CLICK FOR My Dinner w/Pavel... AUDIO INDEX FREE RealPlayer Leigh Laughs Shaums Shines Tinker Talks Ruthie Reveals

Da Chef

The Mountain Zone crew pulled into Park City on Friday night just in time to hook up with the Diamondback Racing team. We were invited to sample the cooking of Pavel Tcherkassov, who although Russian born, takes pride in his adoption of Italian culture.

Pavel moved to Italy some years back to join a road racing team. His coach advised that he live with an Italian family to learn the language because in Italy, "language is everything." Pavel lived with a family that ran a small hotel/restaurant where he not only became fluent in the language, but spent enough time in the kitchen to learn all about authentic Italian cuisine and how it's cooked.

Magic

We were running late as we hooked up with other scribes and photogs who were equally anxious to take advantage of not only a free meal, but a home-cooked, authentic Italian dinner. Pavel and the rest of the DBR team welcomed us. The DBR team is: KK, the coach; Scott Stewart, the team mechanic; Katie Maher, racer; Katrin Bruell, racer; and, Jimi Killen, racer.

The meal consisted of bruschetta of two flavors, one with anchovies; risotto with three types of mushrooms, an eclectic salad with varied greeneries and salmon roasted in garlic. The wine came from team mechanic Scott Stewart's recent wedding which ironically was called "Ca'del Solo," meaning Cadel going it alone. Cadel Evans is the number one ranked cross country racer in the world and was a member of this squad last year.

Scott Gets Whipped

For dessert, we had home made strawberry shortcake. The whipped cream was the final touch and, because we're immature, led to whipped cream battles amongst the squad.

After dinner, we all sat down to watch "Swingers" and realized that we were "money and we didn't even know it."

And Later...