October 6: Strategies for Building a Balanced Wine Collection The experts at the Italian Wine Merchants can show you how to build up your wine collection beyond those bottles that were left over from your last party. During the course of the afternoon, you'll taste eight Italian wines including vintage Barolo, Brunello, Super-Tuscans, and more while sampling assorted antipasti. $125 per person. Reservations required and can be made online or by calling 212-473-2323 x106. 1:00......

This week in the Times, Bruni goes to Suba, awards the restaurant two stars. “While it has definite shortcomings and at least a third of the dishes don’t measure up to the others, the best of the food here is distinctive and exciting. In a few instances it’s even dazzling,” he says. And in $25 and Under, Peter Meehan visits to the new Shopsins, located in the Essex Market. Says the new place still reflects......

Mouthfuls fires up the Mutton chop thread. Was lively the first time around with the spirited debate over the definitions of different lamb slaughter ages and names, we'll just drop you in now with the mostly pure adulation for the the chop and it's value - $38.50 for what sounds like 1.5 pounds. If you go it seems like a share plate or sandwiches the next day are in your future. A useful nugget on......

July 11 - 13: Chianina at at Maremma Join Tuscan native Chef Cesare Casella and his team at Maremma as they make special dishes featuring the traditional Tuscan beef -- Chianina (pronounced kee-a-nee-na). Chef Casella raises his herd of Chianina at Thanksgiving Farm in the Catskills regions of upstate New York. 228 West 10th Street, 212.645.0200. July 13: A Celebration of Simple Pleasures This panel discussion features Ruth Reichl, Anne Patchett, Jane and Michael Stern,......

Today's the day for Beaujolais. As we learned last year, Beaujolais Nouveau is a "light bodied, fruity, easy-to-drink red wine made from the Gamay grape" and it comes out every year on the third Thursday of November -- which is today, conveniently. Many, many wine shops are offering tastings. Visit LocalWineEvents.com to find a tasting in your neck of the woods tonight, this weekend, or sometime next week. From November 17th through the 20th, you......

- Paris Commune, the West Village eatery that moved into new space at 99 Bank Street last year, is celebrating its anniversary by opening the Rouge Wine Bar. Quaff wines from France, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, and Chile while you wait for a table upstairs, or finish off your night by sipping on a glass of cognac while you gaze at the original fresco covering two walls. Look closely and you might see Marc......

Nice Matin's Croque Monsieur
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