National Tequila Day: Try This Super Summer Sipper
Happy National Tequila Day! What’s YOUR favorite tequila? Cheers
While this blog is called “WINE PREDATOR,” I am definitely ALSO on the prowl for spirits! And one of my favorites is TEQUILA.
And while I bet you thought that May 5 (Cinco de Mayo) was National Tequila Day…
because Cinco De Mayo is a day where a lot if us, myself included, take a moment to enjoy tequila, the truth is that July 24, for some inexplicable reason, is National Tequila Day.
And in case you were wondering, National Margarita Day is Feb. 22.
So today I have for you a bit of tequila history, a few fine tequila, and one of my favorite tequila cocktails to make at home.
View original post 977 more words
Summer is such a fun time for free and low-cost outdoor concerts!
And this coming week is exceptional!
Here are a few highlights for Art Predator: Baabal Maal at the Annenberg in Century City (LA) Saturday July 16, Surf Rodeo on the beach in Ventura Saturday and Sunday July 16 and 17, and Thao and the Get Down Stay Down at the Skirball Center, LA on Thursday July 21. Read on to find out why!
I’m very excited to announce that my proposal to speak at the 2016 Wine Bloggers Conference in Lodi has been accepted! Check out my wine blog, Wine Predator.
Ten bloggers will speak for five minutes each in a session called “Wine Blogger Reports” about a different aspect of blogging with the intention of inspiring our fellow bloggers.
“If you want to feed your family healthy food,” says Patagonia’s founder, Yvon Chouinard, “you’ve gotta ask a lotta questions.”
Helping to answer these questions and aiming to change our relationship with the land and oceans is a new 25 minute film by Chris Malloy, Unbroken Ground coming soon to a Patagonia store near you. Read more…
Think Pink June 23 on Nat’l Pink Day
Happy National Pink Day! Cheers!
While National Rose Day is the second Saturday of the month of June, National Pink Day is June 23. It’s also Pink Flamingo Day!
Seriously though, National Pink Day is a day set aside to celebrate all things pink:
to wear pink, to enjoy foods and beverages that are pink, and to give a donation to any of the charities that use the color pink. Use #NationalPinkDay in social media. You even listen to “Pretty in Pink”!
In particular, the color pink and the pink ribbon is associated with breast cancer; when you wear pink today, who do you wear it for? Who are you remembering or honoring?
As Wine Predators, we should toast those who have battled breast cancer too.
With ROSE of course!
But which one?
How about one made by women? One that’s estate grown and sustainably farmed?
View original post 1,038 more words
Here’s a Sun Salute to United Nation’s International Yoga Day!
Today is the United Nation’s International Yoga Day! Have you seen this video of how to drink wine while doing yoga? It’s a fun one!
I started doing yoga when I was in college at UC Santa Cruz, but I didn’t get into it until I had a serious rock climbing accident where I fell 15′ onto my back and my chiropractor was my yoga teacher. Later, when I moved back to Ventura, my teachers kept asking me to sub; one of the first classes i subbed was a Patagonia where I had two students: Yvon and Malinda Chouinard! When I learned one of my favorite Yoga Journal writers, Erich Schiffmann, was doing a 40 hour teacher training in Santa Barbara, I figured it was time to take the plunge. A few years later, I followed that up with Iyengar teacher training with Bryan Legere who I studied with for…
View original post 548 more words
What I knew a week ago about Muhammad Ali I could write on the palm of my hand. I knew the song. I saw a few of the fights. I knew about rope a dope.
Art Predator’s garage door by gauvin as displayed at the “doors” art show at Art City October 2014
And I had a portrait of Muhammad Ali on my garage door with the inscription “mess with the butterflies …mess with me” painted by gauvin for $200 for gas money to get to the Taos Poetry Circus.
And honestly, I had no idea I was going to have Muhammad Ali painted on the garage door.
But when it was done? I loved it. It totally made sense as I had planted a guerrilla garden on a vacant lot to provide food and shelter to birds and bees.
Following his death on Friday, I have been learning so much about Ali, and learning to respect what a great man he was.
Ali applied for conscientious objector status: “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong,” Ali told a reporter. “They ain’t never called me nigger.”
And now I have even more respect for the man on my garage door. Here’s some of what I’ve learned along with a tribute and a memory from Ron Wells. Read more…
- because Trump “deliberately appeals to the basest and most violent elements in society”
- because he “denigrates women and minorities.”
- “because the history of dictatorship is the history of manipulation and division, demagoguery and lies”
- “because neither wealth nor celebrity qualifies anyone to speak for the United States,to lead its military, to maintain its alliances, or to represent its people.”
- “for all these reasons, we, the undersigned, as a matter of conscience, oppose, unequivocally, the candidacy of Donald J. Trump for the presidency of the United States.”
Nearly 15,000 have signed the petition; see and sign the petition here.
What’s the alternative?
Please join me on Thursday, May 26, at Ventura College Read more…
Please celebrate with me the worldwide recognition of the excellence of California Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay and post #500 on Wine Predator!
Time to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Judgement of Paris!
And post #500 on Wine Predator! My first posts were in 2008 where I talked about the first Wine Bloggers Conference held in Santa Rosa, CA. Any day now, I will reach 90,000 page views.
And it’s been quite a climb to write 500 posts which average close to 1,000 words (we’re talking 500,000 words, yes?) hence the choice of Tercero’s 2010 “The Climb” to mark the occasion! (Read about other Tercero reds here and Tercero whites here).
I started blogging about wine not long after I started blogging in November 2007 with Art Predator. Like the Ojai/Ventura area newspaper column that proceeded it, Art Predator…
View original post 1,441 more words
Gwendolyn Alley, Students Read in Ventura
At the end of each semester, after writing endless academic papers and book reviews too, my students and I create a class anthology of our recent creative work, and then many of us read from it at an open mic following the featured reader.
And this semester I am the featured reader!
art predator 