It has been a dream, for years, to slap my name on a great tin of caviar. Well, I’m selling outstanding products now, as you know…including some of the world’s most food-loving Champagne…so why not endeavor to find its caviar soul-mate?
I endeavored. I found.
One thing you know for sure en route to Hong Kong: this city will have wall-to-wall hanging ducks, chickens, pigs, roast pork, all displayed in multitudinous carnivorous windows. The whole category is sometimes referred to as “Chinese BBQ” (even though the meaning is way different from the righteous thing we call BBQ in the American south)…and the Cantonese, who own Hong Kong gastronomically, are the masters of it.
On my March trip to the great eating city of Hong Kong, one of the most delicious themes that emerged was restaurants devoted to different kinds of “pots”…hot pots and clay pots, to be precise.
Hot pots first. I have a pretty long familiarity with the Chinese hot pot concept. The origins actually stretch back 1,000 years to Mongolia, food historians tell us, with beef, mutton and horse in bite-size pieces being cooked last-minute in steaming pots.
London has my heart. It was the first European city I ever visited. I fell in love instantly, and I shall never fall out of love. (As Samuel Johnson said to Boswell in 1777: “when a man is tired of London…he is tired of life!”)
Of course, London and I have had our ups and downs. I’ve always devoured London theatre, never been disappointed…but, truth to tell (Samuel, don’t listen!)…
There is NOOOO doubt whatsoever, not a shred: my favorite white wine grape in the world is Riesling. Furthermore, my favorite white wine in the world is dry Riesling, preferably from Germany. Dry Riesling! Dry Riesling! And thereby hangs an American tragedy…
For we Yanks…going back to our experience with the cheap German imports that flooded our market post-World-War-II…have typically sneered at the concept of Riesling.
