Wine for The Oscars

I confess, this year i did not watch the whole telecast, partly because Steve and I were at the dog park trying to exhaust our puppy menace for the evening, and partly because, well, to be honest, i just can't bear it anymore.

How many more years can I sit there watching the telecast through my fingers, Steve and I frozen in horror saying things like: "Oh no, no, don't....don't look at it!! Don't look!!! Mute it, for the love of God, mute it now!!!!!!"

I so want to love the Oscars, and there are so many reasons why I should be able to, but so much of it is just bad, so, so bad sometimes.

And now that presenters have started directly addressing the actors who are nominated: "Rooney, your performance was so scary, it made my shorts get tight and my knickers grow long. You are, indeed, the girl with the boxy bangs in....The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", I just cringe and want to crawl under my chair.

Is it just me that finds this horribly embarrassing? Does anyone else think it's just too much? Or am I simply The Girl with the Phobia of Direct Address?

I do love the glamour, and the beautiful dresses and jewels, but I'm sorry, what was happening with Angelina Jolie's leg and voice? She looked like she was trying to do Jessica Rabbit singing "I'm a little teapot", showing us her handle and her spout. Why, why, why would she keep standing like that? It just was so odd.

And the woman needs to eat. Seriously, that is not attractive, or healthy. When she gestured with her arm it looked like a half-eaten chicken wing.

I unfortunately missed Billy Crystal's opening monologue and the black-face schtick he's getting so much flack for, so I can't comment on either, but i can say that he really, really, really needs to stop with the plastic surgery now. Like right now.

His face is so shiny and stretched, he's starting to look like a woman. Or a man in drag as Irma Bombeck.

I know no one wants to look old, but plastic surgery like that doesn't make a person look younger, it makes a person look like one of those alien-dolls people can squeeze to alleviate stress, so the eyes bug out and everything looks stretched and distorted.

A woman came into the restaurant one night who had had so much plastic surgery on her face that she was starting to look like a Picasso, with a nose where her eye should be, and half her face on the back of her head. It wasn't pretty. And when I gave her wine to sniff, I had to hold the glass up to her ear, because that's where her left nostril was.

Enough's enough. I have no problem with people trying out injections and fillers, to see if they can't plump things up a bit, but some of these surgeries just make people look like aliens.

I'm sure Meryl Streep and Glen Close have used some sort of line-fillers or something, but overall they look like they are aging gracefully and elegantly, and above all, allowing themselves to still look like real people.

So Billy, you're such a funny guy...but be careful. If you don't stop with the knife now, in a few years, when you are still hosting The Oscars, some guy in his eighties is going to be watching you, cackling and saying "Now THAT is one funny broad!".

My Wine for The Oscars is 2005 Bru Bache L'Eminence from the Jurancon, in Southwestern France. This is a very interesting and unusual-tasting wine. Wines from this area are made from more unusual varietals like Gros Manseng, Petit Manseng and Corbu, but the real thing that sets this wine apart is the fact the it has been deliberately exposed to oxygen, so it takes on a sherry, apple cider-like quality.

The wine is sweet, but still bright with acidity, and is what we pair at the restaurant with our foie gras.

It is golden in color, and sparkles in the glass. Perfect for a toast on Oscar night.