This morning I went to Jensen’s Market, Palm Springs's
finest foods market.
I went to see my friend Kevin, the wine guru at Jensen’s.
And I went to see Jensen’s “Mr. Chicken”, Pete.
Today Pete was “Mr. Turkey” too.
He was not wearing his turkey hat, not his chicken hat,
but I recognized him.
Pete’s smile is
unmistakable; and he likes to be called “Pierre”. I am happy to oblige, especially when he does
such a fine job boning a turkey breast.
As I waited for
Pete, aka Pierre, to do his work, I
realized I was listening to John Denver singing his Rocky Mountain High.
And that segued
into an Amazing memory.
In 1977 I was sommelier at Moran’s Riverside Restaurant. The restaurant was a Renaissance room,
overlooking the Mississippi in New Orleans’s French Quarter. My job was simple. The owner, Jimmy Moran, said he wanted me to
create for him “the finest wine cellar possible. “ He never asked what I paid; he trusted me to
do what he asked me to do. And so we had
a great time together building this wine cellar.
Moran’s restaurant was on the second floor in a newly
remodeled eighteenth-century building. It
was only accessible by elevator from the courtyard on the ground floor. The
kitchen, just to the east of the dining room, was situated above the
pasta-making facility, also on the ground floor. Between that ground-floor pasta facility and
the kitchen above was the wine cellar. It
floated between floors, and had great ventilation as well as security.
I had plenty of room to house current-drinking wines from the
great regions of France and Italy and some from Spain, as well as that newly
discovered territory, Napa, California. And
some from The Finger Lakes’s iconic Dr. Konstantin Frank. I
also had adequate space to house, in unopened cases, those wines that were too
young to serve. Each was marked with my
suggested date of serving.
In my search for the “best” I had thought of Mr. Moran’s
customers and what would please the majority.
Thanks to Michael Broadbent and Michel Roux as well as many of my
vineyard-owning friends, I had found fine vintages of the best Second and Third
growth Bordeaux as well as those I loved from the Cru Bourgeois, and the estates
of Julius Caesar’s Burgundy. Of course
for the minority who could afford the ultimate, the greatest vineyards of
Burgundy and Bordeaux, Italy and Napa, had their bins. Every bin was clearly named and marked “do not
disturb” so the waiters would not go in frantically moving bottles that were
sleeping into perfection.
One morning Mr. Moran told me that John Denver had heard about
the wine cellar and was bringing his entourage for dinner that night. By the time I entered the dining room for the
dinner service I had sort of forgotten what he had said. I had been receiving some 600 cases of our
house wine that day, and that is a long and important job. About half an hour after the night’s service
began I looked up. Someone was waving me over.
It was John Denver. Really. He was holding the wine list and
smiling. Really. We, his wife Annie and he and I, discussed
what the group was eating, and then he chose the wines he thought would be
best. His father agreed.
Their dinner was about to enter the desert course when John
waved me over again. He wanted to see
the wine cellar. So we walked through
the dining room into the kitchen to reach the stairs down to the wines. One bus-boy, just finishing polishing the silverware,
looked up. Stunned by recognizing John
Denver he dropped all the silver at John’s feet. Joining John in an uproar of laughter, the
whole kitchen erupted in relief.
John followed me down the staircase and into the wine
cellar. He really was curious as to how
and why it was arranged as it was.
Like a troubadour he carried his guitar. Entering the cellar, seeing how it might
swing and dislodge a precious inhabitant, he removed it, laying it carefully
over a newly arrived case. When we’d
made the circuit, he picked up his faithful pal. “I’d like to sing a song for the wines,” he
announced.
“Do you mind singing in the stairwell,” I asked? I took a deep breath. How do I tell John Denver ‘no’? “This is a nursery. They will dream your song, inventing
themselves anew. But perhaps inside this
room the reverberations will be too upsetting?”
The troubadour understood.
Strumming the first bars as he strutted out, John Denver began to sing
for and to Mr. Moran’s wines, “Rocky Mountain High.” A movement made me look above John’s
head. There was the whole kitchen staff,
bus-boy in the foreground. And in back
the whole of the dining room too. It was
an Amazing Moment.
Waiting for “Mr. Chicken” this morning, John Denver’s refrain, “Rocky Mountain High,” followed by his soaring note that would fall
into “Colorado,” I was amazed by the immediacy
of those long-ago surroundings crowding in memory. I can see the faces of Annie, his wife, and that of his father as John waxed lyrical in choosing the wines. They understood they were in the presence of a fleeting dream, of a troubadour.
John Denver’s song tells of the majesty of America’s natural heritage. As on the first Thanksgiving let us again
celebrate our human similarities and our native differences. He
also tells us of his voyage, like Pharoahs of antiquity, to touch the sun. All together now: “He left yesterday behind him; you might say
he was born again. You might say he
found a key for every door. He climbed
cathedral mountains; he saw silver clouds below. He saw everything as far as you can see. And
they say that he got crazy once; and he tried to touch the sun. And he lost a friend but he kept his
memory. Now he walks in quiet solitude
the forests and the streams, Seeking grace in every step he takes. His sight has turned inside himself to try
and understand The serenity of a clear blue mountain lake; And the Colorado
mountain high. I’ve seen it rainin’ fire
in the sky. You can talk to God and
listen to the causal reply. Rocky
mountain high. …..Colorado.”
I’d be a poorer person if I had not this amazing memory of
such a troubadour touched by the sun. Wine,
god Dionysos, caused us to meet; caused John to sing on that stairway long ago,
inspiring bus-boys and chefs and diners to do greater things, like reaching for
the sun.
John eventually did reach for and touch the sun.
Now I have an Emperor next to me who is getting antsy to tell
his story.
But, Julius, your time is not yet nigh. Shussh.
Soon.
Madeleine de Jean.
Dream Amazing dreams.
Dare to touch the sun. Dionysos
is there to uplift you.
The Night Julius Caesar
Invented Champagne.
Thanksgiving day, 28 November, 2013.
Comet ISOS is
nigh. Today it is touching the sun. Will
it survive?
