Exquisite dinner...

[alexpgp]

The kids invited me over for dinner this evening. My contribution for the evening's festivities was to buy the wine for dinner, and since the main course was to consist of Omaha steaks (filet mignon, wrapped in bacon), I selected a bottle of Montepulciano d'Abruzzo. (I probably would have made the same selection if fish had been on the menu..., or perhaps not, I don't know.)

Dinner went well and so did the conversation, and here I am back at the old homestead.

My first conscious recollection of Montepulciano d'Abruzzo is that it was the wine we drank when Tim Zagat (he of the Zagat surveys) hosted the crews of STS-74 and Mir-20 (and yours truly) at a very cozy restaurant in Manhattan's Little Italy. I recall how after dinner, as we walked back through the streets of the neighborhood to our van, Tim stopped and introduced us to a very distinguished-looking older gentleman, expensively dressed (this you get from me, who normally has the fashion sense of a dead horse), who was strolling down the street in our direction in the company of two very attractive young women, one on each arm.

I recall the man - later described to me as the guy to see if you wanted to get anything really done in New York - had a powerful and magnetic personality. When he looked at you - paid attention to you - you got the very definite feeling of being the center of the universe at that moment. It was an interesting dynamic: he was who he was, and we... we were Tim (who seemed to know everyone in town), a bunch of space fliers, and an interpreter.

So every time I drink Montepulciano D'Abruzzo, I am reminded of that evening, and of the adventure that followed our reentering the van. :)

Cheers...

Comments

[furzicle.livejournal.com]

I remain intrigued by the question: Who was that distinguished gentleman?

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

Me, too.

Cheers...