ads to the atmosphere.

Wish I was in Barcelona, like this week-end.

A great place to chill

Thanks to David Weinberger for pointing to this wonderful Gaudi slide show.

Kouing-aman in Salt Lake City? Les Madeleines, Patisserie and Cafe

Seeing Kouing-aman mentioned as a specialty of the house by Les Madeleines, a Patisserie and Cafe in Salt Lake City got my attention.
Blame it on my Breton roots.

Kouing-aman (pictured below, from 'Madeleines' site) is a mainstay, part of the baked goods tradition of Brittany.

According to The Recipe from Worldwide Gourmet, Kouing-aman can be translated into 'butter bread' and its origins can be traced to the port city of Douarnenez.

Other favorites of mine at Les Madeleines are Madeleines of course, Pate de Fruit, Pithivier and Paris-Brest.

On the Cafe side they also serve lunch with lighter on the calories homemade salads and sandwiches.

The Pastry Girl offered the Sinfully Tempting Paris Brest (February 2006) pictured below (from her site) for Is My Blog Burning # 23 on Dessert First.

Watching the calories, not the detectives...

Stand Up Coffee with Curvacious Girls in Chile from Formal to Scantily Clad

Pascale Bonnefoy in Want Legs with Your Coffee (Global Post, April 9) documents cafes in Santiago (Chile).

You consume your coffee standing and the main attraction is not the Barista but the girls in tight clothes or even scantily clad ones in the steamy (sleazy) version.

In a detached manner, Tex Rubinowitz explains the concept in Cafe with Legs as applied by two of the pioneers, CAFÉ HAITI and CAFÉ CARIBE which started decades ago:

"Colloquially called „Café with legs“, as there is not a single chair or table to be found in their spacious interior. Instead, a seemingly endless chrome-coated bar meanders through the room, with the coffee drinkers – almost exclusively male – lined up along it. On the other side of the bar - and this is the real unique feature of these cafés – the waitresses, all of them uniformly dressed in very short, body-clutching dresses, are lined up as well on an elevated floor, so the guests are at direct eye-level with their breasts, a distinctly dominant position, as though in a roleplay."

The piece is illustrated with photographies of Hertha Hurnaus.

A Wanderlust column by Felipe Ossa (Salon, May 2000) looked at the more steamy (sleazy) version.

Strange Brew!

Loosely related: Kiwis in London Show How Great a Cup of Java Can Be