by Christina Waters | Apr 20, 2015 | Home |
Like many of you, I still carry a torch for the intimate bistro, with its tiny little upper room and its tall Victorian brick walls, the original Oswald. During its delicious flowering nothing could match it.
But last week I enjoyed a dinner at the newer incarnation of Oswald, on its dicey corner of downtown, with its spare eschewing of ambience, and found it—yes, I’ll say it—as good as I remembered those earlier Oswaldian days.
How in God’s name could an appetizer as, shall we say “yesterday” as seared ahi, be so insanely perfect? This one was. From its sparkling fresh tuna, to the impeccable potatoes, beets (beets that somehow recoined the entire concept of “beet”), and sexy snap peas. It was a one-dish premonition of Spring, and the beginning of a dinner that went from great to greater.
My full review of this wonderful dinner at Oswald is available in the current GTWeekly.
by Christina Waters | Jan 19, 2015 | Wine |
The incomparable Nikky Saahs of Nikolaihof biodynamic winery in Austria’s Wachau region, takes the Soif winebar mainstage next Sunday, January 25 from 2-4. This is the fifth year in a row that Saahs has visited to explore and discuss the crisp mineral-driven wines of his very ancient estate. How ancient? Well with a history that dates to the Roman times, Nikolaihof was the site of a monastic center in the 10th century. That’s how ancient!
Included in the tasting will be Grüner Veltliners and a 1998 Riesling that should blow participants away. Georg Prieler of the Burgenland estate Weingut Prieler will also be on hand to walk us through a few choice Pinot Blancs and a Blaufrankisch from his estate.
These are rare and extraordinary wines, introduced by expert vintners who will entertain questions and comments with diplomacy and charm.
Plan to be there – expand your wine knowledge and treat your tastebuds to a very happty New Year!
That’s at Soif.
by Christina Waters | Jan 17, 2015 | Home |
American auteur Clint Eastwood has delivered yet another provocative work in American Sniper. A physically transformed Bradley Cooper, as legendary marksman Chris Kyle, leans into the addictive allure of the Iraq conflict and illuminates Eastwood’s latest masterpiece.
An unflinching anti-war film that is draped in the American flag, Sniper forces us into the chilling midst of modern ground level warfare. Cooper, bulked up and Texas drawled, plays real-life Navy SEAL sharpshooter Kyle, who in his unimaginable four tours of duty performed feats of heroism and marksmanship that earned him the nickname “The Legend,” among military aficionados, and a bounty on his head among the Iraqi.
Eastwood and his cinematographer Tom Stern plant us in the dust and rubble of war-torn Ramadi, while the SEALs hunt and seek and attempt to take out the savvy and wily enemy, including a brutal assassin called “The Butcher.” Kyle became a born-again (radicalized?) patriot on the morning of 9/11 and believes without question that his duty was to take out the “bad guys” who threaten his fellows and his country.
Working with the cool confidence of a master, Eastwood believes in his subject—that war is hell, that sometimes we are capable of selfless actions, and that the emotional disconnect between vets and their families is often irretrievable. Eastwood is at his best at probing the quiet moments of unconscious damage done by Kyle’s kill count. (more…)
by Christina Waters | Dec 27, 2014 | Home |
I can’t stop thinking about how perilously close Benedict Cumberbatch is to becoming one of those actors doomed to circle their own groundbreaking performances. Over and over.
With his odd physiognomy and quicksilver reactions, Cumberbatch has given us some compelling geeks, socially-inept geniuses, and brooding, suffering weirdos. But as I look ahead to the roles he is slated to embody in the upcoming TV, stage, and screen pantheons, I am growing uncomfortable. Cumberbatch is about to become a stereotype!
Richard III in a three-part mini-series for TV. Yes, that Richard III! Then there will be Doctor Strange, with Cumby as Strange. He’s already filmed the next season of his eccentric and dazzling Sherlock Holmes. And I know—because I already have tickets—that he will be playing Hamlet (more…)
by Christina Waters | Dec 27, 2014 | Home |
As a devoted Benedict Cumberbatch groupie, it pains me to have to say that even the theatrical genius who dazzled us in Sherlock, and amazed us in Frankenstein cannot raise The Imitation Game—by Norwegian director Morten Tyldum—above the level of a made-for-TV Hallmark special.
Perhaps it was a hopeless task after all, attempting to express on-screen tension and drama about the creation of a code-busting device that anticipated today’s computers. Not exactly the visual equivalent of parting the Red Sea, is it? As mathematical innovator Alan Turing, Cumberbatch offers dazzling micro-gestures via twitching eyebrows, quivering lips, clenched (and unclenched) jaw, not to mention the required sort of physical awkwardness one expects of Cambridge geniuses. But these alone do not a film make. Even the surrounding cast of remarkably good-looking British actors (many recognizable from Downton Abbey) as Turing’s fellow code-breakers (more…)
