Yep. It’s time for another Post having nothing to do with employment law, President Trump, and dire things. Folks seemed to enjoy my last escapist post … and I received quite a few comments and, even better, suggested other restaurants and wine and book stores.

10 Essential Reds.

Jeff Trump of the Brooklyn Café recently sent me a list of 10 Essential Reds he recommended for a person with my tastes. I was impressed and have pasted the list below:

As to Reds, Mike Johnston and Bob Thornton recently turned me onto a Cab blend, which really impressed me: Pahlmeyer 2007

Whites.

I am not a white drinker, but I wish that I had written down the magnificent white that the Thorntons served from Peter Michaels Winery, but I’ll investigate their whites.

I am currently having a serious romance with the former Orin Swift effort, The Prisoner Wine Company’s Prisoner blend and Saluda Zinfandel. Good luck finding them. I buy them by the case when I can do so. I recently attended a Prisoner tasting at Sandy Springs’ incomparable Italian restaurant, Il Giallo. I was smitten with The Prisoner Wine Company’s white wines, The Snitch and Blindfold.

Outstanding Recent Dinner.

One of the best brokers that I’ve encountered, Evan Georgiou of the The Embleton Curtis Quackenbush Group at Merrill Lynch invited us to a dinner, wine tasting and cooking demonstration by Chef Linton of Restaurant Eugene. Restaurant Eugene is always in the top three or four restaurants in any list of Atlanta’s best restaurants.

Chef Linton first performed a cooking demonstration preparing a simple Risotto and spouting an amazing variety of quotable lines.

I almost never recommend any of the hordes of brokers with whom I’ve dealt, but this group has honorably assisted my mother’s affairs – which are more substantial than my investments – even as she declined. This group includes savvy professionals who have not become so jaded as to lose their focus on individual service. They are good and I especially like Evan. They distinguish themselves from the pack.

An Amazing Independent Book Store.

I’ve already tweeted and talked some about Denver’s Tattered Cover Book Store. https://www.tatteredcover.com/ There are several locations but I prefer the historic Lodo location at 1628 16th Street, near Union Station, set in a restored 1890s building that looks, smells and feels like a bookstore. It also has more appealing places to sit, read and sip than the Colfax location. The best thing about this location is the hundreds of Staff Recommendations placed on bookshelves through the store. The main location on 2526 East Colfax Avenue is larger but those of the Union Station location overshadow the quality of staff reviews and comments.

I bought numerous books off of the Tattered Book Covers’ website VIB section – Very Impressive Books, and I will henceforth monitor the recommendations. The Staff Picks section impressed me less but was still quite good. I also recommend the TC Weekly Bestsellers.

Macallan 18 Year Scotch.

Only Sultans and Russian Plutocrats Need a Scotch Better than Macallan 18 Year Single Malt. The Macallan 12 is wonderful, but the 18 is superb. Some more experienced Scotch drinkers extolled the 15 year, but I’ve not tasted it. https://us.themacallan.com/

Even North Georgians like Me Enjoy Art.

Karla and I are blessed to count among our friends, Dusty Griffith, a politically conservative former baseball playing Auburn grad, who is also one of Atlanta’s better known artists. Dusty is one of the estimable Pryor Fine Art Gallery’s favorite. I am not artistically gifted, unlike my children, but I love viewing and learning the back story behind a piece. One should never underestimate the importance of a city having a thriving artistic culture.

Dusty and Sarah Cater have recently started a free ranging collaboration in which they drink a bit of wine and then paint back-and-forth and produce a work that is different than either one’s work. I can’t wait to see what these guys concoct together.

One of my friends who differs with me on almost every one of political beliefs, and with whom I occasionally debate, has a daughter Erin Henry, who may not even be 21, but is selling impressive work, especially nudes. I wonder what she’ll be doing at 30.

Books.

I’m still pondering Run like Hell and Arsenal of Democracy (see my earlier Post) but recently shifted to fiction. I am not a true intellectual and I must alternate fiction and Non-Fiction.

Outpost, by W. Michael Gear.

This is a fine addition to the Sci-Fi genre of realistic descriptions of future colonization efforts combined with Realpolitik competitions between the various factions and earth. I especially enjoyed the strong character development, especially of the women (who kick a__ and take names). Characters are not one-dimensional. Even bad guys are not always entirely bad. Good guys die and you never lose interest. I hope that the prolific husband-wife team write more books centered on this planet. Damned fun read. Another great referral from my son, William.

The Map of Time: A Novel, by Felix J. Palma.

This one is an oddball. The writer strikes a Lemony Snicket-kind of narrator role and routinely breaks the Forth Wall. The story which teases you with H.G. Wells’ Victorian Sci-Fi twists and then lapses unexpectedly back into real world answers. The characters are mainly the stereotypical vacuous London upper crust of the time, who you want to throttle but thoroughly enjoy. The final twists genuinely surprised me. The story is creative and a great addition to whatever genre incorporates alternative history, homage to Wells, Joyce, Stoker, Holmesian mystery, and Victorian Sci-Fi.

The Catcher Was a Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg.

The title summarizes the book – Moe Berg was a Princeton graduate, Columbia Law grad, and journeyman catcher for the Sox and other teams during the 20s and 30s. He was a genuinely erudite guy but also cooperated with the press in their gleeful articles on Professor Berg and his Sanskrit reading and multilingual talents. Berg was naturally secretive and while charming, a loner at heart. He was thus well prepared to be a U.S. spy for the OSS in World War II. Berg generated in equal measure, truth and apocryphal stories, and the book tries to sort through them. The book should have been written in about a third less pages, but otherwise it’s a fun read.

I hope that you enjoyed this post. I enjoyed writing it.

Howard