The Monthly Nut

Hanging out in Stanfordville with with the sister-in-law and her family. Their place has a great guest apartment above the garage. I vow to spend a summer there at some point in the future. Whether they know it or not.

CB and I spent Sunday afternoon in Heaven. Or at least as close as you can get while still maintaining a pulse. We were guests of the Sterling family at their Iron Horse Vineyard. Iron Horse produces prestige wine - it has been served at the White House for 20 years - and, if you're lucky enough, complements it with absolutely awesome meals prepared by the winery chef.

What brought us to such a great venue? Andy Plesser of Beet.tv was celebrating the growth of his online video venture. Along with me and CB were the founder of Blinkx (and his fiancee) plus the co-founders of The News Market.

Took a few hours on Friday night to hide from work (which I'll otherwise be doing most of the weekend). How did we make use of our time? Quite excellently I must say!

• Started with drinks at Fifth Floor with our friend Stephen Dubner (one half of Freakonomics) who was in town for a lecture.
• We were then quickly joined by our friend Kim Newell. Topics for discussion included the difference between dwarfs and midgets, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, YouTube, how to explain death to children, and a relatively firm offer to appoint me the leader of Stephen's Kitchen Appliance club during our December trip to NY.
• Stephen departed for dinner plans so we walked over to Bong Su, one of Esquire's Top New Restaurants where we were joined by a friend of Kim's from her residency.
• Although there were initially some trust issues at the table, the group allowed me to place ourselves in the hands of our waiter Joshua who did an excellent job picking all our food and wine for the evening.