KARMA

I have the privilege during this transition in my life to be the Managing Editor of a newsletter produced by the Professional Service Group (PSG) of Mercer County, which is a free resource for professional networking, training, coaching, support and education for professionals in transition. Its mission statement says that it's a "voluntary, self-managing and mutual support network affiliated with the Mercer County One-Stop Career Center, for professionals who are seeking new employment and contracting opportunities throughout the region."

Next to my extended family, it's the finest group of people with which I've ever been associated.

The facilitator of this group, Craig Jez, is himself a great resource for brainstorming, career counselling, and no-nonsense advice, especially about networking and resume writing. He pens a column for the PSG Newsletter and he calls it The Last Word, and it's always a terrific read. What I like about the column is that Craig writes it in his own voice, and it actually reads like he talks, a mix of salesman/bartender/next-door neighbor that is a delight to experience.

I've had the good fortune of working with many talented and compelling writers as an editor over the years (Lew Bryson, Ken Alan, Jim Tarantino and Katie Loeb among them), but I am particularly enjoying reading Craig's columns from the past 3 years' worth of newsletters, which you can peruse at the PSG website, www.mercopsg.net.

Read them all.

For the July-August issue of the PSG Newsletter, Craig wrote about karma. Here are some highlights, but I encourage you to read the whole article:

"Patience is an attribute you all exercise every day. Patience is responding to the woes of bills due and still smiling at the job interview. Patience is replacing unemployment depression with acts of volunteer kindness. We had a member who recently landed who defined patience as “the positive energy required daily during a 17 month transition period.” Patience is doing for others as a PSG Committee member despite you yourself needing to find a job yesterday."

"Planning your time should include active networking. Persistent and effective networking is important because you never know who the person you are networking with knows. It is like an adult game of whisper-down-the-lane. PSG has experienced a growing history of happy coincidences where spontaneous networking conversations developed a contact that led to an interview that culminated in a hire. The Karma part is the ebb and flow of relationships evolved from networking. PSG members are constantly surprised by who steps up to help them land at the bleakest moment."

"Another concept surfacing in the market is 'relationship recruiting.' Sounds like a cousin to networking, but let me explain. Say you interview with an employer but it does not work. There is no fit, you are not a match for their corporate culture or otherwise it is not going to happen with that company. To keep the corporate contact, you of course thank the company for spending time to meet you and that you greatly enjoyed learning about them. The extra step is connecting them with a candidate from your networking pool. The employer might appreciate the gesture. Perhaps they might be inclined to return the favor by connecting you with others in the same professional network. The maximum response would be if they referred you to other hiring managers as future unadvertised positions open up."

"Whether you call it Karma or making your own good luck, positive things will happen when you get out of the house, get active and help somebody every once in awhile. If you do it now, do it more.

If you do not do it, get out and try it."

Good stuff, universal appeal, endless uses in anyone's daily life, employed or unemployed. I've seen it work in my life and it's hard to deny the power of karma. But Carig Jez said it better. He always does.

Capogiro Katie's Crazy Cocktail Planet

Who knows from where inspiration springs? For famous bartendrix Katie Loeb, from Philly's Oyster House, she draws her muse from ingredients and a very wry sense of humor. Her latest collaboration with the Penn campus outpost of Capogiro gelateria seems to have pushed all her creative buttons. For her excursion into gelato cocktailing she took familiar flavors and well know known tipples and twisted them up a bit. Maybe even more than a bit.

"The products that Capogiro puts out are just so good, it was pretty easy to play with them," said Loeb in an e-mail. This past Friday night, a bunch of us got to watch Katie play.


Her Tiramisu (above) messes with your senses, putting all the familar tastes from the dessert (lady fingers, espresso, cocoa, mascarpone) into a silken sip built around Capogiro's mascarpone gelato, rum and truaca. It's a stunner.


She even playes with the traditional Planters Punch (above), using the tang of Capogiro's lime and grapefruit sorbetti to create this airy potent punch

Loeb's famous Corpse Reviver is brought to life here as the Mr. Disney (above), using gin, Lillet, Triplum and absinthe (!!) and Capogiro's lemon sorbetto. All that's missing are a frozen paior of mini mouse ears or a tiny severed head garnish.

And Katie Loeb takes her recipe for the Aviation cocktail and turns it into Ice On Wings with more lemon sorbetto, Creme de Violette and gin. "Capogiro's audience here is primarily college kids, "said Loeb. "They might not know what an Aviation is, but that's a pretty good 'Intro to Gin' cocktail." Just one word of caution: WAY to easy to drink.

Spend about five minutes with Katie Loeb at the helm of the bar at Oyster House (or vicariously at the Penn campus Caporgiro) and one can't help but feel creatively inspired. And her crazy cocktail creations take you to a very happy place, her very own cocktail planet. No place like it in Philly.

Capogiro

3925 Walnut St.

Philadelphia, PA

215-222-0252

Mon-Thurs & Sun 7am-12pm

Fri-Sat 7am-1am

Oyster House

1516 Sansom Street

Philadelphia, PA

215-567-7683
Mon - Sat 11:30am - 11pm

"Le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrivé! "

When I lived near DC in the mid-80s, Beaujolais Nouveau Day, the third Thursday in November, was a heavily hyped, all-day party across the District, flowing from French bistros and wine bars in Georgetown and Capitol Hill. It really opened my eyes (and my young palate) to how much fun wine could be.

For a little while it was also a popular wine day in Philly, but that seems to have died down. I can remember trolling around town with friends (including wine saveur extraordinaire Katie Loeb!) sampling different Nouveaus on one very cold third Thursday in November, not too long ago. It was one of the most enjoyable wine experiences I've ever had.

Well, today is the day. And I have read in several places that this year's Nouveau may be the best vintage in 50 years. Yeah, I know, hype on top of hype. But I readily admit that I really enjoy this wine, especially on Thanksgiving, when its light, fruity, slightly vegetal taste and lightly fizzy mouthfeel pairs very well with all the foods on Turkey Day. I think of it like this: Session Wine. Light, quaffable, flavorful, bouncy, and very food-friendly, no different than the growing crop of session beers out there. It's a fun drink, nothing more, nothing less.

Now there's a huge history b

ehind all this hype. I found this on a website called IntoWine.com:

At one past midnight on the third Thursday of each November, from little villages and towns like Romanèche-Thorins, over a million cases of Beaujolais Nouveau begin their journey through a sleeping France to Paris for immediate shipment to all parts of the world. Banners proclaim the good news: "Le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrivé!(The New Beaujolais has arrived!)" One of the most frivolous and animated rituals in the wine world has begun.

By the time it is over, over 65 million bottles, nearly half of the region's total annual production, will be distributed and drunk around the world. It has become a worldwide race to be the first to serve to this new wine of the harvest. In doing so, it has been carried by motorcycle, balloon, truck, helicopter, jet, elephant, runners and rickshaws to get it to its final destination. It is amazing to realize that just weeks before this wine was a cluster of grapes in a growers vineyard. But by an expeditious harvest, a rapid fermentation, and a speedy bottling, all is ready at the midnight hour.

Beaujolais Nouveau began as a local phenomenon in the local bars, cafes, and bistros of Beaujolais and Lyons. Each fall the new Beaujolais would arrive with much fanfare. In pitchers filled from the growers barrels, wine was drunk by an eager population. It was wine made fast to drink while the better Beaujolais was taking a more leisurely course. Eventually, the government stepped into regulate the sale of all this quickly transported, free-flowing wine. In 1938 regulations and restrictions were put in place to restrict the where, when, and how of all this carrying on. After the war years, in 1951, these regulations were revoked by the region's governing body, the Union Interprofessional des Vins de Beaujolais (UIVB), and the Beaujolais Nouveau was officially recognized. The official release date was set for November 15th. Beaujolais Nouveau was officially born. By this time, what was just a local tradition had gained so much popularity that the news of it reached Paris. The race was born. It wasn't long thereafter that the word spilled out of France and around the world. In 1985, the date was again changed, this time to the third Thursday of November tying it to a weekend and making the celebration complete. But wherever the new Beaujolais went, importers had to agree not to sell it before midnight on the third Thursday of November.

I hope you'll grab a bottle or two and post your thoughts on the wine here. I'll be doing that myself as soon as I get it home later today.

A Philadelphia Classic

It's nice to return to blogging with a post about a seldom seen, but nonetheless priceless Philadelphia culinary creation. This dish sits proudly with other Philly classics such as the roast pork Italiano sandwich, the hot dog-fish cake combo sammie, hot apple with vanilla sauce, a proper Italian hoagie, a warm soft pretzel with mustard, a fish cake-mac n'cheese-stewed tomatoes platter, and, yes, a true cheesesteak. It is a classic Philadelphia oyster house lunch: fried oysters and chicken salad, and I found it fortunately at the new Oyster House, the new reinacarnation of the former Sansom Street Oyster House, under the welcome hands of original owner Sam Mink and his son.

Finally got to slip into the place yesterday (alas, no dear Katie Loeb, the great Philly bartendrix!), and was able to squeeze into the busy bar and grab a stool.
I happily ordered my fried oysters and chicken salad, with a glass of Yards Brawler.

And it was superb, the oysters juicy and judiciously breaded, the coating virtually crackled under the times of my fork. The chicken salad was nicely turned out, with really flavorful chicken. It was just a terrific combo. The Yards Brawler was the perfect beer with this dish, robust and malty with a wisp of hop character to remind you it was a Yards. And a low alcohol session beer, especially helpful for lunch, and with a 50 mile drive ahead of me.

And the place was even more handsome than pictures have previously shown; the oyster plates displayed on the whitewashed brick walls are just stunning, and the rest of the place is just open and inviting, a great re-do of the space. Lots of happy oyster eaters dined alongside me at the bar. All the oysters looked gorgeous.

How Cool Is THIS?

In Thursday's Philly Inquirer, Elisa Ludwig follows a gang of local mixologists, including dear friend and Mistress Bartendrix Katie Loeb on a trip to the Liquid Lab in the Bronx, where the Philly visitors get to play with "Liquid Chef" Junior Merino. It all starts to sound so serious, with the Philly barkeeps in white lab coats and all, but you know that had one hell of a good time. And Katie, always good for some good copy in the local media, got the best quotes!

Katie is helping to open up the much-anticipated Oyster House in Philly this week. Can't wait to see what she is planning for oyster shooters and cocktails and the beer selection there!

(photo courtesy of philly.com/Michael S. Wirtz)