Luxury Bong Water Now Available

Several months ago, our local bottled water purveyor brought two executives from Pellegrino into our restaurant for dinner. As they sat at the bar digesting their meals with alcohol and animated chatter, I stopped by to say hello.

"Have you seen our new product?" the rep asked as she produced a bottle of water from her bag. "We're very excited about it."

I held the bottle, thought to myself how good it felt in the hand and noted that it was "ribbed for her pleasure", which is what I say to myself whenever I see anything ribbed, thanks to a condom advertisement I saw in an adult magazine I should not have been looking at as a child. What I enjoyed most about the bottle was its name, 420.



Were they serious? I pictured the Pellegrino executives lighting up, ties loosened and calling each other dude in Italian, or whatever the equivalent would be. I said nothing, but started to snigger.

"What's funny?" she asked, puzzled. I wiped the smirk from my face and, as seriously as I could, asked one of the pezzi grossi, "Tell me, what made you decide to name this water '420'?"

"I like the way the numbers look. The '4' looks like an 'h', as in 'h20'," he responded. I could tell he was proud of his Northern Italian sense of design. Oh dear. Did I have the heart to tell him?

Of course I did.

"Do you know what '420' means in American slang?" He did not, so I told him.

For those of you not in the know or pretending not to be, "420" is shorthand for marijuana. The term is believed to have originated in the early 1970's at San Rafael High School, where a group of teenagers would meet after school at 4:20 p.m. around the statue of Louis Pasteur to smoke marijuana. I am assuming they were mindful of Pasteur's Germ Theory and washed their hands prior to their illegal activity. How this tradition became widely accepted is unknown to me apart from the fact that, when stoned, people seem to think just about anything is a good idea. Whatever the case, the tradition spread and today April 20th is a day of much celebration and binge-snacking throughout the nation, though somewhat on the sly.

I explained this to the surprised and unsmiling Pellegrino people. I dug myself a slightly deeper hole by telling them that their product might be perceived as luxury bong water, but that this wasn't necessarily a bad thing, since they would have a built-in sub-culture market.

After explaining to them what a bong was, I thanked them for the bottle and went back to waiting on my tables.

Had I just just come across the liquid equivalent of the Chevy Nova? There are far worse examples, certainly.

Recently, while cleaning my desk (where the bottle has been used as a paperweight/ conversation piece), I noticed a website address printed on the back of the water bottle, www.fineh2o.com...

"Luxury by the liter." I had hoped they might opt for "ounce", but that would be too American.

Clicking for more information about 420, I was informed that this water comes from the Southern Alps of New Zealand and was deposited when my "great, great grandmother was the same age as [me]. Which is a fabulous story to tell someone [I'm] trying to pick up in a bar."

I somehow doubt any of my great, great grandmothers were concerning themselves with luxury water. Unless one considers irrigating crops a luxury. They were too busy occupying themselves with things like losing social status in the aftermath of Italy's unification, crossing over from Spain to marry into Sicilian crime families, and not assimilating well into white culture, preferring to sleep on bearskin rugs with trappers in Montana who were not their husbands.

And if I were to pick up anyone in a bar, I most likely wouldn't be talking about water, let alone drinking it. But that's just me.

Another fascinating brand of water from Fine H2O is Heartsease, from Wales, where the Heartsease Pansy grows. In my mind, heartsease is two letters away from heart disease, so it makes me uncomfortable, no matter how cute the pansies are. I think I'm just a little surprised that these two unfortunately named products come from essentially Anglophone countries.

I admit that I am no water snob. Apart from an extreme loathing of Chicago tap water-- which tastes of exhausted Zebra Mussels, I am happy to drink from the local tap, especially ours. I do, of course, realize that there are differences in the flavors and textures of water from various sources-- rainwater vs. spring water, etc.-- I'm simply too occupied with other things to pay these differences much mind. I left such things to my brother who, on one occasion, spent an entire day at Vichy running around the various fountains excitedly sampling every type of h2o he could find, while the invalids who flocked there to take the waters for their health sat around with graduated beakers waiting to take sips in measured amounts at appointed intervals. He even brought home water from Lourdes in a plastic Virgin Mary-shaped bottle to be enjoyed later. Given current airline restrictions pertaining to liquids, I wonder if the good people at that holy shrine have adapted to the times with a 3 oz. version of Our Lady. Perhaps the local priests might go so far as to bless the clear Ziploc bags in which she must now travel. That would be a nice touch.

I have not seen the Pellegrino representative in our restaurant since that evening. I would like to assume that she was allowed to keep her job, since she wasn't the one responsible for naming the water. Of course, the Pellegrino people evidently don't care about the alternative meaning behind their water's branding. Not enough to change it, anyway. I'm rather glad. I was so disappointed when Coors abandoned their Spanish translated slogan of "Turn It Loose" once it was learned that the phrase was read as "Suffer From Diarrhea".

To purchase a case of 420 for your next social event, call 1-888-24-WATER or email them at info@fineh2o.com. Just please don't tell them I sent you.

Brini Maxwell: Drag Queen of Domesticity

I wish I'd thought of that little tag line, but I didn't.

Sometimes, I think I spend far too much time sitting in front of my computer. Instead of doing something beneficial to myself, like exercising or cleaning my refrigerator, I troll sites like neatorama and thesuperficial.com. I've wasted hours online staring at folks making shadow puppets, shuddering over videos of people with unspeakable deformities, and chiding myself for trying to understand someone as crazy as that former Mouseketeer, Brittany Spears. You never saw Annette getting into that kind of trouble. No way.

Fortunately, there is an occasional payoff to my time investment. Enter Brini Maxwell.

I have no idea how she got onto my computer screen, but I am very glad she did. Full of chat, recipes and household tips, Maxwell calls upon the spirits of domestic icons past like Donna Reed and Florence Henderson yet manages to steer clear of mere caricature. As graceful as Dina Merrill (whose delicious strawberry pancakes seem like a slap in the face to her Post cereal heiress mother) and more helpful than Josephine the Plumber, I think she defies comparison, which might suit Maxwell just fine, especially when the occasional attempt has been made to label her the "new" Martha Stewart. As she told The Advocate in 2004:

"I don't consider myself the next Martha Stewart, I consider myself the next Sue Ann Nivens! I just think it's like comparing apples and oranges. We talk to different types of people--my audience tends to be very urban, and I think that Martha's audience is more suburban."

I don't see how anyone with such an impressive collection of vintage cookware (not to mention her inexhaustible wardrobe) could be accused of being a "new" anything. And anyone who uses Sue Ann Nivens as a role model is aces in my book.

Here's a teaser for the episode Meatloaf a la Janet Leigh...



Swedish meatballs, deviled eggs and bridge sandwiches? You'll find out how to make them along with advice on how to maximize your urban living (and entertaining) potential-- on a budget. It's a "how to" show delivered by a "can do" gal-- fortunately one with more than a teaspoon of wit and a hell of a lot of style. I can't wait to try out her recipe for Crown Roast of Cheese.

Brini Maxwell (created by actor Ben Sander, by the way) has been wildly popular for years in New York-- I've never claimed cutting edge. I just feel that, given the appalling social skills I've witnessed among certain communities in this city, San Francisco needs a good dose of her-- like, immediately. Think of this as a public service announcement.

I just subscribed to her NPR video podcast, so I won't miss a thing. I suggest some of you do, too. And I mean now. You know who you are.

Now why didn't you think of that?

The Mother of All Cooking Shows

This week marks both the birthday and deathday, if there is such a word, of Julia Child. The fact that no one in my culinary circle has mentioned either event upsets me. Where are the parades? Is anyone laying a wreath of Bay Laurel on her grave?

Some people old enough to do so talk of where they were when they heard of John F. Kennedy's assassination. I am not that old, so I had to come up with my own where-was-I memories. Karen Carpenter? I was on my way to the newly opened EPCOT Center, the day marred by the endless loop of Superstar running through my brain. Jacqueline Kennedy? Don't get me started.

The most vivid death for me was Julia Child's. I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing. I was sitting in a traffic jam owing to a fallen tree, crammed into a rental car with five friends near Jemez, New Mexico.

It was a Friday in mid-August, 2004. We were returning from a hike in the mountains and a soak in the local hot springs where, the moment we shucked our clothes and hopped in the steaming water, a hailstorm hit us. And I do mean hit us. It was as though God had opened his comedy closet filled with ping pong balls right onto our heads. Hailstones the size of mothballs screamed down from 10,000 feet, striking us directly or ricocheting off rocks to pelt us in the face. The only safe place was a crag already occupied by a tiny, freakish man-- a naked troll with golden dental work-- who sat there safe and grinning at his good luck and our misfortune. The couple soaking below us held an oversized umbrella over their heads. Everyone seemed prepared except us. When the attack subsided, we dressed and slumped back to the car, some of us bloodied, all of us bruised.

We were singing stupid songs and fogging up the windows, going nowhere very slowly and laughing about the terrible afternoon we'd just experienced. I had written the word "buffalo" with my index finger on the windshield which, for some reason, was funny only to myself. As I considered explaining to my fellow travelers exactly why it was funny, a radio newscaster announced the death of Julia Child, two days shy of her 92nd birthday.

My first thought was a sad one-- Now I'll never get to meet Julia Child-- egocentric, I know. I thought she'd had a good run of it, at least.

My attentioned turned to math, briefly. Two days shy of her 92nd birthday? Since, the day was Friday, August 13th-- which would explain the afternoon we were having-- that put her birthday at August 15th, my brother's birthday.

My brother and I had had a competition going about who's birthday was more significant, his or mine. I touted the fact that I shared my birthday with not only Sally Struthers, but our maternal grandfather and, what I thought was my trump card, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis. I liked to throw in the fact that World War One officially started on that date for good measure. He countered with Rose-Marie and the fact that his day was a holy day of obligation in the Catholic church- the Feast of the Assumption (which, as my friend Bill loves to point out, is called Maria Himmelfahrt in German). Since nuns came to pin medals on his pillow the day he was born, he always claimed victory. He never mentioned the fact that he shared the day with Julia Child. I wonder if he ever new. I'd give him the crown for that coincidence alone.

We weren't a Julia Child-loving family. No one to my knowledge watched The French Chef. I'd watch re-runs of the Galloping Gourmet, but only out of the corner of my eye because I was too busy building mazes for my hamster out of Lincoln Logs. To me, Julia Child was just some tall lady with a funny voice who cooked and everyone from Dan Ackroyd to John Candy made fun of. I'd always thought of her as some grande dame, her nose as far above the jokes and pokes as her 6' 2" body would hold it.

I'd bought The Way To Cook when I was in college, as did many of my friends, because I was serious about cooking. It was and is a serious cookbook-- step by step and about as how-to as they get. But I only sought pointers, I knew nothing of finesse and had no sense of humor about cooking-- I was too intimidated by it. I certainly didn't think I'd find either in the work of Julia Child. Of course, I'd never seen her television program.

It wasn't until several year's later when I fell into a job working for Jacques Pepin that I heard she had a sense of humor. Pepin, fresh from taping a television show with Child, told us stories of how, when wine-maker sponsers visited the set of their show, she insisted on serving beer. Other stories followed that fairly shattered the previous image I'd formed of her. She wasn't the droning, Yankee bore obsessed with detail I'd made her out to be from her book and my own imagination. It's hard to imagine that I never remembered seeing her on television before, but it's true. The humor and charm that Pepin described surprised me, but it was her puckishness that left me wanting more of her. However unbearable the rest of my experience on Pepin's show, I came away with that wonderful knowledge.

It wasn't until last year that I was finally able to see episodes of The French Chef. My friend John recieved a DVD boxed set of the series' best episodes for his birthday. An ace home cook and successful cookbook author in his own right, he kindly invited me over to his place for dinner and a viewing. We watched her on his kitchen television as we drank martinis and cooked or, rather, he cooked, I drank martinis. Most memorable were the episodes detailing how to roast a chicken and how to make a tarte tatin. Or how not to, I'd say.

Take a moment and watch her talk about chickens (Sorry, I cannot imbed this video, so follow the link. I'll wait. And now for those of you too lazy to follow a link outisde this page...



It was then that I felt I finally got her. Thank you, John.

Having participated in the production of a number of cooking programs before the onset of their cable television-induced proliferation and, therefore, banality, Child was a trend-setter. I think we can all agree upon that. What impressed me most about her program was it's low- budget, public television feel. Child preformed each show-- from start to finish-- in one take. Along with her many successful dishes prepared on air were many flops, but all were taken in stride and with great sense of humor. Whether blaming her choice of apple for the failure of her tarte tatin or simply explaining, by way of each failure, what went wrong and why, she turned her gaffes into, if not always triumphs, at least into moments of sheer enjoyment. The knowledge that even Julia Child was prone to error on occasion gave courage to her audience, removing much of the fear involved in the making of, say, a Gateau Saint-Honore.

At a time when we, as Americans, generally deferred to the French in all matters gustatory , ignorant of or perhaps in part ashamed of our own culinary heritage, Child not only translated the French way of cooking into a language we could understand and into ingredients we could get our hands on, she served as an entertaining tour guide of French Culture along the way. And she managed all this without dumbing things down-- least of all, herself.

In an age where cooking shows are all but shoved down our throats, where any annoying personality is set free to run amok inside our televisions, it can be said that no one can best the original or imitate the inimitable. For better or worse, the Food Network owes its very existence to her. Have they ever said thank you? I wouldn't know, since I'm not paying attention-- I don't have cable and can't really stomach cooking shows anymore, with a few exceptions. Nothing would say "we care" like a TV marathon devoted to her original, groundbreaking program. Perhaps WGBH in Boston has already taken the idea and run with it. All I know is someone should.

Granted, Julia Child was practically beatified by the likes of the James Beard Foundation, COPIA and even the Smithsonian Institute while she was alive, but I'm voting for full canonization now that she's gone. I'd like a new holy day of obligation to supplant the one that no one celebrates anymore. Except Bavarians and my brother, were he still alive. Let's build a cathedral, a Notre Dame de la Cuisine, say, in her honor-- a place of worship where one can go to pray for, if not culinary inspiriation or courage, at least deliverance from evil. Like the fact that Emeril Lagasse has his own band or the mere presence of that squawking Anti-Christ, Rachel Ray.

The Old Clam House

There are a number of restaurants in this city that have captured my imagination-- restaurants about which I know absolutely nothing, apart from the clues given away by their often antiquated signs and odd locations. Russia House and Julius' Castle come to mind. I am not typically curious about what's new and exciting. I leave that to other, hipper bloggers. Show me a restaurant that has survived fire, earthquake and food trend and I'll be there. Sooner or later. It's not as if they're going anywhere.

I've driven by the Old Clam House for years. Or, rather, been driven by it-- I don't have a car. It has captivated me for a number of reasons. First, it's location-- a rather depressing stretch of Bayshore Boulevard, near the stretch of the 101 called the James Lick Freeway-- a fact not lost upon me. Next, it's age. The Old Clam House has been in business since 1861, making it second only to (please correct me if I'm wrong) Tadich Grill in terms of senility. Lastly, the name itself-- The Old Clam House. Does the word "old" modify "clam" or "house"? I assumed the latter, but refused to dismiss the former. A home for retired prostitutes also came to mind, naturally. My friends and I talked of going there for a long time.

Finally, after one near miss a few months ago, my friend Bill thought it high time to gather up the menfolk and wander down Bernal Hill for a special dinner-- my birthday dinner-- at the Clam House. As I sat with a cocktail opening birthday cards, I noted that a card from one friend read "To an (old) clam." Everyone, it seemed, was ready for the evening ahead.

When we arrived for our reservation, the seven of us were greeted warmly and offered our table promptly, but we paused long enough to note the Wall of Fame lined with celebrities either gracious enough to bestow autographed 8 x 10 glossy publicity photos they just happened to be carrying with them at the time or desperate enough in their ebbing careers to think that any publicity is preferable to none at all. I couldn't decide. One of my favorite Old Clams to grace the wall is pictured below. Please forgive the light reflection obscuring her face. I feel that, out of kindness, I must obscure her identity, however lightly.



Once seated, we were greeted by our server with water, baskets of sourdough bread and individual cups of hot clam broth which my friend Dan, who swallowed his fear of clams (the actual meat, not clam byproducts or the idea of clams) to come to dinner, declared it good. And it was-- subtly flavored. Briny and fresh tasting without being too, well, clammy. It struck a good first note.

While figuring out what to have for our main courses, we contented ourselves with beer and ordered two plates of fried calamari. My friend Bill and I ordered cups of clam chowder, which seemed like a too obvious choice, but a good one, nonetheless. The clams inside the chowder were plentiful and tender; the potatoes had enough tooth to them without being undercooked. I could smash the chunks on the roof of my mouth with my tongue. If I wanted to. However unsubtle it may have been, I introduced Bill to the pleasure of adding tabasco sauce to chowder. I like the heat it gives and the pretty pink color, naturally. The fried calamari was exactly as it should be, too. Crispy and ungreasy with just a little bit of chew. I normally avoid cocktail sauce and go straight for a squeeze of lemon, but I dipped a few tiny tentacles in, since the sauce was homemade. I might have stifled a yawn, but that's just me. It was good cocktail sauce, if you like that sort of thing.

While browsing the menu, I noticed that the restaurant served Scalone Bordelaise. If you are among those fortunate enough never to have run into this terrible shotgun marriage between bivalve and gastropod, scalone is a mixture of scallops and abalone-- two wonderful mollusks when kept in their separate corners-- usually ground together and frozen into patty or steak form. They must be pan fried directly from the freezer, in my experience, or they will do what is only natural-- separate. The only reason I know this is that this dish was served as an annual specialty at the Bohemian Grove camp I worked at last summer. We referred to the dish as Scabalone which, to us, is what it looked like when sufficiently browned on the griddle. Our campers ate it with a squeeze of lemon. as though to sanitize. I can imagine that adding a creamy sauce to it would only make the scab look infected. I moved down the menu.

I opted for the Mescalanza because it had a bit of everything in it-- crab legs, clams, prawns, Oysters Rockefeller. That, and because the name made me think of Mario Lanza singing "Be My Love". Impossible to refuse, in my book. I think I made the right choice, at least in terms of the dish's theatrical value...



Flaming seafood. An attention-grabbing entree is always in order on one's birthday. I thought about making a wish by blowing out the clam, but thought better of it.

I'd never had a seafood bordelaise before. The sauce itself was fine, but made an already rich dish obscenely so. I nibbled at the Oyster Rockefeller slowly, since there was only one and, to me, the star attraction. To my surprise, I actually liked clams drowned in sauce, but I think the other bits of seafood suffered, like the prawns and crab. Though impaled on skewers suspended above the bowl on what looked like a dumb bell rack, it was impossible not to coat everything I touched with bordelaise-- it was all over my hands. When my butter-coated fingers dropped a prawn into the bowl, I discovered a bit of sunken treasure-- an ear of corn. I think the fact that an ear of corn can go unnoticed at the bottom of one's bowl for several minutes illustrates either the immense size of the bowl in question or the limited observational powers of the person eating it. I vote for the former but won't rule out the latter. Shaking off as much sauce as I could, I bit into the corn. The corn juice released from the now-damaged kernels mingled with what sauce remained, not so much running down my chin, but getting absorbed by my beard. The corn was abandoned.

The other dishes ordered by my dining mates were just as gargantuan. The clam linguini was enough to feed all seven of us and was actually delicious. My friend David's Lazy Man's Cioppino was served in the same oversized bowl as my Mescalanza. We questioned why the dish was named "Lazy Man's Cioppino". Since the crab legs were uncracked and the prawns still in their shell, we assumed that the lazy man in question was the one who prepared the dish.

As we finished our dinners, or at least tried to, I asked our server for a hot towel, since my hands and part of my left forearm were coated with bordelaise. She said yes, but returned without one. I asked someone else for an extra napkin and was given a few small ones of the paper kind. I was wedged into the middle of the table and didn't feel like getting up to go to the bathroom, so I just moistened the paper napkins with what little water was left in my glass and cleaned myself up as best I could given the tools I had. I had hoped that someone might think about clearing our table of dirty plates, but hope accomplishes nothing except the heightening of future disappointment.




I am very glad I didn't get up to go to the restroom. As we abandoned our dinner, my friend Gary turned to all of us and said, "Keep an eye on the door of the Ladies' Room and see what comes out. It's good."

We all tried to keep up our conversations, but everyone kept staring at the Ladies' Room door. A couple of minutes passed. Nothing. A tall, fifty-something blonde entered and then exited two minutes or so later. Was that what we were supposed to be looking at? No, of course not. We'd all stared at her as she went in.

As my attention was beginning to flag, out came a rather tall woman with enormous breasts that were so ill-contained by her overflowing tank top that her aureolae peeked over the top, though her shirt was partially covered by what looked like an open Janet Jackson Rhythm Nation 1814 leather jacket. Her stride was confident across the restaurant, even in her high heeled boots. She wet her index finger with her tongue and wiped the corners of her mouth as she walked. Someone at my table intimated that she might be a working girl. I thought perhaps she was just having the same issues with the excess of bordelaise I was.

Then a man came out of the Ladies' Room adjusting his pants. I knew then that the joke I'd made about the the restaurant being a home for retired prostitutes wasn't too far off the mark. I'll just have to omit the word "retired" the next time I tell it.

Considering the fact that this woman was a practitioner, one assumes, of the world's oldest profession, I thought her behavior best suited for the Tadich Grill. Since I don't know what the world's second oldest profession is, I was at a loss to give her any restaurant-appropriate career advice.

No dessert was offered to us, though I had heard tell of flan being available. It would have been nice to have had a candle to blow out, to make a wish for my 38th year, but it seemed so obvious to me that this woman stole my birthday thunder. There was no way in hell I was going to out-blow a professional, so I let her have the honor. I just wonder what she wished for. I hope it was something nice.

Eat This: 1,001 Things to Eat Before You Diet

Summer reading should be pleasant fare. Though I had found perverse comfort earlier this season in Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror-- the wars and epidemics of our own century seem paltry when compared to the Hundred Years' War and Bubonic Plague of the 14th-- I felt that, just perhaps, I should read something slightly more upbeat; something that didn't cause me to frequently check myself for lice, fleas or imaginary buboes. Something fun, something food-related.

I was saved from reading MFK Fisher's The Art of Eating for the 17th time when Ian Jackman's Eat This: 1,001 Thngs to Eat Before You Diet fell into my hot --but plague-free-- little hands.

Jackman spent two years writing about and several more eating his way through farmers markets, hot dog stands, panaderias and testicle festivals-- and any place else that serves up food in this country. The result is an entertaining, mind-blowing catalogue of regional American food traditions and obsessions.

Eat This satisfies my criteria for pleasant fare-- something I can pick up and put down, jumping from chapter to chapter without getting lost. Though not a comprehensive work (which is impossible be given the expanse of this country, so don't cry about the omission of scuppernongs), it is a work of astonishing breadth, fascinating food facts and inspiration for many a future food hajj.

When I first flipped through these 382 pages of information, I was overcome with regret that no one ever uttered the words "road trip" to me. Not once. "Vegas" was about as far as it went, and culinary adventure was not the motivation behind that utterance. As I browsed further, skipping about between chapters in Part One: Eating In that seem organized like sections in a supermarket, I came across bits of food history I could relate to-- my father's fascination with Tastykakes in the Bakery chapter, my aunt's penchant for feeding her dog on Chateaubriand while the rest of us ate pasta in Meat.

Part Two: Eating Out is crammed with information not only on what to eat and where to eat it but, for example and (to me) much more fascinating, how a national dish such as the hamburger varies from region to region. A Sloppy Joe-like Dynamite? Go to Rhode Island. Butter Burger? Try Solly's Grill in Madison, Wisconsin. I'll need to ask my Madison contact about that one.

The bits of trivia Jackman picked up along the way are filling up the few remaining parts of my brain as yet unsaturated with useless information, which suits me just fine. From Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation, Jackman shares a wonderfully creepy burger fact:

Q: Which two American institutions were founded in San Bernadino, California, in 1948?
A: McDonald's and The Hell's Angels.

If you tell me that information isn't going to slip out of your mouth at the next barbecue you attend, I won't believe you.

Of course, for every one item I've tasted or place I've visited (or worked at, for that matter-- four are mentioned in this book), there are 20 listed that I haven't-- a fact I regard with hope rather than frustration. Pancakes at the Original Pantry in Los Angeles? Check. Hungarian Hot Dogs at Tony Packo's in Toledo, Ohio? On my to do list. My friend Gary's family is Hungarian and from Ohio. I've heard the stories, I've seen the photos. Jackman's credibility rating shot way up when I read that. Not that he needs my approval.

In a country I have often viewed (from my cultural bubble of San Francisco) as alarmingly homogenized, where the lingua franca has been peppered with phrases like super-sized and non-fat venti, Eat This simply proves that there are still a lot of lumps in the American Melting Pot. Thank God.

As I step up the planning of my impending holiday in Greece next month, my thoughts are already turning to the next trip. I'm thinking somewhere more exotic. Like Vienna, Georgia. I've never been to the Big Pig Jig Barbecue Contest. I smell a road trip coming on but, this time, I won't wait around for someone to utter those words to me. I'll say them myself.