Or he could have just nattered on

about an umlaut. 

Ode

to a particular island.

The talons

have landed, and it's great news for Dallas eaters and readers. 

(Thanks to Alfonso for the tip; I must be on a shit list.) 

Have chestnuts

will add pine nuts and figs and bacon and sausage and more. 

Tuscan candidates

Brunello: "When young, unstable; when older, unreliable." Sounds like the guy everyone wanted to have a beer with eight years ago. 

I'll have

what he's been having. 

A fate worse

than cheese judging: pushing wine in a pole bar. David Mamet couldn't dream this up.

Scary enough

to hear Daniel Schorr singing "Buddy, Can You Spare a Dime?" But it gets worse. And worse. 

Fatty Arbuckle,

meet America. "Shag a hot heiress and become a contender for president?" This Bud's for you.  

Oh, and there's this by way of this great stuff. If printed books weren't going the way of newspapers, I'd steer him to an agent. 

Mme Sarkozy

is just as easy as you've read. Funny, I've thought Italian cooking is getting more French and have almost reconsidered an old rant. 

Slow food day

but wine? Nice. 

Subway lunch and dinner for a month, though, are not going to nourish future fossils to fuel future cars. . . 

Stick a California roll in him

I hate it when I get sucked into the drool of Panchito -- the Italian expert who mistook a sociopathic dry drunk for a good ol' boy and now apparently has not noticed all the sushi in his faux homeland -- but the staycation aspect redeems it. No Tuscany for me this year. 

But I'm not going to feel guilty

drinking $7.97 Veramonte sauvignon blanc from Chile. I hear the wolf out on the horizon. . .

(And I don't think nonsubscribers can read these online, but the WSJournal today has two accidental-life-during-wartime stories: people planting vegetables instead of flowers for their own Victory Gardens, and women giving up pantyhose. This time, though, no one has to draw a seam up the back of her calves.)

Sunlight, held together by water

Thanks to the only wine writer whose wine writing is a must-read three times a week, I now know I have something in common with the evil one -- and it's not toilet paper in a crocheted doll in my bathroom.* We're both Tolerant tasters, according to the bud test. Considering I remember uncorking a Georgia peach "wine" with friends in a rental house in the Outer Banks when that was the last bottle standing at the end of the getaway, that's probably no surprise. Bottled poetry, limericks -- they're all good.

*Funny what you get when you search Youtube for Mondovino Robert Parker: