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“Look for the vineyard half a mile past the Ca-Lo sign and turn left…” Visitors who drive north from Ithaca to the tiny town of Five Corners are accustomed to getting directions from the locals based on an unlikely reference point. For there, in a four-acre field on a road off NY 34B, reposes an unintentional landmark— the collapsed, rotting remnant of some long forgotten business… a weather-beaten, worm-eaten, dung-spattered wooden sign with charred edges that hint at an ancient fire. This prominent eyesore, grandfathered in apparent perpetuity, stands surrounded and smothered by imposing plant life– grapevines, once as orderly as a military parade, long ago went pirate and wove themselves through and around the structure, seemingly drawing it back into the soil. Poison ivy and chest-high thistles keep curious boys away, as do rumors of snake nests their sisters. Ca-Lo… “Ca” and “Lo” as two separate fragments, actually, the only legible letters on what was likely once a sign of some importance and utility… for a drive-in movie theater, perhaps, or maybe a combination milkshake stand and miniature golf course. Maybe it was a rural shopping center with a laundromat and a feed store and a place for farm families to buy school clothes. There are as many explanations as residents in Five Corners, but the gnarled heap has been there so long that no one can truthfully recall its original raison d’être. Dr. Jayson Jensen, Ph.D., Professor of Food & Resource Economics, motored his Prius past this blighted property twice daily on his commute to Ithaca and back without ever giving its origins or possible significance much thought. As of late his mind had been busy pondering instead his upcoming appearance at the U.N.’s World Economic Summit, a forum where he would discuss his most recent published article, POST-CULTURAL PROTEIN FOR A HUNGRY PLANET. It had drawn to Jensen considerable and renewed attention— mostly positive, save for the usual blowback from the National Restaurant Association, every food writer in the English-language press, and the dozen top CEO’s of what Jensen regularly decried as the Industrial Agricultural Complex. These were exactly the kind of enemies Professor Jensen needed to sustain and advance his career… to stay in the news…to stay relevant. In THE END OF CUISINE, Jensen’s brash undergraduate senior thesis, he had expounded a radical re-thinking of what we eat, and why. He arrived at a perfectly nutritious and sustainable hypothetical diet of soy, insects, and various florae such as sprouts and seaweed. Flavor, in the traditional sense of the word, should only come out of condiment bottles, posited Jensen. Some initially took his work as a snide spoof, a fart in the face to the increasingly strident calls for a revolutionary re-imagination of the world food supply along with the self-parodic solutions frequently proffered by academia. His polarized thesis committee sharply debated— was this precocious kid for real, or simply trying to make fools of them? They couldn’t tell, so they graduated him magna cum laude. In the doctoral program Jensen doubled down. Anything beyond the scope of his END OF CUISINE diet, Jensen regularly asserted, was sufficiently wasteful and environmentally deleterious to guarantee the eventual extinction of the human race. He had ridden this set of postulations right through his Ph.D. and all the way to a tenured professorship with an office overlooking Cayuga Lake. He became a celebrity of sorts, appearing regularly on news shows and TED Talks pitching his increasingly controversial dietary theories. Bloggers and other keyboard warriors, meanwhile, searched all of cyberspace for a photo of Jensen eating a Big Mac or some other career-cratering sin, but none was ever found. To the disappointment of many, Jensen pretty much ate as he preached, save for the bugs. He was a genuine ascetic who apparently neither drank alcohol nor dated. But he was not without vanity; indeed, far from it. Which is why on this particular Friday afternoon drive Professor Jensen’s mind was focused not on a wholesale replacement of farming as we know it, but rather on the project that had taken over his garage for the past three years— a custom-built, one-of-a-kind vehicle befitting his environmentalist activism, his personal sense of style, and his growing celebrity. There is no set of instructions anywhere for retro-fitting a 1947 MG-TC with a first-generation Honda Insight drivetrain. A colleague from the engineering department and a retired race mechanic from The Glen had doped it all out— one component, one bolt, one wire at a time. They were sternly bound by a non-disclosure agreement, ensuring that no one else would know about it until it was completed… and thereby maximizing the impact when it was. The MG had been discovered in a dilapidated winery barn that was about to be demolished, parked there after a minor crash on The Glen’s old road course and awaiting parts from Britain that never came. Then its owner died, and the car just sat there for decades until word reached the mechanic about some rusty sports car with a number fifteen on its door. The motor, which was never very good to begin with, was completely shot. The body wasn’t much better, but the mechanic had always admired the TC’s spunky British lines, and so he bought the creaky husk for $200 and stashed it for some future retirement project. Meanwhile, a colleague of Jensen’s in the Humanities Department had been the proud steward of a gracefully aging 2001 Honda Insight until it was reduced to two dimensions right in his own driveway by a giant red oak that had secretly rotted from within. Hauled away and declared a total loss, it naturally came to the attention of the mechanic, who knew every junkyard owner in the region. The drive-train had mostly survived, but the mechanic was unfamiliar with hybrids and he loathed working on anything with microchips. So on a whim he contacted a fellow car buff, Electrical Engineering Professor Rolf Grundig, and over a pitcher of local Pale Ale they hashed out a rough design on bar napkins to marry the two automotive corpses. Such a project would be prohibitively expensive just for the parts, they knew, and they weren’t about to do all this work without some sort of recompense for the thousands of necessary man-hours. But who would be crazy or bold enough to sponsor such a foolish conceit? And right then they happened to look up at the Brew Pub’s TV and they saw Professor Jensen pontificating about kelp and locusts while some half-naked starlet and the equally clueless show host vigorously nodded their approval. Once the two men got Jensen’s ear it was an easy sell— the right car for the right man at the right time… snazzy as hell, and green as well… or maybe vice-versa. And now, finally, it was done. After three years of skunkworks toil, the engineer and the mechanic finally agreed that everything looked and felt perfect. Jensen never knew much about cars, but he had come to love watching the pair work and listening to their surprisingly vociferous yet productive disagreements. Piece by piece, through countless dilemmas and creative solutions, the car gradually took shape. Jensen would sometimes sit in the garage after the men had left for the night and ponder the form that was slowly evolving. Increasingly curious, he started reading up on automotive history, the different models and years. And the more he studied, the more fascinated he became with the mazes of intricate machinery under the sheet metal and the mysteries therein that he knew he would never fully understand. He also started noticing cars on the road, and how some were so much more attractive than others. Then he’d go home and stare at his future ride some more, dreaming of the day when he would triumphantly pilot this one-of-a-kind masterpiece into Ithaca for all to see. In the depths of his most abstract musings, maybe one gluten-free edible too many into the dark of an evening, Jensen sometimes entertained the notion that cars might actually have souls… and if so, how would these two accept their mechanical unification? Might the vintage MG try to reject its modern internals like a transplanted organ? Or, might the Honda drivetrain rebel against the terror of the unfamiliar, like a horse spooked by a squeaking buggy and then, fearing that it was being chased, blindly galloping amok and dragging it over hedgerow and stubble, smashing its imagined pursuer to bits until the noise was finally gone? If this hybrid-powered MG were to develop some sentient sense of self, Jensen wishfully surmised, it would embrace its new configuration and express its gratitude with a smooth glide along the blacktop, relishing every dip and turn like an accomplished ballroom dancer. But cars couldn’t possibly have souls, Jensen assured himself with academic certainty, because humans definitely did not, and so how could something inanimate? Machines, after all, are merely physical extensions of man’s ingenuity. In the cold hard light of tomorrow’s dawn on a Saturday’s empty roads, under the watchful eye of its co-creators, Jensen would find out how this synthesized contraption actually ran… soul or no soul. But Jensen was too excited to wait until tomorrow. There was no harm in inaugurating it at night, right? Especially since they had replaced the MG’s notoriously unreliable LUCAS electricals with many yards of fresh wiring as well as modern LED headlamps that could light up a vineyard-ful of four-legged burglars from the main road clear down to the lake. And if he actually collided with one, the steel deer-guard they had cleverly incorporated into the MG’s front fenders and grille would harmlessly flick it aside like an unlucky bird. Jensen could barely tell that he had started the thing, so quietly the twin motors hummed to life. He was confident that he could learn the manual transmission on the fly. (Jensen had been romantically envisioning himself jamming gears and heel-and-toeing his way through downhill curves, his brand-new Burberry scarf jauntily flapping in the breeze.) As that Friday’s sun sank into the distant Alleghenies and the roadside shadows lengthened, sure enough the deer sprouted like weeds in the farmer’s fields. And then, when full darkness was perhaps fifteen minutes nigh, they began to cross the roads. Where there is one there are usually many, Jensen knew from experience, and he slowed appropriately. The immediate threat seemingly over, he accelerated into a long straightaway that he knew well from his daily commute. He was finally getting a feel for the clutch. Stick shifting was fun, he thought, even if he had to quickly glance down at the little gear pattern with every change. Had the fat buck been, say, two hundred or more yards away, Jensen could have prudently braked to a stop. And had it been immediately in front of him, the deer-guard would’ve done its job even before Jensen could react, perhaps even preserving the buck for another day. But instead it crossed about forty yards out, prompting Jensen to reflexively jerk the steering wheel hard right, a misguided impulse to drive around it. In its factory trim, the MG would have crouched to one side and then sprung back with cat-like agility, deftly righting itself and motoring on. The original Honda, in all likelihood, would have responded in accordance with its ultra-light, front-wheel drive stance to quickly re-establish stability. And, truth be told, a driver more accustomed to manual transmissions might well have maintained an uninterrupted relationship with the pavement. But as it was, when Jensen slammed the brakes while sharply steering this experimental car– this unproven offspring of human intellect and hubris– it immediately swerved into what fighter pilots call (with morbid dread) an uncontrollable flat spin. Jensen lost his sense of balance and location on perhaps the third lateral rotation. He lost all vision when the headlamps smashed against low branches and his windscreen shattered. He lost his sense of up and down as the car tumbled twice downhill into a meadow, with only the racing roll-bar between him and instant death. And then, finally, he lost consciousness. Jensen’s very next moment of awareness was of walking down a dark, unknown road with no idea where he actually was. He had a sensation of floating— not weightlessly, like on a steep roller-coaster descent with stomach in throat; but rather masslessly, devoid of physical substance altogether and hovering like a gaseous cloud as he observed himself from afar… …almost as if watching himself in a play… The Cayuga Medical Center stands on the outskirts of Ithaca and overlooks the southernmost waters of Cayuga Lake. Jensen awoke in its ICU, unsure where he was or how he had gotten there. Nor did he have any idea where his car was, or what condition it was in… nor did he especially care. His mind was almost completely focused on the dream, the out-of-body experience, the near-death visit to some netherworld, or whatever it was that had so thoroughly engaged his attention during most of the previous night. As Jensen rose from his bed he inventoried his body for structural damage— no apparent battered or bruised parts or anything; the dressing that they had initially plastered across a minor gash on his upper forehead was replaced with a standard band-aid. With the hospital staff satisfied that he was physically and neurologically sound, he took the elevator to the hospital’s lobby and approached the elderly attendant at the desk. “They said you need to go incognito for a few days,” she said, handing him a pair of cheap and very dark sunglasses. “Concussion protocol.” “Incognito?” replied Jensen. “I like that idea… It’s perfect, actually.” Jensen signed a stack of papers and then made his way out of the hospital to Ithaca’s small but energetic downtown. After a few blocks, he stopped and looked around to see if anyone was eyeing him. Confident that the cheap shades were providing adequate anonymity, he furtively entered the Autumn Leaves used book store and headed for the cookbook section, where he was overwhelmed by the plethora of selections— MASTERING THE ART OF FRENCH COOKING, THE JAMES BEARD COOKBOOK, THE JOY OF COOKING, and dozens more. Where to start? Suddenly a food-stained cookbook missing its cover and bound with cheap plastic spirals seized Jensen’s attention. Looks like a cheesy, third-rate local job, he thought… something self-published for a small-time business to sell to the summer and foliage tourists. Curious, he picked it up and found the book’s title on an inner page– THE CAYUGA LOUNGE COOKBOOK. He frantically flipped to the next page, where he found a suspiciously perfect epigraph… Eating Well is Living Well. Dr. Jayson Jensen, Ph.D, Professor of Food and Resource Economics, closed his eyes and clutched the battered old book to his grateful breast as if hugging a long-lost loved one.

(i.e., Buy It Wholesale) “Don't follow the masters; follow what the masters followed.” (some fortune cookie somewhere) BJ’S… COSTCO… what’s left of SAM’S CLUB… most of us are familiar with the Big Three “wholesale clubs.” These are great places to buy everything from flat screen TV’s to whole prime beef briskets to gigantic packages of toilet paper at deep discounts. But now that the President of the United States himself has predicted a food shortage, perhaps you are prudently (and maybe anxiously) planning a trip to load up on storable foodstuffs at one of these stores. However, if you want to take your wholesale safari to the next level, then you need to shop where the pros shop. RESTAURANT DEPOT (RD) is a nationwide chain of restaurant supply stores that sell genuine wholesale food service products at genuinely wholesale prices. The stores technically sell only “to the trade,” i.e., people with actual business licenses, but since the onset of COVID-19 they’ve been offering day passes to the general public, and plan to keep doing so indefinitely. The Layout One step inside RESTAURANT DEPOT will reveal an unapologetically warehouse-like setting with stuff on wooden pallets and forklifts buzzing around. You’ll actually need to sign a liability waiver to bring your children in there. Shopping carts? Ha! You’ll be pushing a four-wheeled monstrosity that looks like a Soviet coal cart… or, alternatively, what warehouse pros call a “U-boat,” a long and narrow rack that rolls on six wheels. Both are difficult to maneuver, so when you go to RD for the first time, do yourself a favor and figure out how to steer your cart before you load it. While you’re at it, keep in mind that gazing in wonderment at the heretofore unimaginable bounty of bargains stacked floor to (high) ceiling will make you stand out like a dumbstruck Nebraskan catching his first glimpse of the Empire State Building. For your sake and the safety of others, try to look like you’ve done this before and keep moving. Your first stop will be at the Customer Service desk for a day pass. From there you’ll have a clear view of the huge main floor area with giant racks of canned and dry goods, paper and plastic items, appliances, cookware, and more. One whole wall of this giant area– maybe 150 feet long in my local store– is lined with a freezer, half of which is devoted to seafood and the other half to everything from onion rings to chicken fingers. To the side of this main floor, one ventures to the refrigerated area by going through an industrial-grade, see-through plastic curtain designed to keep temperature zones separate yet allow passage of people and forklifts. Be careful not to scratch your face or knock your glasses off when walking through this thing. Seriously. And remember to bring a jacket, even in the summer. Trust me. The Shopping List Cans & Jars RESTAURANT DEPOT distinguishes itself from the above-mentioned trio of wholesale clubs by offering really big cans and jars individually rather than selling whole cases of regular-sized containers. How big is big? #10 can-big, (“ten pound,” not “number ten”) which means up to 10 pounds for wet ingredients such as tomato sauce. Meanwhile, condiments such as salad dressings, barbecue sauces, and mayonnaise come by the gallon. Spices are a particularly fabulous bargain at RD. If, like me, you make your chili in large batches and use chili powder and cumin by the fistful, you will especially appreciate RD’s restaurant-sized containers at unit pricing that shames their puny retail counterparts in your regular grocery store. The Fridge The cooler is also home to restaurant-sized packages of produce, all manner of meat in similarly humongous portions (“primal cuts” in butcher-ese) and dairy products such as gigantic blocks of quality cheeses and gallon tubs of yogurt. This walk-in refrigerated department is, like the main floor, lined on one long side with yet more freezer space and contains mostly frozen cases of vegetables and meats, including pre-portioned burgers by the case. RESTAURANT DEPOT offers a large variety of fresh produce in large quantities only. Onions? They come in a mesh bag the size of a 3-year-old child, as do the potatoes. (The message throughout the store is clear– go big or go retail.) I might buy onions in RD-sized quantity if I were caramelizing a huge batch of them for later use; likewise, If I were hosting a huge cookout I wouldn’t hesitate to buy one of RD’s massive cuts of beef. But I’m not sure what I alone would do with a ten-pound hunk of sirloin strip or cheddar. One household can only store so much temperature-sensitive food. HOWEVER– it is times like these that call out more loudly than ever for cooperation. How about getting neighbors together from all the homes on your cul-de-sac or whatever and doing a little group buying? You’ll all save money, of course, but more importantly you’ll be taking a huge step toward collaboration, pursuing a common goal for everyone’s collective benefit… something that, frankly, might actually become necessary for survival in the very near future. A group safari to RD followed by a divvying-up party and a neighborhood cookout might well prove to be what corporate stuffed suits like to call a “team-building exercise.” The Freezer I don’t buy much from the RD freezers, mostly because, again, it comes in packages too large for my storage capacity. But having once worked on a seafood counter, I am always intrigued to explore the selections from Neptune’s bounty, and on a recent visit to RD I took sharp-eyed inventory of RD’s shrimp. I’ll save a lecture on what I try to avoid and focus instead on the only type I buy– white shrimp harvested from the Gulf of Mexico, devoid of chemicals and preservatives, and distributed by American firms. And yes, they had some! Sized at 10-15 per lb. in a 5 lb. bag, on sale for $10.60/lb. This means that these high-quality, perfectly natural, giant-sized, utterly delicious shrimp cost about a dollar each… far better and far cheaper than anything you’ll ever get in a restaurant, where you more likely than not get Asian tiger shrimp farmed in raw sewage. Were my freezers not about to burst, I would have grabbed a couple of bags. Cookware & Equipment In the retail universe you can pretty much spend as little or as much as you want on your cooking equipment. The late celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain*, for instance, once commissioned a knife custom-made from a meteorite that recently sold at auction for $231,250 (including the 25% auction premium.) I’m guessing that it doesn’t cut significantly better than my $30 knife does after a fresh sharpening. Always remember that the best knife is a sharp knife, and that a knife’s capacity to be sharpened is more important than what corner of our solar system its blade came from. RESTAURANT DEPOT’S knives– like all their cookware– is 100% utilitarian, designed for no-nonsense use by no-nonsense professionals. You’d be better off buying one of RD’s plastic-handled knives and a great sharpener than you would spending the same money at, say, WILLIAMS-SONOMA on a fancy-looking $200 knife alone. In addition to knives, look for BIG stuff at RD that you can’t find elsewhere… big cutting boards, big mixing bowls, big stock pots, etc. These are more useful than you could possibly appreciate until you actually use something professional-sized instead of trying to chop veggies on a surface no bigger than an iPad, or trying to toss a fresh garden salad for twelve in a bowl the size of a dog dish. RESTAURANT DEPOT is a good place to buy, among other things, the perfect omelet pan. I always had trouble making consistently good omelets until I smartened up and asked a WAFFLE HOUSE cook how they do it. The night shift cook was proud to show me this $15 RD pan that he uses to make them– a Vollrath® 4008 Aluminum Wear Ever 8" Fry Pan with Natural Finish and Silicone Cool Handle. It is a no-frills, oven-friendly, made-in-America gem that I use every morning when I’m home to make Andrea’s favorite breakfast. (*See recipe below.) On a recent visit to RD I couldn’t locate any Vollrath products, but I did find a similarly American-made alternative– Eagleware® –in the same size and style for $16.71. (The version made in TCTMATCC sells for $10.53.) Appliances RD sells all manner of commercial-grade appliances– microwaves, refrigerators, freezers, mixers, and more. HOWEVER– there are several pitfalls you as a private citizen must take care to avoid. There might be local code restrictions that preclude the use of commercial equipment in a private residence, so be sure to investigate before you buy. And some restaurant-grade equipment requires a 240V power source or even a three-phase circuit and cannot be used in a home. But small appliances like toasters and blenders and pretty much anything else with a 110/120V plug should be okay. On my most recent visit I was drawn to their wide selection of WARING® commercial blenders. Need a super-heavy-duty, 3.5HP beast for mass-producing everything from soups to Piña Coladas? It will set you back $366.00, but might well outlive your children. The commercial-grade toasters look similarly built to last multiple generations, as do the microwaves. All in all, I find RD’s small appliance section so compelling that it almost makes me want to get married again so I can establish our gift registry there. Serving Ware If you are serving beverages at an outdoor gathering, nothing screams “frat party” like Red SOLO® Cups… unless, of course, you have a keg on tap, which will have already communicated the sentiment. But decent wine deserves a proper wine glass– made out of actual glass and complete with a stem. You can buy these at RD in cases of 12 or 36 at prices so surprisingly low that you won’t gag if (and when) someone drops one in your driveway. (In my experience, their restaurant-grade thickness makes them many times more resistant to breakage than their retail counterparts.) Save the cardboard case they come in for safe and efficient storage. By the way, RD sells Red SOLO® Cups by the sleeve if you really need them. Along with their obvious usefulness for draft beer, they are excellent for serving summer food such as gazpacho and pasta salads. Unless you tend to host huge sit-down dinner parties AND have a lot of storage space, you probably won’t be buying cases of restaurant-grade serving plates and metal flatware. Fortunately, there are numerous sturdy and attractive plastic options. I’ve found that my guests don’t expect white-glove service at my driveway cookouts as long as they’re eating well and drinking good wine from a real glass, so they are perfectly cool with plastic plates and forks. While you’re in that side of the store, don’t forget to buy some good-quality paper napkins by the case. Food Storage Containers When I’m home from the road I like to make big batches of food – stuff like soups, stews, and chili. I like to pack it in 8-, 12-, 16-, or 32-ounce plastic containers and freeze it. We buy these containers (and their lids) from RD by the sleeve or even the case. Aside from food storage, our guests find it a nice and unexpected touch that we provide containers so they can take extra food home. These containers make for efficient use of space in the fridge as well as the freezer, and also provide a convenient way for me to bring food out on the road. Special Dietary Concerns While hopping from one restaurant to another you might occasionally stumble upon menu entries for supposedly healthy options such as egg white omelets or “heart-smart selections.” In truth, however, most restaurants couldn’t care less about your physical health. Accordingly, RD is not a health food store. Read the labels at RD as you would elsewhere, particularly on prepared sauces and condiments– some are loaded with chemicals and crap while others are not. Look also for the country of origin, and strenuously avoid (as I do) ALL products– especially those you put in your body– that come from TCTMATCC. Worth noting– on a recent visit I chatted up both an observant Muslim family shopping for halal food items AND an Orthodox Jewish man buying kosher products. The Muslim father explained that this RD store was a popular source for halal meats among his community. The Jewish man, meanwhile, pointed out that kosher meat and dairy require specific handling and segregation not feasible at RD, but that he regularly availed himself of the pre-packaged pareve kosher food items. Aside from RD’s fabulous prices on everything, I like the idea of shopping in a place where devout Jews and Muslims can peacefully shop side-by-side… it just goes to show, I guess, that the combination of great price & selection is a more powerful force than a centuries-old grudge. If the road to world peace passes through RESTAURANT DEPOT, I would be happy to follow it. * * * * * * * My Top 10 RD Shopping List: With an eye toward the kind of cooking I do at home as informed by my years of restaurant experience, here is an incomplete yet representative list of my favorite RD purchases on recent visits: Big Aluminum Stockpot Big Cutting Board HUGE Mixing Bowl Vinegars and Frank’s Hot Sauce® by the Gallon Rolls of Plastic Film & Foil Spices Plastic Deli Containers of Various Sizes (w/ Lids) Gulf Shrimp Wine Glasses And finally, my find of the year so far– A 5-lb. Tub of PLUGRA® Clarified Butter (6-month shelf life at room temperature after opening!) Look for an upcoming essay on Perfecting the Art of Hash Browns. * * * * * * * And what if there is no RESTAURANT DEPOT near you? Well, as long as there are real restaurants in your general vicinity, they have to be shopping somewhere. Most of them will be ordering from channels unavailable to the general public, but small, independent restaurant supply stores can be found in most cities. One advantage with such stores is that they often carry used serving ware and restaurant furniture at great prices. One disadvantage is that the food offerings will likely be limited to cans and jars of processed foods. If you can’t find a restaurant supply store nearby but really want to experience the thrill of buying food service equipment wholesale, I recommend checking out Web Restaurant Store, KaTom Restaurant Supply or just plain Restaurant Supply and ordering online. * * * * * * * *I’m delighted to see in this video that Chef Bourdain holds a knife wrong the same way I do. *Andrea’s Anti-Inflamatory Omelet: 3 eggs, slightly beaten Butter Sautéed Onions Shredded Gruyère Blanched Broccoli Fleurettes, Sauteed Fresh Rosemary, minced 1 or 2 Drops of Oil of Oregano Pre-heat broiler on high. Melt butter in omelet pan until you are almost about to burn it. Add oil of Oregano to the eggs, add eggs to pan and swirl. As the eggs begin to firm, repeatedly tuck the sides in with a fork. When mostly cooked, flip the eggs and remove from heat. Top with onions, broccoli, and Gruyère, and then broil until the cheese bubbles. Fold onto your plate. Serve with organic bacon… or ditch the omelet and just have the bacon.

“All improvement is change; However, not all change is improvement.” (AndyS.) A big-box home improvement store (the orange one) sits a mere mile from our residence. Good thing, because I only wasted an hour of a precious day off to purchase and then promptly return a drain snake that simply didn’t work as it should. “Was there anything wrong with it?” asked the purple-haired, pierced-face clerk. “Yes,” I replied, “Since you’ve asked, it’s yet another worthless piece of crap produced by slave labor in a hostile country under the label of a once-reputable tool manufacturer… and your store here was perfectly happy to sell it to me.” If I had thought that more detail would be helpful, I would have pointed out the flimsiness of its assembly and the inherent absurdity of its design. But I should have known better in the first place… I should not have been surprised… I should not have trusted this or anything else in this store to actually work as billed. After all, this is the exact same place where I came to realize just a few months before that they’ve ruined the freaking shovel. * * * * * * * I am not a physically powerful person. I am a 63-year-old cancer survivor with an artificial hip, a hernia mesh, and a chronically temperamental lower spine. And yet I somehow managed to break three shovels last year while doing perfunctory yard work. Consider the workingman’s shovel of, say, fifty or even five years ago- a thick, seemingly indestructible steel blade and a similarly robust ash wood handle, securely riveted together… a tool sturdy enough to endure several decades of hard use… a design largely unchanged since the dawn of the Iron Age. Simple perfection, right? But nooooo… they had to “improve” it. Now it comes with a flimsy pot-metal blade that bends with little effort, casually attached to a fiberglass handle that snaps with normal usage. Something similar happened with snow shovels a few decades ago— some pointy-headed genius decided that an S-shaped handle would reduce stress on the human back. What said genius failed to consider was that, in order to be S-shaped, his new-fangled handle would have to be made of plastic, which would quite naturally flex at the curves and, under the normal weight of wet snow, crease and become thenceforth unusable. A few months ago— right after breaking my third shovel in twelve months— I undertook a search for a decent Soil Relocation Device like those of yesteryear. I started at my local (orange) big box store, and I seemed to have caught them at a pivotal moment, for the shovel department was completely bare. I flagged down an employee, who explained that they had just been directed to remove the existing inventory and replace them with a new shipment. She helpfully volunteered to bring out some of the new shovels for me. When she did, we were both stunned. “Wow!” She said. “These don’t look like they could shovel even regular dirt.” The other (blue) big box hardware store, where I am accustomed to finding somewhat higher quality stuff, had apparently undergone a similar switcheroo. The ruination of an essential tool was underway— a tool that, until very recently, had remained basically unchanged for several millennia. And the shovel isn’t the only thing they’ve ruined. The Gas Can I cannot improve upon one word in this epic rant— https://fee.org/articles/how-government-wrecked-the-gas-can/ The Flashlight I regularly use a flashlight in my job. I use it to see stuff at night. I like my flashlights reliable, durable, and simple to use… oh, and easy to find in the dark. What I don’t need is a cheap plastic piece of crap with multiple strobe settings that seem to randomly select themselves, like a butt-dial; what I don’t need is a million-candlepower, military-grade searchlight with LED bulbs and batteries that cannot be replaced. But my desires mean nothing, apparently, for they have ruined the flashlight. Masking Tape Like most everything else in our stores, the manufacture of masking tape was moved to TCTMATCC (“The country that makes all that cheap crap.”) Following the apparently tireless efforts of their crack Quality Prevention Unit, the tape itself is now as flimsy as tissue paper… which means that the adhesive is now stronger than the tape itself, and so it always, ALWAYS rips when you try to unroll a piece. If by some combination of patience and divine intervention you manage to successfully utilize masking tape as it was originally intended— for keeping fresh wall paint off your moulding while you update your decor— The glue will quickly dry out and harden. When that happens, good luck ever, EVER removing the tape without sandpaper. And it is not just MASKING tape. Essentially any tape that unrolls— duct tape, scotch tape, etc.— seems to have suffered the same fate. Indeed, our whole retail economy has seemingly morphed into literally thousands of miles of shelves loaded with garbage that either can’t possibly work in the first place or that you wind up throwing away in a few months after whatever it is stops working. I’ve mostly learned to work around this new reality by shopping extra carefully and/or buying vintage tools and stuff rather than new. But then things got really ugly and even personal for me… they ruined a perfectly good WINE. Mateus The Mateus Rosé brand was established during the early years of WWII because the wine industry of neutral Portugal needed a place other than war-torn Europe to sell its wines. An enterprising Portuguese producer hastily conceived a new wine for export to their former colony Brazil— a slightly sweet and slightly fizzy blend from red and white grapes in an unusual, flask-shaped bottle bearing the borrowed name and image of the historic and private Mateus Estate. Thirty years and many millions of cases later, Mateus was the most popular tipple of pre-wine boom America and much of the civilized world. Luminaries from Queen Elizabeth to Jimi Hendrix to André the Giant were known to drink it. Elton John sang about it. It dominated the wine trade like no other single bottle before or since, popular even when empty— its unique original package, once a staple on 1970’s dorm-room windowsills and shelves, is now a popular (and expensive) item on eBay. In other words, to the soul-less, ignorant suits who actually run this world, the Mateus brand was crying out to be “updated,” and, of course, completely ruined. I am not now nor have I ever have been a fan of rosé wine, unless of course it is BRUT rosé, a.k.a. pink Champagne. Throughout the history of winemaking, non-sparkling rosé has mostly been an attempt to capture in a single bottle the positive qualities of both reds and whites. But nature looks askance at most human tinkering, and more often than not our efforts at crossbreeding yield something with the scientist’s looks and the supermodel’s brains. That being said, when the season’s first muggy swelter has us enervated and damp-shirted beneath a merciless June sun, serious wine— red OR white— is impossible to enjoy, and so we gleefully pass the ice-cold pink stuff around the patio and gulp it like lemonade. One such early hot spell a couple of years ago, Andrea and I purchased a bottle of Mateus to see how it would stand up to the wave of newly trendy bone dry rosés increasingly dominating the wine shelves. Gone, sadly, was the original Mateus packaging— the bottle was now clear rather than deep green, and it was shaped a little differently. The label had also been “modernized” beyond recognition. But the wine within was still the same, and for $8.99/1.5 liter bottle (just $4.50 per 750 ml!) it blew away all competition up to quadruple its price. In our early summer steam-bath it refreshingly crackled with trace carbonation and was just plain delicious… downright swillable. But alas, that was the final edition of the original Mateus. It turned out that this legendary wine was in the process of “transitioning,” and the new packaging was just the first phase toward its new identity. Barely a year later they “updated” the wine itself to an insipid and dry pink plonk as devoid of recognizable character and charm as its new get-up. And so we mourn the sacrifice of yet another Good Thing on the altar of Change For Its Own Sake… and another thoroughly pointless loss. It is surely true that no knowledgeable wine drinker ever mistook the old Mateus for serious wine— indeed, to trained professional palates (including my own) it was as aesthetically inconsequential as surf music… and yet no less delicious a guilty pleasure. In the generalized category of post WWII market-shifting beverages, I’d say that Mateus belongs in the Pantheon of Mega-Successes right alongside Perrier Water and Miller Lite. And now it is forever gone, alive only in memories like mine. * * * * * * * Are we humans so stupid and/or crazy that we have to ruin everything good? I’m starting to think so. However, the good news is that capitalism tends to reward a strong instinct to correct mistakes, to fill voids when they are created. And as your faithful Grumpy Old Mansplainer, I would be remiss not to offer possible solutions to the problems I’ve identified. Shipping costs make vintage shovels impractical to sell on eBay. Therefore I can do no better than refer you to your local garage sales and suggest that you stop at every one you see. Garage sales are much more easier to navigate when you know exactly what you are looking for. As you look for old and well-made shovels, keep in mind that they’re probably about to ruin the rake as well. As for flashlights, numerous vintage examples are available on eBay for reasonable prices. In case you need a little guidance, THIS is what a stinkin’ flashlight should look like— The news is better for gas cans… just go to www.gasspouts.com and click away. You will still need to poke a vent in your gas can that you can somehow securely close when coming home from the filling station. Duct tape will do nicely… if you can actually unroll some. As for the successor to Mateus, Lancer’s Rosé was always its direct competitor, much closer to Mateus in conception and style than in sales volume. Like the original formulation of Mateus, Lancer’s was created in wartime Portugal as a slightly fizzy and slightly sweet rosé that (originally) came in a catchy package— in Lancer’s case, a terra cotta crock that, once emptied, frequently found use as a funky flower vase. Lancer’s Rosé currently retails for $8.99/750 ml bottle— fully twice the price of the last bottling of original Mateus. Andrea and I gave it a try. The verdict? Sad to say that, like Mateus, they’ve ruined Lancer’s both inside and out. I will continue searching for our next great Heat Wave Rosé and post my results when I find it… right along with the elusive solution for lousy masking tape and maybe even a good resource for old-school shovels.

(And yes, it is SAVING, not SAVINGS.) “Spring forward, fall back” time has arrived, this time maybe for good— the U.S. Senate has just voted UNANIMOUSLY to make Daylight Saving Time permanent. I don’t like that idea…nor would I support banning it completely. I think we need to keep it as is. Here’s why– * * * * * * * A few springtimes ago, an old friend got online and complained about losing an hour of sleep for no useful reason when we set our clocks forward, and I felt that he might benefit from a little Grumpy Old Mansplaining. As an overnight trucker, I can attest through firsthand observation that in June— our sunniest month here in the northern hemisphere— the northeastern sky begins to pinken at 3:00AM as I make my way into Boston. By 4:00AM it is darn near light enough for golf, definitely so by 4:20AM. The June sun rises in Boston right after 5:00AM and sets about 8:20PM. I asked my friend whether he would rather that hour of golf-enabling light between 7:30 and 8:30PM, or— as would be the case WITHOUT Daylight Saving Time— between 3:00 and 4:00AM. He immediately saw my reasoning. But what about the flip side? On January 1st of each year, the sun rises in Boston at 7:13AM on Standard Time. If and/or when we make Daylight Saving Time permanent, that would put the January sunrise out to 8:13AM. And because the sun takes such a low track through our winter sky, we have less pre-dawn illumination than in summer. The upshot of this is that our children will head off to school in blackness, as will most folks head off to work. While it is true that the late sunrise would be in exchange for an extra hour of sunlight in the evening, that would hardly be as useful in the dead of winter as it would be in warmer months. But here’s where it gets truly problematic— Boston is on the eastern edge of a time zone that extends a thousand miles to the west, and the sun cannot be everywhere at once in a given time zone. Indianapolis, for instance, is 900 miles west of Boston and therefore a full hour behind in sunrise and sunset times… and so if this new legislation becomes law, most of Indiana would not see a January sunrise until after 9:00AM. One could rightly say that Daylight Saving Time in the warm half of the year prevents Boston from having a largely useless 4:00AM June sunrise, while NOT having Daylight Saving Time in the winter prevents Indianapolis from having an utterly undesirable 9:00AM January sunrise. I call that a win-win. So there we have it. This isn’t complicated. We benefit from having Daylight Saving Time in the summer, and we benefit from NOT having it in the winter. All it costs, really, is the inconvenience of losing one hour every spring, as we don’t really suffer from gaining that hour back in the fall. As inconveniences go, I find it rather minor… hell, most of our clocks even manage to change themselves nowadays We humans have it pretty good here on Earth— we are just the right distance from the sun, and we also have the perfect atmospheric composition to support life. If our axis of rotation weren’t slightly cockeyed relative to our orbital path, we wouldn’t be discussing Daylight Saving Time at all because we wouldn’t have any seasons, and the hours of daylight we experience in a given spot would be exactly the same every day of the year. I think that would be pretty boring. But alas, instead of appreciating the variety of the four seasons, people dig into the semi-annual Daylight Saving debate as if it gives them something they need as much as sunshine itself— something to gripe about.

If you want to try the most decadent, delicious, and wine-friendly potato dish in the known universe, google recipes for “Pommes de Terre au Gratin Dauphinois” or some variation thereof in French, English, or a mixture of the two tongues. (You might want to specify “English” in your search.) Though this dish is perhaps centuries old, Julia Child did much to make it famous, and so we shall honor her efforts by using her nomenclature— “Potatoes au Gratin Dauphinois.” This dish originated in the Dauphiné, a former province in southeastern France now part of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region. Dauphiné was in the mountainous eastern edge— the French Alps— where summer bicycle racing and winter skiing attract international attention. Grenoble, the area’s largest city, was host to the 1968 Winter Olympic Games, as was nearby Albertville in 1992 and Chamonix in 1924. Like most of France there are numerous vineyards here, although one must venture an hour or two downhill and west in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes to find world-class wine appellations such as Côte-Rôtie and Hermitage. Potatoes au Gratin Dauphinois could rightly be characterized as “winter mountain food,” perhaps the perfect après-ski cockle-warmer. I like to think of it as a grown-up version of tomato soup & grilled cheese after a childhood morning spent frolicking in the snow. Peruse several recipes (and of course the comment sections) and you will find considerable debate over nearly every aspect of this dish— What breed of potatoes? Should one rinse off the excess starch, or not? What type of baking dish? Should one use milk, heavy cream, or half & half? Nutmeg? Thyme? (And if so, fresh or dried?) How much garlic? In fact, you will probably find just two things they all agree upon— that this dish is freaking fabulous, and that one must use the right cheese. French President General Charles de Gaulle once quipped, “How can you govern a country that has 246 varieties of cheese?” Well, the good denizens of Dauphiné must have felt the need for a 247th, because they reached across the nearby Swiss border for the Gruyère that puts this dish over the top. Though real Gruyère comes from Switzerland, credible domestic versions (from Wisconsin) are also available. The Swiss versions are more strongly flavored and are of course more expensive. Since the main ingredient (potatoes) is fairly cheap, top-quality Gruyère is worth the splurge. If you want to save a buck or three, buy chunks of it at your favorite wholesale club and grate it yourself. After several iterations and near-misses, here is a fairly simple version with which I’ve enjoyed success. (We have my mother-in-law to thank for the addition of white onions.) Potatoes au Gratin Dauphinois 4-5 Medium-Sized Baking (Russet) Potatoes, peeled & kept covered with water 6-7 oz. Chunk of Gruyere, trimmed and coarsely grated 1 Pint Heavy Cream (You won’t use it all) 1 White (NOT Yellow) Onion, halved & sliced as thinly as possible 2-3 Cloves of Garlic, finely minced (less if you don’t love garlic like I do) Nutmeg Dried Thyme Unsalted Butter Salt • Preheat oven to 400º. • Gently sauté the sliced onion in just enough butter until lightly colored. • With similar gentleness, briefly cook the minced garlic in butter, taking care to avoid browning it. When it appears about to change color, add 1 cup of the cream to arrest further cooking, and remove from heat. • Slice the potatoes (about 1/8” thick) as you cover the bottom of a 8” x 8” Pyrex® baking dish with partially overlapping potato slices as if you were dealing a deck of cards for solitaire. 1- 1.5 potatoes per layer should work. • Top the layer of potatoes with a thin smattering of the onions, a tiny sprinkling of thyme and nutmeg, and a layer of Gruyere about twice as generous as the onions. Salt very lightly; grind a little pepper if desired. • Repeat the process for 2 more layers. Add cream-garlic mixture to the dish, then clean out the cream-garlic pan with just enough cream to raise the liquid level in the dish to no more than halfway. • Cover tightly with foil and cook for 45 minutes or so, or until potatoes are properly tender. • Remove foil, cook for 10 more minutes to lightly brown the top. Broil if desired. • Allow to rest for at least 1/2 hour before serving. Reheat if necessary in microwave or hot oven. Potatoes Gratin Dauphinois makes a great accompaniment to cold weather feasts that feature roasts such as pork (including ham), lamb, or beef. And it is substantial enough to be a meal in itself. Some recipes actually include meat. As Julia used to say at the end of each installment, Bon Appetit!

Several decades ago I was the wine steward for a swank and bustling Boston steakhouse. How swank? In addition to routinely recommending and serving $200 wines all night, after dinner I used to go around the tables with a selection of twenty-dollar cigars and ceremoniously clip and light them for the guests. Though public smoking is no longer permitted, this revered bastion of the Back Bay has survived COVID and is still going strong. And it is significantly pricier than when I worked there… here’s what a celebratory feast for two might cost at their current prices. Let’s say a couple excitedly gets dressed to the nines and travels in from the suburbs for a Valentine’s Day date. As befits the elegance of their attire and the occasion, they begin their evening with two of the signature house martinis, served shimmering cold in oversized glasses. They sip these with a half-dozen raw oysters and a shrimp cocktail. They share a house salad, and then comes filet mignon for the lady and a ribeye for the gent, along with a shared side of asparagus. With this main course, they enjoy the cheapest half-bottle of Champagne on the award-winning wine list. Having foregone all available carbs thus far, for dessert our couple indulges in a shared slice of the famous and exquisite Chocolate Layer Cake. Their total tab for food and drink? A cool three hundred bucks before tax, tip, and transportation. The whole evening will likely run them close to four hundred… more if they have a babysitter to compensate. I estimate that anyone with halfway decent kitchen chops could closely replicate this roster of food and drink for perhaps one-quarter of that price. (For me the hardest part would be the cake… which I could certainly outsource and still keep comfortably within my budget.) So where does the extra $$$ go? Whether a fancy steakhouse or a humble diner, restaurants are just plain expensive to operate— rent, utilities, ingredients, and payroll must all be covered by the profit margin, with enough left over to incentivize continued operation. And why are we willing to so generously keep them in business? For several different reasons. Some high-powered big-city professionals— like, say, the heart surgeons and fund managers whom we regularly fed— actually find it cost-effective to dine out rather than shorten their highly remunerative workday to shop and cook. For others, like our hypothetical Valentine’s couple, spending big money on a big night out can be a self-fulfilling romantic adventure, the magnitude of the evening’s enjoyment a direct function of its price tag. Other customers might treasure the ritual of gathering in public with loved ones, happy to pay the restaurant tariff in order to enjoy uninterrupted time with their tribe instead of cooking and doing dishes. And finally, some people simply hate to cook, or at least consider it a tedious chore. I sympathize— albeit to a limited degree— with those whose kitchens are their least favorite rooms. Indeed, I’ve known otherwise rational people who literally eat every meal away from home. But make no mistake— restaurants are lousy places to enjoy great food and wine. Fortunately, however, it is easier than ever to shop for good ingredients and make healthy and delicious food at home no matter what one’s skill level. Let’s say we want to replicate at home that couple’s big night out in the swanky steakhouse. Try as bartenders might to make it appear otherwise, there is nothing magical about making a great martini— simply mix quality gin or vodka with a few molecules of dry vermouth, keeping the liquids as cold as possible throughout the process. (“Shaken or stirred?” That this is even a question suggests that it doesn’t really matter that much.) So… just watch a professional bartender make a martini, and then acquire the necessary glassware and bar equipment for doing it yourself. Pro-tip: keep the booze in the fridge and the glasses in the freezer for a spell before using. (As for the Champagne, please see our in-depth essay on the topic.) Most any decent fish market will carry live oysters. Invest in an oyster knife and have someone at the fish counter show you how to use it without impaling your own hand. My bride and I often sidestep this point, steaming them open and eating them warm and drizzled with melted French butter. If you are, like most, having them raw, a squeeze of lemon is a good enough accompaniment, but I recommend making classic mignonette sauce, a simple preparation of sherry vinegar, cracked pepper, and chopped shallots. When buying shrimp, you need to be particularly vigilant about its origins. A lot of restaurants use inexpensive Asian “tiger” shrimp that are often farmed in unhealthy conditions, i.e., raw sewage. Look instead for wild-caught gulf shrimp from American firms, processed without chemicals. Getting them pre-cooked saves you the trouble of peeling, de-veining, and properly cooking them; getting them raw gives you some shells for making a fabulous stock for later use in, say, bouillabaisse or gumbo. Cocktail sauce is easy to come by… no need to make your own, but you can easily doctor a commercial product to your liking with lemon juice or additional horseradish. (Not all farmed seafood is patently evil; some aqua farms are diligently run to high and healthy standards. Just do your homework and shop carefully, particularly for farmed salmon. There are plenty of excellent, ethically-farmed options available.) If you can’t prepare a freakin’ salad, then maybe you SHOULD be eating in restaurants all the time. But if you can, this is an opportunity to make a vinaigrette with higher-quality olive oil than you will ever encounter in a restaurant. Organic greens are worth the money for their superior flavor. For best results, invest in a salad spinner and get your greens thoroughly dry by refrigerating them between layers of paper towels. Which brings us to the steaks. Most retail beef (supermarket OR restaurant) is crap… raised in sickeningly squalid conditions emitting an eye-searing stench detectable ten miles away. The poor doomed animals are packed tightly in pens and dosed heavily with antibiotics to keep them alive as they stand a foot or two deep in their own feces. Though they’ve spent a few months eating grasses out in the open, they are “finished” (in more ways than one) on a diet of corn that cattle are biologically incapable of properly digesting. (It fattens them quickly, albeit with especially heart-unhealthy lard.) These poor suffering beasts are typically slaughtered at eleven months… in part to rush them to market, but also, perhaps, because few of them would actually survive such abusive treatment until their first birthday. And yet despair ye not, for truly great beef is readily available online. My favorite cyber-sources for high-quality, ethically-raised, and utterly delicious meats are MEAT ’N’ BONE, HOLY GRAIL STEAK COMPANY, and SNAKE RIVER FARMS. All three of these suppliers (and several others) can provide you with better, healthier, and tastier meat than you will EVER see in a restaurant, and for less money. I am particularly fond of Holy Grail’s Grass-Fed Prime portfolio, Meat ’n’ Bone’s Wagyu-Angus crossbreed Ribeye, and Snake River’s roasts. (Wagyu is the breed responsible for Japan’s super-deluxe Kobe beef and is known for its way-higher-than-prime fat content. American-raised Wagyu has only recently become widely available. Prime-Grade American Angus beef has long been the go-to, high-quality domestic option and costs barely half as much as American Wagyu.) Steakhouses usually sear their steaks in 1000+ degree infrared ovens, but you can achieve a similarly delicious char with a simple iron frying pan. Rather than buying a new one— which will usually come, inexplicably, with a roughly-textured surface— I recommend scrounging garage sales and junk shops for a vintage version seasoned by generations of use to slick blackness. Just give it a thorough but gentle cleaning and cook with it a few times to get a feel for it. Thaw your steaks (tenderloin, ribeye, NY strip, or other) the day before. Pat them dry, dust lightly with kosher salt and pepper, and let them sit for a few hours in the fridge, preferably on a rack that affords all-around air circulation. This process will contribute to a fabulous, steakhouse-like crust. To cook them, preheat your oven to 350º. Set your exhaust fan on high and heat up some grape-seed oil in your iron pan. Sear the steaks on one side and then flip them. Sear the other side briefly, then transfer the pan to the oven until the steaks are done, as indicated on the instant-read digital thermometer you’ll need to buy. (125º for rare, 135º for medium, give or take a few; I like’em right at 130º.) Pro-tip: to spend more quality time at the dinner table and less at the stove, you can sear the steaks ahead of time and then finish them in the oven to order. As for the dessert— yes, it would be easy to buy a slice or two of cake at an upscale bakery (gluten-free or not) for significantly less than the restaurant price. Or you can bake it yourself. If you’re not already into baking, preparing a chocolate cake can be messy and time-consuming. However, an equally decadent chocolate mousse is relatively easy to make without turning your kitchen into Chernobyl. The recipe from Julia Child’s last great opus (THE WAY TO COOK, 1989) differs from her previous versions and is by far my personal favorite. However, this recipe seems impossible to find in cyberspace, as my searches find only her older recipes. So I’ve ordered the book and I’ll add her newer recipe in the comment section when it arrives. In the meantime, I’ve found this recipe, which is nearly identical. * * * * * * * * * NOTES: The high-end steakhouse vs. home cooking comparison is but one of many possible scenarios that illustrates a smarter way to eat. While it is not a universally applicable template (e.g., I would never try to make, say, Thai or Indian food at home) it is certainly worth considering exactly where your food dollars go and how they might go farther… all while paying closer attention to exactly what we are putting into our bodies. Although our hypothetical couple opted for Champagne, America’s lush and ripe west coast reds (Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Pinot Noir, Syrah, and others) pair especially well with charred steak. This is a perfect example of what makes a great wine & food pairing— a mixture of similarities and contrasts. The similarity is in the equal intensity of the powerful flavors, each incapable of overpowering the other. The contrast is in the tension between the intense and luscious fruit flavors of the wine and the delightful bitterness imparted by the charred edges of the steak. Each brings the other into sharper focus. If you want to raise your home-cooked steak game to the complete swanky steakhouse level, consider investing in an Otto Grill. (You will need to operate it outdoors, as it is powered by propane.) The Otto Grill features gas-fired infra-red elements that reach 1500 degrees and give your steak a full steakhouse char in mere minutes. And finally, if you insist on a sauce with your steak- especially filet mignon- try this quick and easy take on classic Sauce Bordelaise— Red Wine, two good glasses 1 or 2 Shallots, finely chopped Unsalted Butter 1-2 Cloves of Garlic, finely chopped 1/2 teaspoon Demi-Glace Gold® 1/2 teaspoon Better than Bouillon® Freshly Ground Black Pepper Briefly cook shallots in just enough butter. Add garlic and cook a little more. Add wine and slowly simmer until half gone. Add demi-glace and Better Than Bouillon®. Add pepper to taste and stir in a little butter before serving. Strain, or leave it chunky. * * * * * * * * *

How To Host A Healthy Super Bowl Feast That Bridges America’s Sharp Political Divide A HEALTHY Super Bowl feast? Talk about your oxymorons! Such gatherings are, almost by definition, high-calorie orgies of everything bad for us— salt, sugar, saturated fats, and overconsumption for its own sake as lunch seamlessly segues into dinner, and beer and soft drinks flow freely. To even consider using “healthy” and “Super Bowl feast” in the same sentence, perhaps engaging in a not-so-little fantasy might help. Imagine that, by an unlikely quirk of fate, the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) Network is awarded the opportunity to broadcast a Super Bowl. Could such a thing ever actually happen? And might it actually help unite Red and Blue America? Maybe, and yes… stay with me here. First, a NEW YORK TIMES death notice: W. Ralston Bullright IV, 89; Investor and Philanthropist Legendary Wall Street icon W. Ralston Bullright IV, known as much for his fanatical support of his beloved hometown Cleveland Browns as for his proven investing acumen, passed away last weekend after a lengthy battle with an undisclosed illness, according to a family spokesperson. He leaves his widow Whitney (DuPont), seven children, and dozens of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Knowledgable sources who spoke on condition of anonymity suggest that a substantial portion of his estimated $10 billion estate— perhaps as much as $2.5 billion— is earmarked for the PBS Public Television Network and its broadcasting sibling NPR. The contribution, however, is said to come with an unusual and unprecedented catch… And then, a few days later: UPDATE: It is now official— PBS and NPR will reap a 10-figure bequest from the estate of W. Ralston Bullright IV, subject to the late tycoon’s stated condition that is sure to raise eyebrows in the often intertwined worlds of sports and broadcasting. Under the terms of the last will and testament, PBS is required to make a credible, good-faith bid to the NFL for broadcasting rights to Super Bowl LXII, which is scheduled to be played in Cleveland’s soon-to-be-completed Bullright Stadium. And so the NFL owners sportingly play along, welcoming to their annual winter meetings the PBS Vice-Chairman— skinny and balding in his late fifties, almost insect-like in his sweater vest and John Lennon wire-rims… clearly a foreign or even alien presence among the arch-capitalist moguls who run the NFL like a council of sovereigns. The Vice-Chairman distributes bound briefing folders and then executes a thoroughly detailed PowerPoint presentation highlighting his network’s journalistic talent and expertise in spite of their self-evident lack of a sports division. No… none of the gathered owners has a question. They rise to politely applaud him as he leaves and then re-take their seats. “Technically we need to vote on this,” Commissioner Goodell chortles. ”All those NOT in favor…” “Hold on just a minute.” The rumpled, white-maned owner with the only folder still open raises a hand. The others, in deference to his three-decade tenure and occasional nuggets of profitable wisdom, allow him a moment to make his point, whatever the hell it might be this time. “From what this… interesting little fellow tells us, PBS has millions of dedicated viewers who don’t give the slightest crap about football.” The others harrumph at the obvious truth. “And probably never will… unless something really big changes. Tell us, Commissioner— how many of our regular Super Bowl viewers are we likely to LOSE if we actually do this?” “Uh, ZERO, I would presume,” sputters Goodell. “But surely you’re not suggesting—” The wily old warhorse continues, sensing the growing discomfort in the overpaid errand boy he’s never liked. The other owners start to nod with interest as he seemingly thinks aloud. “So maybe,” he concludes, “what we’re looking at here just might be an unprecedented opportunity to substantially expand our Super Bowl viewership, and most likely our future fan base going forward, into a demographic that would otherwise rather binge-watch a Downton Abbey marathon… WITHOUT losing any of our existing base. Am I missing something here?” There is no form of reason quite so convincing to rational people— particularly a roomful of old white billionaires— as the logic of dollars and cents. And so it might thus come to pass that PBS would carry the Super Bowl broadcast on some February Sunday in the not-so-distant future… an NFL Championship Game that might well be long remembered as “The Big Bird Bowl.” I personally find the possibilities delicious— Commissioner Goodell growing wide-eyed with greed as he absorbs the distinctions between underwriting and advertising. “You mean they PAY, but you don’t run any of their ads?” Goodell might ask in awed astonishment. “We really need to look into that!” I can imagine NPR Legal Affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg interviewing Chief Justice Roberts about an egregious pass interference non-call to close out the first half… and whether the aggrieved team could actually petition the Judicial Branch for emergency relief. Instead of another cringe-worthy halftime show featuring some lip-synching pop tart, maybe a TED Talk about concussions? Or perhaps PBS would switch to their local affiliates excitedly reeling off their 800-numbers while volunteers take calls for donations and unexpectedly expand their flock— “Thanks to Trucker Mike from Poughkeepsie and Pigskin Pete, two brand new sustaining members of WIMP-FM.” And finally, I would watch the entire game without peeing just to not miss a PBS color commentator interrupting a discussion of zone versus man-to-man pass coverage with, “Um, shouldn’t that be person-to-person?” But this is about the food, remember? I think it’s safe to assume that, as a group, the public television and radio audience is healthier and better-educated than the general population. So what might they teach the barbecue, pizza, and wing-gobbling rest of us Super Bowl watchers about a football feast that won’t significantly shorten our life expectancy? Such deep-Blue-State staples as gluten-free kale lasagna and plant-based “meat” are definitely out of bounds, bordering on self-parody. And yet there is, I believe, some common astronomic ground worth exploring. Here’s what I’ve come up with for a late-afternoon pre-game buffet and a simple but soul-satisfying dinner at halftime that won’t contribute to a coronary catastrophe. 5:00pm-8:00pm EST Pre-Game / 1st Half Buffet Fresh, homemade guacamole is always a welcome party treat. Instead of buying rock-hard avocados on Wednesday and then trying to nurse them to precise ripeness on Sunday, my wife Andrea has taught me that frozen avocados are a perfectly good (and perfectly ripe) shortcut. There are lots of good guacamole recipes available online. My favorite versions use red onion, tomatillos, fresh-squeezed lime juice, cilantro, and just enough bottled hot sauce to give it mild but noticeable heat. (I find it much easier to control the heat level in this and other dishes by using bottled hot sauce rather than fresh hot peppers.) Most chips are gluten-free… the trick is finding chips that don’t TASTE gluten-free. And unless you really like making your own fresh salsa, go ahead and just buy it. Lots of good options abound. I’ve always loved traditional Buffalo wings, and yet I’ve always seen room for improvement, starting with the cut of meat itself— leg drumsticks are substantially meatier than either of the wing pieces and have a healthier meat-to-skin ratio. Furthermore, the original wings recipe uses margarine (no f-in’ way!) and entails cooking in a commercial fry-o-lator. Equipped with only my humble suburban kitchen, I start by giving my drumsticks a few crosswise slashes to better absorb their hour-long bath in Frank’s Hot Sauce, which I purchase by the gallon at a restaurant supply store. I then coat the suckers with a rub of paprika and chili powder enhanced with a dash of granulated garlic and just enough cooking oil to form a paste. I let them sit for another hour and then roast them on a rack at 425º for a good half hour. They’re delicious just like that, but you can give them a nice finishing glaze by briefly broiling them with a smear of the aforementioned dry rub enhanced with a smidgeon of homemade BBQ sauce*, which you’ll need to make anyway for the main course. This all may sound like a lot to do, but none of this is rocket surgery, and drumsticks are quite inexpensive and therefore good for feeding a crowd. (*At its most elemental, Homemade Barbecue Sauce is a simple mix of ketchup, mustard, brown sugar, apple cider vinegar, and hot sauce; just about every recipe is a variation on that theme, with tomato puree replacing half the ketchup and a dash of this spice or that. What makes homemade superior in my judgment is the absence of chemical thickeners and artificial smoke flavor, both of which are present in every single commercial brand.) A proper serving of Buffalo anything requires a side of celery and blue cheese dip. Organic celery bursts with exponentially more flavor and is accordingly worth the extra money. You can easily raise Blue Cheese Dressing (Marie’s is better than Ken’s) to a higher plane by enhancing it with crumbles or small chunks of your favorite blue cheese. Just keep it dippable. My former business partner Cathy was an amazing baker and chef, and she used to make Hummus that might well have brought peace to the Middle East. Her secret? Keep it complicated— soak and cook the garbanzo beans from scratch; roast and grind your own spices whenever possible (and her recipe required about a dozen!) She used fresh organic garlic, lemon zest as well as juice, the fanciest tahini, etc. etc. However, yours need not be quite so painstaking as Cathy’s— the final result is rightly measured primarily by texture (smooth and, again, dippable) as well as the overall balance of flavors. For the crudité, think in colors— brilliant red and yellow pepper strips, peeled organic carrots (whole, not fake “baby” carrots) and bright green (blanched*) broccoli fleurettes. After you wash your veggies and blanch your broccoli, make sure they are thoroughly dried before serving. Water can ruin this dish. (*“Blanching” is an important hack for green veggies that makes them delightfully crunchy when eaten and more freezer-friendly when stored. To blanch broccoli, cut it into fleurettes and then give them maybe fifteen seconds in furiously boiling salted water followed by a quick drain and an immediate plunge into the coldest water you can manage.) Along with the hummus, Vegan Black Bean Chili was a popular staple in our gourmet takeout store. Use fresh, high-quality ingredients, and no one will miss the meat, which we’ll be having at halftime anyway. Make it only mildly spicy but keep a bottle of hot sauce nearby for those who might want to crank up the burn factor. Like hummus, good chili is primarily about texture (I like my chili somewhere between soup and stew) and the balance of flavors. Fresh cilantro is a popular component of chili and may appear in whatever recipes you find for this dish. To avoid redundancy with the guacamole, consider offering chopped fresh cilantro on the side rather than incorporating it into the chili. That should nicely cover the pre-game festivities and the first half. Meanwhile, as the Big Game unfolds and you’ve figured out that PBS won’t be running any cool Super Bowl ads, you have an organic, grass-fed beef pot roast filling your home with heartbreakingly beautiful aromas as it slowly simmers to perfection. I recommend starting this dish at 4:00pm, right after you finish cooking the drumsticks. 8:00pm EST Main Course Most pot roast recipes follow a similar general structure— brown a hunk of meat*, then simmer it in the oven at 325º for 3-4 hours. For our purposes here, this dish can take two different tracks— the traditional version, browned right in your braising pan and then slowly simmered with stock and red wine; or— what I recommend for Super Sunday— a more beer-friendly BBQ version in which the meat is scorched on a grill and then simmered in stock enhanced with that homemade BBQ sauce I had you make a few paragraphs back. Most pot roast recipes include onions. I have found that taking the time to thoroughly brown them BEFORE starting the braise encourages them to melt more thoroughly into the delicious sauce that pot roast magically makes by itself as it simmers. If the game proceeds as normal— and PBS promotes their own shows where ads would normally appear instead of shortening the telecast— the pot roast will be done right as halftime starts. Set aside the meat and boil down the sauce, correcting flavors as needed. Whether you make the BBQ or red wine version, demiglace is magic here. (I buy Demi-Glace Gold® on Amazon a year’s worth at a time.) Also look around for a product called Better than Bouillon® because it actually is, and you’ll soon be famous for your gravy. Serve the pot roast with a ladle-ful of it over the mashed potatoes you made that morning and nuked back to serving temperature while you finished the gravy. If you want it thickened without using flour, simply puree what’s left of the onions with the reduced liquid. Plates and bowls work equally well for serving this, but bowls are more “lap-friendly” for watching football. (*Braises in general and pot roast in particular involve turning tough cuts of meat— like beef chuck or brisket— into spoon tender lusciousness via a long, slow simmer at a relatively low temperature in flavor-enhancing liquid. Braising breaks down the tough connective tissue into a rich and flavorful component of the gravy that self-generates in this cooking process. While most braising recipes suggest conducting this transformation in a “Dutch Oven,” I prefer the shallower and more versatile “Braising Pan.”) * * * * * * * * Whether or not PBS ever carries the Super Bowl, I really hope some of you try this menu… and that you enjoy it with friends from both sidelines of the political playing field. Invite them over to watch the Big Game and maybe, just maybe, a feast like this will prove to be a really good way to help bridge the evergrowing divide between Red and Blue America, between decent hard-working people with widely divergent perspectives and yet probably more similarities than they realize. Good food shared is always a good start toward better communication and understanding.

A great, well-made sweater is not unlike a beloved dog or even a romantic partner— it offers comfort, it caresses rather than squeezes, it makes your soul smile. It is a wonderful companion for a winter walk followed by some snuggly sofa time with hot chocolate. But a sweater will never break your heart or crap on your rug. You can comfortably fall asleep in the right sweater, for it provides soothing warmth rather than heat. It is sturdy, but never heavy. And with minimal maintenance you can count on it growing old with you. Okay, so now that we know what we want, how does one cost-effectively obtain such a treasure? For me, the answer was obvious— I needed to put on my red plaid hunting hat. * * * * * * * * * By nature, by nurture, or both, I am a hunter. My father avidly pursued the wild pheasants that populated our nearby cornfields, and I functioned as his second bird dog beginning at age six. When the autumn days got shorter and colder he switched to deer hunting, but I was not allowed to join his day-long trek into the deep mountain forest until the season after I turned nine. I excitedly marked the day on our calendar, and finally it came— Thanksgiving morning, 1967. It would be a kid-friendly, holiday-shortened hunt rather than a strenuous full day in the cold and remote woods. After our 3:00AM breakfast, we drove half an hour to the base of aptly-named Misery Mountain and hiked up the steep trail in starry-skied darkness. Soaked in sweat, we reached our spot where we would stand pretty much motionless for a few hours. Just when I was starting to shiver my butt off, a doe with two fawns suddenly materialized from a thicket perhaps fifty yards away and my pulse immediately quickened, restoring my bodily warmth. “Don’t move,” my father sternly whispered. Females and fawns were strictly off limits, I knew, but autumn was mating season, and a young buck soon appeared with obvious romantic intentions. A loud crack suddenly split the frosty air, and twenty minutes later we were dragging our prize back down the snowy mountain on its way to our freezer. I was hooked. Seven years later to the day, in the same pine-rimmed mountain hollow, I was successful on my first hunt with my own rifle and deer tag, and I was hooked forever. Fast forward a few decades. I still hunt deer when my schedule permits, but I’ve also gotten really good at online hunting for really cool stuff. I’ve tracked and snagged every hard-to-find quarry from antique rifles to super-premium steaks to 1940’s Champagne glasses. (My bride and I sip our weekly bubbly from all manner of exquisite art nouveau and deco flutes… glasses that constitute elegant decor by themselves in addition to their functional utility.) And this winter, I’ve been busy hunting for sweaters on eBay. It was, ironically, a pair of thrift shop tee-shirts that directed my inner bird dog toward warm winter wear. During much of 2021, my trucking routine had me parking one day a week at a shopping center in North Syracuse that has every necessary comfort for life on the road— a Planet Fitness gym, an Italian take-out joint, and a thrift shop. Fifth wheel grease is a satanic substance that instantly ruins trucker clothing, so I’m always in the market for cheap t-shirts. As I was perusing the thrift store’s rack of $3.99 tees, a pair of identical shirts jumped out at me. Their labels read “Stall and Dean, Seattle, WA.” The deep gray fabric was sumptuously thick and plush, more like cashmere than cotton. The sturdy seams appeared to be stitched for all eternity. These shirts bore no logos, no bull… they were just good, honest, high-quality garments. And by God they were made in America, back when companies took pride in putting their names on high-quality stuff. And for $3.99? Hell, I’d pay forty bucks for shirts like this if anyone would deign to produce them. But they don’t… not any more. I looked up Stall & Dean; of course they no longer exist. In days of yore they made the uniforms for most of the professional sports organizations in the US and for many collegiate teams as well. And apparently they once made plain old t-shirts for the working man. But alas, I had stumbled upon these unicorns quite by happenstance, and it was highly unlikely that I would ever find more of them. Be it here known, Dear Reader, that nothing energizes a born hunter like being told that you can’t always get what you want. As the summer of 2021 tapered and wool season grew nigh, I knew that I couldn’t afford to take any time off for deer hunting… but I could darn well harness my hunting instincts toward cold weather clothing as well-made as those Stall & Dean shirts. And so I set my sights for sweaters. The bad news is that, like those Stall & Dean tee shirts, they just don’t produce great sweaters anymore… at least not for less than $200. The quirky mail-order clothier J. PETERMAN has made good-faith efforts to replicate some of the famous sweaters of yesteryear for reasonable prices. However, in my experience they’ve fallen short because they are usually made in TCTMATCC (The Country That Makes All That Cheap Crap) meaning that their stitching is notoriously temporary and their wool is dyed with God only knows what. The good news is that eBay has thousands of great used sweaters. The hard part, really, is properly narrowing one’s search. Given my recent experiences with new sweaters and old tee-shirts, I realized that “vintage” was the best way to go. I also understood that size matters, and that going a little looser was better than going a little tighter, and I accordingly accepted my inevitable graduation to Extra Large with grudging equanimity. The hunt was on. After a little experimentation, I entered into my search bar “Men’s XL Vintage Sweaters.” Countless options immediately materialized, and I spent several hours in sweater hunting paradise. * * * * * * * * * Wool comes from a variety of animals ranging from rabbits to camels. But mostly we think of it as the product of domestic sheep, which have long served us humans in triple capacity, providing milk, meat, and wool. Circle the globe between the 50th Parallel and the Arctic Ocean and one finds traditions of great sweater-making in several countries. For a concise compilation of everything you could ever wish to know about the sheep of the world, their wools, and the fabrics spun thereof, click here. * * * * * * * * * Like the obsessive hunter I am, I spent many hours on eBay browsing, researching, comparing prices, and then browsed and researched some more. I found myself neck-deep in sweater heaven, with many hundreds of fabulous options. How could one possibly choose from so many wonderful choices? By raising my standards and seeking only the best. L.L. BEAN, WOOLRICH, and PENDLETON became my top three American brands worth exploring. They don’t make’em like they used to, but oh, how utterly fabulous the old ones are. (The L.L. BEAN “Birdseye” crew-neck has long been so ubiquitous a cultural icon among boarding schoolers that it might as well come with a lacrosse stick.) In addition to these Big Three, J. PRESS is famous for the “Shaggy Dog” sweater that JFK wore sailing and currently retails for $245 new. If you ever see one in your size on eBay at a decent price, you may have stumbled upon a rare and wonderful treasure. Among the imports, DALE OF NORWAY still produces premium (and accordingly pricy) hand-knit sweaters, and many used versions are available at great prices. But all in all, when it came to the imports I found myself focusing less on brand names and more on the sweaters themselves and their geographical origins. My cyberspace safari took me to the remote northern isles of the United Kingdom— the Hebrides and the Shetlands— as well as Scotland proper; I explored the options from Iceland, many of which were knitted from lanolin-rich, un-dyed yarn in their natural hues of oatmeal and brownish gray; and I even ventured south of the equator to the high Andes of Bolivia and Peru, where I found for Andrea and her mother a trio of colorful masterpieces knitted of skin-friendly alpaca. (Pro tips: whenever an eBay seller presents you with a “make an offer” option, they expect you to use it— start at about 75% of the asking price. And when you find the sweater of your dreams, always verify that it is not stained or torn, and double-check the size before executing your purchase. Not everyone accepts returns.) Nine deliveries after undertaking this hunt I forced myself to stop. Here are the highlights of what I bought— A pair of Woolrich Medium-weight Crewnecks, one in solid Christmas red and the other tan, $20 each; Lord Jeff “The Moors” 100% Shetland Wool Argyle, Made in Ireland (talk about checking all the boxes!) $25 Scottish Hunting/Chore Sweater in thick, coarsely knit grey with leather shoulder and elbow patches, $45; A Dale of Norway crewneck in an amazing palette of colors, $60. And the equivalent of a 12-point trophy buck— West Highland Woolens Scottish Wool/Silk Blend $75 (And THAT was my counter-offer!) It was a wonderful hunting season, and I now own an impressive array of fabulously comfortable and comforting sweaters… almost enough to compromise my excitement over the impending arrival of springtime warmth. These sweaters are too nice to bring out trucking, but I’ll have them to look forward to when I get home from the road in addition to a hug from my bride, a raid upon my wine cellar, and a fancy steak from our chest freezer.

After spending my entire pre-trucking adulthood engaged in the wine business one way or another, it was just during the past year that I’ve come to realize that I really, really like Merlot... GOOD Merlot, that is. This is a big deal, because among the œnological cognoscenti, admitting you actually enjoy Merlot is akin to informing your co-workers that your psychiatric profile is uncannily consistent with that of a serial-murdering cannibal. But screw it… I’m a trucker now, and I’ll drink what I want. And one night not too long ago I was doing just that... sitting on the back deck to behold a glorious sunset with my bride Andrea, wine glasses in hands, when I casually mentioned, “You know, I was always way ahead of the curve with Merlot. I liked it before most people ever heard of it, and I liked it after everyone got sick of it and moved on.” And right then a Merlot label from my distant past suddenly materialized in my brain, as did the long-buried story that accompanied it. * * * * * * * The Holy Trinity of red Bordeaux grapes are genetic kin— Cabernet Franc is a parent grape of Cabernet Sauvignon, which in turn is a parent to Merlot. They definitely demonstrate familial affinity— while other red varieties are permitted in the region, most of the famous reds of Bordeaux are blends of two or three of these varieties. And although Cabernet Franc and Merlot are the featured grapes in certain Bordelaise districts, Cabernet Sauvignon is generally considered superior to the other two when the climate affords full ripening. California— and Napa Valley in particular— proved to be perfect for maximizing its potential. When the Great American Wine Boom dawned in the early 1970’s, Cabernet Sauvignon had already been firmly established as the prevailing benchmark of Californian quality wine. Meanwhile, fewer than 100 acres in California were planted to Merlot vines… but oh, how that would very soon change. * * * * * * * In the early 1980’s I was an aspiring young wine geek while still in college, well versed enough to at least be aware of Merlot’s existence. The notion of a Bordeaux-style red that is softer than Cabernet Sauvignon and more approachable in its youth intrigued me. Hungry (or thirsty) for more wine knowledge, one January between semesters at UMass/Amherst I took a special wine tasting course focusing on the red wines of Bordeaux, all from the halfway decent 1976 vintage. To my surprise as well as the teacher’s, I could identify by nose alone the wines of the main sub-regions — Pauillac, St. Estephe, Graves, St. Julien, St. Emillion, and Pomerol. (The latter two— my favorites of the bunch— are the “right bank” districts, where the soil and climate are more suited to Merlot cultivation than are the districts across the Gironde River, where Cabernet Sauvignon predominates.) Might I have a future in this business? Perhaps... but if my newly discovered nose and taste memory suggested a career in the wine trade, I surely wasn’t going to be paying my bills with Merlot sales anytime soon. Hardly anyone had even heard of it. And yet, as the American wine boom gained traction, Merlot gradually got popular enough to make it a “thing,” albeit a minor one. For the Californian producers it was mainly about economics— Merlot is easier to grow than Cabernet Sauvignon, it ripens earlier, and it requires less barrel and cellar maturation before going to market. And yet everyone in the industry understood that Cabernet was the king of grapes and would likely remain so. After presenting my senior honors thesis (in environmental economics) that spring, I moved to Northampton and became a full-time restaurant rat while completing my remaining undergraduate courses part-time, riding the free buses back and forth to Amherst. One day that autumn I happened to catch the bus in downtown Amherst... and one of the few remaining seats was directly beside a strikingly attractive Smith student who was taking one of her courses that semester at Amherst College. It is not difficult for a reasonably attractive female to catch the eye of a 23-year-old guy, whether she wants to or not. But Lisa— as if her long blond hair, reed-like frame, and blue eyes that crackled with intelligence weren’t enough, she spoke in a knee-buckling London accent. All in all, she was a beautiful, long-stemmed rose of a young lady... complete with especially sharp thorns to dissuade those who would try to hold her too tightly. I was so smitten that I figured out her class schedule and made sure that, going forward, I was on the bus with her. I made a point of having chocolate to share with her on the rides to Northampton. We hung out a few times. And then— almost out of the blue— she called me and invited me to go out drinking with her after an upcoming mid-term. Struck stupid with delight, I countered with a bold suggestion of my own— how about staying in and enjoying some nice wine? She liked the idea. I showed up with a bottle of 1979 Clos du Val Napa Valley Merlot. * * * * * * * The Clos du Val winery was established in 1972 by John and Henrietta Goelet, a couple with deep roots in the French wine trade and a taste for great Bordeaux. They hired a young French winemaker, Bernard Portet, whose father was the technical director at Château Lafite-Rothschild. Their ambition was to produce world-class Cabernet Sauvignon in the as-yet barely developed Stag’s Leap District of Napa Valley. (Spoiler alert: They picked the right spot. See Judgement in Paris.) With their shared Bordelaise sensibilities, the Goelets and Portet planted Merlot alongside their Cabernet Sauvignon just like the left-bank Bordeaux estates. American wine law requires that wine labeled by grape variety (“varietal wine”) contain at least 75% of the stated grape, which left considerable room for Portet’s cellar artistry, i.e., adding minor proportions of Merlot to soften and round out the muscular Cabernet like they do in Bordeaux . But the Clos du Val team soon found that their Merlot, ripened to fullness in the warm Californian sun, was sturdy enough for a stand-alone varietal wine. * * * * * * * Lisa and I enjoyed a perfectly nice evening together, slowly sipping the delicious Merlot as we engaged in smart conversation about music and art and all kinds of stuff. Our minds seemed to mesh, and I dare say a spark or two flew. I optimistically foresaw us possibly becoming a regular item. But when it was time for me to go, just when I was about to inquire when I might see her again, she apologetically but matter-of-factly explained that she was very busy with her studies, and that she had this guy friend at Williams whom she saw every other weekend or so to round out that detail of her tightly-scheduled existence. And so that was that. It felt like a really long walk back to my side of the tracks. I last saw Lisa in person a couple of years later, shortly after she graduated from Smith. By then I had risen to the position of general manager at the fanciest restaurant in town, one that rightly boasted the finest wine list in the area code. Lisa was applying for a waitress job to keep her busy until she headed off somewhere in the fall, she explained. Delicious as this situation might sound (for any number of reasons) I brusquely sent her away... in part because I knew that, as an economically-privileged only child, she wouldn’t have “the right things wrong with her” so often found in good waitresses... like, for instance, a deep-seated eagerness to please total strangers. But I also sent her off because the restaurant was owned by a fast-living gangster who regularly preyed on women like her, and he and his Cognac & Blow cohorts weren’t accustomed to hearing “no” from the female objects of their unsolicited advances. I was already straining to shield several of the waitresses from such lechery by occasionally walking them home or other such brotherly gestures, and my capacity to extend such protection was nearing its limit. And also, truth be told, I knew I would have been privately crushed had Lisa— like a handful of her more adventurous Smith-mates— actually accepted an invitation to party on my boss’s 50-foot Nantucket-based yacht. Of course I couldn’t tell her any of this… she probably figured I was just being a jerk. As I advanced in my restaurant career through the mid-1980’s and got more involved with wine, I noticed that when we catered an event there were twice as many white drinkers as red drinkers, and that they drank twice as much... a 4-to-1 white-to-red ratio that pretty much held true until 1991, when the entire wine universe suddenly shifted. A “60 Minutes” segment that year explored the “French Paradox,” a generous interpretation of which might suggest that red wine was actually good for one’s health. Right past the Chardonnays and Rieslings the erstwhile white-swilling public hurriedly stampeded... right past the Cabernet Sauvignon, which they were afraid to mispronounce, or maybe thought too rich and heavy... right past everything until they got to the Merlot rack, whereupon they promptly emptied it. By the time I became the sommelier at a top Boston steakhouse in 1994, it was imperative that we served Merlot by the glass while we struggled to keep the printed wine list up-to-date... because our wholesalers kept running out of whatever Merlots we had listed. It was hard work, but also fun and profitable to have wines that so easily sold themselves. But all good things come to an end, often with scant warning. The end for Merlot came so suddenly that it shocked the industry even harder than the abrupt shift from whites to reds because of the French Paradox… and as ignominiously, perhaps, as the death of disco in 1979. The exact moment of Merlot’s implosion came in a 2004 buddy film set in Californian wine country—SIDEWAYS— when Miles, a lead character and insufferable wine geek, uttered a memorable and consequential line: “I am NOT drinking any f***ing Merlot! If anyone orders Merlot, I’m leaving!” The wine-drinking public had likely had its fill of Merlot by that point, and Miles’s rant perhaps crystalized their latent, simmering desire to move on to something new. And so— as with me and Lisa The Merlot Girl— quite abruptly that was that. End of story. Sales of Merlot instantly cratered... in part, I suspect, because an acceptable substitute, an especially shiny new object, was readily at hand and just emerging into long overdue prominence— Pinot Noir. The 20th century success of Californian winemakers with Cabernet Sauvignon was counterbalanced by their nearly complete inability to consistently cultivate Pinot Noir of equivalent quality. Compared to Cabernet Sauvignon, the Pinot Noir grape is thinner skinned, ripens earlier, and is more finicky in the vineyard regarding such variables as heat, sunshine, and water. And once harvested, Pinot Noir remains a problem child, requiring more skill and close attention to successfully vinify. It wasn’t until the breakthrough 1990 vintage that quality, varietally-correct Californian Pinot Noir became regularly and widely available... in fact, SIDEWAYS featured Miles’s search from winery to winery in the Santa Ynez Valley for great versions of it. But through it all, good Merlot never stopped being good wine, and the greatest examples from California (and elsewhere) are now at the top of my to-drink list. And while the prevailing anti-Merlot sentiment has motivated Napa Valley wineries to replant much of their precious acreage over to more profitable Cabernet Sauvignon, they’ve kept in place the finest parcels of Merlot vines, which yield some very good wine that generally sells for reasonable prices. I’ve got a cellar-ful of such gems reposing in various states of development. * * * * * * * And so what ever became of Lisa, The Merlot Girl? Thanks to the age of instant connectivity in which we now live, a few quick keystrokes revealed that A.) a realtor with the exact same name recently ran for a school board seat in Nevada; and B.) Lisa herself has evidently enjoyed an utterly amazing post-college life, first as a freelance journalist in Brazil and then as the CEO of an international foundation dedicated to saving the ocean and its endangered inhabitants from the ravages of capitalism that would destroy them. She even addressed the United Nations about her work a few years ago. By any measure her life has been a smashing success, and I saw no point in even slightly disturbing it by reaching out to her. To paraphrase The Moody Blues, I seriously doubt that she ever thinks about me once upon a time in her wildest dreams… but maybe, just maybe, one day she’ll find herself sipping an especially delicious Napa Merlot and then she’ll pause as a long-buried wisp of a memory suddenly crosses her brow and inspires a wee smile.

Training & Racing on a Concept2 Ergometer Racing between rowboats across stretches of river dates to the seventeenth century. London’s Thames was by then a bustling nexus of commerce, and businessmen of that era frequently required livery service from one riverbank to the other. The most common mode of transportation across the Thames was the low- slung “wherry boat,” powered by the oar-strokes of a “waterman,” as its pilot was known. Races between off-duty wherry boats naturally arose, and thus competitive rowing was born. Although I have only rowed a real boat in actual water exactly twice, I am still able to call myself a former competitive rower… an INDOOR rower. * * * * * * * Collegiate rowing programs have since the late 1800’s strived to devise exercises that facilitate effective winter training, and numerous incarnations of mechanical rowing machines have been manufactured over the last century. In 1981, a pair of Vermont oar manufacturing brothers patented their Concept2 Rowing Ergometer– a.k.a. the “erg”– a refreshingly inexpensive and portable rowing simulator. Although it is impossible to exactly correlate exertions upon a stationary machine to rowing on real-world water, each stroke on the Concept2 is nonetheless translated to distance rowed in a manner that constituted one of the most significant developments in the history of the sport. And yet the erg is hardly regarded with fond thoughts or memories by anyone familiar with it because serious erg training is alternately mind-numbingly boring (long, aerobic segments) and brutally painful (short anaerobic intervals.) Collegiate rowers, both former and current, tend to view this contraption as medieval non-believers once regarded the rack— as a dreaded torture device. Indeed, many ex-oarsmen have likely endured gum surgery or other similarly intricate office procedures simply by reminding themselves during an interminable hour in the chair that at least they weren’t on a f—ing erg. Shortly after the Concept2’s invention, early improvements included an electronic performance monitor that enabled rowers to meaningfully compare erg times. This upped the game for a Boston-based club consisting of former collegiate rowers (The C.R.A.S.H.-B’s, for “Charles River All-Star Has-Beens”) that had already begun holding erg races in order to add a little dark humor to their arduous indoor training regimen during the coldest months of the calendar. Their annual event has since grown many-fold and morphed into the WORLD INDOOR ROWING CHAMPIONSHIPS, drawing thousands of serious competitors from around the world to Boston every February. Meanwhile, dozens of other erg races fill out the indoor rowing calendar all winter, their colorful names reflecting this sport’s fundamentally masochistic nature— The Great Baltimore Burn, The Mid-Winter Meltdown, The Tough Love Indoor Rowing Championships, and, naturally, The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre are but four well-known races held during the build-up to the C.R.A.S.H.-B. Races. All this in spite of the fact that erg racing is so hellishly painful as to constitute a spiritual rite of passage, not unlike coming-of-age initiations among primitive cultures of yore. As a machine, a major portion of the erg’s appeal is its elegant simplicity. The user is seated atop a sliding plastic seat so small that, for many novices wishing to lower their BMI, actually fitting comfortably upon it might constitute a worthwhile goal in itself. This seat smoothly slides on a long rail, thereby engaging the thigh, back, and buttock muscles as one pulls on a handle connected to a chain that in turn rotates a fan-like flywheel, causing air to move. The flywheel has magnets that essentially make it into an electrical generator when it turns, and so the flywheel electrifies the performance monitor while also sending it data in the form of current that can be precisely measured. The performance monitor then quantifies and reports one’s efforts– in real time as well as for all posterity. But what, exactly, is being measured? There are several types of resistance used in exercise devices. Isotonic resistance engages one’s muscles to move a weight of fixed amount, as in doing bench presses or squats. Spring resistance is somewhat similar, except that the magnitude of resistance increases linearly in proportion to the changing length of the spring. Exertion without movement, as in straining one’s muscles to push against a stationary object, is known as isometric exercise. Unlike all of the above, the Concept2 Rowing Ergometer pits one’s heart, lungs, muscles, pain tolerance, and willpower against air resistance and the laws of physics pertaining thereto. Stick your hand out of a moving car window and you will feel the force generated by air resistance. Objects maintaining a given speed as they travel through air are thus performing WORK, as WORK = FORCE times DISTANCE. This is why airliners fly at high altitudes where the air is thinner, why aerodynamically-shaped cars get better mileage– less air resistance means doing less work and therefore using less fuel. Using one’s muscles to move air certainly meets the physicist’s definition of work, but on the erg it is much more complicated than that. As we all know, performing a task that requires a given amount of work (say, raking one’s yard) can take either one hour or all day depending on how hard one works. Thus we arrive at POWER, which is WORK per UNIT OF TIME… or, in layperson’s terms, HOW HARD IT IS TO DO SOMETHING divided by HOW FAST ONE DOES IT. After crunching the relevant variables with some applied algebra and calculus, we see that when it comes to the task of pushing air out of the way, nature can seem rather cruel– power is (approximately) proportional to the flywheel speed cubed, meaning that increasing the speed of the ergometer’s flywheel by 10% requires a 33% increase in one’s power output. Now here’s where the erg gets even more complicated— a damper lever beside the flywheel has different settings that change the air resistance such that on lower resistance settings one can row more easily. However, the performance monitor brilliantly compensates for this; it actually measures not only the raw speed of the flywheel but also how much it speeds up and slows down with each stroke as it moves air. This ingenious aspect makes ergometer race times equivalent even across different damper settings, kind of like the way a ten-speed bike requires the same amount of cumulative effort to pedal it up a particular mountain no matter what gear it is in. And herein lies the heart and soul of erging, either competitively or just for exercise– Life is unfair. Mozart died penniless, and yet talent-challenged pop tarts sometimes autotune and lip-sync their way to multi-millionaire status. Wrongly accused people sometimes rot in jail while white-collar grifters and elected kleptocrats remain free. Some people are just plain luckier than others. But the Concept2 Rowing Ergometer represents a pure distillation of truth and fairness. Unfailingly exact, it reflects and rewards one’s exertions stroke for stroke without prejudice, pity, or mercy; it never lies, cheats, or embezzles. Every bit of effort expended is returned in cold, hard numbers. Competitive ergometer racing is not only possible but surprisingly popular around the world because recorded times for the standard race distance of 2,000 meters are comparable across time zones, oceans, and calendar years; across ages, genders, nationalities, and generations. * * * * * * * There was a stretch of years in my life when I used to train my butt off and enter an erg race every winter. However, during the earliest years of the current millennium I took a few seasons off because of my busy work schedule— wholesale wine distribution by day, and restaurant management at night. But then, out of the blue, an online dating connection led to a New Year’s Eve encounter with an entirely unexpected consequence. On the morning after our nearly all-night movie fest and gab-a-thon, SusanB. announced that she felt perky enough to run her scheduled New Year’s Day half-marathon even as a bitingly cold blizzard howled outside. I wondered— Is this chick bionic? She was training for the Boston Marathon, she explained, and today’s run was part of her tight running regimen. (I eventually learned that she had been a pioneer of sorts in her Buffalo, NY high school, competing on the boy’s track team at a time when such a thing was deemed heretical. To this day I recall her spirited determination and grit with awe.) That did it, I immediately decided… If SusanB. —three years my senior— can run 13 miles in a snowstorm on New Year’s Day, then I could undertake crash training and enter an erg race in early February. I would need to carve out adequate training time from my double-duty work schedule, which would constitute an accomplishment in itself… But would it be enough? Would I be able to whip myself into good enough shape to break the magical 7:00 barrier in so little time? Exactly five weeks after that New Year’s Day I was sitting on my assigned erg at THE 10th ANNUAL SARATOGA WATER® INDOOR SLAUGHTER*, all warmed up and anxiously awaiting the start command. * * * * * * * The Concept2’s Performance Monitor displays a variety of useful information, such as elapsed time, strokes per minute, calories burned, and the distance one has theoretically rowed. The most important number to watch during a race is one’s instantaneous speed, expressed as projected time for 500 meters. In order to meet my goal of breaking seven minutes, I would have to pull an average rate below 1:45/500m… irrespective of the damper setting. I tightened my foot straps and set my damper lever to five. If I had trusted my leg muscles more I might have chosen six and rowed fewer strokes per minute, and if my legs had felt less than well-rested I would have selected four and then rowed faster. During the past five weeks I had become so focused on my goal that I had come to hate the number seven itself– this was personal. And as long as I achieved my goal, the number seven wouldn’t be able to tell how I smashed it or whatever damper setting I used. Seven minutes was a nice round number for a man my age. Breaking it would likely get me a top-three finish among my fellow forty-somethings. If I broke seven by more than a few seconds, I might even come in first. But this goal had seemed like an insurmountable wall during my five weeks of crash training. Holding 1:45/500m for 1,000 meters— half the race distance— had been way too difficult. Based on our training, we erg racers have a pretty good sense of how we will perform in a race, give or take a few seconds. No one shows up on race day and wins on just heroic effort and amped-up adrenaline. But the excitement of race day does often inspire competitors to outperform their expectations, if only by a little. I took my final swig of water, knowing that my mouth would dry out no matter how much I drank. I took a few deep breaths to store up even a little oxygen that might be useful. As the countdown to zero proceeded, I closed my eyes and steeled my will– “3—2—1—ROW!” The dozen ergometers sprang to life, screaming and wheezing almost in unison. We all knew to pull as hard as we could for the first ten seconds, utilizing the creatine phosphate that our muscle cells use as kind of a starter fluid. Then we all settled into our paces. The first half of 2,000 meter erg races is actually a little boring… you just hold your pace while conserving your energy for the inevitable onset of agony that awaits you. But something was wrong— I was having difficulty holding my pace because I was going too fast! I had planned on holding 1:44.5/500m for as long as I could, but I was hovering between 1:42 and 1:43 and actually had trouble slowing down. I would surely fade out and drop off before the finish at that pace. At the halfway mark my body came to its senses and I slowed a little… Just as hell itself opened its hungry maw. * * * * * * * Erg racing entails a combination of aerobic and anaerobic respiration. “Aerobic,” as the name suggests, means that oxygen is used in the conversion of glucose to carbon dioxide, water, and energy. Aerobic respiration provides us humans with enough energy for most physical tasks… but at some point in a 2,000 meter erg race it is no longer sufficient. When our bodies cannot get enough oxygen to burn enough glucose to meet our demands, our cells switch over to anaerobic respiration. This has two significant consequences— One, it is far less efficient than aerobic respiration and thus only sustainable for short bursts, like a fighter jet’s afterburners; and Two, anaerobic respiration produces lactic acid, which causes an increasingly painful burning sensation in the muscles before eventually shutting them down. * * * * * * * As expected, I began to strongly sense my mounting oxygen deficit about two-thirds of the way to the finish. I had switched from breathing once per stroke to twice a while back, and my mouth, already dry, had soon become leather-like from the double gasps. As my remaining meters slowly melted I was counting my strokes in eights, which helped to distract from the growing discomfort. When I crossed below 500 meters to go I began to believe that I might actually break seven. Not coincidentally, this is also the point in the race where one begins to experience hallucinations and entertain delusions from the lack of oxygen to the brain. Meanwhile, all of my body’s emergency alarms were flashing and screaming, demanding that I immediately stop. For how long could I override them? Every cell in my system was suffocating. I felt like I was in a fire. At the 300 meter mark I was in complete agony and yet I sensed the nearness of the finish line, huffing like a steam engine and counting my strokes in fours as I entered the race’s final minute… the longest freaking minute in the world. At this point the handful of spectators, many of them fellow rowers, started to loudly holler encouragement. (In my age group— Men 40-49— it had become customary for the wives to scream, “C’mon, Honey! You can do ANYTHING for one minute!”) I wasn’t sure I could— my heart rate was maxed out, and my lungs simply couldn’t keep up any more. So I turned to my legs for additional effort, slowing my stroke rate while shredding my quadriceps for brute thrust. This was a temporary measure until my oxygen debt reached its credit limit and my muscles wouldn’t let me borrow any more. I watched as my distance meter dropped down into double digits, and I was now counting strokes in twos. My body had essentially given out, and I was rowing purely on muscle memory and willpower, my mind mercifully half elsewhere in some sort of out-of-body experience. Somehow, some way, I had held below my target pace to this point, but my advantage was steadily slipping away. Could I hold it? My brain was too muddled to do the math, and I was just trying to keep from passing out. My vision was blurred, and I was losing my ability to see the monitor or anything else. 50 meters… 30… 20… 10… 5… And then it was over. I furiously unstrapped my feet so I could extend myself and start taking full breaths. I immediately rolled to the floor and got on my hands and knees, sucking wind as hard as I could for a full minute as I slowly reoxygenated. And yet, even as my body was suffering through the inevitable lactic acid misery, I was simultaneously experiencing a flush of nonphysical euphoria… because on my way to the floor I had managed a glimpse at my performance monitor just long enough to note my result— 6:59.4 My fellow racers and I lay sprawled on the floor for several minutes in various degrees of incapacitation. Some gulped water between breaths; others barfed. None of us could stand just yet. It turned out that I had come in second, but I didn’t really care… I had gone to hell and back in less than seven minutes, so I was in heaven. * * * * * * * That race was a long time ago. The year after that I solicited sponsors who would support my rowing efforts by donating to my chosen charity, The Cardinal Hayes Home for Children in Millbrook, NY. Freed from the tyranny of late-night restaurant work, I was training extremely hard and barely able to keep my weight on. It was almost as if my entire body chemistry had been transformed– I had the metabolism of a hummingbird, the body fat of a North Korean, and an ass like two cannonballs. I even had to buy new jeans because my old ones wouldn’t stay up. I won two races in the space of three weeks that winter… an accomplishment all the more impressive in that, as it turned out, I had cancer and didn’t yet realize it. The chemotherapy and radiation would permanently damage my heart and lungs even as it was rescuing me from death by lymphoma. The damage meant that I would never be able to enter an ergometer race again, for to do so might well jeopardize my life. But I’ve recently returned to regular rowing… not to reacquaint myself with the flames of anaerobic hell, but rather for good heart health, effective weight control, and longevity. I row slowly and steadily, occasionally pushing myself a little, but never too hard. While doing so, I am occasionally visited by flashbacks from my racing days, like when I’m rowing to Spotify music and suddenly hear Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Boxer.” (This song’s lengthy refrain eerily sounds like erg racing feels.) But I easily resist the perverse temptation to briefly go anaerobic and remind myself that, having slain multiple seven-minute dragons in various erg races in my younger years, I am presently facing down an even more formidable adversary— Father Time. * * * * * * * If I were producing an ad for the Concept2 Rowing Ergometer, I would assert that it is the standard by which rowers worldwide are measured– rowers both human and mechanical. There are a number of rival rowing machines, but this is the one I strongly recommend. You may find them at better gyms, and/or if you have the space they can be purchased directly from the manufacturer for home use. Go to https://www.concept2.com/. *THE SARATOGA WATER INDOOR SLAUGHTER is not the name of a real erg race, but it could be. And finally, my sponsors and I raised several thousand dollars for The Cardinal Hayes Home For Children. If you ever wish to donate to a wonderful charity that lovingly cares for children with extremely special needs, I invite you to check them out at https://cardinalhayeshome.org.

Mary Frances Kennedy (“MFK”) Fisher (1908-1992) was one of the 20th Century’s most beloved and highly regarded food writers. Among her 27 books, CONSIDER THE OYSTER (Duell, Sloan and Pierce, 1941) is one of her best known works, a short but exquisitely-written treatise on the most regal of bivalves. Along with the history of oyster-eating, their morphology, physiology, and life cycle, Ms. Fisher also addresses the age-old question of whether one must confine oyster consumption to the colder (“R”) months. Fisher suggests that the “R” rule was foisted upon the oyster-eating public by the sea farmers who tended their estuary beds exactly as the Romans had beginning in 100 BC. The breeding season for oysters stretches from May through August, when their waters exceed 70ºF… and which, quite coincidentally, is the 4-month run of non-R months. A single female oyster produces some 20 million eggs in a given year, and since the oyster farmers needed to foster and preserve reproduction for the future, they were understandably loath to sacrifice tomorrow’s oyster population for today’s harvest. And so, Fisher contends, the oyster farmers created an excuse to suspend harvesting in the “R” months, a wholesale fabrication that would endure for two and a half millennia– the proposition that oyster consumption in the months May through August poses a risk to one’s health. MFK Fisher was not alone in examining this issue and the origins of this culinary taboo. Author Mark Kurlansky, in THE BIG OYSTER: HISTORY ON THE HALF SHELL (Random House, 2006) offers the following on pages 78-79: “Although New Yorkers ate oysters all year long, it was believed that the oysters in the months without R’s– May, June, July, and August– were of inferior quality and so they waited for the better oysters to come in the fall. This is an ancient and somewhat mythological belief. In 1599, William Butler, a contemporary of Shakespeare, wrote, ‘It is unseasonable and unwholesome in all months that do not have R in them to eat oysters.’ The myth has an element of truth in the case of New York. Oysters take their cue to begin spawning when the water warms up, which is in May, and it is true that spawning oysters tend to be thin, translucent, and generally less appealing. Some argued that letting the beds rest during spawning season was a good conservation measure. Summer oysters are, however, perfectly healthy unless spoiled in the market by summer heat.” And yet Fisher, Kurlansky, and Butler were preceded in this particular inquiry by two thousand years. The Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BC – 43 BC) promulgated an explanation of the “R” Month prohibition, one quite different from all the others, in “de Oestris,” his treatise on oysters. (Please contact us immediately if you can find a direct translation of this. We’ve looked everywhere. –DannyM) At the risk of getting sued or at least provoking a Cease & Desist Order, I can do no better than repost in its entirety this fabulous examination of this issue by Michael C. Hild on the company blog of ANDERSON’S NECK OYSTER COMPANY in Shacklefords, Virginia– Oysters in R months So getting back to the main topic, where did the adage of only eating oysters in the “R Months” originate? Ancient Rome is the answer. As you probably know, Romans loved their parties. Oysters were a great luxury, and they were served as a vivacious prelude to Roman feasts. The great Roman Chef Apicius is credited with finding a way to safely pack fresh oysters on their journey from the sea to the Emperor Trajan in Rome. So if oysters could be safely transported, why the aversion to oyster eating in the summer? The answer can be found by reading no other than the great works of Cicero himself. Cicero was obsessed with finding out why the R Month myth was so pervasive in his exhaustive treatise “De Ostreis”. The practice of avoiding oysters in the non-R months had been ingrained in Roman culture for over 400 years. He was perplexed by this practice because at one time it was commonplace for the lower class to safely eat oysters in the city of Rome year round. Cicero found a quite simple explanation and he uncovered the straightforward, yet disgusting answer to the mystery. As is often the case with human nature, unabated greed is the answer to the riddle. Because the freshest oysters could be packed and shipped inland where they would command top dollar, it is no surprise the best oysters found their way to Roman city markets and tables. These oysters were purchased in Rome year round. The lower class working Romans even ate oysters in the summer months with no iIl effects. However, the upper class Romans never ate oysters in months without an R as it was considered disgusting and unhealthy. But why the avoidance of the tasty bivalves by the wealthy Romans who could most easily afford the luxurious treats? Well, just like today, wealthy Romans often went to the beach during the summer to what they called “watering places.” These Pompeiian excursionists feasted on oysters while staying at the hotels at the waterfront. However, as described before, the best and freshest oysters were packed and shipped to Rome where they commanded the highest prices. Only the oysters of poorest quality remained at the waterfront where they invariably aged and anyone in the know would avoid them at all cost. That didn’t stop the beach hoteliers from trying to make a buck and sell these rancid oysters to their wealthy inland guests on their vacation stays. According to a 19th century New York Times article on Cicero’s oyster writings (Sadly, no longer available in NYT archives– DM) the taste of these oysters at the water were so bad that even in their best condition “it was impossible for the guest to tell by the taste whether the oysters eaten by him were fresh and wholesome or aged and unwholesome.” To make matters worse, the hotel owners would attempt to “freshen up their refuse oysters with sulphate of copper, a most objectionable condiment.” Unsurprisingly these wealthy Romans became violently sick when they ate oysters on their summer beach vacations. However, the lower class workers who could not afford summer trips to the beach were happily gorging away on the fresh oysters back in the city of Rome. This summer beach sickness caused by greedy hoteliers was not understood until 400 years later due to Cicero’s detective work. But by that time the damage was already done and could not be unwound, even by the great Cicero. The summer oyster sickness was so feared that oyster eating was banned across the board in non-R months and incorporated into Roman law. This falsely constructed R Rule went viral so to speak and was passed down through the centuries as an inherited best practice. It even survived in various forms in 19th and 20th century American state laws. What would have been more helpful, would have been a ban on selling rancid oysters. The lawmakers should have demanded that oysters were safely packed and stored. However, at that time, the lawmakers did not know what the shady hoteliers were doing. The Modern Oyster Season In modern days, very strict refrigeration and oyster handling requirements are mandated by both State and Federal agencies, especially in the hot summer months. Regulators now understand this relationship and govern oyster harvesting and transportation practices with very specific safety precautions. As a result, you are more likely to win the lottery than you are to eat a bad oyster. But modern refrigeration and strict regulatory oversight can not fully eradicate pervasive urban legends, especially those that have been around since the times of Ancient Rome. So the next time you hear someone mention the R rule for oysters, you are now fully equipped to mesmerize them with your vast knowledge of Cicero’s ancient writings and how he already debunked this urban oyster legend more than 2,000 years ago. * * * * * * * It is noteworthy, I think, that Cicero, MFK Fisher, and Mark Kurlansky all conclude that yes, you can eat fresh, raw oysters year-round, even though they arrived at the same conclusion by intriguingly different paths of facts, suppositions, and/or reasoning. Either way, go ahead and enjoy them! If and when you do, you might be inclined to enhance them with a simple squeeze of lemon, or you might dab them with a little cocktail sauce– heavy on the horseradish. Or… you can opt for something more sophisticated than either– a sprinkle of mignonette sauce, which couldn’t be much easier to make. Just finely mince a couple of shallots and add them to a 50-50 mix of sherry vinegar and red wine vinegar along with a generous grind or two of pepper. Let it sit for a day in your fridge before using. (That’s MY recipe. You might also consider these.) But raw is not the only way to eat oysters. An informal yet wonderful snack perfect for Friday afternoon tea-time is smoked oysters straight from the can (via toothpick) with some fancy crackers and a nicely chilled bottle of Gruet Blanc de Blancs ($14.99 @ Lisa’s Liquor Barn)– a perfect start to an excitement-packed weekend. Because oysters essentially come encased in their own cooking vessel, they can be cooked by any number of methods. We see them offered grilled, poached, fried, steamed, baked, you name it. “Consider the Oyster” contains a multitude of historically significant recipes, from basic oyster stew to Oysters Rockefeller. Here is MY cooked oyster recipe, essentially a pastiche of several oyster recipes from CONSIDER THE OYSTER. You might think of it as oyster stew on the half-shell. Since the name seems to be as yet unclaimed, We’ll call this… * * * * * * * THE EQUIPMENT Oyster forks, oyster plates, oyster shells. The forks and plates await you on eBay. THE SHELLS The live oysters are required just for the shells, so buy them well ahead of time. Steam them until they open, then remove the oysters and discard the flat halves of the shells. You can dip these oysters in melted butter for a decadent snack; you can add them to your next bowl of chowder; or for that matter, you can feed them to your cat. Clean and dry the shells for later use. (Why not just use these oysters for this dish? Because for our purposes these oysters are too small. As you’ll see, these shells are roomy enough for oysters twice this size… like the plump, pre-shucked Chesapeakes we’ll be using. The result is a much more filling and satisfying dish.) Pro Tip: Farmed oysters tend to have nicer-looking shells. THE SPINACH AND LEEKS You won’t be cooking them together, just simultaneously. Slice the white parts of the leeks crosswise about 1/8” thick. Gently simmer on low heat, covered, in just enough water with a splash of wine until quite soft. While that is happening, sauté the spinach and butter. Set the cooked leeks and spinach aside. THE SAUCE Sauce Beurre Blanc (white butter sauce) is a classic French sauce for seafood. It also works especially well with asparagus as a lighter but equally decadent alternative to hollandaise. Like hollandaise, it breaks easily and is therefore difficult to hold at an acceptable serving temperature. But unlike hollandaise, beurre blanc can benefit from a simple kitchen hack— adding the butter to a base of reduced cream. (A lot of fancy restaurants do this.) When you google “beurre blanc,” you’ll see recipes with and without cream. Click accordingly. To summarize, you cook the minced shallot in a bit of butter and then add the wine and vinegar. Cook it down until most of the liquid has evaporated, then add the cream. It will bubble and reduce; when it thickens significantly, whisk in the butter and add salt and pepper to taste. Add a few drops of Pernod liqueur, then hold the sauce in a saucepan with the burner off, stirring periodically. THE SHELLS, AGAIN Heat up the shells in a hot oven. This is no more complicated than it sounds. You can also steam them on your stovetop, or simply dip them in boiling water. Just get them hot. THE OYSTERS Look for a container of “Chesapeake Standard Oysters” at your local seafood department. These are fabulously plump raw shucked oysters– unworthy of eating raw, yet perfect for cooking. They are far superior to pre-cooked oysters in a can, which I wouldn’t even feed to a pet. (They usually come from TCTMATCC– The Country That Makes All That Cheap Crap– and for all we know are not oysters at all, but rather… well, use your imagination.) Empty the shucked oysters and their liquor into a small saucepan and gently cook the oysters until they fluff. Remove the oysters and set aside for a moment while you reduce the liquor and add it to the beurre blanc. THE CONSTRUCTION Add a generous tablespoon or so of kosher salt to each compartment of the oyster plate in order to stabilize each oyster shell. Nestle the hot shells atop the salt in each compartment. Add about a tong pinch of the spinach to each shell. Next come the oysters atop the spinach. Follow with a small pinch of leeks, and finally a scoop of the beurre blanc. If, at first bite, you adjudge the dish in need of salt, you need only reach beneath the shell for a pinch of the kosher flakes. Optional— To elevate this dish a quantum leap higher, consider garnishing each oyster with a small scoop of American sturgeon caviar. But then this dish would become Oysters Andrea, for this is the exact dish with which I wooed my bride-to-be on our fourth date some 32 years after our third… and inspired her to propose to me a week later on our 5th. WINE I used to spout a half-serious dictum for pairing wine with oysters— Muscadet for lunch, Chablis for dinner… and Champagne for breakfast! Muscadet, a light and perky sipper from the mouth of France’s Loire, is perfect with most any seafood. Chablis is the dry and crisp version of Chardonnay from the northernmost and chilliest vineyards of Burgundy. Typically vinified without oak, it bears no resemblance to its fleshy and ripe Californian cousins. As for Champagne or sparkling wine, avoid pink and go for a pale brut or “brut sauvage” (completely sugarless.) The above-referenced Gruet Blanc de blancs is perfect. * * * * * * * Do oysters, as widely rumored for time immemorial, act as some sort of sexual stimulant or aphrodisiac? The scientists say no, although they allow that the high zinc content of oysters doesn’t hurt. I am inclined to think that oysters– whether served raw or cooked– automatically betoken a special evening and all that naturally ensues. What else should one expect of the shared enjoyment of a rare treat, one simultaneously silky and rich, so elegantly and dramatically served in its own naturally-occurring crockery as it begs to be drowned in Champagne? Get a freaking room.

Just as we christen ships and welcome the New Year, we inaugurate DANNY’S TABLE with Champagne, or at least a discussion thereof. Spoiler alert— I recommend that you don’t buy actual French Champagne unless you have so much money that you don’t mind wasting it and/or you feel the need to impress someone (boss, in-law, client, etc.) who is more concerned with a bottle’s label and pedigree than with the actual quality of its contents. (I personally avoid such people, but then again I’m a truck driver... so maybe THEY avoid ME.) But before getting to my recommendations for alternatives to Champagne, a little overview is in order. “Champagne” is the place-name for a specific wine region in northern France. Before the advent of bubbly production, it had been long known for producing light but delicious still (i.e., non-sparkling) wines from grapes that barely ripen at that northerly latitude. It is generally accepted that the bubbles were at first accidental, the result of bottling freshly-made wine whose vat fermentations had stalled in the cold autumn temperatures and then, come the following spring, restarted with the resulting carbon dioxide (a by-product of fermentation) trapped within the cork-sealed bottle. In some cases the resulting wine “winked at the brim,” displaying a delightful twinkle of carbonation. In other cases— such as especially ripe vintages followed by early winters— whole cellars-full of bottles spontaneously exploded. The French have long been masters of making virtue out of necessity. As such, they painstakingly sharpened the craft of transforming cold-climate fruit into thin, high-acid wine and then— through a legally-defined process known as méthode champenoise— inciting a second fermentation in a well-sealed (and sturdy) bottle and finally clarifying it of spent yeast. The French are also jealous guardians of their place-names, especially Champagne. In the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, for example, they insisted that the term “Champagne” refer only to sparkling wine produced in the Champagne region and by the prescribed method. But America was not a party to this treaty, and American bubbly producers were thus allowed to call their output “champagne” (albeit with a small “c”) as long as they also indicated the method of carbonation... which, in America, was usually the “charmat bulk process,” which is a) much cheaper, but b) results in something approximately halfway to beer. As Americans grew more wine-savvy beginning in the 1970’s, our wine labeling laws got stricter and more respectful of French demands, and today the term “champagne” appears on only a handful of grandfathered domestic brands. And quite coincidentally, just as Americans started awakening to the joys of table wine, our domestic bubbly suddenly got much better. Before Americans became significant wine consumers, Champagne (or its cheap knock-offs) was little more than a ritualistic tipple— the de rigeur celebratory toast at weddings, a vital accompaniment to red roses and chocolate on Valentine’s Day, and a do-or-doghouse purchase for husbands on their anniversaries. Despite an indifferent market in America, growth in worldwide demand for real Champagne paralleled post-WWII prosperity, particularly in Europe, and eventually pushed French firms to their legally-delimited production capacity. Their solution? Mon Dieu! The same folks who vehemently proclaimed the unique and superior soil and climate of the French Champagne region felt compelled to venture way west to sunny and warm California. The great Gold Rush of 1849 attracted throngs of fortune seekers to westernmost America. Whether or not their quest for wealth was successful, they found themselves in an agricultural Eden of unequaled bounty where seemingly everything that grew— including the grapes for America’s young wine industry— grew better. It didn’t take long for a few intrepid Frenchmen to find their ways west, and word found its way back to their Motherland about California’s potential for producing world-class wine. It almost wasn’t fair— whereas French vignerons in Champagne, Bordeaux, and Burgundy often watched helplessly as whole vintages were destroyed by untimely spring frosts, summer hail, or autumn rains, the California-grown grapes— the same varieties planted in France!— luxuriated in reliably warm and steady sunshine to full, exuberant ripeness. As the 1960’s dawned, high-quality Champagne-style sparkling wine was not an unknown entity in Californian winemaking, but it was a minuscule drop in the Golden State’s ocean of annual wine production, most of which was devoted to cheap jug wine in the pre-wine boom era. But then, in 1965, Schramsberg Wine Cellars began crafting what quickly became California’s benchmark bubbly, produced from premium grapes and spare-no-expense winemaking using traditional French techniques. (President Nixon brought their 1969 Blanc de Blancs to China in 1972 for a “toast to peace” with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai.) Möet et Chandon (see the first line of Queen’s first big hit, 1974’s “Killer Queen”) is the giant Champagne house responsible for the cuvée Dom Pérignon that James Bond personally popularized. They were also the first French firm to follow Schramsberg’s lead, offering two fabulous bottlings from their newly-constructed Domaine Chandon in the heart of Napa Valley, each at half the price of their French counterparts— a crisp, dry blend from two-thirds Chardonnay and one-third Pinot Noir called “Napa Valley Brut,” and a fuller-bodied, coral-hued nectar from 100% Pinot Noir labeled as “Blanc de Noirs.” Their timing was perfect. Domaine Chandon was immediately and hugely successful, and many of the other big French Champagne houses— including Taittinger, Mumm, Piper-Heidsieck, and Roederer— quickly followed their footsteps west. Fast forward to today— 50 years after the great American wine boom began and the French began making Californian bubbly, Americans have learned to enjoy California grown-and-produced Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Pinot Noir, and yet they still reserve bubbly for special occasions... a major consequence of which is that domestically-produced méthode champenoise sparkling wines from the aforementioned French producers OR one of the many all-American producers (like Schramsberg) remain a fantastic value— better bubbly for your buck than French Champagne, and often better wine PERIOD for the money than red or white still wine at the same price. Want to try the very best of these upstart Californian gems? To my palate, Roederer’s “Brut L’Ermitage” for $45-50/bottle beats the pants off the ubiquitous French Champagne Veuve Clicquot ($65, IF you can find it; artificial scarcity, anyone?) and rivals any French Champagne up to $100. Meanwhile, Schramsberg’s $35 “Blanc de Blancs” remains a worthy accompaniment to groundbreaking diplomacy (international OR marital) at a lower price than that for entry-level French Champagne. For bargain basement All-American decadence, pair it with domestic sturgeon caviar and smoked salmon. Want the best VALUE? Bottlings of Domaine Chandon, Mumm Cuvée Napa, and Piper-Sonoma remain pinned at well below $20. I personally prefer the Pinot Noir-dominant versions labeled as either “Blanc de Noirs” (which may or may not be pink) or Brut Rosé (which always is, to some degree.) My preference for pinks notwithstanding, my bride and I spent the previous two years in search of the Great American Blanc de Blancs, bubbly fashioned from only white grapes (often 100% Chardonnay, sometimes blended with Pinot Blanc for added body.) Blanc de Blancs occupies only a small portion of the bubbly market, perhaps because it requires more precise winemaking. And yet it is preferable with seafood and particularly excellent with oysters raw or cooked. It was a delightful search. Schramsberg’s entry reigned supreme; no real surprise there. However, the second-best was not only the cheapest but comes from a winery in… New Mexico? The Gruet Winery was established in 1984 by the children of French Champagne producer Gilbert Gruet. They found the growing conditions in New Mexico perfect— the dry weather and wide daynight temperature swings would yield the high acid levels so necessary for making quality bubbly. When I was a wine wholesaler two decades ago, Gruet Blanc de Blancs was vintage-dated and only produced in tiny quantities. And it was superb, displaying the yeasty richness that comes from extended bottle aging before the clarifying process. However, following the 2016 vintage, Gruet apparently decided to broaden its reach with a non-vintage marque simply labeled “Blanc de Blancs,” with the legally-required indication of its origins now reading “American” rather than “New Mexico.” This gives the winery the latitude to use fruit from California or anywhere else in the country. Another version, slightly more expensive, is labeled “Sauvage,” indicating absolute dryness. We liked the less expensive version better. In fact, we liked it better than the rest of the field save for the Schramsberg, which costs more than twice as much. We liked the Gruet Blanc de Blancs so much that we recently bought a case of it for $14.99/ bottle at our fabulous local wine store, Lisa’s Liquor Barn. * * * * * * * Whatever the color, if you want to really enjoy your bubbles, don’t wait for a special occasion— or next New Year’s Eve— to pop a cork! Drink it before dinner instead of martinis... drink it WITH dinner instead of your usual wine... hell, drink it with popcorn while snuggled up on the couch watching a movie. It’s really hard to go wrong here. (For a very long and highly detailed oral history in pdf of the development of Domaine Chandon, click here.)