Eat Pig, Drink Pinot, Save Our Schools

I have mixed feelings about school fund-raisers: On the one hand, like most parents, I have kids in public schools that fall chronically short of financial resources; on the other, I believe that I already pay more than enough in taxes to expect a properly funded system of public education, that the root of the problem is not the quantity of money available, but rather the means by which it is allocated. In any case, on the morning after our Pigs 'n Pinot fund-raising dinner, I am hungover, fat, and happy all the same.

Corn Salsa Even My Kids Will Eat (Recipe)

Like the 49ers staring at a 4th-and-20, last Friday's post ended with a whimper, a don't think/just-punt sort of moment, as my employer's requirement for some actual work and the post's rapidly escalating word count dictated a hasty retreat from a recipe that I had the poor form to advertise and picture, but not to supply. So, think of today as a reprieve from the instant-replay booth - not exactly lucky, but fortuitous nevertheless.

Corn Salsa Even My Kids Will Eat

Coaching basketball at the professional level, managing a United Nations peace-keeping mission, and getting kids to eat something for the first time - a category generally construed to mean anything with so much as a twig of the family tree in the Vegetable Kingdom, but often including everything not already vetted and approved via previous personal experience (a logical circularity seemingly lost on my own children) - all depend as much on the application of politics as of force:

Should I buy local wines at Costco?

We've talked about Costco before, a conversation in which I argued that monolithic, small-business-destroying category killers still have a place in the kitchen, even proximal kitchens, if for no other reason than because saving money on staples allows us to allocate a larger share of our budget to the locally produced goods of premium quality (and, let's be honest, at a premium price), that we like to cook with. But what about buying locally produced goods at the Big C?