June 1, 2006

Fundraising and Tasting

I have always been a huge proponent of mixing it up when it comes to fundraising. The standard sit down and honor someone while you eat baked chicken is sooo boring! What a pleasure going to a fundraiser that not only has cocktails and food but the option to taste and listen to an expert on bourbon, cheese and chocolate. The event was put on by the New Shu l, where we are members.

I started with the bourbon. 2 guys from downtown New York that are distributors talked about bourbon. Also, a member of the temple, who loves bourbon, talked about it too. It was really fun. Scotch has been my winter drink since graduating from college. I learned how to drink it one hazy weekend. Bourbon is different. We tried about 10 different bourbons, that would be sip and toss out the rest if you had any interest in getting home. I learned about the process. The colors varied. Water is highly recommended in some bourbons. Water totally changes the color and taste. Without water, some of these bourbons could have singed my eyebrows off when I smelt them. You can drink Scotch neat, but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend that with bourbon. It might be doing a few bourbons this winter instead of scotch.

Next came cheese. The experts were from Murray’s Cheese Shop. We tasted four different cheeses. We learned about wrapping cheeses for storage, how they breath, what to drink with each one etc. Made me want to sign up for a class there sooner than later.

Next came chocolate. Unfortunately I was chatting with people in the other room and missed that one. Luckily someone cared about me and brought me out a piece of the chocolate. Oh wow! Mariebelle is the chocolatier. She also has tastings mid-month at her store in Soho where you can learn about process. I am going to do that one too.

All my kids would love this stuff. I think I might sign up each one of them for something different on one of our date nights. It would be really fun…and yummy. The bourbon part, we will have to pass on. Oh well.