I have a friend who adores vegetables. He has an immense head, too, but that’s besides the point. Well, maybe it is the point–with his reedy frame and bulbous noggin, the guy has been known in silhouette to resemble a squash. Perhaps we’re drawn to food with which we correspond in [...]

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In Italy, the peasants say a cask of wine works more miracles than a church full of saints. On the ‘Net, where people herald some new miracle every five minutes, the capability for real-time buying meets the Septembral juice that tempted the gods down from Olympus, and the result is an intoxicating [...]

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People always ask me: “NetGuide/ Shopping Guide,” they say, “what’s the future of food consumption?” At that point, routinely, I caress my long white beard (Don’t let the above picture fool you: I look a lot like Charlton Heston’s Moses descending the mount), and I pause with tender sagacity, conscious of [...]

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“Thank God for tea,” wrote Sydney Smith (1769-1845). “What would the world do without tea? — How did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea.” Perhaps the man is overly thrilled about the stuff — in his defense, he’s from England, that land of Calvin, oat cakes [...]

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Say you are having the family home for the three-day weekend. You’re the dad, you want to barbecue, but know that family BBQs are the meals that try fathers’ souls; planning is crucial. You haven’t prepared anything like this in a while, so you need to stop at the Cajun-grill site [...]

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Oh no! It’s that time of year again. And no matter how good your intentions, there’s always some distant (wealthy) relative you completely overlooked when doing your Christmas shopping. Or suddenly you realize that you’ve been so busy planning your vacation that you’ve neglected to buy a gift for your boss [...]

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