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.

Wine for The Solid Gold Oscars

Let's face it, more often than not, The Oscars are a train-wreck. Usually Steve and I record them and watch them later so that we can fast-forward through the embarrassing, boring, or just plain unbearable moments. This usually means that we wind up with about 20 minutes of actual viewing.

Who can stand the horrible jokes, the fake laughter, the cringe-worthy blubbery acceptance speeches and the terrifying musical numbers?

This year Steve and I skipped watching it all-together, choosing instead to watch an advance-screening DVD copy I have of The Social Network. From everything I heard about the ceremony this year, it would appear that we made the right choice. It sounds like this year's hosts were more like watching the stoned guy and the chirpy sorority girl at a college talent show.

Here's how I think we can fix the Oscars ceremony: The Solid Gold Dancers. How many of you out there remember that television show Solid Gold? It was an eighties masterpiece on which the top ten songs of the week were counted down and danced to while being hosted by the likes of Dionne Warwick.

The Solid Gold Dancers were men and women who performed interperative dances to each of the songs. I recently watched a collection of these dances on YouTube and was shocked at the fact that this show was considered good family fun at the time. Now, everyone involved in that show would be arrested. For many reasons.

I think the outfits would be the main reason. Well, the outfits and the hairdos. The outfits defy explanation. The women always wear shiny spandex leotards or short-shorts in a variety of shocking colors and the men....dear God the men....wear shiny tight pants and gold lame tank tops. The pants are so tight you can see their meat and two veg. And the shiny blue color only serves to highlight the packages to disturbing proportions.

The dances themselves are so fabulously horrible it is hard to look away. They really are just pole-dancing without the poles. The dances have absolutely nothing to do with the songs themselves, and pretty much always involve four or five women gyrating in purple spandex with two men also in purple spandex who you know would rather be gyrating with each other and their huge spandex-clad manhoods.

In one dance, one of the female dancers (who I'm actually sure was a man in drag) actually performs an entire dance number with a cigarette dangling of his/her mouth.

Just imagine the Oscar ceremony potential with these dancers!! Brokeback Mountain in spandex! The King's Speech with Colin Firth stuttering....in spandex!! Toy Story 3....animated...in spandex!!! The hosts...pole dancing...in spandex!!! I mean come on, it's brilliant! No....it's Solid Gold!

My Wine for The Solid Gold Dancers is once again not a wine bur rather my much-loved St-Germain Elderflower Liqueur. This sweet delight is made from Elderflowers gathered from the foot of the French Alps and delivered to market by men on bicycles. I kid you not.

These Elderflowers are then macerated, and blended with grape spirit and cane sugar. The result is a liqueur with a beautiful floral note as well as essences of pear, peach and grapefruit zest.

I love this liqueur when added to a glass of ginger beer, or on the rocks with sparkling wine and club soda. However you drink it, it is best enjoyed by people with big hair who dance inappropriately to Lionel Richie songs while wearing tight shiny leotards and high heels.

How would you fix The Oscars?