The mood and the food and the context really matters

When I get the full-time blogging job (and we all know when that will be) I'll enjoy doing a Mulley-style fluffy links. Until then you have to make do with lazy, sporadic gestures in the direction of things that have caught my eye on the way between what I was doing and and what I ought to have been doing next. For instance, I wanted to tell Caroline at Bibliocook about a jazz musicians' cook book I like, and the New York Times had a good review of it. I'd left the tab up all week and read through it this morning while waiting for something or other to load up or download or what have you, and at the bottom of the article I couldn't resist following the link to this:What Motivates the Wine Shopper? — Eric Asimov - New York Times, which reminded me that, though I don't have the time, I really should make sure I'm subscribed to Eric Asimov's blog and try to get a look at it now and again. I don't know why the Irish Examiner still doesn't make Blake Creedon's weekly wine column available online. I'm reluctant to say anything tendentious on the subject, because I shouldn't like to offend Blake (for reasons of personal courtesy rather than of corporate diplomacy) if his paper-bound status is of his own choosing. But it's pretty silly and annoying that such an impartial, sensible, affable and regular analysis of what's happening in the Irish wine world is print-only. What an archive those columns would make for anyone wondering where to start pursuing an interest in wine here, and preferring to do a bit of quiet research before taking the plunge! I can't refer you to Blake online, I am afraid, but instead I'll refer you to one of his links from today's column about the wines at Aldi. Here's some very candid writing from Danny Gibson, Aldi's UK Wine Buying Director. I know very well, for instance, why it's so hard to sell wine from Alsace; but he puts it more directly and precisely than I think I could've, or would've in this blog.