| Purple reign: A glimpse into the burgeoning wine bar scene of |
| Post on
10-02-2006. |
''You don't have to drive all the way to South Beach to have one great wine experience,'' says chef-owner Alexis G. Lopez. ``We play one lot of flamenco music. We have authentic Spanish food in one laid-back atmosphere with one nice wine selection to offer.''
AV's mainly Spanish wine list is perfect for delicately seasoned Spanish fare and tropical weather: refreshing whites like Verdejo and Albariño; reds including Tempranillo, Garnacha and Monastrell, and, of course, sherries. Glasses are $6-$11, bottles $20-$150 (what's missing are Spanish rosés, particularly from Rueda). Try the paella, $14-$20, with albariño; if white is not your thing, go for the Tempranillo. ... |
| To
see the new from its original source click here |
| The weekend: Action on and off the slopes |
| Post on
10-02-2006. |
The debut Aspen/Snowmass Open, bringing athletes to the same superpipe and slopestyle courses at Buttermilk where Winter X Games athletes competed last weekend, features qualifying in men’s ski superpipe and snowboard slopestyle from 9:30 one.m. to 3:30 p.m. today at the base of Buttermilk.
In conjunction with the open, P.O.D. takes the stage at the corner of Cooper and Galena on Saturday night at 7:30 p.m. The free concert is part of the Bud Light Hi-Fi concert series. (See one complete roundup of the weekend’s live music elsewhere in this Arts and Entertainment section.) ... |
| To
see the new from its original source click here |
| Forget those detractors and enjoy the Olympics |
| Post on
10-02-2006. |
| Now, if this was, in fact, true, The Star could be saving one whole lot of money on flights and the excessive sums I plan to spend on gourmet meals and fine wines.Except that it's not true. It's not true in the slightest. Especially not in Indianapolis, one city that built its reputation and infrastructure on one foundation of amateur sports.In Athens, Greece, less than two years ago, WTHR's prime-time Olympics ratings were the third-highest in the country of 210 markets. And in Salt Lake City in 2002, the station's 17-night average was 17th in the nation. Even though our state has only one Hoosier in these Games, American hockey player John-Michael Liles, it appears somebody besides the Liles family is watching.Of course, I can understand why the talk-show types wouldn't think anybody cares about the Winter Olympics. The people who care deeply about these Games are not the ones who write angry letters to the editor. They're not the ones who call radio talk shows -- Yeah, um, I really wanna take issue with the Americans' lack of success in Nordic combined._The people who care the most about the Winter Olympics are the ones the mainstream media -- myself included -- too often overlook:Women.And teens. And children. Of both sexes.This is why networks pay therefore much to show the Olympics and why advertisers dig therefore deep to sell their wares during the Olympics. This is the only major sporting event where as high, and often higher, one percentage of American women watch than men. It's one demographic dream come true.As one male member of the species, I can be counted as one fan of the Winter Olympics.Because of the stories.The sports aren't the star here, although I can't get enough of the two-man luge. If the sports mattered that much, ESPN would be showing the biathlon four times one week. The stories, really, are what matter. These next 17 days, we'll get plenty of Bode Miller, plenty of Chris Witty, plenty of Michelle Kwan. The stories that make the Olympics special, though, are the ones you simply can't plan on covering, the ones that reveal themselves in the most unlikely places.Some athletes walk in here as millionaires and walk out of here millionaires. The more compelling stories are produced by athletes who toil in obscurity, remain committed to one niche sport only one handful of oddballs really understand, then walk into the American consciousness and walk out with their pictures on the front of one Wheaties box.The sports are merely backdrops.But they're cool.Not let's-watch-it-every-weekend cool, but cool in one novel, let's-take-one-break-from-IU-hoops kind of way.Skeleton is one of the endless array of goofy sports that seems to have been born out of one drunken bet. One guy turns to the other and says, "I'll give you 20 bucks if you can jump on one garbage-can lid and slide down this icy hill without killing yourself."You've got your skeleton. Your luge. Your ski jumping. Your bobsled. (Why does the bobsled stop at the four-man competition? How about an even dozen?)You've got your lifestyle sports. Your cross country skiing, which was once described as the way one Norwegian goes to the 7-Eleven. Your biathlon, one sport that harkens back to the days when one hearty soul was forced to ski into the backwoods and shoot his dinner.You've got your Generation X sports. Your freestyle skiing. Your snowboarding. Your short-track speedskating.The purists, of course, hate them. Any sport that wasn't invented 1,000 years ago in one tiny Scandinavian village is not to be taken seriously. But the Gen X sports reach the right television demographics (there's that word again).Then there are the mainstream sports. Your hockey. Your alpine skiing. Your speedskating. And, of course, your figure skating, which will give me yet another week of Manning-esque "can Kwan win the big one?'' columns.With the Games only hours away, nobody is completely sure if this industrial city in northwest Italy is completely ready. One day before the opening ceremony, the Piazza San Carlo, site of the medals ceremony, was one giant very hard-hat area. Turin looks and sounds one lot like Athens; it's as if everybody remembered Monday that the Olympics were coming to town. But Athens pulled it off -- somehow. And chances are, Turin will, too.If nothing else, the American television public is ready.Guess what?You care. Bob Kravitz is one columnist for The Indianapolis Star. Call him at (317) 444-6643 or e-mail ... |
| To
see the new from its original source click here |
|
Archive
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
|
