Sustainable Food Survey

The folks at The Splendid Table are conducting a survey of people's concerns about and interest in sustainable foods. You may already have a strong opinion about this. You may not have any opinion. But the survey is worth taking if only because it forces the issue: by which I mean, you'll find out real fast just how much you do or don't care, and how much you're willing to to do buy and eat "sustainable" foods.

I was, um, a bit surprised by my responses. Note: the survey does not ask about "liquid" foods such as beer or wine. Which is itself an interesting point. Anyway, the survey is here and it's worth look.

Thinking About Drinking -- and Kids

A few months back, an acquaintance told me that she was visiting New York City for the first time. She wondered about how to spend her time there, so I offered up some ideas. Walk through Central Park and its zoo. Enjoy the Met. And stop at Gramercy Tavern for a drink.

Gramercy boasts the nation's finest bar, I told her. The selection of imbibeables is astounding, and the bartenders possess an extraordinary depth and breadth of knowledge about spirits, wine, and beer. (In my opinion, Gramercy's bar ought to be declared a national treasure.)

"Oh," she replied. "I'll be visiting a friend and her 14-year-old son. I wouldn't want to have a drink in front of him. It would set a bad example."

A mere heartbeat elapse before I seized the moment to spread my particular gospel. "That's precisely why you SHOULD stop at Gramercy for a drink. It's a civilized and pleasant setting. The bar is full of comfortable chairs and there will be all kinds of people there, including families, enjoying time together. You and your friend can enjoy a fabulous drink and chat with each other and her son. It'll be the perfect opportunity for him to get a positive message about alcohol and drinking."

I pointed out to her that right now, the only message the boy gets is a negative one, and mostly from his peers. They all know about alcohol, right? It's that evil, demonic, forbidden stuff that they have to lie and steal to obtain. And when they do have some, they slug it down without thinking about what it is, what they're doing, or the consequences. That's all that young man knows -- because no one wants to provide an alternative view.

But if she and her friend took him to Gramercy Tavern, he'd see and experience an alternative. He could sit down with two adults, watch them talk and enjoy their drinks, sharing each other's company and his. He'd see that adults can drink without getting drunk (there's no rule that says imbibing equals intoxication or that drinking inevitably leads to drunkenness). He'd experience a place where alcohol is treated with respect and dignity. He'd have the chance, in other words, to see the other side of alcohol, the one he's not learning with his buddies at school.

End of lecture. Spread the word.

Bye-bye "Bower Show"

I just learned (okay, I'm always waaaaaaay behind the rest of the world) that "The Bower Show" is no longer on Maxim radio. I'm truly sad to hear this. I had the pleasure of appearing (if one "appears" on radio) twice to talk about beer and the beer book. Magic! Bower, Scooter, and Laura were chemistry in action: funny, irreverent, and, most important, smart. (Irreverence without intelligence equals crap. These three were smart.) I'm not sure why the program was canceled, although I gather Laura is still producing for Maxim. In any case, I'm sorry I won't get another chance to experience their particular form of verbal mayhem. Near as I can tell. Bower is here (or at least he was at some point). You can find Scooter here. (During my first stint on the program, he asked if I would adopt him. Wish I had, sob snurfle....) And Laura is here. My sincere best wishes to all of them. It was a blast!

Meanwhile, over at another blog........

I'm a bit late in posting a link to this discussion (for some weird reason -- maybe the full moon? -- every time I tried, my "protection" software told me that Alan's blog was A VERY DANGEROUS SITE. It's not.) Anyway, Stan, Lew, and Alan are smart guys. Definitely smarter than average. And they, and some other folks who've wandered by, are having a more-or-less beer-related discussion here. Long, but worth reading. And a rare example of blogging's potential for generating and sustaining substantive, civilized conversation.

Crafty Number Crunching?

There's an interesting piece in today's Wall Street Journal about "big" brewers taking on "craft" brewing. If nothing else, it offers a larger perspective on the much vaunted "double digit growth" of craft brewing. Because I'm always just a weeeeeeee bit skeptical of the numbers tossed around. I hasten to add that I don't doubt the sincerity or the dedication of the folks in Boulder. But what, precisely, are they counting in those press releases touting craft brewing as the industry's hottest "growth" segment?? Whose beer is "craft" beer?

This all reminds me of a newspaper piece I recently read that REALLY set me thinking about the relative meaning of "size."

Thanks to David Fahey at the History of Drugs and Alcohol website for sending me the link. In beer, as in life, perspective is everything.

Presto! Magic! Old Interview Reappears!

I did a mental double-take when a link at the History of Drugs and Alcohol website took me to this interview. For a millisecond, I thought it was bogus. I had zero recollection of talking to anyone in Fond du Lac, at least not recently. But then my brain dredged up a memory of a radio host named "Silk." The post is a transcript of a radio interview I did about a year ago.

Whew! For a minute, I thought maybe my brain had spun, crashed, and burned. Live, on-air interviews always feel so ephemeral. But here's one embedded in e-print, complete with plenty of the verbal grammatical howlers that are an inevitable part of the thinking-on-your-feet process.

Tip o' the mug to "Silk" Casper and David Fahey.