Language Can Be Nuanced

You have to love the nuance of language. The same thing can be said the same way and mean many different things. It gets particularly nuanced when travelling and talking to people in a language that is not their mother tongue.Yet, you need to be careful pretty much all the time, even at supper club dinner parties because the old adage is true: “It is not what you say, it is how you say it”.

“I Am A Communist, And I Eat Capitalist For Breakfast”

A friend of mine was in Berlin back in the early 1990’s right after the Berlin wall had come down and reunification of Germany had just begun. He went for a jog in the morning in his sweatsuit and wearing a NY Yankee baseball hat (He is a native Memphian but…?). After his jog he went to a Burger King to get coffee. A scruffily dressed man walked up to David dressed in his American uniform and gruffly announced. “I Am A Communist, And I Eat Capitalist For Breakfast”. My buddy noticed how the Burger King employee taking his order winced and thought: “Now I am in trouble…”. Then the communist smiled and David realized that he just wanted him to know that he liked American food. Language can be nuanced.

“Une Femme D’un Certain Age”

You have to love the French. Not only can they really cook, but they have such a wonderful way with words.

They wouldn’t call someone an:

“Older woman”.
- A woman of a certain age sounds so much better

They wouldn’t say:

“He looks good for his age”
“He reminds me of his father” or worse: “His grandfather”.
“He looks so much older than his wife”
- “Un home d’un certain age” sounds so much better.

A classic example of Une femme d’un certain age was the French actress Simone Signoret in her later years. She was a great actress who was also married to the actor Ives Montand. Ives was famous in the U.S. for the movie he made with Marilyn Monroe, Let’s Make Love. It just so happens that Ives was a first cousin of our International Sales Manager at Kraft, John Argiro. John told us the story of how Ives had an affair with Marilyn during the filming of movie. As John said: “Who could blame him, he was French”. Simone never divorced him. She just made him pay. I am sure that more than language was nuanced.

“OK, OK, OK”

I was once going to Japan to negotiate a business deal. Before I left our corporate attorney, who had lived in Japan for a few years as a young man, gave me some advice: He said if the Japanese start saying “OK, OK, OK” that means they don’t understand what you are saying. To which I replied: “You mean it is basically the same as with an American talking to another American?” Language can be nuanced.

The good news with supper clubs is that if you are enjoying a meal with friends, you are probably on safer ground. It is always a good idea to think about what you say and how you say it, but if you say it with a glass of wine in your hand and a smile on your face, you are almost certainly OK.

If you enjoyed this blog and similar other stories/supper club lessons follow me on Facebook and Twitter and subscribe to get future blogs at www.impromptufridaynights.com/blog and check out my book Impromptu Friday Nights a Guide to Supper Clubs. Published by Morgan James Publishing and available through most channels where books are sold.

It Is The Small Things

What gets both fine dining restaurants their Michelin stars and make a supper club hosts a success? It is the small things. To get a Michelin star (or 3) has become the holy grail for chefs. As a host of a supper club dinner party, you certainly don’t need to obsess over details the way chefs at a 3 star restaurant would, but you can certainly learn a lesson or two.

One of the major revelations after touring wonderful restaurants in Europe is how well they do the small things. Plating can be a work of art. The minute details are designed and arranged to please the eye. It is a fact that we all eat with our eyes. The better chefs know how to leverage this fact.

The tricks developed to dress a plate at a restaurant with stars in the Michelin Guide were impressive. The chef used micro-planed tender young zucchini to dress the plate. He/She seared cheese into lace like heart shapes. Sauces were painted on the plate to add flavor and presentation impact. Pictures do not do justice to the beauty of the presentation. One can almost feel guilty eating.

(Note the Micro – planed zucchini, truffle shavings and lemon zest)

(Note the seared cheese in heart shapes)

The level of service is also impeccable. Chances are that you won’t have just one waiter, but rather a team of highly trained professionals making your meal most enjoyable. Their will be a maître d’, a waiter, a sommelier, a water/silverware guy and a server. All of them are very knowledgeable and well trained. The attention to detail is amazing.

We ate at Alain Ducasse’s La Bastide de Moustiers. Ducasse has restaurants around the globe and has amassed an amazing 21 Michelin stars. He has stated that his goal at La Bastide de Moustiers is not Michelin stars, but rather to serve the food he likes in a relaxed atmosphere. We were served imaginative food, by friendly people in a relaxed atmosphere. What more could one ask for?

(How could you not enjoy a meal in this type of setting)

Inevitably, one thing that is not small at restaurants with Michelin stars is the bill. Here is where supper clubs kick in. Learn the small things that made your meal at the restaurant with Michelin stars special and apply them to your next dinner party.

Rosé All Day – But Maybe Not

French wines are complex, and that is a good thing. Picking wines for your supper club dinner party can be a crucial element of preparation. We grew up on California wines that are relatively simple. You have red and white, then 5 or 6 types of grapes and voila! The choice is simple.

Picking a French wine is more complex in that you should know about the Appellation, Chateau, terroir…Then you have to consider what foods you will be pairing your wine with. American’s, we talk about food pairings in generalities (e.g. red with beef, white with chicken). French talk about wine food parings like it is religion. I once ordered a white wine with duck in Paris and the waiter reacted as if I had insulted his mother. Better yet, listened to a group of Frenchmen argue on a train between London and Paris for 30 minutes about the best mushroom to serve avec poulet. Mon Dieu!

Picking a French wine, to me, is about the experience. We recently had lunch at La Bastide de Moustiers, an Alain Ducasse restaurant in the hills of Provence. After an hour and half ride through the lavender fields on the way from Aix, a sparkling wine was perfect to start. With our venison for lunch we had a delicious vin rouge from Chateau Vignelaure. I had always associated Provence with Rosé, but there are a multitude of great wines: blancs, rouges and rosés from the region. Late that same night in Nice we had wonderful Rosé as we people watched along the Promenade Les Anglais. It was a day of a multitude of experiences and wines. The wines from our trip will always be special for us as they will connect us back to the wonderful experiences we had.

(Wine Tour Chateaus)

I did get in trouble at a vineyard in Aix. Our guide Stephan was telling us about the horrible wine blight in Europe in the mid 19^thcentury. Somehow the grape phylloxera bug from America was introduced into France and much of Europe with a devastating impact on the wine industry. Genetic selection was used to overcome this horrible aphid. Vines from America with genes that were resistant to the bug were grafted to European vines and the grape crop was restored.

Here is where I got in trouble. I said: “So what you are telling me is that all French wines are GMO” (genetically modified organism). That’s when the fight began.

It reminded me of the old joke:

A wife sits down on the couch as her husband is flipping channels on the TV and she asks: “What is on TV?” And he responds: “Dust”
Then the fight began.

You might have thought I called the poor man’s mother a prostitute. He was offended and quite defensive. Of course, there are many arguments relative to GMO:

Against:

They harm the environment. “It is not nice to play with mother-nature as science is creating “super weeds” that can be dangerous.
GMO has decimated butterfly population in the US
By the time we find out the true impact it will be too late.
Links to cancer and allergies
Nothing tastes better than nature

For

Using GMO crops increases yields and help feed the world at lower cost
Stronger crops mean less pesticide is needed
Biotechnology can be used to make crops healthier, increase antioxidants and less fat and more flavor
Genetic modification and selection has been going on for centuries (e.g. grapes resistant to phylloxera

The irony is that I had spent many years selling American agriculturally based products into Europe. A guaranteed way to end any business meeting was to mention GMO. That’s when the fight would begin…

At the end of the day, science hasn’t made French wines great. The experience you have while enjoying them has. The fun is to try many wines. Find out what you like and share them with your supper club friends.