February 17, 2009

Man, it’s raining a bunch out there. Might be a good time to ready the meat ship. Yup, mateys, you heard right. I haven’t laughed this hard in, oh, a week.

The wet conditions may not have me riding my bike so much these days (sob), but that’s when my four-wheeler comes in handy because I am on the town in full force this week. On the docket tonight is the LIOCO wine dinner at CONDUIT—if you’re looking for some tasty wining and dining, you should come on by (details here).

There are all kinds of smackdowns happening this week, including the sommelier battle at Fifth Floor on Wednesday, and for those who want to drink their dinner, there’s a bartender smackdown tonight, check it all out in the lush.

My Thursday might entail the wine-tasting event with Bottlenotes, or perhaps the happy hour at MR Barber Shop from 5:30pm–7:30pm with ICHI. (Ladies, I hear there are some cute gents at this happy hour, FYI). Maybe I’ll hit both. Wherever I end up, it’s gonna be a par-tay, because I will be celebrating the day I quit smoking many moons ago. Haven’t touched a stick in years. I just want to give props to anyone out there who has left or is trying to leave the nico-demon (or at least thinking about it)—yes, it’s the hardest thing to do, but the best thing to do, so do it.

And this Saturday, tablehopper turns three! I know, yo! It’s my power week, ha ha. As for commemorating the anniversary, well, there’s lots of good (and new) stuff in store, stand by.

In the meantime, I wanted to have you save the date: on Thursday March 5th I will be co-hosting a special event at Farina, and let’s just say it’s going to be easy on the pocketbook, and heavy on the pesto. Yup, quite irresistible. I’ll be sharing all the details in next week’s column.

Time for another giveaway! This week I am giving away a pair of tickets to the Sunday Marketplace on March 22nd from 11am–4pm at the Artisan Cheese Festival in -Petaluma. The festival runs from March 20th–23rd; you can read all about it in the link above, and I’ll be mentioning more next week. To enter to win, all you need to do is email me the name of your favorite cheese at luckyme [at] tablehopper [dot] com. Deadline to enter is midnight this Friday February 20th. Good luck, cheese heads!

How did your official date weekend go? Did you blow it? Did you stay in? Or maybe you’re on a roll and need a strong follow-up destination. No matter, let’s take a twirl at Gitane in fresh meat, a place designed for a titillating tête-a-tête.

Love and kisses,

~Marcia