I guess it truly was a moment of serendipity that we ended up at the Las Vegas Food & Wine Festival at Tivoli Village.  We really went to Las Vegas to spend time with the children and grandchildren, but who could say no, when we were asked if we would like some tickets, and they were VIP tickets to boot.  It was getting late for us, not for the locals, as we were still maintaining Detroit time, so we went off looking for our host to thank him one more time.  Of course, by this time we had our crystal wine glasses with wine, a “swag bag” which in reality was a nice wine bottle carrier and some munchies, that we were going to take back to our room, which conveniently enough was right across the road from the festival. 

We didn’t quite stop at every table, because we normally don’t drink straight Tequila, and we seldom drink beer (me sometimes, her never).  I did kind of glance over all of the chef’s and the food that they were serving as it wasn’t as germane to my articles, and my charming Bride ventured to more tables than I did, and she was in Heaven.  By the time we were leaving, the crowds were getting thicker and we basically covered the entire area again, which really gave us plenty of additional footsteps, if you are one of those like my Bride that has a wristwatch that counts your walking, in the pretext of keeping us healthy as we were eating all of these wonderful dishes and drinking some interesting and wonderful wine.

We finally found our host and it was in a tented booth celebrating the wonderful cheeses of Italy.  There were these charming young ladies slicing up and serving from large wheels of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese.  A perfect way to finish the wine in our glasses, and the cheese was so great that we really didn’t even need any cheese; and I am the fussiest and the biggest pain in the arse when it comes to cheese.  Not only that, but besides the fresh cheese that was being sliced and served, there were these little prepackaged shrink-wrapped containers of the Parmigiano Reggiano that didn’t require refrigeration, so we grabbed some of those to enjoy later as well.  We thanked our host several times, before we left, and later on he sent me several photos, some that I used for these articles, from the official photographer of the festival.  I guess my attire or at least my hat, made it easy to find me in the crowds.  Thank you, Alan.