Wine for Why I Can't See the Movie Contagion, Part Two

I think my obsession with cleanliness really took hold when I lived in Brooklyn. One trip on the NYC subway should be enough to male anyone want to take a Silkwood shower.

First there are the close quarters in each individual subway car. Especially at peak travel times, there is not a sneeze or a cough that is not shared by one and all.

Then there are the poles on each subway car, which you have to hold onto when there are not enough seats to go around. These poles are invariably greasy and slimy, and do you know why? It's because many people have sneezed into and/or licked their hands and then gripped these poles. You and I then get on the subway, grasp these same poles, and then hop off the subway and get a bagel, which we, of course, eat with the self-same hands that have just been touching the Ebola pole.

Add to this the fact that I once saw a man cutting his toenails on a subway car, and you can understand why my ideas of what was clean suddenly changed drastically after time in NYC.

People sometimes think it is odd that I don't wear shoes inside my house, and that I ask visitors to remove their shoes as well. I was raised in a house where we didn't wear shoes inside, so for me it has always been the way things are, but I continue to do it, because when I lived in NYC and walked around those streets, I realized how much disgusting matter was on those streets, and how much of it probably adhered to my shoes.

When I thought about how, if I walked into my bathroom with those filthy shoes, I was transferring that filth to my clean bathroom floor and then stepping in that dirt when I was nice and clean from the shower, I vowed to never wear shoes in the bathroom or house again.

Have I taken it too far? Probably. Especially when you consider that once you start really thinking about the nature of dirt, germs and transference, the realization hits that nothing is ever really and truly clean.

And there is mounting evidence to show that all of this cleanliness, and use of anti-bacterials is in fact creating stronger and stronger bacteria and viruses and weakens our immune systems.

But even though I know this, I also know that, were I to sit through a movie which spends two hours focusing on the minute and insidious ways in which germs spread and transfer, with disastrous results, I would be unable to resist the temptation to carry Clorox wipes with me wherever I go, and wipe down every one and every thing I come in contact with.

And let's face it, that might just be perceived as odd.

My Wine for why I can't see the movie Contagion, Part II, is not a wine at all, but rather a recipe for macerated strawberries.

I bought some beautiful organic strawberries from Trader Joe's the other day, and I took a few handfuls of them and cut them in quarters.

I put them in a bowl and added half a tablespoon of super-fine sugar, a tablespoon and a half of Cointreau and a couple of tablespoons of chopped fresh mint.

I mixed it all up and covered the bowl with plastic wrap and let it sit in the fridge overnight.

They are absolutely delicious, goo enough to just gobble up with a spoon. Or, my favorite, spooned over vanilla ice cream or frozen yogurt.

a flavor that is sweet, refreshing and, of course, clean.