VittlesVamp

Outsourcing Beaujolais to Bangalore

Looks like India is after more than cornering the IT and calling center job market. Now, they are trying their hand at international wine distribution, revitalizing the nascent tradition that was established by the Brits before phylloxera wiped out India's vineyards way back in the 1890's. British newspaper The Telegraph takes a look at the country's attempt to take on the Loire Valley, Tuscany and Napa:

With chicken tikka masala Britain's favourite dish India is offering a fresh challenge to the nation's palate: wine.

Today noses might wrinkle at the thought of an Indian sauvignon blanc or cabernet but tomorrow India's winemakers hope it will be as acceptable as a Chilean merlot or an Argentinian shiraz.

Wine has been produced in India for centuries but with help from French and Australian experts India's wine industry is now seeking international acceptance.

So keep your eyes peeled for Bolly-vino, since outfits like Grover Vineyards, Chateau Indage and Sula Vineyards are going to be exporting their wares to the U.S., Great Britain, and even France. Have no idea how the stuff tastes, but when it comes to the grape, I'm always willing to give it a swirl and a sip.

Rocky Mountain High, Colorado

According to The Denver Post's Food section, Vittles Vamp "could well be called "Food and the City." Check it out: Denver Post - The Vittles Vamp isn't shy about sharing her opinions

Think I could get and HBO series out if it? Showtime? How about The Food Network? Heck, I'd be happy to do public access, as long as I don't have to wear an outfit similar to Robin Byrd's. (Not that I wouldn't look fab.)

Orgasma Dinner

OK. Time to get your mind into the gutter. Roll around a while. Get comfortable.

Last Friday night my friends Joy, Kristin and I had a revelation. It started over cheese. Burrata to be exact. Pictured above, it is a snowy white satchel of soft cow's milk cheese wrapped in protective blades of Pugliese asfodelo (an herb-like plant similar to leeks), encasing a lush treasure trove of buttery, fresh cream and sweet, unspun mozzarella curds. We dined on glorious slices of this creamy luxury with Sweet Grape Tomatoes in a Champagne Vinaigrette flecked with shallots and fresh thyme. Some julienned basil completed the plate. No. Strike that. We completed the plates with our moans - our groans - our pure ecstacy.

One bottle of vino was already down. It was time for another. And, if any of us had been smokers, now would have been time to light up.

We opened another bottle and then made our way to the next course - Gorgeous, plump Chicken Sausage stuffed with poultry, roasted red peppers and sharp aged provolone, and succulent Pork Sausage to add a little traif to the table. Then, I brought over a heaping platter of Penne with Cauliflower, Red Onion, Garlic Hot Chile Flakes, Fresh Mint and Pecorino.

Looking at the spread, we all agreed that there was no way we'd even be able to finish a third of the platter's content.

Boy, were we wrong. More moaning commenced. More pecorino was grated. More corks went flying. More squeals of delight.

We made all gone. And, yet, we wanted more: dessert.

We lustily dug into glassfuls of Vanilla Ice Cream with Amaretto-Macerated Peaches and Amaretti Cookie Crumble. Ooooh...Aaaaah....

And, why did we need men again? I popped open a bottle of fruity, bubbly Brachetto d'Acqui. Our eyes rolled back into our heads and we sipped the blessed stuff as we nibbled on deep, dark, bittersweet Chocolate Truffles. OH MY GOD!!! We didn't need men! Heck, we didn't even need battery-operated devices!

Needless to say, the three of us are not selfish women. We all felt it was our duty to share the evening's keen insights with our fellow single gal brethren. And, so, Orgasma Dinner is born. A quarterly event that will feature foodstuffs and drink that will render the male of the species, as well as battery-operated toys, unneccessary - at least for one night each season.

Autumn Orgasma - Date TBD. Menu suggestions welcome.

Links Are Haute

Little did I realize that I was riding a new foodie wave of sausage fanaticism when I decide to make sausages from Los Paisanos Meat Market the star of my casual gal supper tonight. All I knew was that I couldn't get thoughts of the butcher's savory links out of my head. (Get your mind out of the gutter!)

Apparently, though, I am not alone in my sausage stirrings. The Daily News recently ran a story touting the newfound epicurean leanings of dog and link-lovers the city-over:

Every dog, as we all know, will have its day.

Even those that come on a bun with mustard and relish.

Right now, the top dogs have such names as saucisson

Struggling with the 10th Commandment

I may be a Hebrew School dropout, but darn if I haven't caught the Cecil B. DeMille version of "The Ten Commandments" a couple of dozen times. In fact, I always rent the flick for my annual Passover seder. I pop the tape in the VCR, cue it up to the plagues and we watch them in Technicolor while we're reading that section of the Haggadah.

So, needless to say, I'm familiar with all of "The Big Ten." And, just this past weekend, I failed to live up to #10:

You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his manservant, or his maidservant, or his ox, or his ass, or anything that is your neighbor's.

And, the really sad part is it was worse than coveting a neighbor's ox or ass - I coveted my friends' new home in the outskirts of Hoboken, New Jersey. Yes, I actually coveted my pals Melissa and David's apartment in deepest, darkest NJ - a good 15-20 minute walk from the Hoboken PATH station.

Invited for a friendly barbecue last Sunday, I had no idea that I would turn green with jealousy at seeing their three-bedroom abode with an immense kitchen and sizeable, leafy yard.

I tried to focus on Melissa's yummy Heirloom Tomato Salsa and Chips as we waited for the burgers to be done. But, it was no use. I wanted to bludgeon my friends to death and steal their home.

I'm not an animal. I controlled my self. I ate my burger and thoughts of murder danced in my mind. I tried to think happy thoughts. I crunched into some potato chips and I started picturing how well my furniture would look in the living room.

It had to stop. I love my apartment in Brooklyn. This was Melissa and David's home. Besides, I thought to myself - I'm sure all those bedrooms, that oversized kitchen and this gorgeous, green garden require a lot of upkeep. And, heck, just think of the cleaning after this party.

I sipped on some Merlot and began to mellow. A sugar rush quickly took its place after a few bites into a slice of Walnut Sour-Cream Apple Pie. I didn't know if my newfound peace-of-mind could hold.

Thankfully, Celeste and Tom came to the rescue, with the offer of a ride home. I bid our hosts adieu, jumped into the backseat and we were off - on the road - in New Jersey. New Jersey. Jersey. Joisey. NJ. The Garden State. Home of Tony Soprano and Jim McGreevy.

We made our way through the Holland Tunnel and suddenly I felt a rush of relief. New York!!!

Clearly, I had been suffering from what some urban real estate experts have called: UrbanSquareFootageEnvy-itis.

What can I say? I prefer to think of myself as being victim of a nasty NYC-Yuppie virus than admit that the State of New Jersey inspired me to break one of the Lord's commandments.

Cleaning My Kitchen With Barf

My friend Kristin promised me an exotic gift from her recent trip to Uzbekistan. Meeting today for a quasi-business/quasi-social lunch at a Midtown pub, she planned to bring my "special present" in tow.

"What, oh, what would it be?" I wondered. Could it be some dried Kazy, the famous Uzbek horsemeat sausage? Maybe a jar of Kholvaitar, Uzbekistan's liquid version of Halavah?

She did one better. She gave me the gift of Barf. Yes, as pictured above, manufactured in Iran, Barf is actually a popular soap line - including lemon and apple-scented kitchen cleansing scrubs and dishwashing detergent. According to Kristin, no Uzbek kitchen would be complete without a full supply of Barf products.

Even so, I'm sure you'll agree that Barf's Uzbek marketing appeal is lost in translation. It brings to mind a couple of global missteps taken by other food marketers - Perdue Farms's translation of its slogan "It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken" into a Spanish phrase meaning "It takes a sexually aroused man to make a chicken affectionate"; and Coca-Cola's (KO) misbegotten attempt to render its name in Chinese characters, which came off as "Bite the Wax Tadpole."

Oh, well. It's not like I really wanted the horse sausage anyway.

Jitterbug

The dance. Fred Astaire. Mikhail Baryshnikov. Paul Taylor. John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. And, moi - every workday morning.

C'mon. Admit it. You've done the coffee dance. No. Not some ridiculous ritual where you jump up and down, once you've had your daily a.m. intake of java. I'm talking about the actual one-two-cha-cha-cha, ball-change, turn, pivot that we all endure each morning as we perfect our morning cup of joe from the local Starbucks or Korean deli.

Personally, I always find myself at the Pret a Manger coffee counter, leaning delicately into a graceful half-bow as I grab my coffee top and cup sleeve, careful not to touch any other patrons. Then, I sashay over to the coffee urns themselves and deftly manuever my cup underneath both the medium-roast and dark-roast for a half-n-half robust treat. Then, I slide gently back into my original starting spot for the milk dosey-doh, as I grab the whole, my neighbor grabs the light cream and another patron makes for the skim.

We're graceful and fluid in our movements.

And, to think: It's before we've had our first caffeine fix of the morning. Perhaps, I should consider auditioning for ABT. Sure I'd make the cut, if I knew that there was a cup of steaming joe ready and waiting after my demi-pli

NYC Restaurant Gives Diner The Finger

This isn't a posting about surly service ladies and gents. Oh, no. This is about a NYC bistro literally giving a patron the finger - or a finger, as it were. According to the ever-reputable New York Post, the wayward digit was discovered in a beet salad, not too disimilar from the one pictured above:

A Manhattan woman has filed a $3 million suit against a Midtown restaurant after she ordered a salad that was finger-licking bad.

In papers filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, Marina Andriynannikova said she chomped on a human fingertip while eating a beet salad from Rue 57 Brasserie.

The restaurant and its lawyer didn't return calls for comment. Andriynannikova's lawyer, Steven Newman, declined to talk.

The suit says the nail-biting incident happened on Aug. 19 of last year, when Andriynannikova and her fianc

Meat Coma

My friend Ben (of New York Post, PR Fuel and FindProfit fame) adores Peter Luger. Why? Because he doesn't need to leave his home 'hood of Billysburg, prefers not to have to get gussied up when he dines out and - most importantly - is awfully fond of steak. And. when someone let him know about the never-ending array of meat offered "Brazilian Rodizio" style at Churrascaria Plataforma he insisted that he could will himself to leave the borough and even dress up if need be. Could I possibly make us a reservation so we could gorge ourselves on bovine and alike?

Ouch! Stop twisting my arm!!!

We opted for the Tribeca branch of the restaurant and were greeted with a gorgeous room with high ceilings and a hip setting that featured strings of industrial lightbulbs and a minimalist waterfall.

Admiring that waterfall was the only minimalist part of the evening. For a very reasonable all-inclusive pricetag of $44.95 we were able to indulge in the restaurants admirable salad bar that featured everything from cold shrimp to hot risotto - not to mention a ton of seafood salads - and then dinner would arrive. Ben and I resisted the temptation to fill our salad bar plates more than once. We were there for one thing: the meat.

We flipped our red/green markers to green for "go" and the meat started coming - Friendly gentlemen carved a dizzying array of sirloin, top round, chicken, turkey wrapped in bacon, filet wrapped in bacon, flank steak, sausage, short ribs and more. We tried to resist the side dishes that went with - rice and beans, steamed veggies, orgasmic cheese bread, fried polenta sticks. It was difficult, but eventually we ate WAY more than our fill. We had done well...Dessert was out of the question.

Stuffed as we were, Ben couldn't help but feel inspired. (I on the other hand just felt like passing out cold - as indicated by the title of this posting.) Ben was so taken with the whole rodizio ethos of a "meat-athon" with continuous tableside service that he went home a drafted a business plan for a low-cost rodizio of his very own:

Fact Sheet

Restaurant Name: Glutton

Motto: "The More You Eat, The Less You Pay"

Location: Under Exit 34 of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway

Hours: Monday through Saturday noon to 3:00 AM, closed Sunday except during Football season when hours are 10:00 AM to 1:00 AM

Price: Flat-fee of $9.99 to $29.99, pricing determined by total weight of meat consumed (higher consumption total equals lower price)

Dress: Extremely casual

Reservations: Not accepted

Payment: Cash only

Restrictions: No children under the age of 12, no vegetarians, vegans or hippies. Hipsters pay $6.00 per person surcharge.

Menu: All you can eat selection of meats and vegetable comes with bottomless salad/bread bar, sundae bar and chicken wing coop

Drinks: $2.00 cans of Old Milwaukee, $2.00 shots of Jim Beam, $3 beer/shot combo, $8.00 64 oz. pitchers of Old Milwaukee, selection of fortified wines, soda, water

What You Need To Know: Polish waitresses in overalls serve meat from piles stacked high on flattened cardboard boxes. Guests are referred to as "Meatheads". Tables come with a scale and a digital scoreboard that tallies each Meathead's consumption. Bathrooms are Porta-Johns in the parking lot.
Last meat call is thirty minutes before closing.

Special Events: Meat The New Year (January 1), Super Meatbowl (coincides with Super Bowl Sunday), St. Patrick's Day Meat Surprise (March 17), Just For The Hell Of It, Meat Day (June 11), Fourth of July Meat Orgy (July 4), The Meat Olympics (August 1 through August 17), Labor Day Meat Marathon (Labor Day), Thanksgiving For Meat! (fourth Thursday of November), Jesus Christ Meat Superstar (December 24 to December 25), End Of The Year Meat Blowout (December 31)

He's presently seeking investors. So, if you know any meat-eating VCs, feel free to drop me a line and I'll make the introductions.

Mato Mania

Tomatoes are one of August's glories. They come into my local Greenmarket in various sizes, shapes, colors and configurations just picked from the farm. I'm particuarly partial to the "fugly" heirloom varieties, which often look like deformed lumps in deep green or vibrant yellow - and taste like sweet heaven.

But what do I really know about the tomato beyond my own personal addiction? Well, perusing an article- in of all places - The Malaysia Star, apparently not much. Some entertaining tomato tidbits:

*Each year, more than 60 million tonnes of tomatoes are produced, 16 million tonnes more than the second most popular fruit, the banana.

*China is the world largest producer of tomatoes, producing over 16% of all tomatoes.

*The French nicknamed the tomato