WHEN I’M TALKING TO MYSELF, I SOUND LIKE GORDON RAMSEY

My wife and I have become completely enamored with the cable network BBC America. I’ve made a few assertions that my wife and I are inevitably heading for the UK to become full-fledged Brits, and our latest guilty pleasure is the reality/game show called “Come Dine With Me.” The concept is pretty straight-forward. Four people from various walks of life are brought together for 4 days of home entertaining, with each one taking turns as the host, putting on a dinner party for the other 3, initially for the sake of winning 1000 pounds (roughly $1500). All this while narrator Dave Lamb rips each contestant a new one each and every episode.

While money and bragging rights are on the line, the ultimate goal is bringing people who normally wouldn’t make the effort to bridge the gaps between their various class strata together. This is a show I don’t think could be replicated here in America, though I am not certain why. I think that we tend to look at things a bit more xenophobic in nature, and we are usually too self-absorbed to pay attention to what other people have going for them. Perhaps I am a bit cynical. I’d like to think that you could assemble an evening such as the ones on “Come Dine With Me,” amongst total strangers, and at the end of it all, discover new friends, and new points-of-view, all through wine, food and conversation.

I can relate to the show in that my career in wine has definitely brought me in contact with people I probably would have never met otherwise. And I find myself while watching the show, opining for a free night to invite a few neighbors, co-workers, bloggers or fellow wine geeks to the house to crack open a few bottles, grill out on the patio, and swap stories in the name of coming together.

Perhaps I am not such a cynic after all. At the very least, I am definitely not a tosser.