There’s no doubt that California, despite her current economic woes, is a special and desirable place to be. The diversity of the state is amazing and reflected in everything- culture, cuisine and, of course, wine. I was proud to be asked to be a key note speaker at the 75^th Anniversary of the California Wine Institute, the non-profit trade organization representing the member vintners in legislative, commercial, and various marketing activities. The amazing Nancy Light heads up the communications efforts and always has good information to share, much of which is always eye opening (well, at least to me).

Recently she put out a wonderful document full of trivia, factoids and good information which you know caught my eye. Some of the cool stuff pointed out: Continue reading »

I got an email recently from a friend who asked when I was going to bring back some trivia.

I promised him that one of the upcoming blogs would find me tracking down some more tidbits that I would cull from Gourmet Magazine’s “Good Living” column, a regular feature that is chock full of fun ‘did you know’ like factoids.

So, back by popular demand… did you know that…

Historically Matzo was so popular among the Italian Christians that schismatic Catholic authorities frequently banned Jews from selling it to non-Jews and Christians from eating it altogether. Something to think about with seder upcoming this week! (April 2008)

And in the same Italian Jewish vein, for much of Italian history, eggplant and fennel were considered Jewish rather than pan-Italian delicacies. (April 2008)

In 1919, the average American family had to work 157 hours to buy a three-pound chicken; today it takes only 14 minutes. And the pot to cook that chicken that all American are supposed to have costs… (February 2006) Continue reading »