Cole Kendall
Cole Kendall
Ten years ago I was going to Paris and I had seen the notes presented by pab about dinners at the TGJP. I had spoken good French in the 1970s (summer with a family kind of thing) and thought it would be fun to have dinner with a Parisian, so I wrote pab to see if he was available for a dinner. A few days later came the invitation to the TGJP where we would drink Jamet and Allemand. Since it was my first dinner I was to come "mains vides" but I found a bottle of Tablas Creek that I thought might be interesting to them.
There a write-up of the dinner here https://web.archive.org/web/20080324121342/http://www.tgjp.com/reunion02042006-jamet-allemand.html
but the pictures do not come up (when pab redid the web site he apparently did not redo all the old dinners). While I was only able to follow a small percentage of what went on, I had as much fun at dinner as I had ever had. Great wine, great food (jarret de veau) and more importantly I was welcomed, despite linguistic deficiencies, ignorance about wine (who knew Richard Leroy?) and different preferences (I never loved Chateauneuf nearly as much as he did), as a friend.
My travels to Paris were sporadic for a while but settled into quarterly visits where we (pab, Marie-Sabine and I) would also dine at his favorite Japanese restaurants or just walk around Paris. By some political intrigue that I never fully understood I became Le Bon Tyran when someone was unable to bring riesling to a dinner and my position was confirmed when I was able to score some truffles through a friend of Luca/Zul.
Pab and I talked about almost everything from literature (I never understood his passion for James Ellroy, but he did enjoy my recommendation of Philipp Meyer's The Son) to politics (he was a devoted man of the center left, greatly distressed by Sarkozy and mocking some TGJP members' support of Melenchon). He greatly enjoyed being provocative, posing questions to me about whatever was going wrong in America (subprime mortgages, police brutality or the scandal of the day), but always in good humor and never making it personal. On the wine boards he got into arguments that he thought were amusing but might have not seemed so funny to others.
He loved jazz (and stereo stuff) and always had jazz CDs playing during dinner. He loved the French language and would patiently explain to me the difference between "sans-dents" and "gueux". He loved Japan and he and Marie-Sabine (who studied the language) traveled there regularly. He loved Marie-Sabine who did most of the cooking (except for his risotto and a few simpler dishes) and took the photos.
Pierre-Alain was tremendously kind to me and the various friends I brought to the TGJP as well as those from these parts who met him independently of me. During my last visit pab was clearly not well but he assured me that everything was under control and that he would expect me in February. He went into the hospital a few days later and died today. He never had time to write up the notes from the last dinner but I still recall his words about the 94 Chave I had brought (that did not show particularly well that night), that it was not a great vintage but at least it represented honest work.
He retreated from the dinner a bit early as he was not well so I never really had a chance to say goodbye and thank him for everything. Pierre-Alain, merci pour tout.
There a write-up of the dinner here https://web.archive.org/web/20080324121342/http://www.tgjp.com/reunion02042006-jamet-allemand.html
but the pictures do not come up (when pab redid the web site he apparently did not redo all the old dinners). While I was only able to follow a small percentage of what went on, I had as much fun at dinner as I had ever had. Great wine, great food (jarret de veau) and more importantly I was welcomed, despite linguistic deficiencies, ignorance about wine (who knew Richard Leroy?) and different preferences (I never loved Chateauneuf nearly as much as he did), as a friend.
My travels to Paris were sporadic for a while but settled into quarterly visits where we (pab, Marie-Sabine and I) would also dine at his favorite Japanese restaurants or just walk around Paris. By some political intrigue that I never fully understood I became Le Bon Tyran when someone was unable to bring riesling to a dinner and my position was confirmed when I was able to score some truffles through a friend of Luca/Zul.
Pab and I talked about almost everything from literature (I never understood his passion for James Ellroy, but he did enjoy my recommendation of Philipp Meyer's The Son) to politics (he was a devoted man of the center left, greatly distressed by Sarkozy and mocking some TGJP members' support of Melenchon). He greatly enjoyed being provocative, posing questions to me about whatever was going wrong in America (subprime mortgages, police brutality or the scandal of the day), but always in good humor and never making it personal. On the wine boards he got into arguments that he thought were amusing but might have not seemed so funny to others.
He loved jazz (and stereo stuff) and always had jazz CDs playing during dinner. He loved the French language and would patiently explain to me the difference between "sans-dents" and "gueux". He loved Japan and he and Marie-Sabine (who studied the language) traveled there regularly. He loved Marie-Sabine who did most of the cooking (except for his risotto and a few simpler dishes) and took the photos.
Pierre-Alain was tremendously kind to me and the various friends I brought to the TGJP as well as those from these parts who met him independently of me. During my last visit pab was clearly not well but he assured me that everything was under control and that he would expect me in February. He went into the hospital a few days later and died today. He never had time to write up the notes from the last dinner but I still recall his words about the 94 Chave I had brought (that did not show particularly well that night), that it was not a great vintage but at least it represented honest work.
He retreated from the dinner a bit early as he was not well so I never really had a chance to say goodbye and thank him for everything. Pierre-Alain, merci pour tout.
