I Heart Them All

Whoops; I meant to blog yesterday, but the day just got away from me.  How does that happen?  You wake up, have a little lunch, then all of a sudden it's ten o'clock at night and you're sipping on a Dos Equis, hoping it'll take the edge off a nasty little hangover you earned from the previous evening, which was spent cavorting around downtown with a bunch of the coolest people you've met in a long, long time.

I blame Andrew Zimmern, of course.  He got me a seat at the Taste of the Nation event at Cosmos Sunday night, which is a charity dinner where every table has their own local chef and staff preparing a five course meal.  The event also had two guest chefs from out of town, and I had the divine pleasure of sitting at Dante di Magistris' table.  Dante is chef/owner of dante (natch) in Boston, and he's about the cutest, sweetest thing I've ever seen.  The food was getting oohs and ahhs from all around the table, with people even stopping by from other tables trying to get a taste of Dante's creations.  I was the only vegetarian in our group, so most of my dishes were Cosmos fare, but mad props to Dante for the fruit and cheese pairings and a most fabulous dessert of sweet frybread with chocolate, hazelnut, apple rum, and raspberry dipping sauces.

If anyone's going to Boston anytime soon, please take me with you.

The rowdy Town Talk Diner table was the last to clear out, which surprised no one.  I ended up spending the rest of the night at Solera and then Mackenzie with the Town Talk guys, my friend Josh, and most of the other chefs from the event.  It's already been established that I'm completely in love with the food and drink of Town Talk Diner.  So much so that I rhapsodized about it here on Girl Friday, and then again recently on vita.mn.  But now I'm afraid I've fallen in love with the men behind the restaurant.  Yes, I've got it bad for each and every one of them. 

But what can you do.

Anyway, a big kiss and a thank you to Andrew for scoring me a coveted seat at this wonderful event.  It sucks that he was too sick to be there.  Though, if the "I am dying" email I received from him this morning is any indication of how his foodborne illness is coming along, it's probably for the best that he stayed home. 

Seriously, though... he hosts a show called Bizarre Foods, on which he eats, well, the world's most bizarre foods.  I'm just sayin', I suspect this isn't his last bout with food poisoning.  I also suspect that somewhere, some Travel Channel employees have a pool going to see how many more times Andrew eats something that he really, really shouldn't have.

Comments

[Elizabeth]

I really like Mackenzie. They've got a good selection on tap, but I'm a bit worried because they never seem to have many people there.

[Alexis]

You know, it was my first time there. I really enjoyed it too, mostly because they have two pinball machines!

[geoff]

An American bar with a Scottish flavor..please keep Mackenzie on the downlow. I am crispy fried & food-jaded from work and had no interest in hangin' out on Sunday, but I hear it was excellent. I am to the point where my fave meal is PB&J @ home with the kids.

[Stephanie]

I am going to Boston around 10/15

Your Sister

[AM]

I met Dante on Saturday night. I think we might have kept him out a bit late so I was hoping he would recover in time for big day. What a lovely person and I would join you on a trip to Boston anyday to visit him and dine at his restaurant.

[Alexis]

Dante was so totally adorable.

Someone alert the media. My sister has commented on my blog.

[Jason]

Consider the media alerted.