ashe

We are the same age then chendo. I was never a "shill"for anyone... I met with all of the distributors of that era. It's been a long time but I think I worked there circa mid 80's maybe. It was a fine dining place if that timeframe but no novelle cuisine - just well done French/Euro food. The aforementioned chef was French.

You seem to have impeccable credentials - congratulations on your many achievements. I worked in food service for 14 years and know how much that means.

I don't want to have a culinary pissing contest chendo...if we ever met at the bar at Boondocks, I am sure we could have a good chat about food.

No...I understood...belatedly

Chendo - tracking was for the whine lady...my bad

California wines began to be recognized as world class in the 70s. You worked in the late 80s?

I am in my mid 50s. I knew the winemakers in the 80s. I knew Rodney Strong before he sold his winery in the late 89s, I knew Mike Grgich when he was at Chateau Montelena (before Grgich Hills) I was a guest of Janet Trefethen at their vineyard chateau.
2 restaurants I worked in were holders of the Wine Spectator awards.

I worked for Master Sommelier Mike Stengel.

You are full of crap. Your wine distributors designed your wine lists to push what they carried.

You were a shill for Mutual Distributing, or whoever the wine distributors were back then.

You walk like a communist, you talk like a communist, and you look like a communist, so you are indeed 100% communist.

chendo - when? When oaky California Chardonnay was a new discovery...when Mondavi became well known, oh just never-mind.
How old are you? You say you have a grandchild...(around here) that could put you in the 45 ish plus range. You say you worked in high end catering? Statistically, I'm guessing it was before your time in the working world but basically the late 80's. A long answer to a short ?

And although I was a sommelier - I'm no communist...I'm more of a left wing floozy.

tracking...got it

tracking?

Tracking...ok, whatever gets you through the day

got a gal making my liquor run today...she said she'd also clean my house if I cooked her dinner and let her stay the night...good trade...had my granddaughter for the last 5 days, and she thoroughly destroyed it

"a time when California wines were just becoming world recognized for their quality. "

Good grief... I thought you were at least going to try to name somewhere actually good.

justfyi - why on earth are you tracking my posts so closely here? My "virginity"? Lol. It's just not that big of a deal

Fins, jeez, can you not figure out that I worked at the Green Park Inn? I sincerely hope that nobody I worked with back then is posting on here now but - whatever - if they knew me then, they'd know I was just a hard working person back in the day..

Homie, you're backpedaling again. And you dodged the question, again. Name the restaurant if you aren't lying.

Y'all get home girl so riled up! Home girl, I don't get why you feel so obligated to share all your supposed personal info with us in such detail...especially where you lost your virginity.🙄

Must haven got red flagged for calling the old school chef a French b******.? He really was...I watched him throw a meat cleaver towards the head of a waiter once because the guy didn't pick up his order quickly enough!

I actually DID mention my past sommelier experience when pappy was quizzing me about eating at Le Bernadin:
" I did have wine & asked some questions about their largely not available elsewhere wine list - but I don't need a sommelier to make recommendations (I used to BE a sommelier a long time ago)."

Let me be straightforward - I wasn't trained in the classic way, I had no certification or guild membership but that was my job title and how I made my living. I understand what's involved in becoming a sommelier at a professional level and that wasn't me. I was in my early 20's and just trying to make enough money to finish school.

The wine companies trained me by sending their reps to meet me and do tastings of their products. It was a very modern American way of learning an old European job at a time when California wines were just becoming world recognized for their quality. At that time however, hoity toity American diners still thought that French, Italian and German wines were superior to our own, so I learned about those very throughly as well.

I'd meet with the very old school French chef and discuss pairings with his food, stock the cellar and then present/sell and serve the wines to our customers. It was a great gig although I was pretty much the only female working the dinner shift...the rest of the staff were tuxedoed male waiters and the whole brigade de cuisine in the kitchen...very traditional.

So yeah, I was a sommelier in a restaurant in Blowing Rock where male customers had to wear suits/ties a long time ago.

Yes - red flag...maybe b-a-s-t - a** was too naughty a word?

Wtf? Red flag?

Sure