Las Vegas Book Festival – This Saturday

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I look great, don’t I? Especially when photographed at distance, through a mayonnaise jar.

Wait til you see me in person this Saturday at noon, at the Las Vegas Book Festival.

Thankfully, I’ll be on a stage, far away — just me, a microphone and three people (Lotus of Siam’s Penny Chutima, Rosa Ristorante chef/owner Rob Moore, and Eric Gladstone, the brains behind Vegas Unstripped) flapping our gums and chewing on the Las Vegas restaurant scene.

If you follow the Book Festival, you might’ve heard that super-chef and PBS star Hubert Keller was originally scheduled as a headliner, to be interviewed by me, about his life in food, his cookbooks, and his presence on the Las Vegas Strip restaurant scene. Unfortunately, his mother passed away last week (I can relate!), so three of our town’s major players have agreed to pinch hit and come together for a lively discussion about what it means to run a restaurant in the challenging culinary landscape of Las Vegas.

I’m just there as eye candy…

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…but I promise, there will precious little of the “how did you survive Covid?” b.s. that everyone is tired of these days.

Instead, we’ll be sharing secrets, settling scores, and giving you an insider’s perspective on:

Tik Tokkers: Should they all be shot?

How much red sauce is too much red sauce?

Trends that need to end.

How do you tell a bad Thai restaurant from the greatest one in America?

Has Martha jumped the shark?

Is there hope for Henderson?

Now that the Strip officially sucks, what’s next for the neighborhoods?

What wine goes best with a huge ego?

You get the picture.

Come one, come all. It’s free and I promise to sound reasonably sober. and look even better than I do in that little pic above.

Once the conversation ends, I promise you, the drinking will begin.

Downtown Las Vegas, at the Historic Fifth Street School (whose address in actually on Fourth Street – 401 S. 4th St. to be precise). This Saturday at 12:00 pm noon.

Audience participation will be welcomed….even from “influencers.”

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Of Cabbages and Kings…and Pizzas and Pia Zadora

The Wisdom In Carroll's Nonsensical Poem, The Walrus And The Carpenter – The Wisdom Daily

‘The time has come,’ the Walrus said,

‘To talk of many things:

Of shoes – and ships – and sealing wax –

Of cabbages and kings

And why the sea is boiling hot –

And whether pigs have wings.’

The Walrus and the Carpenter, Lewis Carroll

Image(And all the little oysters stood, and waited in a row)

Oyster season is upon us. The days in Vegas aren’t quite so hot; and the nights are even a bit cool. Spirits brighten, paces quicken, appetites increase, and Las Vegans come out of their shells, as do bivalves…inasmuch as the latter involves being on the end of an oyster fork.

Summers you see, are for hibernating, both for certain shellfish, and people accustomed to enduring 108 degree heat for weeks on end. Oysters mate in the summer (and get watery and flabby in the process), while residents of the High Mojave do the same, at least as it involves staying in our air conditioned shells, or in a swimming pool, as much as possible.

Every year, almost like clockwork, we get hungrier on September 15th. Labor Day may be the unofficial end of Summer, but for us, the weather always seems to break about two weeks later. Sure, the hot days don’t disappear entirely until mid-October, but as soon as we feel a nip of cool in the morning, we start celebrating. And by celebrating we mean going out to eat like a starving man attacking a banquet.

Through happenstance as much as planning, this year we found ourselves overwhelmed by Italian, suffused with seafood, and awash in oysters. Below are some impressions of our more noteworthy meals…and by “noteworthy” I mean ones we either loved or hated.

Image(Never eat ‘ersters in any month without a paycheck in it)

Like the Walrus and the Carpenter, we eagerly await the arrival of plump, firm ‘ersters from both coasts, and the best and freshest collection in town can usually be found at the Water Grill. Unlike the Walrus, we feel little guilt in luring a couple of dozen of these eager little creatures into our greedy maw. Instead of poetry and persuasion, we use cash…in this case around $42/dozen. Stick with West Coast is our usual mantra: they have traveled less and have more of the mineral-rich salinity we look for. The WG may be part of a chain, but it’s a chain restaurant with sole…that knows it plaice, and hasn’t floundered since landing on the L.A. scene 30 years ago.

After gorging ourselves on Fanny Bays and Indigos, we next found ourselves inundated with Italians. (In case you haven’t noticed, Vegas is lousy with Italians these days.)

An old friend met us at Piero’s for a birthday party (and we stayed for a bite); another epicurean acquaintance lured us back to Lago; everyone said Amalfi was amazing, so we had to see for ourselves. Then RPM opened for lunch, and of course we had to go. In between all these, we also squeezed in multiple lunches at Cipriani, a lunch at Esther’s Kitchen, and dinners at Milano and Rosa Ristorante. Between the eight of them, we noshed on enough noodles to numb a Neapolitan.

But you do not come here to hear about our digestion, dear readers, you come for the piquancy of our opinions. So let us get straight to the nitty Pecorino.

SHIPWRECK

Image(All show no dough)

Lago has always suffered from unfortunate nautical design that puts one in mind of a cruise ship. Which is fine if you like dining with people whose idea of culinary adventure is a carving station with a salad bar. There is truth in advertising, though, because the food here lives down to the decor.

The cheesy design also commits the sin of raising expectations. “You’d think with a contraption that impressive, they’d turn out something less crappy,” one of our companions  observed after being confronted with a pizza oven that had to cost more than a Ferrari, and is the size of a walk-in closet (above). Another dining companion (let’s call him the Restaurant Pro) said: “If they were serving this stuff in a neighborhood Eye-talian joint, you could forgive it.” What he referred to was a meal of seven different items, each more sloppy and less worth it than the first

What is unforgivable is a mini “pizzette” tasting as if the Pillsbury Dough Boy poured a thimble of so-so sauce on a saltine:

Image(Fuggidabadit)

….followed by gloppy, overpriced pasta, pedestrian, puny panzanella (bread salad), and pathetic chicken parm (see below) — the whole tourist-trapping shebang aimed at separating the credulous from their cash.

Lest you forget, Lago is located smack dab in the center of the Bellagio — a hotel which once had the greatest assortment of restaurants in Las Vegas, and maybe the world. It replaced Circo, a gastronomic gem of design, wine, solicitous service and Tuscan excellence. All Lago is servicing is the bottom line.

Sirio Maccioni must be rolling over in his grave.

Image(Somewhere, Vital Vegas is salivating)

If you’re interested (and you shouldn’t be), lunch for five, with tip and a single, modest bottle, set us back a cool $411. This included seven tubes of rigatoni for $32 which in quantity and taste would’ve been a perfect meal for a three-year old.

LET’S GO FISH

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Amalfi by Bobby Flay was a pleasant surprise, and RPM blew us away so much we can’t wait to return for dinner. Both feature by-the-numbers fare, with nothing to scare, tweaked here and there to give the place some flair.

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The whole point of Amalfi is pesce, and it takes its template from Milos by pricing fish by the pound and letting you choose it from a display at the back of the restaurant:

Image(Bobby’s wet dream)

As with Milos, the fish is impeccably fresh and eyebrow raising-ly expensive (although we noticed a couple of species priced a buck or two/lb. less than at Milos). Appetizers toggled between ordinary (tuna tartare) to interesting (lemon-oregano prawns) to impressive (soft scrambled eggs with bottarga and tomato toast). Pastas were surprisingly astonishing, with a spaghetti limone that was loaded with Dungeness crab, and pasta “rags” (below) that showed spice, brightness, and restraint.

Image(From rags to richness)

These pastas prey among the pecunious, though, as they’re priced from $28-$38.

As splendid as the food was, the crowd was even more inspiring, because 1) there was one (it was packed on a hot, Tuesday night); and 2) everyone looked their best, rather than the cargo shortswearing/hat-backwards/flip-flopping/t-shirt sporting/mouthbreathers who usually infest this hotel in summer.

Image(Missing: wife-beaters and Bud Lite)

 

Image(“This guy Curtas says we should get the turbot…”)

If Bobby Flay can motivate people to dress for dinner (and by “dress for dinner” we mean put on a collared shirt), maybe there’s hope for humanity yet.

ENDLESS PASTABILITIES

Image(Classic cheese and pepper)

RPM is the latest Italian upgrade on the Strip, and like its competition, it plows no new ground, preferring to concentrate on quality cooking over cartwheels. One lunch for two people does not a good sample size make, but we found our charred pepperoni pizzette to be almost perfect — a slightly spongy charred crust supporting a thick layer of strong, melted cheese and good sausages:

Image(Cheesy does it)

Look closely (above) and you’ll see dough, properly proofed and baked with just the right amount of a tomato sauce  — smothered in an amalgam of nutty, serious cheese — so vibrant and umami-rich it practically explodes in your mouth. Finding a better mini-pizza in Vegas will not be easy. The cacio e pepe (above) and carpaccio were also first rate, as was the torta meringata, which roughly translates as “baked Alaska.”

Image(Don’t think Alaska the Food Gal to share)

I’d rate the pastas at RPM (carbonara, pappardelle, pomodoro...) as a little more basic than the seafood-forward ones at Amalfi (scialatielli, squid ink fettucine, gnocchi, agnolotti, and the like), as well as being slightly lower in price ($17-$42). Both show real commitment to careful cooking of Italian classics, which is a lot rarer than you’d think in this genre — it being painfully easy to throw any slop on a noodle and have Americans beat a path to your door.

A final bonus: RPM may have the best Italian wine list of any place in town that isn’t named Ferraro’s. Organized by region, it is full of interesting, off-beat bottles at acceptable markups. Only time will tell if they stick with such an ambitious wine program — Vegas is littered with the remains of interesting lists which regress to the mean once the original hoopla dies down, and the incessant demands of satisfying the less adventuresome grabs the bottom line.

Until that happens, you’ll find us scouring it for Sagrantino, Aglianico, Primitivo and all sorts of bottles you won’t find elsewhere:

TIME FOR YOUR PIA ZADORA BREAK…

Pia Zadora Photos (4 of 9) | Last.fm(Pia’s not Fonda Jane )

Why Pia, you ask?

Because Pia Zadora, like Piero’s is a pleasant reminder of days gone by — when men were men, women had big hair, and Vegas wasn’t run by a bunch of bean counters. A time when a young man could make his way in Las Vegas by sheer chutzpah, shameless womanizing, and a tolerance for substance abuse that would make Keith Richards blush.

Or so I’ve heard.

For the uninitiated, Piero’s is a Las Vegas institution I have loved to hate since 1985. Perhaps I am softening in my old age, or maybe the time has come for a reassessment, or maybe I was wearing rosé colored glasses on the night we dined. Whatever it was, it has to be on me, since the restaurant hasn’t changed a thing about itself in decades.

You still valet your car in the port cochere; enter a short hallway leading to the hostess stand; admire the giant chimps adorning the walls; and then find one of two large bars which flank a warren of dining rooms (some cozy, some huge), which are packed with a crowd who thinks nothing of slugging down a few martinis with their marinara.

Film Scene: Mad Max and Pia Zadora bring Savannah film magic(Cheers to you, Pia!)

The pint-sized chanteuse now entertains the conventioneers at “Pia’s Place” inside Piero’s on weekends, and as if on cue, we bumped into her on our way in. She’s starting to shrivel at bit (like all of us), but it’s nothing that muted lighting, pancake makeup, and an appreciative crowd can’t fix. Since sunlight and Piero’s are strangers, everyone can watch her show, and tuck into their (decent) osso buco, and (very good) linguine with clams with the confidence they look twenty years younger in these subdued rooms.

I”m not saying this place is a time warp, but if Dan Tanna walked in sporting poly-quad, triple knit bell bottoms and ordered a Harvey Wallbanger, no one would bat an eye.

Pia’s still belting them out like it’s 1982. Like all of us, she is fighting the ravages of time they only way she knows how: by sticking with what works. Piero’s works, both as a memory and institution. The food won’t win any awards but there’s plenty of it and it fits its clientele like a Tommy Bahama trunk show. The drinks are huge (and well-made) and the servers are always on it like a bonnet. When it and Pia depart this mortal vale, Las Vegas will be a poorer place.

DEEP POCKET DIVING

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Speaking of being poorer for it, if deep sea diving (into your wallet), is how you cast about, then snorkel on down to Estiatorio Milos, where dropping 400 sand dollars on a 5 lb. fagri (red porgy, below) is a delicious way to get soaked.

Image(Porgy is the best)

On the plus side, this beauty easily feeds six. But do the math: any way you sashimi it, you’re still dropping a lotta clams. Milos does a wonderful job of casting for (and landing) those angling for trophy-sized seafood, as well as others bobbing for much smaller fry. The latter usually can be found taking the bait at lunch — where the $30 special is still a steal, which allows you to drink like a….to drink a lot.

Image(Gone fishing…at Milos)

Take us home, Lewis:

“O Oysters,’ said the Carpenter,
      You’ve had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?’
      But answer came there none —
And this was scarcely odd, because
      They’d eaten every one.”

 

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

Eating is like sex: sometimes you do it as a form of art, and sometimes you do it to satisfy an urge. – Me

It’s time I shared a little secret with you — one I usually keep to myself: As open-minded as I try to remain when eating out, I do play favorites. Sometimes I go out with a purpose in mind, other times it is simply to obtain tried and true pleasure from an old, comfortable companion — a place that consistently brings me to a satisfying finish, once in a while, without too much thought.

You know, kinda like marriage.

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Put another way: when it’s time to unwind and dine on my own dime, rather than opine or repine about where I’ve reclined…. sometimes I’m supine about places most fine, which you and I know have already shined.

Sure, I trumpet the merits of everything from sushi bars to pasta joints all over town, and, at the drop of a hangar I’ll rattle off my top ten steakhouses, or five favorite Frenchies…but truth be told, when the time comes for the Food Gal and I to grab a quick bite, there’s usually only a few (okay, more like a few dozen) places on our agenda.

And by “on our agenda” I mean places we rely upon, but still manage to argue about.

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Take any random week night or Sunday afternoon. If you’re hanging around our kitchen counter, at the palatial Curtas manse, you might overhear a conversation that goes something like this:

The Food Gal®: “I’m hungry.”

The World’s Greatest Restaurant Critic®, i.e., me: “What are you in the mood for? Uh….(I then proceed to call a grammar foul on myself) I meant: for what are you in the mood, my sweet?”

Her: “I dunno, what do you want”?

Me: “I thought you said you were hungry. What would you like?”

Her: “Anything. I’m starving.”

Me: (realizing we’re getting nowhere) “Okay, how about brisket and  ribs?”

Her: “No, they’re too smoky.”

“Korean?”

“Too garlicky.”

“Mexican?”

“Too much cilantro.”

“Pasta?”

“Too filling.”

“Sushi?”

“Not filling enough”

“Indian?”

“It’s too hot for Indian.”

“How about we hit up that Bahamian-Nigerian-Sicilian pirogi truck that just opened? I hear its breadfruit-jackfruit-eggfruit empanadas are the bomb!”

“Nah, it’s not cold enough yet.”

And so it goes.

Are we the only couple who goes through this? Doubtful. At this point in my life I’m convinced EVERY couple on earth goes through this (or some version of this) at least once a week.

At the grandiose Curtas digs:

….it’s a daily conversation. I kid you not.

But we have our favorites — old reliables we default to whenever we can’t find inspiration in the new, or are desperate for a tried and true definitive chew.

So, without further ado, here are a few of my favorite things, restaurant-wise:

BREAKFAST

Image(Off-menu “Bodega” at Vesta)

We’re not big on breakfast at our opulent marital abode.…..even though The Food Gal®, like most women, seems to have this odd predilection for wanting to eat something in the morning.

Like every morning.

In fact, she takes this unreasonable position to extremes, often insisting that something go into her stomach on a regular basis, morning, noon and night. Yours truly, being (like most men), less emotional and more level-headed, encourages her to resist mightily these spasms of silliness. “Breakfast is good for only one thing: thinking about lunch,” we tell her, and once in a while, she listens. Why waste calories on carbo-bombs and caffeine when delectable full meals beckon, only a few hours hence?

Being of sound mind, she usually bows to this impeccable reasoning and concedes to a morning ritual of coffee at either Bungalow Coffee Co. or Vesta, followed by a discussion of where to have lunch. When she wins the argument, here’s where we end up:

Cafe Breizh (for the best French pastries…)

Burgundy Cafe & Bakery  (for the best French pastries + great sandwiches + feeling like you’re sitting in Paris – the city, not our ersatz version)

Life’s A Bagel (for the best Bagel in Vegas)

Saginaw’s Deli (for Vegas’s best deli only tourists ever go to….)

La Vecindad (for chilaquiles – belowwhich have been scientifically proven to be the best Mexican breakfast on earth):

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7th & Carson (for the Full Irish – one Irish breakfast usually being more than enough for two)

PublicUs (a culinary/coffee gem on East Fremont – an incredible success in an unlikely location)

Vesta Coffee (exclusively for its “Bodega Sandwich” – see above – which is all you need to start your day, along with one of their high-octane brews)

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LUNCH

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She works out by the airport; he works downtown at City Hall. Somehow, they make it work — rendezvous-ing for a midday meal several times a week. He will tell you that, after four decades of intense research, three failed marriages, two nervous breakdowns and thousands of $$$ in alimony, the secret to a happy marriage is having lunch with your spouse at least every other day. Historical records have shown that Mesopotamian sociologists discovered this around the year 3652 B.C..

Related factoid: Einstein’s fourteenth theory of infidelity relativity has firmly established that regularly having lunch with someone else’s spouse leads to the opposite effect.

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I’m a downtown guy so downtown is where we mainly stay….when we’re not heading to Chinatown…which we do at least twice a week. We don’t think about going to the Strip much anymore, because, with a few exceptions, it’s become one giant tourist trap. F**k the Strip (most of it, anyway) with a margarita guitar.

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Enough negativity. Here’s where you’ll find us most middays partaking of a palate-pleasing repast:

Esther’s Kitchen:

Image(You knead to know, Esther’s spreads don’t loaf around.)

Nevada Brew Works (strictly for the boffo burgers)

Soulbelly BBQ (Best. BBQ. In. Vegas.)

Letty’s on Main  (Get the chicharrones and quesotacos and thank me later.)

Cipriani:

Image(4 words: carb-o-nar-a)

DE Thai Kitchen  (for incendiary delights in a teeny tiny space)

ShangHai Taste (worth the wait for superior xiao long bao)

Xiao Long Dumplings (right across the street from ShangHai, bigger, more varied menu)

Pho So 1 (our Vietnamese mainstay)

Matteo’s  (Italian that’s too good for tourists):

Image(Seppia – baby calamari a la plancha at Matteo’s)

Estiatorio Milos (still the best lunch value on the Strip)

New Asian BBQ (Super busy translates into super-fresh dim sum)

Ramen Hashi (for the shoyu ramen lover in you):

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Rincon Buenos Aires (beef glorious beef, Argentine-style)

Rainbow Kitchen (Every Chinese’s favorite it seems, especially on weekends):

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Let us finish lunch with some faithful Chinatown friends who never fail us:

District One

Yummy Rice

Big Wong

Curry Zen

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DINNER

Image(Beef, it’s what’s for dinner)

Here’s where things get tricky. The Las Vegas of 2022 has an embarrassment of riches when it comes to dining out. There are dozens of restaurants we like/love as much (or more) as these, but those below represent our default settings when we can’t agree on the time of day. Some may surprise you Some we only get to once in a blue moon. None of them have ever bored us, even a little, even after dozens of visits. Like a good spouse, they keep us intrigued, even if we’re sampling the goods for the umpteenth time:

Bouchon (A bitch to get to, but worth it.)

Noodlehead (when you can’t get into China Mama)

China Mama (when you want the best Chinese food in town)

Jamon Jamon  (If this isn’t the best gazpacho you’ve ever tasted, I’ll eat a pound of rancid octopus):

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SUSHI INTERLUDE

Sushi is a “dinner only” thing in America, which is odd since modern sushi began as a quick lunch/street food snack in Japan in the 19th Century. What it’s gained in cache it has lost in accessibility. Even our better izakaya are only open after 5:00 pm. If you’re craving Japanese at noon, your best bet is:

Chanko Shabu & Izakaya

After work, you’ll find us haunting one of these four joints, mostly, because a fifth favorite (Sushi Hiro ) is too farking far from our ‘hood to hit with any regularity.

Hiroyoshi

Yu-Or-Mi Sushi

Yui Edomae Sushi

Izakaya Go (Need we say more?):

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Speaking of “in my ‘hood”, this collection of kebabs and curries is as convenient as it comes:

Mt. Everest Indian Cuisine

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STEAK BREAK

The wife loves steak. Perhaps a little too much.

Image(Tibia honest with you, The Food Gal® often strays from the straight and marrow, which I find fibulous. She says I bone this way out of proportion, which is more than a little humerus.)

Whenever the subject of a big, juicy steak dinner comes up, here’s a typical conversation at Chez Curtas :

Me: “I’m in the mood for a big, juicy steak dinner…”

Her: “Me too, but you can have the meat; I’m in it for the bone (see above) …you know how I get with a big hard one: licking, sucking, gnawing it clean until my face is slick with…”

Me: “Let’s stay in tonight. I have a better idea. “

Assuming our carnivorousness triumphs over the carnal, here’s where we usually end up:

Brezza (Go for the Italian food, stay for the steak.)

Carversteak

CUT

Bazaar Meat

8 Oz. Korean Steakhouse

Oscar’s Steakhouse

Vic & Anthony’s

Capital Grille (Bonus: It’s open for lunch!)

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The last lap — all consistently terrific:

Elia Authentic Greek Taverna

Sparrow + Wolf  (not-a-steakhouse but features one of the best steaks in Vegas – see steak pic above under “Dinner” – along with some incredible veggies.):

Image(Beware: too much of this great hummus can make you falafal.)

Lamaii (Thai + wine heaven)

Khoury’s Mediterranean  (Tastier than many a Greek…there, I said it.)

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This is not to damn many other fine places all over town. We crave Kevin Chong’s food at Japaneiro even though it always feels like driving to Bakersfield to get there. Spring Mountain Road has places popping up every week it seems, but rarely do they seem to have the talent behind them that our old favorites do. There are too many good Italians in town to count (Aromi, Milano, Ferraro’s, Al Solito Posto, D’Agostino’s…) and maybe it’s their ubiquity that keeps them off our regular rotation.

You’ve no doubt noticed the many favorite and “essential” restaurants are also not listed. As much as we love Kaiseki Yuzu, Raku and Golden Steer, popping into them for a nightly bite is almost impossible in these post-Covid times. Ditto big deal meals like Joël Robuchon, Guy Savoy and ‘e’ by José Andrês.

And as long as I’m letting you in on secrets, here’s another one: It takes a whole lot of chef or restaurant to get me interested in trying something new these days. Call it age, jadedness, or whatever, but hauling my carcass out to try someone’s idea of a culinary/business experiment is no longer my idea of fun. It sounds like the height of arrogance to say so, but at this point in my career, I can smell failure from the parking lot. My heart goes out to small business people trying to make a success in this cruel, cruel world, but trying to enlist me in your cause is a waste of time. If you’re any good, I’ll find you. If you’re really good, I will help spread the word to my small audience. They, like me, are not interested in popularity or mediocrity. Our tastes are simple: we simply want the best of everything.

Take us home, Julie:

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