• by Kelly Samardak , October 12, 2009

DailyCandy's Midnight Music and Munchies, City Winery, New York
October 9, 2009

All last week I had been so good at eating more healthy stuff instead of cramming as much cheese and bread into my piehole as possible.  Then along came Friday, the night of DailyCandy's Midnight Music and Munchies (part of the New York City Wine& Food Festival), a blissful tour of discordant munchables and what they described as "lethal" bartenders.   Grab a plate and let's get to City Winery so we can figure out when Bobby Flay is going to have me arrested.

We're going to chop this up into notable moments, OK?

Night of the orange fingers.  O,  lamb sliders, so delicious.   They're like the highbrow mini burger, but they're also like that guy who cleans up nicely but still floats an air biscuit at the family dinner.  I felt a warm wetness on my hand as I wrapped my face around my slider.  When I looked down, I appeared to be sporting fall's latest indie-mitten: grease.

Hi, Bobby Flay!  Friday night wasn't the first time I've chirped that phrase.  I never know what to call celebrities.  Mr. Flay? Bobby?  So I usually just say "Hi [insert full name]"  He walked by with his wife, unable to deny the call of Bespoke Chocolates (we'll get to that in a minute).  Later, up by what I think was an egg quesadilla, Bobby Flay appeared again. "I... I... I work in 1140 Broadway, too," I stammered like a sweaty 14-year-old playing 5 minutes in heaven. "Oh, what company are you with?" asked Bobby Flay, as he actually stopped to talk to me, how nice! "MediaPost!" I nearly shrieked.  "Oh! [insert things I can't remember ]" and off he skittered, with me telling him to have a good night.  My nephew Joe LOVES Bobby Flay.  In fact, the kid loves to cook and he's, what, 9 years old?  Now that I've sufficiently harassed poor Bobby Flay on more than one occasion, I may just be comfortable enough to run upstairs and get him to autograph something.  We'll see.

Bespoke Chocolates.  After the lamb sliders, Gail Hilton of Thought Equity Motion and I went on a search for wine.  I mean, this was part of the Food & Wine Festival.  We couldn't locate a glass, but what we did find were perfectly sized globes of crack-covered heaven.  I do not enjoy chocolate.  I think it smells like feet and it has a terrible post-swallow mouth feel.   I will now strike this opinion from my brain because when I popped the salty, nutty, chocolatey goodness that gently oozed a warm caramel surge into my mouth, I almost passed out.  The only way to regain consciousness was to have another.  I won't lie, I think I came back for fourths.  Holy delicious.

It's all so deadly. The DJ played the soundtrack to my 7^th and 8^th grade dances. Bell Biv Devoe's "Poison," Salt N Pepa's "Push It" --- all the goodies.  It was fun to watch the youngsters eyeballing the DJ with judgment.  I could hear their thoughts; "What the heck is this crap? Where is MGMT?"  I'll have you know, I still know every single word to "Poison," and I think that people who don't vigorously enjoy Bell Biv Devoe should hop on a hot air balloon to Mars.  I hear there's water there.

The bartenders were lethal.  I don't even want to think about how everyone was feeling Saturday morning.   I'm not a big fan of whisky drinks.  Well, I guess I'm not a big liquor connoisseur -- mainly because I have enough vices and partially because I fear public embarrassment when covering a party.  I took a few sips, but eventually hunted down a Modelo.

As I left, Lady GaGa's "Pokerface" drew even the shyest reveler out onto the dance floor to shake it well into the wee hours of the morning.

The delicious evening was made even sweeter with ticket proceeds benefitting Share Our Strength and the Food Bank for New York City.

This week my coverage schedule has no rhyme or reason, with (possibly) the Save The Children Benefit at Esquire Soho, Broadband Video Schmooze, Celebrating Italy with Hearst (yum!), AND (get your nerd cape out!) the reunion of the Monty Python cast to celebrate their 40th anniversary and the IFC documentary "Monty Python: Almost the Truth (The Lawyer's Cut)."

See who had the munchies on Flickr!

Send invitations to your shindig to kelly@mediapost.com!