White House - The Wandering Palate

Someone in the White House clearly has good taste or has been reading the Wandering Palate, having served at the Obama-Cameron state banquet, the Peter Michael Chardonnay Ma Belle Fille 2009 with the first course of crisped halibut with potato crust served on a bed of braised baby kale (fresh from the White House garden) with shaved Brussels sprouts and micro-cabbage sprouts and Applewood smoked bacon. Read More >

Profiled Wineries | Related to: Barack Obama, Chardonnay, United States of America, White House |

From a lost play by Eubulos, (c.405 BC - c.335 BC)
‘For sensible men I prepare only three kraters (large vase used to mix wine): one for health (which they drink first), the second for love and pleasure, and the third for sleep. After the third one is drained, wise men go home.

The fourth krater is not mine any more - it belongs to bad behaviour; the fifth is for shouting; the sixth is for rudeness and insults; the seventh is for fights; the eighth is for breaking the furniture; the ninth is for depression; the tenth is for madness and unconsciousness.’

"In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read.

But the bitter truth we critics must face is that, in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defence of the new.”

As uttered by the vitriolic restaurant critic Anton Ego, in the film “Ratatouille”, after his epiphany.