Pairing Chocolate with Wines.

When I was a boy, chocolate was a treat you received for doing something right, or that you saved for and rewarded yourself for the effort. Biting in to it was, by its self, a glorious experience! Now, as I have moved beyond the Snickers or Mars Bar phase of life, I crave a deeper, more meaningful relationship with my dark habit.
Fenton and Lee, located at 35 East 8th Ave. in the Gallery District, has an amazing selection of fine chocolate to pair with your favorite wines.
This weeks pairing:
Chile Chocolate has the rich front end taste of dark chocolate that holds up well to a Sarah, Malbec, or even some of the more intense Cabs. Spicy Zinfandel brings out the chocolate’s surprising nuances. The tastes play off each other as the chocolate brings out the spice in the wine and the wine mellows and softens the intensity of the dark peppery chocolate.The back pallet taste is hot/sweet and lingers long enough to add to and compliment the aftertaste of the wine . Delightful!
I plan to surprise friends with this one after dinner this weekend

Jacobs Gallery Review.

Well, where do I start?

Was it that I was in a bad mood? Was it that my expectations had been raised by what I had heard in polite company? Whatever it was made me ready to be disappointed. I was not.

Claire Flint’s work was a range of cute to oddly disturbing. I like her illustrative approach and I do like her icons for their sacre’ligious qualities, but overall they do not work as well as her larger work. Something in her faces make me not want to look to long; perhaps some of the glimpses are internal and therefore a bit unnerving. Her range of work is astounding. Art should make us feel, think, and react, so her work is very successful.

Sarah Grew’s work is worth spending time with. I must divulge that I was one of the jurors on a major project that she was awarded last year so I have seen her work and read about her process .Given that; I think her small work is much more dynamic than the larger work, with the exception of “Chartreuse Wave”, which I found alluring. Do not let your first glance be your last.

Ken Herrin is a dangerous artist. He takes the cast off, lost, found, displaced objects that are gone into the void beneath our plane of existence and brings them back to haunt us. His materiel should be defined as “missed media”. “The Devils Secretary”…I want so much to have it but how does one justify owning a piece of fine furniture that holds naught but ideas? My favorite pieces are the “sleep” series. I also like most of the “Journal Entry” series. Usually, when you see wall boxes filled after Joseph Cornell, you expect a certain delicacy. Not from Mr. Herrin. His pieces are brash, smart, big (some are far bigger than the boxes they inhabit), and will make a good addition to most any wall.