Signs that life is good at Pebble Beach Food & Wine 2010 are ample. And often edible, like this delicious pulled pork mini with cole slaw, Memphis barbecue sauce and white-pepper mustard, which local standout meat-smokin' outfit Me and the Hound is serving at the 14th tee as part of today's sun-blessed sponsor-and-chef golf tournament.
Or this lobster crossaint sandwich by grub guru Jerry Regester of the Intercontinental's C Restaurant, served with truffled eggs before the shotgun start.
Or these "foie gras" breakfast potatoes. "It's Pebble Beach Food & Wine," Regester told me. "You gotta do something crazy."
They're potable too, like the Belvedere vodka poured through the swirling "ice luge" at the 4th hole or the Patron Bloody Marias served at the 1st tee (before and after the opening Krug champagne toast).Of particular appeal to co-foundering visionaries Rob Weakley and David Bernahl (above left), though, the signs are also numerical: The 2,000 (!) slots for Saturday's Grand Tasting are sold out (50 $175 slots remain Sunday), five of six dinners are maxxed out, and after a nasty opening day in '09, temps today scratched past 70. Even as sales continue, those number help make this the most successful PBF&W yet.
The final good sign is rather self-explanatory: The above picture of Bernahl jogging some of the loftiest links around in his Pacific Tweed finery while a wine-loving gorilla looks in the other direction.
