My thank-you card to Charlie Palmer for his excellent Gourmet soiree was returned by the post office as undeliverable to the new Aureole address, I guess because the place has not officially opened yet. So I’ll just say here that the move west seems to have gone smoothly, although the successor apparently took a run through the witness protection program. It is seriously sleek and different. Hors d’ and copious wine earned an A, too. But high point of the evening might have been listening to Adam T explain the wine windowbox/bucket while handler clearly knew there were far bigger fish he could have been frying. Aureole has location on its side now for sure. But in the aftermath I’ve mostly been thinking about how far we’ve all come from my first assignment for fledgling Allure, when I was sent off to eat at the top of the food chain in both New York and LA for a piece on how restaurants can make women look more attractive (or not). For all our sakes, let’s just fucking hope the magazine business bounces back big time.