There is a psychological tenet that states that the human mind behaves as if it were divided into two parts—the Thinker and the Prover—and “Whatever the Thinker thinks, the Prover proves.” If the Thinker thinks that the sun moves around the earth, the Prover will obligingly organize all perceptions to fit that thought; if the Thinker changes its mind and decides the earth moves around the sun, the Prover will reorganize the evidence. And not even “objective” scientists are immune to this way of thinking. Hell, Einstein himself would not accept anything in quantum theory after 1920 no matter how many experiments supported it! Science achieves, or approximates, objectivity not because the individual scientist is immune from the psychological laws that govern the rest of us, but because scientific method—a group creation—eventually overrides individual prejudices, in the long run.

If there is one particular topic that repeatedly falls prey to this subjectively scientific methodology, it’s the issue of eating/drinking/weight loss. It doesn’t much matter what the basis for it is. As long as it’s got the credentials of a few researchers—or better yet, the respect of having been published in some fly-by-night medical journal—the public is generally all ears. Butter was a healthy, natural food…until it wasn’t. At that point, the sacrilege known as margarine became the only sound choice to have in your fridge…until it wasn’t. Then scientists told you how bad trans fats were and that you should probably just go back to butter. Whatever the Thinker thinks, the Prover proves.

So it’s little surprise that as the years have come and gone, every Tom, dick and Harry has either warned us that a particular food/drink is unhealthy and fattening, or by opposing lauded that very same food/drink for being the next great weight-loss tool. Alcohol (wine in particular) is probably the most hilarious topic to watch in this good-for-you/bad-for-you tug of war, and I tend to watch that battle from the safety of the sidelines…with a drink in my hand. I recently read that researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, who studied the alcohol consumption of more than 19,000 women over 13 years, found that women who drank a “light to moderate amount of alcohol” (no more than two servings a day of wine, beer or liquor) tended to gain less weight than women who didn’t drink. Interestingly enough, despite the fact that the key words in those results were “gain less” they still touted the research as proving that drinking can be a weight-loss tool. I must be doing something wrong, as I’m pretty sure my two daily glasses of wine haven’t done a single fucking thing for my once-svelte waistline.

Apparently, “Women who drink moderate amounts of alcohol tend to eat less food, particularly carbohydrates,” according to cardiologist Lu Wang, lead researcher on the study and an instructor at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. I’m not even going to get into the fact that alcohol is for the most part, carbohydrates*—thus the drinker is replacing carbs with carbs—since what I find really tummy tickling is the fact that I can find a dozen other studies that will readily disprove these very conclusions. The contrarian rope yankers will tell you that people who drink alcohol regularly actually eat more because alcohol can stimulate the appetite. It’s the equivalent of having the voice in your right ear tell you that having a drink a day is good for you and helps control unhealthy eating, while the voice in your left ear tells you that a drink a day is nothing but a shitload of empty calories and should be seriously curtailed if you want to lose weight. Meanwhile, a third voice directly behind you is shouting, “Never mind about the wine, dude, lay off the damned Breyers before your ass requires its own zip code.”

It doesn’t much matter what particular food or beverage you hone in on, if your goal is to find its health benefits, rest assured that with enough research dollars you will inevitably find said benefits. If, on the other hand, your goal is to determine why that same exact gastronomic pleasure is the road to doom, you’ll no doubt find enough evidence of that as well. In the end, if it doesn’t serve to either reinforce or validate what we already believe, we will discard it as bullshit media hype…it either proves what we already thought or it’s malarkey. And it’s perhaps the puritanical need to continually dichotomize food and categorize it as either “good” or “bad” that keeps these scientists funded, telling us whatever the benefactors think they want us to hear. I, for one, intend on continuing my daily imbibing until someone can prove that I would be a better person without it—a futile pursuit, I assure you.

*Your average 12 oz beer has 5-14 grams of carbs, and 4 oz of wine averages 2-5 grams of carbs, but 1 oz distilled spirits (gin, vodka, brandy) has 0 grams of carbs. However if you go by route of an aperitif, expect anywhere from 20-30 grams of carbs per serving.

I’m going to go ahead and admit that I’ve fallen victim to the boredom of summer television and have succumbed to watching Master Chef despite the fact that I could just as easily turn the TV off and read a book, gaze at the stars or actually…you know…talk to my husband. The truth is that half the time it’s too buggy to sit outside at night, half the time I don’t wanna read until I’m in bed, half the time my husband is too busy playing the guitar to hold a conversation with, and half the time I’m bad with fractions. And what I discovered after watching a few episodes of the latest Gordon Ramsay escapade is that either Joe Bastianich is a total douche, or he’s coming off like one because of very clever and intentional editing—the goal perhaps being to make Ramsay look slightly more compassionate. And this all took me by surprise because I’m quite possibly the #1 fan of the Batali/Bastianich empire here in New York City, and given what a cool, approachable (i.e. non-douche) Batali has always been, I didn’t figure he’d be partners with someone who comes across like the human version of a thick, green, mucousy snot you can’t wait to rid yourself of, but then can’t help but stare at once you get it out.

But I’m babbling because technically this isn’t a review of the show…it’s about the child-like, uncontainable anticipation I’ve got for the latest Batali/Bastianich endeavor—an emporium called Eataly. The name alone is genius. I have countless daydreams of eating Italy, and there’s absolutely no downside to that. Glorious, still-warm buffalo mozzarella melting in my mouth, chased by a slice of guanciale and a sip of wine; skipping like a stone on the water’s surface, from butcher to baker to…uhh…Italian beer maker. Yeah, from what I understand, there’s going to be a rooftop beer garden on this place with skyline views year round, apparently a collaboration with brew masters from Dogfish Head, Russian River Brewing, Birrifico Le Baladin and Birra del Borgo. 50,000 square feet of Italian goodness, including a steakhouse, a pizzeria, a cooking school, a wine bar, a bookshop, and stores that sell everything from porcini to prosciutto. Excuse me while I wipe the very unlady-like drool from my chin.

Here’s some of what you’ll be able to find there, if you get there (200 Fifth Avenue, between 23^rd and 24^th). Frankly, if you’re half the foodie you think you are, a small road trip should never be out of the question for a slice of Italian gluttony. It opens this coming Tuesday, and I’m planning on waiting a week or so and then heading in with an empty stomach, a loaded wallet and a map—a more precarious position to put myself in than leaving Rush Limbaugh alone behind a pharmacy counter…

Café – A Lavazza coffee bar, and other counters specializing in panini, Venchi chocolate, house-made gelato and desserts by popular pastry chef Luca Montersino, who will whip up everything from apple strudel to “mini dolci” like amaretto mousse with moscato.

Miscellaneous Marketplace – There will be sections dedicated to jarred Italian specialty items like olive oils, tomato sauces and antipasti, dairy, cookies and snacks, tea and coffee, chocolate, fruits and jams and Italian water and beer.

Le Verdure (vegetables) - The dishes at this eatery will showcase locally sourced produce at the height of the season, including stinging nettle lasagna with pesto and bechamel, pappa al pomodoro (tomato and bread soup) and warm vegetable salad with chicory, radicchio and escarole.

Vegetable Butcher – Jennifer Rubell will wash, cut and clean vegetables that you purchase at no charge. The produce section will feature only seasonal, locally grown vegetables.

Salumi e Formaggi (salumi and cheese) – Everything from prosciutto di Parma to grana padano, sliced at the counter or packaged to grab and go.

Il Pesce (fish) – Esca chef David Pasternack’s daily-changing menu will be driven by the best the market has to offer—from fish cooked simply with olive oil and lemon to a Ligurian-style seafood salad, rounded out by seasonal sides. There will also be a fish monger.

Manzo (meat) – The only restaurant in Eataly with a reservation policy (and an official name) this Italian steakhouse helmed by former Babbo sous-chef Michael Toscano will offer antipasti, dry-aged steaks and American-sourced La Razza Piemontese, a unique breed of cattle low in saturated fat. A specialty of the house is carne crudo. There will also be a beef tasting menu, a full bar and outdoor seating.

La Scuola – A small school headed up by dean Lidia Bastianich, who will occasionally teach classes. There will be seminars with artisans, chefs and winemakers that culminate in special dinners, as well as those that focus on the nutrition, sociology and chemistry of food. Classes will begin in October.

Butcher – Both American and Italian cuts of meat will be available. There is also a section for roasted meats.

La Pizza/La Pasta - A corner of Eataly will be dedicated to pasta and pizza, with mezzanine seating to accommodate overflow. Rossopomodoro, a Naples-based restaurant group, is importing two wood-burning pizza ovens—and the pizzaiolos to run them—to turn out authentic, wood-fired Neapolitan pies using fresh mozzarella made daily in-house. There will also be traditional preparations of pasta, both dried and fresh, a smattering of salads and appetizers, and a takeout window on East 24th Street.

Piazza – This wine bar will serve dishes from stations dedicated to raw seafood, Italian cured meats and cheeses and fresh mozzarella made daily on the premises using milk from Battenkill Valley Creamery.

Bread – “We’re going to have the best bread in Manhattan,” says Joe Bastianich of the loaves baked daily in a wood-fired oven. American baker Nancy Silverton will oversee an array of foccacia.

Crudo (raw bar) – Stock up on raw delights, while getting a front-row seat to the chef as he prepares dishes.

Bookstore – A partnership with Rizzoli, this culinary corner is primarily dedicated to cookbooks focusing on Italian food and wine.

Housewares – Expect shelves stocked with high-design household items from Alessi and Guzzini, cookware from Sambonet, espresso makers from Bialetti and more.

Wine Store – This shop will sell only Italian wine, including those from the Bastianich vineyards.

*All photos property of Serious Eats.

Any man who quotes Anaïs Nin in a book about wine automatically gets bonus Gonzo points from me, and if in same said book he’s got wordplay with Blue Öyster Cult lyrics, well I develop a crush that tends to sway me to overlook the fact that I needed to keep a dictionary handy while reading his book, despite being a wordsmith myself, because I’ve simply never had cause to use words like ecumenical or pusillanimous. Terry Theise, iconic importer and rock star wannabe, will be the first to tell you that “there’s a lot of lousy prose and shallow thinking out there” in the world of wine writing, but his is as far removed from that sad description as wine writing can possibly get, and I’m thankful for it.

My bookshelves are burdened down with tomes about wine. They’re bowed with the weight of books given biblical status for their wealth of information and books that serve as little more than romantic memoirs about wine-soaked lives. But there are very few—in fact only one other I can think of besides this, Nossiter’s Liquid Memory—that exist as visceral dissertations on what wine does…move us. Theise’s new book, Reading Between the Wines, speaks of wine having the capability of being a portal to the mystic, and his conviction to this end is utterly seductive. There were points when I found myself reading his proselytizing out on my deck well past twilight, sometimes laughing out loud, sometimes nodding in passionate agreement, and other times lost in his candor. It’s no small coincidence that Terry describes taking wine-tasting notes as often being obtrusive when you are engaged in what you’ve just experienced, because I felt the same about trying to take notes while reading this book—“it’s like ignoring a rainbow so you can balance your checkbook.”

Theise’s argument for terroir is impeccable, and one that I imagine would convince even the most hardened New Worlders to bend with the breeze, if only because his argument is sound…logical…clear. He manages to straddle the murky fault line between spirit and substance—between ethos, pathos and logos—and he manages to do it while jibing you about Chateau Bluebols at the same time. I imagine Terry to be the kind of guy that makes you feel like a complete dickhead for being lulled into complacency by the gears of the wine industry, and then consoles you as you lick your wounds by offering you a glass of the most delicate, mind-blowing riesling you’ve ever let pass your lips. For the limited amount of time we have in our lives to imbibe, it begs the question, why drink what doesn’t move you? Why drink the enological equivalent of white noise? His rhetoric is both compelling and convincing.

I have but one gripe with Reading Between the Wines and that is its forced linearity for a style of writing that is otherwise so intrinsically organic. It’s like taking an e.e. cummings poem, dissecting it and cramming that dissection into an eighth-grade lit class outline. At times, Terry’s views were broken down into a sort of laundry list, and that sacrificed some of the book’s “naturalness” in my opinion, but that’s probably also partly me being a pain in the ass after one too many glasses of nowhere wine. In all honesty, when I read his description of a red Burgundy, “If truffles had orgasms, they might emit this fragrance” I’m nearly certain my schoolgirl crush kicked in, and I probably just started looking for any reason to find flaw with Theise so that the spell would be broken. Reading Between the Wines is easily the most passionate, poetic, and necessary book on wine I’ve ever read, and it ended all way too soon.

When the bacon-on-everything fad has long gone (and believe me, it will go), I’ll still be the one hoarding my rendered bacon fat, smoking my own pork belly and baking my own pig candy—as certain as death and taxes. But I’m the first to admit that I’m pretty giddy about bacon being ubiquitous right now, because I’ve got a crush on my porcine friends that my husband, in all his self-assured masculinity, is willing to overlook. I’ve seen it in the sweet, like Bacon and Eggs Ice Cream; in sips, like PDT’s bacon-infused Old Fashioned; and in the mind-blowingly sublime, like bacon-wrapped pork belly, and it has never failed to lend itself to that sort of oral orgasm that occurs every now and again when you’ve just managed to place a piece of gastronomic perfection in your mouth. Contrasting flavors, contrapuntal textures and complementary aromas—boo yah baby…take me to the river and baptize my soul. But I digress.

I’ve done some playing myself, like my late-night inspiration, Chocolate Fluffernutter Cupcakes with Stout-Caramelized Bacon, so when I saw bacon and chocolate being packaged together—two indispensible, not-worth-living-without Godsends—I began drooling in the aisle like some homeless, starved Siberian Husky staring down a porterhouse. The fact that peanut brittle was also involved made it a damned ménage á trois of flavor, and I was powerless despite the $6 price tag for what amounted to 4 pieces of glorified candy. This shit was artisanal—foodiespeak for “blow your paycheck”. But Sir Francis Bacon Chocolate Peanut Brittle was like that jackass that inevitably takes your virginity…an utter letdown. Everything I’d read about Sir Francis came in the form of rave review, but in my case it only served to reconfirm what my father-in-law always lectures (giving no credit to Ben Franklin) about believing nothing of what you hear and only half of what you see.

Sir Francis says its bacon peanut brittle is made with “artisan smoked bacon and USA-grown peanuts…all natural and altogether different” so I expected balance. Counterpoint too, mind you, but balance nonetheless. What I got was sweet smoke. I wanted the saltiness of the peanuts to play against the sweet chocolate, and I wanted the savory bacon to do the same, but it tasted as if it had been doused with liquid smoke and dipped in mass-produced, inferior chocolate. If I’m not making my point clear enough, this will: The open box sat on my kitchen counter for well over two weeks, unfinished until my husband ate it in a fit of boredom one night. Quality chocolate doesn’t last two days in my home, much less two weeks. Anything bacon related usually meets with the same fate. But alas, I just kept passing by it, flipping it the bird for toying with me so.

Then, a week later, I see a bar of Vosges’ Mo’s Milk Chocolate Bacon Bar calling to me like a siren from the check-out aisle at Chef Central—those bastards know just where to place those “impulse items” thanks to Marketing To Katie 101. You’d think I’d be more hesitant…more reluctant…more cautious, but again, much like the post-mortem of having lost your virginity, you keep going back for more, determined to see what the fucking hoopla is all about. And weakling that I am, this time I paid even more, coughing up $7.50 for the bar. Thank god my hopes were redeemed. This had no peanuts or brittle, but man did the flavor of smoked bacon come through. It was a beautiful marriage of sweet and savory. You’d think that between the smoked bacon and the smoked salt that Vosges uses it would be overwhelmingly smoky, but it wasn’t…not even close. The only thing I didn’t get—with both products—is why the hell they weren’t made with dark chocolate, when these flavor profiles all but beg for a slightly bitter chocolate. Turns out Vosges does also make this same bar with dark chocolate, the store just didn’t carry it, dolts that they are…evidence that they only passed Marketing to Katie 101 by the skin of their teeth.

I was reminded yesterday of what elusive element it was that made me fall incorrigibly in love with wine a couple of decades ago, and what that element means to me today with the oceans-worth of wines that are out there being made. Wine writers, makers and marketers often throw around the word terroir as if it were some mystical, unattainable, spiritual ether—and oftentimes that makes them easy targets for those that poo-poo the idea of terroir as a gimmick—but those of us that have managed to shut up just long enough to hear a wine speak of place know that those are the only ones worth really seeking out in life. This isn’t all to say that a wine always needs to be “serious” and thought provoking, as sometimes the simplest of pleasures are not only satisfying but also gratifying. But what wine should be at all times is a resident. If it can’t tell me where it’s from, I lose interest…quickly.

It happened to be that while these thoughts were hitting home I was drinking a sample wine sent to me for review—Marco Real’s 2007 Tempranillo from the Navarra region of Spain. Navarra is most well known for its merlots believe it or not, but I was drawn to this bottle because, of all the samples sent it was the only one that was 100% tempranillo, a grape most famously hailing from the Rioja region which sits just south of Navarra. Spain in general has seen quite a revolution with its young winemakers, many of whom are pursuing a more “modern” taste profile for their wines. While I’m busy waxing eloquent about old world Riojas like R. Lopez de Heredia, these young guns are running as far away from that style of wine as possible, aiming instead for a California-like wine that clubs you over the head like an enological 2 x 4. So when I poured this young wine into a glass, its inkiness took me by surprise. It looked more like a fucking zinfandel than it did a tempranillo…and, in fact, it tasted more like one, too.

What I thought to myself was, this wine could come from anywhere. And if that’s the case, then this wine comes from nowhere. There was absolutely no way to have pegged this as a Spanish tempranillo (perhaps I’m at fault for constantly comparing it to its more elegant Rioja brethren, but…well…tough shit.) I wanted some sort of bearing—some sort of sense of home—but what I got was a wine that, while tasting OK, couldn’t be pegged as a resident. Call it, for lack of a better term, a wine “without country”. And while it’s certainly worth its $10 price tag as a technically unflawed, completely potable wine, I don’t have enough years left in my life to spend them on wines that are lost.

I want wines that have an identity…wines that have a personality…wines that, for better or worse, have a home, because it helps complete my experience in drinking them. I can close my eyes and taste a dozen chardonnays that have been manipulated eighty ways ‘til Sunday and not be able to discern whether they were made in California, Australia or Chile—I have no connection to them because they are commodities. Why would I ever want to bother with something I can’t connect with? These aren’t of any use to me…they don’t matter. Even the simplest of rosés from Provence, ever quaffable on a hot afternoon, matters because it differentiates itself from a rosé made in Tavel, and it sure as hell differentiates itself from the gallons and gallons of “white zinfandel” being made today. This isn’t any deep, esoteric soul search for Christ’s sake…it’s arguing a case for point of origin. I simply don’t have the time or the inclination to spend on wines that can’t show me what there home is like, and as I get older, my patience wears thin for those wines that don’t have a map and compass.

Over all, I’m not one who tends to frequent Italian restaurants that haven’t been personally recommended by someone that knows my lack of enthusiasm towards them…especially those that cater towards the American “bastardization” of Italian dishes…and especially those in New Jersey. As luck (or lack thereof) would have it, I ate at two last week, and my experiences at both of them made for a classic case of Angels vs. Demons—of Italian restaurants. The fact that one of these restaurants committed a clusterfuck of transgressions would normally have me reminding you just how many fools I’m willing to suffer for your entertainment, but the truth of that matter is that I laughed nearly all the way home, wondering just how long it would be before these guys showed up on an episode of Kitchen Nightmares.

I’m bound to get flack for this, but I seriously seldom bother with the majority of Italian restaurants in my state. I know there are a few good ones (because they are the ones that get my business) but most of them are just a regurgitation of what Americans have come to expect: chicken, eggplant or just about anything else “parmigiana”, meatballs as dense as Paris Hilton, penne vodka, and carbonaras and alfredos drenched in cream. But when we got together for a girls’ night out last week, we were supposed to be headed for a German restaurant in Hawthorne, so overcooked pasta and undercooked risotto were the last thing on my mind. That quickly changed when we took one look at the place. The consensus at that point became, “screw this place, what else is nearby and how stiff are their drinks?” A few suggestions were tossed around but we settled on a new Italian joint called Vivi that had just recently opened up a couple of blocks up. My sister-in-law and I were pretty hesitant about the place, but it was local and reasonably priced. The fact that it said “creative cuisine” on its awning was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a good sign…it was the sign, apparently, of a “Demon” Italian restaurant.

After seven of us lovely ladies sat at a round table in the corner, our waiter—a 60-something, Italian-American divorcee that could easily have scooped up a roll on The Sopranos—began flirting with a couple of us while he opened our wines. I liken this overt flirtation with women approximately half his age to the nausea that overcomes you when you read in the backseat of a car. After a few humoring giggles he was gone, tossing about in a manic rush despite the fact that there weren’t that many full tables. Every other menu item we asked about, by the way, was either “unbelievable, amazing or melted in your mouth.” By the time he came back to take our order, the din of 7 hungry ladies was completely outdone by his idiot son/maître d’ who stood at the front desk, on the phone, yelling at whoever was on the other end that he “paid the fuckin’ bank” and that he was gonna “fuckin’ smoke him.” Ahh, lovely dinner banter.

Then there was the food. The lump-crab meat appetizer that we ordered supposedly came served on top of mango. What it actually came served on top of were mango peel slices. The meal I wanted to order—shrimp and wild mushrooms over spaghetti—was a no-go because they were out of shrimp. “Can you just replace the shrimp with scallops or such?” I asked. No way…they were out of scallops, too. I asked how exactly they were able to make the dinner special that consisted of a crépe stuffed with shrimp, fish, etc. if they were out of shrimp, and was told that those were made “ahead of time.” Like an asshole, I ordered the special. What I got wasn’t a crépe, but a burrito-like, thick tortilla, and it wasn’t stuffed with shrimp and fish, it was stuffed with a few little chunks of shrimp and a few tiny shards of fish, and mostly stuffed with what I’m guessing was a mixture of bread crumbs and God knows what else. While we ate, the maître d’s cell phone rang at the front desk and that prompted another slew of threats that weren’t even remotely mumbled under breath, spewed instead with a thick Italian accent. Dessert, by the time we got to it, consisted of typical options like tartufo, spumoni, cannoli, and chocolate mousse cake. The cannoli, the life-threatening son actually admitted, wasn’t much good and they were out of the chocolate mousse cake (big surprise). So a couple of the girls ordered some almond-flavored cake while one of the busboys gallantly returned from the liquor store with a huge jug of Gallo wine and poured the waiter and son a brim-full glass so the son could then proceed to sit with a friend at the table next to us and explain to said friend how he “swears on his mother” (why is it always the mother?!) that he’s gonna “smoke this guy.” The cake, by the way, was decent.

It was only a couple of days later that my husband and I decided to treat ourselves to a nice night out (with the kid) at a local, yet remote Italian restaurant called Momento. Quite the antithesis of Vivi, I wasn’t greeted by a horny Italian divorcee…I was greeted by a doting Albanian maître d’ who gently kissed my hand and showed us our seat. There were no menacing threats made over a phone line, no swearing, and no gilding of the menu items. Instead we had a gregarious waiter who entertained us with a couple of little-known facts about the history of various alcoholic beverages and yet knew instinctively when to leave us alone. There was no trace of Amercanized Italian food on the menu, save perhaps for the lobster ravioli. The carpaccio I ordered was delicious and my shrimp and wild mushroom risotto (damned if I wasn’t gonna finally get my shrimp and mushrooms) was perfectly cooked, with enormous chunks of shrimp and scallops tossed throughout. My son’s lamb chops (9 small ones) were a beautiful medium-rare, and I’d gladly tell you about my husband’s Bolognese were it not for the fact that I was so wrapped up in my meal that I wasn’t even courteous enough to ask how his was. An empty plate, however, sufficed for an answer.

When we told the waiter we had to leave without dessert or coffee because our son wasn’t feeling well, we weren’t given dirty looks—we were given sympathetic ones, with an offer to return soon for a “full” meal. The waiter, busboy and maître d’ were all the kind of people you felt like hugging on the way out after you paid your bill. You felt as if they actually enjoyed your company and wanted you to return not so much for your patronage but merely for your presence. They didn’t blatantly work at schmoozing for a tip, and that’s precisely why they earned a good one. I’ll gladly return to Momento a hundred times over before I’d even remotely consider stepping foot inside Vivi again.

Darren Rowse over at ProBlogger put forth a bit of a challenge for bloggers a few days ago that I thought might be worth doing, despite the fact that I’m not usually one for memes…only one that’s kinda stuck with me is Wordless Wednesday, and though you’d think that one only sticks because I’ve got a streak of lazy in me, the truth is that sometimes, finding a great image and an appropriate song lyric title to match require more energy and thought than writing a post with…you know…words. So this is called the 7 Link Challenge—technically that should be hyphenated, and you’d think a “ProBlogger” would know that, but whatever. The idea is to publish a post that is a list of 7 links to posts that I’ve written that respond to the following 7 categories. I gotta say, this truly was a challenge, because making a choice for these categories wasn’t always easy. Some of you sick weirdos won’t find anything interesting or new here because you’ve been reading this blasted blog since its inception, so for you I have…a pocket full of lint…nothing, I have absolutely nothing. Go eat a sandwich. As for the rest of you, strap on your helmets, wrap your arms around my waist and don’t let the engine burn your thighs, cuz here we go:

Your First Post – “Well, I stand up next to a mountain, and I chop it down with the edge of my hand…” My very first post was pretty much an introduction to what you could expect out of Gonzo Gastronomy. As usual, I drew a metaphor from music in the form of Jimi Hendrix’s performance of our National Anthem on the final morning at Woodstock. It was also because of this christening that I decided to forego post titles and instead use a song lyric for each post that somehow related to whatever I was writing about. And hey, 3 comments right out of the starting gate…not too shabby.

A post you enjoyed writing the most – “And woman I will try express, my inner feelings and thankfulness…” I enjoyed writing this not so much because it was fun to “put on paper” but because it was cathartic, and because I was able to sing the praises of 2 crucial women in my life. Usually I’m either spewing venom or heaping kudos, but this was a post about reflection, about remembrance and about dedication. I wrote it while choking back a lot of tears, but those tears managed to wash away the sense of loss, leaving behind only joyous memories. Looking through old photos to find one to post was a process as well.

A post which had a great discussion – “I can feel no sense of measure, no illusion as we take refuge in young man’s pleasure…” This one could have easily fallen into the previous category, but when the third person to leave a comment on your post is the iconic Randall Grahm, well the rest of the discussion becomes gravy…really awesome, dark, rich, umami-laden gravy. This was a post about Frank Cornelissen’s natural wines and the ongoing discussion about the place and purpose of natural wines. The writing poured out of me as naturally (no pun intended) as if I had opened a vein, so to see the great discussion that ensued because of it was a boon…or should I say a Doon.

A post on someone else’s blog that you wish you’d written – Footnotes to Sub-terroir Rhônesick Blues Lord knows the Deadly Sins usually have an open invitation to the revolving door that is my home, but Envy isn’t usually one of them. So this isn’t so much a post I wish I had written but one I admired tremendously, not only as a cork dork, but also as a music geek and a writer. Unfortunately, a lot of food/wine writing is done by folks who, as much as they love their topic, are not writers at heart. But every once in a while you come across someone like Randall Grahm (yeah, I’m mentioning him twice…so what? Bite me.) who not only longs to get to the soul of winemaking, but also knows how to turn a phrase—plus you gotta love a man who often has more footnotes than he does prose. Randall’s revamp of Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” as “Sub-terroir Rhônesick Blues” is like some sort of crazy mind jerk for those who have wine, music and literature running through their veins.

Your most helpful post – “I’m so glad that I know more than I knew then…” This was definitely one of those “get the fuck out of here!” posts for a lot of readers because it debunked a lot of food and beverage myths. I tend to enjoy being a wiseass as most of you know, so the opportunity to show off my otherwise-useless food knowledge while simultaneously putting a lot of other foodies in their place was irresistible. Everything from caffeine to mayo and peppers got their 15 minutes of fame…or infamy depending on how you look at it. Either way, I’ve got readers that still refuse to believe me on some of those factoids!

A post with a title that you are proud of – “She don’t use butter, she don’t use cheese, she don’t use jelly or any of these…” Not only was this the absolute perfect song lyric choice as the title of this post, but it was also the only time a few readers actually responded to the lyrics/title and the band they came from. You’ve gotta give up a lot of respect for readers that both recognize and love the Flaming Lips…mad props! And as a post about lazy, fat-infused cooking and why we should aspire to more than that, it got nearly 50 comments which totally jingles my bells.

A post that you wish more people had read – “If it was a straight mind you had, we wouldn’t have known you all these years…” What I’ve come to realize after a couple of years of doing this is that oftentimes, the post you are most stoked about…the one you are positive will get a slew of responses…are inevitably the ones that are left to languish, alone and pitiful. And the ones you least contemplate…the ones that pour out of you like some sort of automatic writing assuming that no one is listening…are the ones that get commented on as if they were Finnegans Wake II. I wanted this post to inspire. I wanted it to wake a bunch of people the fuck up out of their complacent place in the kitchen and make them rethink how they approach cooking. I wanted Oblique Strategies to change readers. It didn’t.