Gossips' Picks for Saturday Night

Sampling chocolate and wine is always a good way to start the evening, and tonight there is an opportunity to do so at Verdigris Tea & Chocolate Bar, 135 Warren Street. The chocolate, produced by Grenada Chocolate Company, is not only artisanal and 100 percent organic, but it is also the only sustainably produced and shipped chocolate in the world. The cocoa beans are grown in the lush, pristine rainforest of Grenada, processed and packaged on the island, and then brought to market by an old-fashioned, square-rigged brigantine. (How it travels the proverbial last mile to Verdigris is not known.)

The chocolate--solid chocolate bars, Salty-licious bars (with Caribbean sea salt), and Nib-a-licious bars (with crispy cocoa nibs)--will be paired with wines chosen by Lewis Dimm of Fairview Wines & Spirits. The chocolate and wine tasting is from 5 to 7.

With a bit of chocolate and wine in your tummy, head upstreet to the Hudson Opera House, 327 Warren Street, for the opening of the retrospective exhibition of the work of R. O. Blechman.

If you need an introduction to the work of this "master of all things visual" (and Hudson Valley resident), Gossips recommends 

Seth Rogovoy's post on The Rogovoy Report and Blechman's own website.

The opening reception is from 5 to 7 p.m., but just before 6:30 dash back downstreet to Cafe Le Perche, 230 Warren Street, where the upstairs dining room is being inaugurated as performance space by James Braly presenting a workshop performance of The Monthly Nut (How Much Misery Does It Take to Be Happy?) Braly is the writer and performer of the Off-Broadway hit Life in a Martial Institution, which recently finished a fourteen-city tour. Braly's new monologue is described as "an autobiographical story that asks, "Can you love your lifestyle--without hating your life?" The pursuit of the answer to that question involves encounters "a boss who worships Hitler, a closeted secret admirer/kidnapper, a movie star, and a ghost." More information about the performance is available here.