But they are also huge winos.  I mean, wine freaks.  I mean, fermented grape hounds.  Yeah, that’s it.  Jillian Oaks of the Local IQ has a great profile on them and their plans to take their uncle Roger and father Richard’s Roessler Cellars to a new level with a second venture called R2.   This focus will bring even more varietals of wine to the restaurants and making dining all the better.  Salud!

What happens when you are thinking of visiting a restaurant and you are just a little picky about what you eat?

You go to their website to look at the menu, of course.

But what if they have a page on their site that says, “We update our menu frequently, so CLICK HERE to see our latest menu”, and the menu link is from 2008?

Do you still go? Do you call them and ask them to update their site? Do you email them and threaten to boycott? Post a list of all offending restaurant sites to try to get them to sharpen up, or post a list of GOOD sites as motivation? Embark on a campaign of blogging about the problem?

I’m considering a few of these options – using my “evil powers” for good, as it were. I know a lot of non-picky eaters who could care less about the menu, but what if it were the HOURS of operation from 2008? That’s a bit more serious. Or a note that if your posted hours are until 5 but you close your kitchen at 4:30? In my mind, your “hours of operation” are the hours during which you will SEAT and SERVE any customer.

Your feedback is wanted – let’s make restaurant websites better!

I spent my very first vote at the wee age of 18 bringing in one local guy that seemed appealing – he used his hand to indicate which part of the state he was from. Such an uber-dork with his ads, they are still cute:

Watch Russ’ early campaign video

But then, he turned out to be not only “appealing” but rather one of the best examples of the Wisconsin ethic of pragmatism while still getting important stuff done of the last generation: Russ Feingold. Please don’t let him go, my fellow Cheeseheads. I beg of you, take a look at the amazing things he has done to set things right in a corrupt system and go out and vote.

Clean water, education initiatives, OPPOSING THE WAR, campaign finance reform, transparent government, OPPOSING PATRIOT ACT (which allows the feds access to ALL of your electronic communications without a warrant), Wisconsin jobs bills for small businesses, and ON and ON and ON….

Feingold’s Voting Record
NY Times predicts Feingold will lose. Don’t let it happen.

YES, he is the incumbent now. I don’t give a bloody flying frap about that. He has been in office LONG ENOUGH to know what he is doing. Throwing out the incumbents is not always the best thing to do – the crazy mechanics of Washington makes it so that an ambitious new legislator needs to work their ass off for YEARS before they can get much done or have much influence. Russ is there, and if I had a Wisconsin voting card I would happily keep him in office over his new challenger.

That notice?  Points back to Eater.com, of course.

I actually think this is brilliant on their part, both if it succeeds in closing down some of the excess blogs out there, AND as a publicity stunt.

If I had a food blog (um, I used to . . .) where I just posted my boring daily kitchen experiments, I’d consider it.  But this is FOR Albuquerque diners.  I want ya’ll to find the good spots, hear about the gossip, and spread the word about where to eat and where not to eat.

So, nice work, Eater, but you ain’t getting DukeCityFood.

But being processed is what we are?  The latest in one-sided movies (otherwise known as documentaries) wants to show us that we are all processed and that’s a BAD thing.

66 Malt Shop is the place.

Go there and have root beer, or a limeade, but do order the green chile and bleu cheese burger, or this thing of beauty, the meatloaf sandwich:

I will return there again, and perhaps I won’t see that blue emblazoned t-shirt, but I will find hospitality and a darned good meal.  Thank you, Eric and Diane.  Congratulations, Obama.

I could just have a flower, enjoy it, sip it and be done, of course, though the macchiatto was delicious.  I had to follow it up (short shelf life, ya know…) with some quickly softening and strong like it should be rum raisin gelato.  Sampling about 5 flavors like zabaglione, plum sake, ginger lime from the awesome list of choices, I finally decided on one of my old favorites, though Haagen Dazs does do a really fabulous and strong example of it.  Gelato is just much cleaner in flavor, not heavy or tongue-coating like the cream in ice cream.  I wonder if there’s a rum raisin “light” in the HD line… hmm.

Anyway, I definitely had to drink the espresso first.  Because I have my priorities, of course.  Coffee over gelato?  Actually, yes.  When its done really well, it can blow your mind.  And even if its just good, it is still comforting in a way that cold sweet things just can’t be.

But that’s not about food.  So the following is, and rest in peace, George Carlin.

Why is there no blue food?

“…and don’t say blueberries, you know they’re purple!”

“Blue cheese?  No, that’s just white cheese with a bunch of MOLD in it!”

It’s old turning into new, the world flattening, the culture turning… and it makes me very happy.  It made me happy exactly FIVE months ago (check the filename on these photos – January 4th, 2008!) when the Iowa caucus occured and in a fit of jubiliation I took Sharpie to my hands to confer soundless information to anyone around who would look.

It suprised even my significant other, who had not seen me with more than a barest hint of political emotion in many years.  That’s the whole point, I think, to winning the thing in November.

Juxtapose that against my party registration which allowed me to do some strategic voting yesterday, helping to push most unsavory candidates on the Elephant side into their nominations, in order to more concretely ensure Donkey victories later on.

Ok, that and I like Ron Paul.  But I wouldn’t throw away a vote in November for a 3rd party candidate.  I’ve learned my lesson there.  Pragmatics mesh very well with voting, unfortunately for my morals and my conscience.