Tasty pickings and Arizona meaty buys

I AM in training for the Scottsdale auction week next month in Arizona.

Tasty pickings and Arizona meaty buys

YOU have to be fit and tough in this job. For example, many readers ask me, "How do you handle jet lag?" To be truthful, I don't see the problem. As soon as you get on the plane you have a glass or two of the Krug or the Dom Perignon, then the moment the seat belt sign turns off another glass or two, then one serve of the caviar without the sides and three glasses of the 2005 Domaine Leroy Musigny. Then have the bed made up, hop in and you'll wake up ready for anything.

As you can tell, I am in serious training for Scottsdale auction week next month in Arizona. Seven auctions. Thirty-six hours of live coverage. More classic Ferraris, Maseratis, Duesenburgs, Porsches, Lancias, Rolls-Royces and Alfas than in Peppermint Grove on a Sunday morning. More spas than you've made promises to diet in the new year and, better still, some serious restaurants, such as J&G Steakhouse and Deseo, in the spas.

How good is this? You book lunch at Jean-Georges Vongerichten's sleek steakhouse. Have a steak and a side for about $80, a nice American pinot for $100, then head up for a steam and massage. Or you head off to the Westin spa where you can have the craniosacral energy therapy (50 minutes, $160) then have a happy ending to the day at Deseo, which serves nouveau latin cuisine (or should that be cocina nueva latina?).

But by the end of a few auctions and buckets of free beverages, there is no better place to get your chakras in order than at a real barbecue. Unfortunately, as the local paper put it, "the smoke's gone out at Big Earl's BBQ". Big Earl's was the last of the town's old-fashioned smoking barbecue joints and my favourite. So this year I will probably favour Don & Charlies. A full slab of the charred baby back ribs with a chicken schnitzel and coconut fried shrimp on the side. Wash it all down with three or four house margaritas and you'll walk out a very satisfied person for under $80.

Now on to the car side of things.

Given how many automobiles will be crossing the block at locations ranging from next door to the Fashion Square Mall and charming Old Town Scottsdale (Gooding & Company) to Fort McDowell on Yavapai Nation land near Scottsdale (Silver Auctions), let me try to pick a few winners.

Just to show you I can be open minded: let's start with an Alfa. The ex-Baron Philippe de Gunzbourg 1931 Alfa Romeo 6C 1750 Supercharged Gran Sport Spider that Bonhams is selling is one of the finest examples of the Alfa Romeo 6C alive today. And it was only found in a barn in 2007. It comes with the original Zagato coachwork.

IDave Gooding is selling a 1962 VW Type 2 23 window VW bus. Holden stops manufacturing in Australia. Boo hoo! Brazil stops making Kombis in three days. This is serious. For the first time in 64 years one of the most important vehicles in the Western world is going out of production. Who didn't add to the world's overcrowding with a bit of horizontal folk dancing in the back of a Kombi? Tell me you didn't fit yours out with a kitchen and a double bed. You weren't a real hippie without one. This is a 23 window model. A similar VW sold for $130,000 earlier this year.

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