Some of my favorite music comes from Brazil. I have never visited the country but plan to do so when I have a chance. So The Brazil Nuts piqued my interest with their Brazil centric site. Personally I would rather go to Bahia than Rio. They offer authentic experiences such as The Boa Morte ('Good Death') festival which brings together Catholic and Candomble influences, the African roots.

And what could be better than spending a cold December or January week under the brazilian sun?

The illustration for this post is the cover from the book 'Salvador de Bahia / 100 color photos'. This neighborhood is the 'Pelourinho', the old historic center.

If you are in London tonight and are a wine afficionado, Decanter is holding a Medal Winner Wine Tasting in collaboration with Waitrose at Waitrose Canary Wharf Food and Home. The event features 100 wines from the Decanter World Wine Awards and takes place from 6:30 pm to 9:30 pm., price: about $30.00.
From these 100 wines, find out what The 50 best wines of 2006 are according to the experts, from bargains to premiums. 

During my recent surgery, the thing that bothered me most was the chilly temperature.

In its September Edition, The Observer Food Monthly states 'Hospital food - it's enough to make you sick'.

Let me quote the opening lines of their piece: "Thick, salty soup with the texture of wallpaper paste; a pie crust, hiding a serving of mechanically recovered 'meat' and dry mash. Is this the best patients can hope for?".

Truth be told, their observations address the situation in the UK and I guess in Scotland since a similar article 'Confused, sick, starving … old' was published this month in The Sunday Herald.

Were you treated to a good, bad or worse meal while in the hospital?

My personal worse experience with food was during my (short) time in the army (as a conscript). They insisted in turning hairdressers into cooks and cooks into hairdressers. You can imagine the results.

Over the years, I have moved many things including the whole inventory of a store overnight. In the process I sprained muscles, hurt my back, suffered from splinters and exhaustion. When I read Move mountains with Furniture Sliders about the Moving Men on Lifehacker, it picked my interest. I went looking for similar products and found EZ Moves Furniture Slides which seems to offer a wider range of products suitable for boxes, furniture and even appliances.
The heavier piece of furniture I have is an upright piano for which I always need to hire professional movers. This baby would break my back.
If you are rearranging your space to change the flow of energy around your house, a recommended read is Open the Door to Feng-Shui by Furniture.com.

While I was recently writing Oh! No, September 15 and Already a PTA Fundraiser, I could not remember the name of a company offering neat tools for such Fundraisers. How could I forget? The Name is Fundable. I wrote about it almost a year ago (October 13, 2005) in 'Fundable' offers new ways to raise Funds so that might be the reason it slipped my mind.
You could actually also use it to raise funds for your business or your movie or your band as Sellaband does on a larger scale as I illustrated last week in Music's Angel Investors. So if you want to simplify your fundraising, set a target, invite people to contribute and see if it flies.

Some of us have been lifelong music fans, had a career, made money along the way and still look for ways to channel our passion for music. New companies such as Sellaband, based in Holland and led by a former Sony Music executive give those of us with the financial means an opportunity to buy shares in a band's project. Besides the financial aspect, there can also be the satisfaction of helping a band or a project flourish.

I very recently had my first taste of Blue Moki which kind of sounds like Blue Monkey but I do not know of anyone except Columbian indian tribes from the Amazone Forest that count monkey as part as their diet.
No this Blue Moki is a fish from New Zealand also known as Moki or Moki Trumpeter. Found in the area between East Cape and Mahia, It is culturally important to the area Maoris otherwise known as Iwi.

The East Cape region has a laid back pace and offers a rugged coastline and great places to fish and surf.

It is also known as one of the first places in the world to see the sun rise.

If you can find any Blue Moki at your favorite Fish Counter and wondered how to prepare it, here is a Blue moki, leek, potato and spinach stew by Lois Daish courtesy of the Forest and Bird Society of New Zealand, enjoy.

This month the San Francisco Chronicle moved its Wine Section to Fridays. It offers many good reads including this week in the Bargain Wines column Unique sippers from Spain and Portugal .

I myself have bought quite a few Spanish Wines over the past year, including the 2004 Capcanes Mas Donis Barrica Montsant. Eric Solomon of European Cellars imports a number of my recent tries, amongst them Les Alcusses 2004 from Celler del Roure in Valencia (about $11.00) a blend of Mourvedre, Mando, Tempranillo, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon .

Another Red that I buy frequently is OPS de Loxarel  2004 (unfiltered) from Penedes in Catalonia, a steal at around $9.00.

Additionally I found an extensive list of Under $15.00 wines from around the Globe on The Traveling Vineyard. It is long but worth a look.

Today is the first edition of OneWebDay, a celebration of communities created through the Web. This event was originally started by Susan Crawford, a professor at the Cardozo School of Law. It is somehow similar to BlogDay which takes place on August 31st and was started in 2005.

Personally, I participate monthly in Wine Blogging Wednesday which brings people from around the world to write on the topic of wine. For the 25th edition this month we wrote about Champagne.
This Wine event was started in September 2004 by Lenn Thompson of LennDevours in Long Island (New York).

My online community spans the Globe for ideas, inspiration, technical advice, photos, readers and more since I started writing 'Serge the Concierge' in March 2005. The person who somehow gave birth to this blog by baptizing me 'Serge the Concierge' is Debbie Galant of Baristanet fame.

Since I will not be able to attend the nearest event in New York City with Craig Newmark of Craigslist, my contribution to OneWebDay will be a List of 5 Sites I recommend you visit.

1) For its wonderful recipes and Food Photos: La Tartine Gourmande by Beatrice a French Expat like me based in Boston, Massachusetts.

2) My window into Japan, Design and More: Tokyo based Online Magazine PingMag.

3) For technical advice and common sense: Rachel Cunliffe of Cre8d Design , web and blog designer extraordinaire. She lives in New Zealand.

4) He started a movement, Eric Tenin of Paris Daily Photo shares snapshots of daily life in his hometown and inspired a 100 other people around the world to do the same.

5) To round up my list Jyotsna Shahane, filmmaker, writer, cook and mother as she describes herself. She writes The Cookscottage from Pune, Maharashtra, India .

I hope you get something out of these varied sources.

Thanks to Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine for bringing this event to my attention.

Enjoy

Happy One Web Day 2006

A couple of days apart, I found out about Wikis (you must have heard about Wikipedia) put to good use to offer information on Restaurants and Wine.

The first one, Savory actually offers two distinct sites, Savory New York close to us in New Jersey and on the West Coast, Savory San Francisco. You can search restaurants by neighborhoods, there is also a Featured Restaurant Showcase and Video and a short List of other recent Restaurant Videos.

The video feature is similar to some of the videos offered by Turn Here which we reviewed in Turn Here, Video Guides for Travelers in June.

The second wiki New York Corked offers an alphabetical list of New York restaurants with they corkage fees and policies complemented by ratings of the service and also the quality of the wine glasses offered.
One restaurant I would not bring wine to is DiFara's Pizza in Brooklyn. They do not charge a corkage fee for good reason, the only 'glassware' they offer is (ouch!) paper cups.

I found out about Savory on Becks & Posh. As for New York Corked I have to thank Alder of Vinography for pointing it to us.