The Polymath Shakes Things Up, FINALE

Jen and I arrived NYC on Monday afternoon. After getting settled in our hotels, we decided to take a walk to one of my favorite places, Takashimaya, a high end Japanese department store in which I would happily live. I covet just about half of everything on all five floors, but especially the housewares. Silverware and plates and furniture, oh my. Vases and travel gear and jewelry, sigh.

Jen had never been there, so it was fun to see her reaction to such a unique place. We met Stacey, fabulous makeup artist on the first floor, who introduced us to an amazing new foundation that instantly made us pore-less and radiant. Which was when we realized that we were a little bit tired and that it was threatening to rain. We took our glowy selves back to Jen’s amazing room at the Four Seasons and ordered up a cheese plate to keep up our strength and sustain us through the storm.

Thus restored, we got ready to go meet some friends for drinks and dinner at one of my favorite places, Buddakan. I love to grab one of the big square tables in the bar, and just hang out, you can order all sorts of delish dim sum, and sit for hours. We were joined there by our friends Liz, Penny, Tatiana, Karyn, Jolene, and Sarah. A festival of cocktails and food and awesome girl talk kept us there for the better part of six hours, at which point I had to grab a cab back to the hotel before I did a face plant on the table, still more than a little jet lagged for my recent return from abroad.

After a good night’s sleep, I met Jen at Spa Butterfly, where we indulged in spa mani/pedis and then parted company so that she could go to a lunch meeting, and I could get ready for the competition.

The contest judging was held at Death and Company, a famous NY watering hole which is known for its impeccable mixologists. These are no mere bartenders, these are the best of the best in the cocktail world, the kind of drink gurus that juice all their own fruit fresh every day, brew their own bitters, and care deeply about the nature of their ice cubes. We love them. So gearing up to stand behind their bar with them watching was a little bit intimidating. Of course, they are also some of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet, so that put us all at ease pretty quickly.

Shortly after we arrived, greeted by our hosts from Mionetto, we are getting ready for the competition. We are going to have to make about fifty tasting size cocktails and three full size drinks for the judges. I spend most of my prep time rimming about sixty glasses with the blend of raw sugar and ground grains of paradise. I like to only do a half-rim, so that you can hold the drink comfortably without little things falling on your hand, and also so that people can taste the drink both with and without the garnish. By the time I finish, and get all my ingredients organized, my cheering section has shown up. Jen, and Peter, and Scott get settled in a cozy booth with Peter’s friend Andrea, and get ready to start tasting. The D&Co. crew pass hors d’oeuvres, and we all get shaking. The time sort of flies by at this point, I’m shaking drink after drink, the prepped glasses are disappearing from the back bar, and before I know it the final glass has been filled and sent out.

Enore, the head of Mionetto USA, and literally the person who introduced Prosecco to the States a dozen years ago, clinks a glass to announce the results. After welcoming everyone, and sharing the year-long saga of this contest, he begins to announce the results, starting with third place.

“In the third place, with the Mionetto Morning Sunrise, Nela!”

Nela is a school cafeteria supervisor from Oklahoma, and has blended Prosecco and V8 Tropical Splash juice for a pinky-orange cocktail.

“In the second place, with the Mionetto Luau, Nina!”

Nina is from Detroit and is in Marketing, and is actually in a dress the exact color of Nela’s drink. Her cocktail is a blend of prosecco, pineapple puree, and coconut rum. I am in the middle of clapping for her when I realize that, um, there is only one prize left, and only one name not yet called.

“And of course, that means that the big winner today is Stacey with the Mionetini!”

My table jumps to their feet with wild whooping. Peter actually wells up, emotional thing that he is. Jen is laughing, Scott is clapping over his head and I think…

HOLY SHIT, I ACTUALLY WON!

It’s true, dear chickens.

After a whole year of entering contests, submitting recipes, and not getting so much as a note thanking me for my participation, I actually won something! And not just a little something, either, 5 large baby!

Sadly, due to a small mishap in the Mionetto offices the weekend before the competition, there is no huge prize check to carry around, but I could not be more thrilled. I’m very grateful to the gang at Mionetto, especially Gaby, Stephanie and Enore for being so gracious and lovely.

But more important, I am so grateful to everyone who voted for me, because while I may have had the best tasting drink on the day, I couldn’t have gotten there without all those online votes.

So a very grateful and exhausted (and slightly richer) Polymath thanks you.

Next time: The Polymath Buys Herself a Little Something!

The Polymath Puts Up A Fight, Part Eleven

You should not be shocked to discover that my little plan works. Within two days I am in fourth place, with 593 votes, only 75 votes behind the third place, and in tasting distance of that trip to NY! And then my aforementioned BFF Jen, who was very supportive when I didn’t win any of my contests and only snorted at me through her nose a couple of times muttering “shocking that people who actually cooked things might have won”, does a very Jen thing. She posts a really lovely blog about me and my contest and asks her fans to please vote for me.

In an hour I’m in first place.

In two hours I have twice as many votes as the person in second place.

In twenty-four hours I have over three times as many votes as the person in second place and have received an e-mail from the contact pages of my website which says, in brief “Stop cheating in the Mionetto Contest.”.

Who’s your polymath?

The voting is open for two and a half months. I bookmark the site, and obsessively check my stats a gabillion times every day, amazed every time that I am still winning the voting. When I get to around 3600 votes, the next guy has around 2500 votes, and the voting slows down to just a few votes a day. I keep telling people about it, and leave the link up on my Facebook page, and I continue to exploit opportunities to promote myself.

I might be too lazy to test recipes, but I am not too lazy to score a mention on a wine and spirits website (www.bevx.com ), a little piece in a NY mag (www.Nextmagazine.com ), or to use my food column at Oy!Chicago to get more votes (oy!).

NEXT: The Polymath is Not Alone

The Polymath Gets Her Groove Back, Part Ten

I’ve always been one of those people to scoff at the art in the museum that is just a big canvas painted black. After all, how hard is that? Then again, I’ve never actually tried to make a large canvas perfectly, evenly, black, so maybe it’s not as simple as it appears.

I’m a good cook, often a great cook; I write my own recipes and tweak other people’s all the time. I figured how hard could it be to win some contests?

Then I entered about 30 different contests dozens of times and didn’t win bupkes, not even honorable mention or an e-mail to thank me for my participation.

Oh well.

Onto the next project.

That’s the best thing about being a polymath, after all, if you try something and don’t succeed, there’s a bunch of other stuff you’ll be genius at, so you don’t have to pout for long, and never have any regrets.

Then I got an e-mail.

Mionetto Prosecco cocktail entries now ready for voting! Click here to tell us your favorite!

Hmmmph. Mionetto. One of my favorite proseccos, and I had entered their cocktail contest with what I thought was a pretty killer martini *, one I had actually made and tasted! I wonder who beat me out? I click.

SWEET FANCY MOSES!

They have not chosen the top contenders, as I assumed they would, they have posted all 300+ submissions and are asking for online voting. The top three online vote-getters get a free trip for two to NY and make their drink for a panel of judges, third prize $500, second prize $1000, first prize FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS!

This bitch is still in the game.

I check to see how my little cocktail is doing.

Zero votes.

The leader has nearly 700 votes. There are a couple of people in the 500s, a few in the 300s and a few in the 100s.

Craperooni.

I vote for myself.

I feel better. I feel empowered. This I can do. Polymaths, after all, are very popular people, being so multi-dimensional and talented and all, so I have a good group of supporters. I send out an e-mail. I post a link on Facebook. I put it on MySpace. I tell everyone I know to tell everyone they know, and sit back and wait for the shampoo-commercial-effect to hit the airwaves.

NEXT: The Polymath Puts Up A Fight

* Mionetini

INGREDIENTS:
1 oz Mionetto Brut or other prosecco
1 oz premium vodka
1 oz Elderflower Liqueur (St. Germain, available at www.thecellaronline.com)
1/2 oz fresh lemon juice
1/2 oz pineapple juice

Optional:
For rim of glass:
1 T lemon juice
1 T sugar in the raw
1 t grains of paradise, ground (African pepper available at www.thespicehouse.com)

For Float:
1 T Mionetto Brut or other prosecco

PREPARATION:
Fill shaker with ice, and shake all ingredients well.
Dip rim of martini glass in lemon juice and then in the combined sugar and grains of paradise.
Strain cocktail into glass and float 1 T Mionetto Brut on the top for extra fizz.

Thank You!

Dear fabulous Frans of Jen (and other intrepid readers)-

Welcome to my blog! So glad to see you all, and hope that you’ll be checking in, signing up for the feed, recommending me to your pals, and commenting to your hearts delight.

The cocktail votes are in, and thanks to all of you, I won by 800 votes!!! In true classic form, they have scheduled the judging on June 3, when I will be unavoidably out of the country, but luckily they are allowing me to send a proxy, so I’m still in the running for the grand prize. (Even more sadly, Jen will be in the middle of her tour and cannot be my substitute!) I will let you all know how it shakes out then, but in the meantime I just wanted to extend my most heartfelt thanks to each and every one of you who voted, I am deeply grateful.

Towards that end, I will be posting the story promised to you in installments once or twice a week between now and when the contest is over and the winner chosen….so be sure to come back to see how everything turns out!

[For those of you who have no idea what the heck I am talking about, a couple of months ago I entered a cocktail recipe contest where the top three online vote-getters got to be in the running to win 5K. My BFF Jen Lancaster posted my need for votes on her blog and her Frans (Friends/Fans) stepped right up to the plate to put me over the top...]

I promised to post a story I was writing about my entering recipe contests in general on this blog as a reward for everyone voting, and will be launching that endeavor later this week...

Stay tuned!

In the meantime, here is the yummy cocktail:

Mionetini

INGREDIENTS:
1 oz Mionetto Brut
1 oz premium vodka
1 oz St. Germain Elderflower Liqueur
1/2 oz fresh lemon juice
1/2 oz pineapple juice

For rim of glass:
1 T lemon juice
1 T sugar in the raw
1 t grains of paradise, ground

For Float:
1 T Mionetto Brut

PREPARATION:
Fill shaker with ice, and shake all ingredients well.

Dip rim of martini glass in lemon juice and then in the combined sugar and grains of paradise.
Strain cocktail into glass and float 1 T Mionetto Brut on the top for extra fizz.