Malibu Naomi

Naomi invited our friend Kelly and I to the Malibu Chili Cook-Off today, sponsored by the local Kiwanis Club. It's a chili cook-off/carnival Malibu-style, which means a lot of bottle blondes and cosmetically-enhanced peeps walking around. We also saw several minor celebrities (i.e. Gary Busey - I secretly wanted to plant myself on the hay bale next to him just to wait and see if he would do anything nutty.) Apparently Adam Sandler was there at some point today, too. It feels very small townish. We bought tastes of a bunch of the chili contenders, but my favorite was the chicken chorizo chili by Chili Addiction, a company with over 47 varieties of chili. I also liked the group that submitted a turkey chili with Jack Daniels in it. Delicious! After we were stuffed with chili,wewandered over to the carnival section. The carneys hawking the games sassed us, trying to get us to give up our dough for a go at winning a giant stuffed saint bernard or a monkey. I started to wonder about their lifestyle and wanted to know...has there ever been a documentary made about carneys? I think it's a great idea. Or maybe a reality series...

On the way home, Naomi introduced us to a couple of groovy places, as she seems to be in the know about all things Malibu. One is Malibu Family Wines. Every Friday and Saturday night in the summer they have wine tasting and a band. People buy their wine, bring a picnic, and chill out either on the ground or in fantastic Adirondack rockers, surrounded by vineyards and little white lights zig zagging overhead. What a gem of a place! And very romantic. I'll be going back.

After that, we headed out and were curving around Kanan Dume Road when Naomi makes a sudden turnoff towards Cornell Winery. They have a saloon there (the Old Place Restaurant) and we stopped for a drink and some snackage. I'm telling you, this is a cool place to hang out. It's mostly locals, very small, and brimming with character. Speaking of characters, there was an old guy hanging out in the corner with a guitar. My first impression was that he was the drunk, crazy old uncle of the owner and probably couldn't play the guitar. Seriously. He stood there for nearly an hour without playing anything. Then out of nowhere and sidles over to our table and proceeds to play the hell out of that guitar right in front of me. The main lyric of the song was "I'm still in love with you" which he sang directly to me, making almost constant eye contact. It was hysterical. I thought he was going to break a string. Or a rib. He was so passionate! I couldn't wipe the smile off my face, although it's always awkward to be serenaded. Naomi thought he was about 80, but both Kelly and I think he was maybe a 65-year-old who had lived hard. Go to this place for the ambiance. Although bring cash - no checks or cards accepted.