After returning from CO. on Friday, Catering an excellent black tie affair for the American Heart Association on Saturday, my wife Susan and I attended (instead of working) the Annual JCC fundraiser held this year at the beautifully restored hanover Theatre in Worcester. Most of the savory foods were palatable, the desserts were over the top decadent with Sweet and On The Rise being quite memorable. Wines to love for us are, Stuhlmuller Chardonnay, Luigi Bosca Reserva Pinot Noir & Joel Gott Zinfandel. There were many more that hit the spot and always find these events that support good causes often have a great offering a little gem wines at every day prices.

2/1 and my best friend and our two sons headed for 5 days of skiing in the Dillon Colorado area as well as great eats and beverage. We were blown away with both of our goals. We ski’d Breckenridge, Vail and Keystone and all three were off the charts for conditions with keystone being the grand surprise. Plenty of tree trail skiing, with long glides and something for everyone. Dillon was a great location for cost effective rental accomadations and an easy drive to all major areas. My buddy Tim and I are pretty handy in the kitchen as well as my son Chris so we ate great breakfasts everyday and found a local mexican grocery for fresh local chorizo, eggs, fresh made corn tortillas, roasted jalepeno and Oaxaca cheese. Each day brought different variations of this theme with one other day we did a variation on an Italian theme with poached eggs set upon a warmed up gourmet pizza that we had ordered the night before specially for this occasion.

We enjoyed a wonderful evening of fine, small plate dining in Vail at the “Sweet Basil Restaurant”. Thier crispy braised pork belly was so enticing that after the kitchen sent out a complimentory plate for “fellas in the trade” we ordered a plate for each of us as there was no way we would share this dishe with each other. Two hours later after heavy damage to the credit card we retreated to our nightly hang out, “Whiskey & Goat” in Dillon. A great dive bar with local micro brews, the best smoked chicken wings in memory. The wings are slow smoked over mesquite and then quickly deep fried and finished with a maple bbq sauce. Awsome ! We played pool for hours each evening and then were on the slopes each day at 9 or so. Can’t beat Colorado for skiing !

Our Pepper’s team did one outstanding job this evening for the medical staff of St. Vincent hospital. It was awards night and 300 plus guests had a ball with a very busy casino night, many awards etc.

The cuisine by Chef Paul & the gang blew everyone away. The Zoot Suit Chef’s ( it was a roasring 20’s theme) carved up brined coffee crusted turkey tenderloin, while the seafood chef’s offered up lobster, scallop & shrimp ceviche, shrimp cocktail shooters and the hit of the evening, mushroom dusted diver scallops, set on a vanilla bean scented parsnit puree with carrot juice gastrique, beet frizzies and micro radish sprouts. They did me proud and the display work was off the charts. Next yeart will be tough to beat

Each Wed. I volunteer at Mt Wachusett as a ranger. I enjoy the comraderie of the other rangers and ski patrolers. One of my best friends, Chef Micky Beriau was instrumental in my getting into this. My skiing has gotten so much better but equally fun are the dinners. We all take turns cooking up belly warming dishes and micky and push the bar up a bit and it works. Moose stews, great turkey chili etc., etc. This week was my turn so I did a pork tenderloin and sausage trilogy cassoulet

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassoulet) along with a fabulous salad I saw in this weeks NY Times food page. Roasted beets, local goat cheese from Ann Starbird’s farm in Sterling, roasted pistaschio, radiccio and a simple citrus vinaigrette. yum yum Dessert was a eggnog custard ( still using up remnants of the holidays