As I mentioned a few days ago, I was invited to the pre-opening party for a Museum exhibit in Rome on March 16.Unfortunately I will not make it there.It would be hard to justify the trip just for that.With a few visits to wineries, some sightseeing and cheese and food scouting, a trip to Italy could...

Is my palate changing or is it just fun and nice to stray from my usual red wine picks once in a while. I did taste today a couple of whites that really pleased me and could not wait to share with you. For the Consumed to Thrifty, the Ekeos from Fazi Battaglia, 100 percent Verdicchio combines good a...

If you are like me you may trust some book imprints, record labels and varied tastemakers when making new picks.The same thing applies in my case regarding wine. I trust the palate of a number of importers and distributors.The process can be gradual. You buy one wine, then two, then more bearing the...

Can't get enough! Book lovers at work programs have big stars such as Authors@Google even though it seems the program has not had any recent guest. What is more remarkable is that companies quietly doing their job day after day have found book programs to be a great way to broaden their staff views ...

This year at the American International Toy Fair in New York City The Walt Disney Company revealed a few of the beautiful toys set to accompany it’s next animated feature The Princess And The Frog . Disney Consumer Products (DCP) in collaboration with Mattel and CDI, a division of JAKKS Pacifi...

If you like sarcasm, retro-camp illustrations and politically incorrect humor, Give the Bitch her Chocolate, the 5th installment in the Bitch series by the terrifying duo Ed Polish and Darren Wotz will please you. Not to sound sexist but “I’m such a lousy cook, I can’t even boil toast!� migh...

But not in the usual way. This is a matter of the Law of Unintended Consequences: Unless the Consumer Product Safety Commission exempts them from the sweeping legislation, libraries nationwide could be forced to pull children’s books from their shelves or, alternately, ban children. That would put...

The next best thing to owning a winery and working the soil might be to discover the land where it all came from.Call it embracing the terroir, wine tourism, eco-tourism even if your favorite wines and winemakers are of the organic type. After writing first about Spanish wines then adding Portugal t...

Thinking of farms while living in urban centers, we believe we would have to get away from the city, maybe 30 minutes or an hour to experience the country life. Well someone decided to show us that it hasn't got to be so.In Setagaya ,one of Tokyo's 23 Wards, one man, Yukihiko Yoshioka, raises no les...

Last fall I bitched about Wal-Mart’s policy of refusing to accept returns on firearm or ammo purchase, even when they were the ones who screwed up, and the customer’s sole error was in trusting a Wal-Mart employee to know WTF he is doing. The official policy is that you can’t retur...