Date: March 27, 2009 @ 11:49 AM

Don't Read too Much about Food...(It is better to enjoy it!)

I just finished reading Michael Pollan’s book “In Defense of Food.” In spite of being dangerously close to qualifying as a “self help” book, it was very good. (I tend to avoid self help books because there would be no logical place to stop if I ever started in on that Herculean task of my own self improvement.)

Michael (now that I have read the book, we are on a first name basis…other than the fact he may not know I exist) reminds us that we are supposed to enjoy eating and it may be time to put the nutritionists and food scientists back in the closet.

Even I can remember some of his basic guidelines.

         Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly Plants.

         Avoid foods your great grandmother wouldn’t recognize

         Avoid foods with more than five ingredients

         Avoid foods when you can’t pronounce the ingredients

         Avoid foods with high fructose corn syrup

         Avoid foods that make health claims

         Eat at a table. Desks don’t qualify. (Neither do cars)

         Get involved with where you food came from and enjoy it.

He also mentioned “Have a glass of wine with dinner.” Being a winemaker, I like the “French Paradox” but I don’t believe in wine as a medicine; rather as a part of enjoying a healthy life. I suspect the act of slowing down to share a meal and wine has as much to do with the studied health benefits of moderate wine consumption as do the complex chemical components in the wine. Who knows…?

Speaking of slowing down to enjoy real food…if you come to Napa Valley, give Michael Chiarello’s new restaurant, Bottega, a try. It is in Yountville and is worth a visit. There were so many enticing choices that I expect to make many trips to fully explore the menu. (Don’t you love it when it is hard to choose because so many of the choices are wonderful?)

It was a rainy day when I was last there and the polenta in glass with wild mushrooms hit the spot. Michael’s polenta at Tra Vigne was one of the signature dishes of Napa Valley and this new version is hard to beat.

Michael cooks real food with great ingredients that your great grandmother would recognize. He doesn’t make health claims. There is no high fructose corn syrup. We ate at a table – not a desk, but we did eye the bar. Mostly, we enjoyed it and the wine.