COMMENTS & CURIOSITIES:Listen up, foodies

Are you? I am. A foodie, that is, which Webster’s dictionary defines as one who thinks about, talks about, reads about, tastes, tries, tinkers with but above all obsesses about food, in my case, a lot, which explains why I am what doctors call morbidly obese. Webster’s doesn’t have that last part. I added that.

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and can’t get back to sleep because it’s all I can think about. It’s pathetic, but I don’t care. On behalf of foodies everywhere, and I happen to know there are many of you out there, I bring you exciting news.

Whether you are an advanced foodie or just starting out, on Memorial Day weekend, there is one place and one place only to be, and that is the Balboa Bay Club for the fourth annual Newport Beach Food and Wine Festival, May 25, 26 and 27. If you have plans, cancel them. If you’ve made promises, break them. If you have to work, tell them you quit. Just be there.

Once again, Balboa Bay Club Prez Henry Schielein, a master of these things, has crafted a celebration of fine foods, wines and spirits the likes of which I have never seen — and believe me, I have seen a lot.

Aside from my food-centric prejudices, please note that it is a food and wine festival, which means that wine lovers will also be driven into a near-frenzy of tasting, sipping, swirling and more sipping, followed by additional tasting.

From Friday evening to Sunday afternoon, the weekend will be stacked high and wide with wine tastings, first-cabin dining adventures, and wine and food seminars from world-class chefs, winemakers and sommeliers. You can do one event or spend the weekend there, which will make your life complete in 72 hours, which ain’t bad as lives go.

Each event is about 100 clams per person, an ironic choice of words, but it’s hard to explain how insignificant that is compared with the ooh-aah factor of the food and wine that you’ll experience.

The kick-off is Friday evening’s Mediterranean Night on the Bay from 6:30 to 10 p.m., when the resort’s lawn and beach will become a cross between the Italian Riviera, the French Riviera and the southern coast of Spain, which is a heck of a cross. This is grazing as you have never known grazing, with a stunning array of Mediterranean dishes and wines from the three regions and a sultry Flamenco group in the background turning the romance dial way up. Later in the evening, I will be doing a guest turn with the group as an Italian Flamenco dancer from the Bronx, in drag, with a black lace shawl and a rose in my hair. OK, maybe not.

Saturday at noon, there is an Alsatian luncheon presenting the sigh-inducing wines and food of France’s Alsace region with master winemaker Hubert Trimback, Alsatian chefs Jean-Marc Weber and Pascal Olhats of Pascal Restaurant, and the Balboa Bay Club’s own Yvon Goetz and executive chef Josef Lageder — which leads me to believe that maybe you can’t have too many chefs in the kitchen after all.

Saturday at 2:30 p.m., master sommeliers Ron Mumford and Ira Harmon and Lageder will present an oyster-tasting- with-wine-pairings session at which you’ll learn everything you’ve always wanted to know about those gnarly little beasts, except how to open them, which no one knows.

Saturday’s capper is the grand tasting in the Balboa Bay Club ballroom, from 7 to 10:30 p.m. — a vinicultural spectacular of offerings from more than 50 of the world’s finest wineries, along with culinary high notes from Lageder. Speaking of high notes, you even get the Marc LeBrun Jazz Quartet. Pace yourself. We’re not done yet.

On Sunday afternoon, it’s a Pinot Noir world tour at 2:30 p.m., followed by a very manly afternoon smoke out with fine cigars and spirits at 4:30 p.m., with “master of Scotch” Edward Adams presenting a lineup of Johnnie Walker and single-malt scotches, and local cigar experts showing you how to get all puffed up, tastefully.

So there you have it, the fourth annual Newport Beach Food and Wine Festival at the Balboa Bay Club, call (949) 630-4146 for tix and info.

Remember: In vino, veritas, which is Latin for “Balboa Bay Club, next weekend, don’t miss it.” See you there. I’ll be in the long black dress with the Flamenco shoes and the rose. If you don’t want to talk to me, it’s OK. I’ll understand.

I gotta go.