Wine for Freaking Out

It's happening. I am starting to feel that pre-test panic setting in, the kind that brings on the feeling that I will never remember it all, that I don't have enough time to learn my made-up wine list for the service portion of the exam, will never remember all the first and second growths of the Medoc in France, never have time to write this blog, get all our tax stuff ready, set up possible internships for afterward, and plan a gigantic trip which I will tell you about another time.

So I can pretty much guarantee that these blogs will get shorter, contain a lot more spelling errors, and most likely be more frantic every day.

Today we discussed beer and sake, and I found myself thinking, as I often do: "Who on earth ever thought to make this stuff?" I am fascinated by how different foods and beverages come into existence. Who on earth thought that if they polished rice and mixed it with mold it would make a delicious beverage? Who thought to grind up barley, add yeast and hops and make beer? Who figured out yeast would make bread? Who ever looked at or touched an artichoke and thought, "I bet if we steam that for hours and then peel off all the pokey leaves, there will be something absolutely delicious inside? And cheese...who was the genius who looked at a scary-looking and smelling glob of moldy blue curdled milk and said:"That is going to be really tasty on a cracker." For that matter, who the hell came up with the idea of a cracker!?

I know that most of these things are happy accidents, like the discovery of penicillin, but still. It's pretty cool.

There is a funny-shaped, squat wine flask from Franconia Germany called a Bocksbeutel, which literally means "goat scrotum". Now, I want to meet the person who looked at the back end of a goat and thought "I want to drink wine out of THAT." Actually, come to think of it, maybe I don't.