The other evening we were sitting on the patio having a little impromptu Happy Hour when a friend asked me why I prefer new world wines to their European counterparts. After all, Europe is were it all started (well, Greece…) and the new world — the Americas, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa — are johnny-come-latelys by comparison. The French, the Italians and the Spaniards have been making wine for centuries. They must have it pretty well figured out by now, she said. And, of course, they do. “Try this,” I said, getting up and using the little knife on the side of the corkscrew to cut off a small bunch of grapes hanging on the arbor above us. They were pretty well ripe, but I figured had another week before they got fully sweet. The problem, I’ve found in my backyard, is if I wait for the fruit to get completely… Read More »
Phyllis Diller’s recipes
Since I’m reasonably sure that Dr. Oz is not following my blog (at least not yet), I’m going to share with you Phyllis Diller’s recipe for garlic spaghetti. It’s amazingly simple and unbelievably delicious — full of carbohydrates and fat! (Ohh, Dr. Oz is starting to sweat and pant … he’s either about to have a heart attack or an … Oops! Never mind.) Here’s the recipe: Butter. Chopped garlic. Cooked pasta. There you go. That’s it. Phyllis made this for me the first time I was on the road with her. We were in Pittsburgh and she had just finished a live radio talk show. People had called in, Phyllis had chatted and laughed, and the DJ had kept it all going with a flurry of chatter and fun little questions. Then, just as the show was wrapping up, a man called and asked to speak to Miss Diller. When… Read More »
Phyllis Diller had a flag …
Yes, it’s true. Phyllis Diller had a flag (and why do I feel like I want to add “e-i-e-i-o”?) and on that flag she had a rose (e-i-e-i…). Phyllis named her house Rosewall West because she had bought a lot of the furnishings from a house on the east coast named Rosewall. Hence, the rose on the flag. Phyllis had this flag specially designed for her and made at the same factory — I think in New York — that made the official U.S. flags that fly over the Capitol and the White House. It was not an elaborate flag — white with a lovely, large pink rose. The idea was that the flag would fly whenever Phyllis was at home, rather like the flag over Buckingham Palace which flew whenever Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, was in residence. (In fact, now that I think of it, Phyllis once signed a note to… Read More »
Phyllis Diller’s last luncheon
For about 8 years, Phyllis Diller had hosted an annual “Dustbiter luncheon” at her home. It began with a party that Sandy Beach (really), the secretary who replaced me, gave to celebrate Phyllis’s birthday back in 2003 or 04 — I can’t remember exactly. Phyllis had so much fun with the 6 of us that she decided to have a reunion at her house every year after that. It started out as a birthday party, but Phyllis didn’t like the idea of everyone bringing her presents, so she changed it to the third Sunday in August and that’s when the handful of us gathered at her mansion every year until this last reunion in 2011. In this picture, Phyllis is 94 years old and dang if she doesn’t look better than I do! (Let’s hear it for plastic surgery.) Part of it, I’m sure, was Phyllis’s constant drive to be… Read More »
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