{Chanson Meets Jancis Robinson at Boston University Gastronomy Program Event}

Meeting and having dinner with Jancis Robinson, the editor of The Oxford Companion to Wine, was one of three unbelievably huge thrills I had as a student studying gastronomy at Boston University.

The other two were

1. Briefly sitting next to Julia Child (and eating her slice of roast beef -- in my defense, I was extremely hungry, and she offered it) at her Boston going away party before she moved to California in 2001

2. Watching Jacque Pepin debone a chicken in about two-minutes flat while telling a story about his youth in France.

But meeting Jancis was special because I actually got to talk with her. I lucked into the dinner invitation. She was at BU giving a lecture on emerging wine regions of the world. I was a student and had come up at the end of the evening to say thanks. She signed my book.

And then the director of the gastronomy program asked me if I'd like to have dinner with her, her assistant Anne, Jancis Robinson and a group of geriatric BU big wheels. I lucked out again in getting to sit beside Ms Robinson. I lucked out yet a third time in that the drone to her left was a gin-blossomed fat cat who wanted nothing so much as to impress her with his knowledge of epic Bordeaux.

In the end, I got loaded on what were no doubt some impressive bottles of French red and talked with Jancis Robinson about Arsenal and English football. Maybe I missed my chance to pick her brain about wine. But there's a time for thinking and a time for drinking.