Hotel deLuxe Celebrates a Legend with the Elizabeth Taylor Champagne Cocktail

Many of us woke today to the sad news that a great star has passed away.  Elizabeth Taylor, a true member of Hollywood’s golden-era royalty, died peacefully of congestive heart failure at the Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, surrounded by her four children. She was 79 years old.  

When one speaks of the amazing life of Elizabeth Taylor, only the word “lengendary” will do.  And it is this great legacy that the Hotel deLuxe in Portland, Oregon honors every day with a very special cocktail.

But first let’s meet Elizabeth Taylor. She came to Hollywood from war-torn Britain during the early days of World War II and rose to sudden fame as the courageous heroine in the heart-touching film National Velvet.

Her stunning beauty caught the eye of many men, starting with Nicky Hilton of Hilton Hotel fame. Seven other husbands followed and many more great movies including Cleopatra, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, BUtterfield 8, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Giant, Place in the Sun, Taming of the Shrew and A Little Night Music to name only a few.  

Lesser acknowledged is her skill as a business woman and her active support of HIV/AIDS research. She launched the first and most successful celebrity perfume, entitled “Passion”, named after her Love for life.

By 1991 her fragrant “Passion” had soared to sales of over $100 million dollars. A later perfume, “White Diamonds” would go on to rack up over one billion dollars in sales globally, making it the most famous star perfume ever marketed.

Elizabeth then gathered her star power (and dollars) and helped found the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR) after the shattering death of her former costar and longtime friend, Rock Hudson. At a time when many wanted to ignore the growing health crisis or worse use the event to isolate and judge a valuable segment of society, she demand that the issue and loss caused by AIDS be faced squarely and publicly.

Showing the strength behind her beauty, she went further and founded the Elizabeth Taylor Aids Foundation (ETAF), enlisting the aid of the rich and famous to raise funds and fight fear. Indeed, it is to this organization that she asked her many fans and friends to support if they wished to remember her after death. 

From charm to beauty to meaning – what a life she lived, what a legacy she has left us. Michael Robertson, lead bartender extra ordinaire of the Driftwood Lounge at the cinema–themed Hotel deLuxe, has created a fantastic champagne cocktail that captures the beauty (inside and out) of this amazing superstar.

An almost perfect color match to Elizabeth Taylor’s stunning violet eyes, this is a cocktail as unforgettable as the star’s beauty and personal courage.

Equally unforgettable is the Hotel deLuxe with each floor’s décor honoring the Hollywood made famous by the movies. Images of Grace Kelly, Clark Gable, Jean Harlow grace the walls in elegant art deco style.  It’s just the right place to enjoy elegance and a world class cocktail honoring a world famous star – Elizabeth Taylor.

But, just in case you can’t make it to the Hotel deLuxe in the near future, bar master Michael Robertson has graciously offered to help you honor Elizabeth Taylor by sharing the recipe for his original cocktail – Enjoy and remember: 

The Elizabeth Taylor Cocktail

Stir gently together:

4 ounces of chilled Champagne

¾ ounce of Rothman & Winter’s Crème De Viollete.

Mix slowly and pour into the most elegant glass available.

Gently top with an Amarena Cherry.

Your Culinary World copyright Ana Kinkaid/Peter Schlagel 2011

Possible New Menu and Champagne Choices at William and Kate’s Royal Wedding

While many people are currently wondering who will design Kate Middleton’s wedding dress, chefs around the world are thinking menu – menu- menu – menu. If the past is any guide (and we are talking tradition here), it might be helpful to review the choices of former British princesses on their wedding day.

In 1947 when the present Queen Elizabeth was still a princess, she chose a blended English French menu to celebrate her wedding to Philip Mountbatten. Then, as now, the young couple was faced with the difficulty of hosting an elaborate wedding during hard economic times.

As a result, elegant restraint was the main theme of the event with the exception of 20,000 plus white pearls sent from America to accent the young princess’ snow white wedding dress. Those lucky enough to attend the post-wedding oh so select private reception dined on a menu of:

Filet of Sole Mountbattan **  Perdreau en Casserole ** Haricots Verts ** Pommes Noisettes ** Salad Royale ** Bombe Glacee Elizabeth ** Friandises ** Dessert ** Café

The baroque wedding cake was a stunning 2.5 meters or eight foot tall and topped with a silver sculpture of England’s patron St. George and his Dragon.  

Glasses of Bollinger champagne were passed to the enjoyment of all, thanks to the American General George Patton (also a noted lover of fine Champagne), who late in 1944 rushed to the Bollinger’s French estate and prevented the evacuating Germans from dynamiting the rare wines stored in the champagne cellars there.

In more affluent days, Prince Charles and a hopeful Lady Diana dined on gold plate at their 1981 morning-after breakfast reception (actually an elaborate late brunch) as their guests enjoyed:  

Brill in Lobster Sauce ** Chicken Breasts Garnished with Lamb Mousse ** Strawberries with Cornish Cream ** Claret and Port

The groom cut their five tier wedding cake with his naval parade sword. Each lovely layer was decorated with sugar doves nestled in a confectionary garden of roses, lilies of the valley, fuchsias and orchids entwined with an ornamental “C” and “D”.

It was a lovely wedding complete with endless toasts, of course, of Bollinger's legendary champagne. The entire world seemed to stop that day with everyone wishing the young couple the very best. Sadly it was not to be.

Today another royal wedding is on the horizon and this young couple seems to be more modern, focused and eager to reflect the times they live in. With an informative wedding website and a list of selected charities replacing the standard "me-me" bridal gift registry, William and Kate Middleton are both a breath of fresh air in the stately halls of British traditions.

It’s even possible they might select their own champagne, say England’s own, the Nyetimber’s Classic Cuvee 2003 of Sussex. Chosen at the esteemed international Bollicine del Mondo competition held last year in Verona, Italy as the best bubbly in the world, this remarkable English, yes ENGLISH, champagne beat out 52 other entries including Bollinger and Roederer! Mon dieu!

So, it will be interesting to see what this very modern young couple chooses. Many are betting on a health focused menu that also highlights the culinary traditions of England, all done with a touch of elegance and grace.

And the champagne…? Bollinger, Nyetimber or something else? Well, change is always possible, even at historic Windsor.

Yet, when Prince William introduced Kate to a preview of her future royal duties recently in North Wales, she christened a new lifeboat by pouring (poured, not broken) a bottle of Bollinger’s finest over the bow.

There are also other champagne houses that are willing to help the million plus wedding visitors to London celebrate the April 29th festivities in style. One is the English firm of Halewood International, which has owned the Prince William Champagne brand for decades. With an event/brand name match like that, Halewood is sure to be, as the English would say, rather popular.

But come ladies and gentlemen, whose going to create a  worthy "Lady Kate" Champagne? Please, let's remember to honor the bride!

Your Culinary World copyright Ana Kinkaid/Peter Schlagel 2011

Mardi Gras, the Chef’s Toque and the Court of the Two Sisters

There is no destination in America that offers more elaborate costumes (or cuisine) then New Orleans during Mardi Gras. Whether enjoying the grand parade of the customed “Indian” clubs in the streets of the old French Quarter or glazing at the elegant attire at the private krewe balls while enjoying chilled champagne, there is no simply no other place like grand New Orleans.

Yet none of this is new to the Big N.O. Whether it’s the classical white towering toques that New Orleans’ famed chefs wear or the stylish tignon head wraps still worn with pride by many of the city's most beautiful women, New Orleans has always been a city of flavor and fashion flare.

When New Orleans’ first professional chefs arrived they were French and they brought with them the culinary traditions of their homeland – including the wearing of the venerated toque or tall white chef's hat. First wore in the 16^th century, this hallmark hat began as a simple European tradesman’s hat, enabling the harried venders to quickly identify the chief cook among the many other tired kitchen servants.

As cooking developed into a profession and random cooks became trained chefs, the toque rose in height and importance. The legendary French Chef Marie-Antoine Careme designed the now universal chef attire of the white jacket and, of course, tall starched toque. Tradition says the 100 folds of the classic toque honor the fact that Chef Careme knew 100 different ways to cook an egg. Amazing!

When New Orleans' early chefs walked to market they often nodded their heads to the free black women of the city who also wore their own distinctive headwear.  In 1785 the then Spanish governor of Louisiana passed a law requiring free women of color to cover their hair and avoid any use of feathers or jewelry. When the French retook possession of the Mississippi colony, they continued the ruling.

Not to be denied their identity, these remarkable women developed elaborate scarf wrapping techniques, known as making a tignon, to make an art of what was supposed to be a restricting limitation. Free and creative, these women held a unique position in post-Civil War New Orleans, often acting as culinary suppliers to the chefs.

Two individuals who were heirs to this world between worlds were the two Camors sisters, Emma and Bertha. Together they designed and created gowns for many of the city’s finest ladies (and quietly for some of their husband’s special ‘friends” as well). At their workshop the treasured fabrics and ribbons moved through their skilled fingers as they also savored the drifting nearby smells of rich creole cooking. Year after year the sisters stitched gown after gown in the courtyard of their elite establishment on Governor’s Row.

Each year they traveled to Paris, the home of fashion, then and now, to study the latest Worth designs and purchase the rare laces and rich fabrics available only there. Once back at home, they skillfully blended the legacy of Europe's style with the cross-cultural influences of New Orleans to create gowns as memorable as the city itself.

The flavor and flare of their creativity is captured today by two brothers, Joseph and Jerome Fein, owners and directors of the restaurant - The Court of the Two Sisters.  Located in the exact location of the sisters’ workshop, this esteemed destination offers one of the city’s best brunches, all to the sounds of New Orleans jazz, just behind a wrought iron gate of promised grace near a softly flowing fountain.

If it seems another world, well, it is – especially at Madri Gras where fans and feathers, beads and bubbles mingle with cuisine and chefs in tall toques smile at the end of the day and say as only a southern chef can say, “Ah, New Orleans!”   

Your Culinary World copyright Ana Kinkaid/Peter Schlagel 2011

Meet the Mother of Champagne: Madame Barbe-Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin

It is often said that a great woman stands beside every great man, and that is also true of many of France’s greatest champagne houses.  Leading and legendary among this elite group of revered ladies is Madame Barbe-Nicole Clicquot.

Born into a time of turmoil and change, Madame Clicquot moved through the wake that followed the bloody chaos of the French Revolution with all the grace, courage and insight of a modern business woman.  She was, in short, a marvel and the mother of champagne.

Born Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin, she was the daughter of Count Nicholas Ponsardin, a wealthy textile manufacturer, hotel owner and an astute observer of France’s turbulent political scene. Moving with the times, Count Ponsardin survived the French Revolution that cost so many French nobles their lives.

At age 21 Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin married Francois-Marie Clicquot, who was then 24 years old.  Due to ill health, he had only joined his father’s business in Rheims 18 months before becoming a groom.  One year later Francois-Marie and Barbe-Nicole were the proud parents of a beautiful baby girl named Clementine.

To support his new family, Francois-Marie agreed to travel as a sales representative for his father’s company opening new markets for champagne, banking services and wool.  Because his health had been poor since childhood, no one became concerned when six years after his marriage he developed a sudden fever.  Twelve days later he was dead!

Historians believe he died of typhoid, but whatever the cause, Barbe-Nicole Clicquot was now a widow at the young age of 27! Prior to the French Revolution only a few paths were open to a young widow: quickly remarry, join a convent or retire into spinsterhood.

But there was a new spirit of individualism abroad in the land as old class structures were swept away by the Revolution.  Noting that many other red and white wine firms were being run by the widows that the Revolution had created, she fought her father-in-law’s desire to simply close the firm.

Instead, she eliminated every product and service from her new company except champagne.  She chose to invest her own limited inheritance and begin to make culinary history.

Her first problem was the champagne itself.  The bubbles were often uncontrollable and large.  This caused breakage and an inconsistent product.

She solved this process by developing a process called “riddling”. Legend tells the tale that she turned her dining room table on its side and drilled holes through the top so that the corks in her champagne bottles lay at a declining angle towards the floor.

This enabled the sediment that had collected in the bottom of the bottle to be “burped” out the top when opened and then quickly resealed.  As a result, the pressure created by the bubbles was controlled and eventually refined, i.e., making smaller bubbles and more stable wine.

Now the Widow or Veuve Clicquot, as she was known in France, had a unique and valuable product. And she knew it.  She read the political atmosphere like an insightful broker on Wall Street.  She took chances extending credit to those she saw as the future power brokers of Europe as Napoleon’s powers begin to fail.

She cemented the position of champagne in czarist Russia through shrewd marketing and saw to it that her sales representatives taught the young nobles of the court how to saber a French champagne bottle.

Her marketing expertise created such a demand for champagne in England that the elite members of London’s dining clubs would simple order “the widow’s champagne” as they toasted Nelson’s and Wellington’s increasing victories.

Yet she was reported to have wept when her sales representatives wrote her letters describing the destruction that war caused.  She hated the loss of both life and commerce.  Like many of us today, she saw strife and economic disorder as wasteful and harmful and unnecessary.

Yet she always saw the future as well.  Writing late in life to one of her beloved grandchild, she advised that “the world is in perpetual motion, and we must invent the things of tomorrow. One must go before others, be determined and exacting, and let your intelligence direct your life. Act with audacity.”

Though she died in 1866 at the venerated age of 89, she left to all of us a lasting heritage of courage and style, all tied to a beautiful bottle of French champagne.  So lift a glass of the world’s finest true champagne (and that does mean a French champagne )and toast this very remarkable woman, the Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin, who broke all the rules and made the world a better place one bottle at a time!

Your Culinary World copyright Ana Kinkaid/Peter Schlagel 2011

The Tale of Champagne Charlie, New Orleans and the Miracle Letter

For those in the know at Mardi Gras, champagne is a must at the private Krewe Balls where the daughters of the South’s leading families are still introduced to society in New Orleans in the grand style. Nearby in a reserved seating area, many other lovely ladies in full ball gowns wait, each holding a “call-out” dance card that lists the name of their partner for every memorable dance.

It is a magical environment and one that is perfect for the elegance of champagne. Yet champagne is not an ‘indigenous’ wine in the South and had to be imported for America to learn to love it, thanks to one remarkable and courageous man - Charles Camille Heidsieck.

Born in 1820, Heidsieck was surrounded by champagne from birth. He was the son of Charles-Henri Heidsieck, the famed French champagne merchant who rode into Moscow on a white stallion in 1811, just ahead of Napoleon's advancing army, with case upon case of champagne and order book. He was ready to offer credit to the winning side and cash-only to the losing side.

Despite the victorious bells that pealed in Beethoven’s glorious 1812 Overture, Napoleon lost in the first of many losses that would lead to his exile on the remote island of St Helena. Meanwhile back in France, there was still champagne to blend and sell.

By 1852 the younger Charles had learned the champagne trade and was ready to look for new markets. The new and growing nation of America seemed perfect. Landing in New York with a large shipment of high quality champagne, his wine and outgoing personality charmed everyone. He opened enough accounts that soon he had to obtain the services of a stateside agent to represent him when he returned to France.

Success after success followed and soon Heidsieck was exporting large quantities of champagne to America. When he traveled to America, his arrival was covered in the major newspapers and the grand dames of society competed to obtain his presence at their balls and salons.

Heidsieck was a skilled marketer and understood the importance of image matched to the quality of his produce.  His sparkling personality matched his wine perfectly and soon he was known simply in America as “Champagne Charlie”.

Everything went well until Charles (or "Charlie" as the Americans affectional called him) received word that a civil war was about to break out in the United States. With over half of his future revenue tied up in unpaid American accounts, Charles hurriedly boarded the first ship to the U.S. to collect the funds before chaos broke out.

On arrival he was shocked at the situation he found. In an effort to cut the economic base from the South, the American Congress had just passed a new law heavily restricting trade with the south - especially cotton. Charles had earlier accepted undelivered southern cotton as payment from some of his outstanding accounts. Based on the new law, his former agent refused to work with him to obtain payment or to account for strangely missing funds.

Horrified at the financial disaster now facing him, his family and his employees, Charles sought the aid of the rich and famous whose homes he had once graced. But with the first bloody causality lists now consuming the attention of everyone, no one had time to help a French wine rep for champagne that no one was now in the mood to drink.

Taking matters in hand, Charles headed south to New Orleans to appeal for direct payment from those who owed him money. But the Civil War that now consumed the nation made it impossible for him to travel directly to the Crescent City.

For over a year and with dwindling finances, Charles Heidsieck struggled to reach his destination. When he finally arrived in New Orleans he found a city shattered by war and poverty, not the glittering jewel of the South that Charles had known in happier days.

No one had creditable money, only piles of worthless Confederate dollars. Once more cotton was offered in payment for the long ago enjoyed champagne. That was not what Charles wanted but it was better than nothing.

Actually the South had been unable to export cotton to the waiting mills of Europe for over a year. As a result, cotton was very valuable but exportation was blocked by the northern navy. Charles loaded his precious cotton aboard a blockade runner (a la Rhett Butler of Gone with the Wind fame) in Mobile, Alabama only to learn that the ship and its cargo had been captured at sea and destroyed.

Depressed and without any funds, Charles returned to New Orleans to learn that the city had fallen to the Northern forces and was occupied by the unsympathetic Major General Benjamin F. Butler (known to Southerns as “Beast Butler”). Because Charles had naively agreed to carry letters from the Confederate Government to various French textile manufacturers inquiry about the purchase of army uniform should he be able to reach Europe, Butler convicted him of being a spy and threw him in jail!

Finally those who had enjoyed his champagne in peace came to his defense in war. As the news spread that Charles of Heidsieck Champagne fame was imprisoned in New Orleans, letters supporting his character begin to arrive at the White House from both the States and France. The resulting diplomatic furor is known in history as the “Heidsieck Incident”.

His release was finally granted on 16 November 1862. By this time, he was in frail health with his business nearly destroyed. Returning to France, he found that his beloved and long suffering wife had been forced to sell off portions of the family’s estate to keep the demanding debt collectors at bay.

But fear not, the story has a happy ending. In early 1863 there was a knock on his front door. When Charles Heidsieck answered, he found an American missionary with a packet of papers and a letter standing there.

To his amazement the good minister carried a letter that was from the brother of Heidsieck's former dishonest agent in New York. The letter’s writer was ashamed of how his brother had cheated Heidsieck and wanted to offer him a stack of deeds to a piece of land in distant Colorado as a means of repayment.

As it turned out, the deeds established ownership to about a third of a new western town called Denver. Within a very short time, the massive mineral finds were discovered nearby and Denver became the richest city in the American West.

Charles soon sold the land and with his heaven-sent new wealth proudly re-established the Heidsieck House of Champagne. As the story of his struggles and his courage to succeed spread, royal court after royal court declared Heidsieck the champagne for those who wanted to enjoy only the best.

But nowhere was he more loudly cheered and his champagne enjoyed more then in New Orleans. To this day, those who swirl at the great and grand Krewe Balls always take a moment and raise their glasses to the beauty and heritage of the evening and the tale of Champagne Charlie, the man who, like the brave city of New Orleans, never, never gave up! 

Your Culinary World copyright Ana Kinkaid/Peter Schlagel 2011