Pure Music

Fleming’s Steakhouse & Wine Bar hosts a communal wine dinner Feb. 5, focusing on Merlots from Australia, Sonoma County and Napa Valley.

The menu:

Passed appetizers: Steak tartare on toasted brioche with a bourbon-mustard drizzle, arugula chiffonade (Wine pairing: Penley, Gryphon Coonawarra Australia, 2008.)

Second course: Pan-seared Salmon atop a mixed green salad with chopped dried apricots and a blueberry vinaigrette (Wine pairing: Rodney Strong, Sonoma County, 2008.)

Mid-course: Grilled pork medallions with a blackberry mole sauce (Wine pairing: Gargiulo, Money Road Ranch Oakville Napa Valley, 2004)

Main course: Filet mignon with a black-garlic wild-mushroom sauce, Brussels sprouts and roasted fingerling potatoes (Wine pairing: Robert Sinskey, Los Carneros Napa Valley, 2006.)

Dessert: Homemade ice cream napoleons.

Cost is $75 (plus tax and gratuity) and seating is limited to 20 guests.

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All Our Worldly Goods. Irene Nemirovsky. 1947/2008. Vintage Books. Translated from the French by Sandra Smith. (French title: Les Biens de ce Monde.) 265 pages.

They were together, so they were happy.  

What All Our Worldly Goods lacks in characterization, it more than makes up for in beautiful writing. Nemirovsky’s novel has great atmosphere: a rich, detailed setting. The characters are more simple than complex human beings, but, I think there are enough presented to get a flavor of what life was like across the generations in the troubled decades between the start of World War I and the beginning of World War II.

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When digging through the history of film, very few filmmakers had quite the career of one Luis Bunuel. The surrealist icon first started in the short film medium (giving the world classics like Un Chien Andalou) only to get behind some of the most intriguing pictures of his generation, none of the cult auteur’s canon may be quite as beloved as his fantastical Belle De Jour.

Featuring Bunuel’s patented themes of human desire and pleasure, Belle feels like the physical manifestation of each and every single aspect of the surrealist belief structure, all in the guise of one of the most beautiful and complex pieces of narrative from one of film’s most interesting directors.

Starring the equally enticing and always breathtaking Catherine Deneuve, the film finds our lead in the role of Severine, a housewife with a penchant for daydreaming about some rather, well, erotic ideas. Dream

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HARDCOVER FICTION

1. “Private: Number 1 Suspect” by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro (Little, Brown)

2. “Love in a Nutshell” by Janet Evanovich and Dorien Kelly (St. Martin’s)

3. “Death Comes to Pemberley” by P.D. James (Knopf)

4. “77 Shadow Street” by Dean Koontz (Bantam)

5. “11/22/63″ by Stephen King (Scribner)7. “Locked On” by Tom Clancy with Mark Greaney (Putnam)

8. “The Litigators” by John Grisham (Doubleday)”Death Comes to Pemberley” by P.D. James (Knopf)

9. “The Best of Me” by Nicholas Sparks (Grand Central Publishing)

10. “Kill Alex Cross” by James Patterson (Little, Brown)

11.

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I can’t believe I’m starting my year off with this.

Kevin Smith, you should know better. Before I go on, everyone should watch this video:

That’s a commercial for Smith’s new comic book show on AMC. You know, the one he had open auditions for last year. The o

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