It is a happy coincidence that Saint Patrick’s Day falls in the middle of Lent.

Lent is a Christian tradition of fasting during the 40 days leading up to Easter.  As my first grade catholic school teacher, Sister Mary Ann, used to say, “Sacrificing the eating of meat during lent is but a small reminder of how our savior suffered for our sins.”   Repentance should serve as our main course during lent.  Over a couple of thousand years the fasting traditions varied, but they pretty much all shared some version of not eating meat.

In Ireland on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17^th, the Lenten prohibitions against the eating of meat were waived and people could dance, drink, and feast on the traditional meal of Irish bacon and cabbage… not corned beef and cabbage!

Corned beef and cabbage is actually an Irish American variation of the traditional Irish dish of bacon and cabbage.  Irish bacon is generally salt cured pork which is either boiled and eaten with cabbage or boiled then baked and then eaten with cabbage.  This was the dish that Irish immigrants yearned for when they came to America to escape the great potato famine.  But being poor, many of them could not afford Irish bacon, or even a decent place to live.  The ghettos of Manhattan, on the lower east side, provided a tasty alternative to Irish bacon.  Jewish immigrants from Germany brought many delicacies with them.  Among them: matzo balls, pastrami, and corned beef.

[Corned beef got its name from the size of the grains of salt (Corns of salt) that they used to make the brine that preserved the beef brisket. The addition of a little saltpeter into the brine allows the meat to retain its pink color.  It is best for your appetites if I do not explain how saltpeter was made in days of old.  Pastrami is simply spiced and smoked corned beef.]

You could cook corned beef like Irish bacon, it tasted great with cabbage, and best of all, it was cheaper!  Thus was born the Irish American dish of corned beef and cabbage.

Clearly Irish Americans thrived on it.  Today there are 34 million Irish Americans.  That number is almost nine times more than the entire population of Ireland itself (3.9 million).

Irish Americans are proud of their Irish roots.  The world’s first St. Patrick’s Day parade actually took place in New York City on March 17^th in 1762.  That’s why it should be no surprise to learn that the New York City parade is the largest St. Patrick’s Day parade in the world.  In that city, and on that day, in the welcoming hearts of the Irish, everyone is Irish.

In modern day Ireland, St. Patrick’s Day was viewed more as a religious occasion rather than as a celebratory one.  As a matter of fact, until the 1970s, the law required Irish pubs to be closed on March 17^th.  Since then things have changed.  Not only are the bars allowed to be open, but the government is using St. Patrick’s Day to market Ireland to the rest of the world.  It’s a celebration that lasts several days: parades, concerts, theatrical performances, and fireworks.  I’ll bet you can even find corned beef and cabbage being served up in honor of the festivities.  A hot plate of food and a pint of Guinness to celebrate St. Pattie… seize the day.  We can always repent tomorrow. Cheers!

In ancient societies, it was the job of the King to serve as an advocate for their subjects (ie. the regular humans) with the gods who controlled the forces of nature.  Essentially, it was the King’s job to ensure that crops were bountiful and also to manage the generated wealth for the benefit of that society.  In those ancient farming societies, the powers of the sun, the moon, and the celestial constellations were recognized as vital to the production of a good harvest.  (This celestial concept comes down through the ages to us in modern Biodynamic farming techniques still in use today in, among other things, the production of wine.)

As the chief liaison between the gods and humans, it was advantageous if the King was trusted by both sides.  So the ideal King would be both part god and part human.  For the ancients, this was not an impossible requirement.  Being able to predict the movement of the heavens and solar and lunar eclipses was proof enough for the illiterate farmers who worked the land that the King had secret knowledge from the gods that the King must be part god.  But rather than leave it at that, the Mayan and Egyptian kings proved their divinity in a big way. Both cultures created a separate and really long range calendar based on astronomical observation.  The Egyptians called theirs the “Sothic Cycle” and the Mayans called theirs “The Long Count”

The Sothic Cycle was actually one really long year which was comprised of 1,460 of our solar years.  It was based on when the star Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, returned to its starting point.  The rising of Sirius marked the start of the Nile floods which was an extremely important necessity to Egyptian farmers.  Sirius rose every year but not in the same place of the horizon where it was first noted until 1,460 years later.

In addition to their really cool calendars which the average farmer probably could not read, they also built pyramids that would signal key astronomical events, important to farmers, such as a solstice, equinox or the rising of Sirius.  In Egypt, the New Year coincided with the moment that the winter-solstice sun hit the central sanctuary of Karnak in Luxor.

At a Mayan pyramid in Chichen Itza, on the spring equinox the interplay of light and dark makes it appear as though a diamond back rattle snake is heading down the wall.  (The snake is a Mayan symbol for the sky.)

The Mayan Long Count was really long, 5,125.25 years long to be exact. In theory, the long count started at the mythical start of Mayan culture.  Their kings were the immediate beneficiaries of this dating system as” it served as a form of political and religious propaganda”.  Kings used the long count to mark, “Mundane events in their personal histories—coronation dates, marriage alliances, military victories… (and I almost forgot to mention) histories of their ancestor gods who created the world.  The Long Count gave the ruler the power to proclaim the extraordinary longevity of his bloodline in concrete terms.” [1] This particular Long Count will come to an end

December 21, 2012. On that day, it is also true that the sun will align with the plane of the galaxy for the first time in 26,000 years.  Some people think solar flares will erupt and that the earth’s magnetic field will reverse, in short the world as we know it would come to an end.  Prophets are divided on whether the earth will end in a Apocalypse or move into a new era of peace and brotherhood.  So I suppose calendars linked to celestial events still hold mystical sway over both illiterate farmers and literate white collar office workers alike.  Evidently, the ancients were pretty clever about how to manipulate people as seen by the fact that the Mayan calendar is more than just a calendar for so many people. Clearly, people have not changed much in 5,125 years.

December 22, 2012 will be the day after the Winter Solstice.  In my mind, the seasons will continue to change.  Like every other year, I will start my Christmas shopping, late as usual, and then head home to sip on a Hot Toddy with an extra splash of cognac for good measure.  Cheers!

The Wari culture which preceded the Inca in Peru was only recently recognized as a distinct culture in the late 1940s.  They are interesting because they were overlooked for so long.  Their culture extended to the north beyond Lima and to the south all the way to Cerro Baul near lake Titikaka.  Their culture was militaristic and stratified.  There were rich neighborhoods and poor ones.  Their cities were colorful tightly packed, multistory buildings which were well organized in a grid pattern.  They had a uniform architectural style that matched from city to city down to the measurements of the walls.  Archaeologists considered the culture rather grim.  Their drinking cups were decorated with warriors and bound captives and fierce looking supernatural creatures with long sharp teeth.  They practiced human sacrifice and carried around human trophy skulls, some were even used as drinking cups.  However, excavations in Cerro Baul, their southernmost outpost tell a different story.

Cerro Baul was built on a high altitude plateau. Rich folk lived there, perhaps they might even have been diplomats since they lived so close to the Tiwanaku people. It was once a colorful multistoried palace complex.  “Everything they needed—water, food, precious stones for crafting beads, clay for making pots, and corn for brewing beer—had to be carried to the top.  In what was once the courtyard of the central palace…three tree stumps were found…evidence of a garden that must have been nourished with water brought up in jars.”[1] Their only source of water was down a long steep pathway.  But servants did all of the heavy lifting, so it wasn’t too bad for the rich folk. It must all have been very impressive to the Tiwanaku who lived down slope from them. “You impress the neighbors by living closer to the gods.”

Best of all there was a 2,500 square foot beer brewery with four rooms where “Chicha” a corn based beer was made.  (“Chicha” is still a popular drink in the Andes.)  Beautiful upper class women actually made the beer.  First they dried the corn, then soaked it until it sprouted before grinding it into a mash.  Then they boiled it in one of eight huge ceramic vats before fermenting it in twelve huge jars large enough to brew 1,800 pints of “Chicha”.  Before the beer was done, they threw in some hallucinogenic plants to give the brew a special added kick.  Then after a week, when the beer was done, they had a party because there were no preservatives back then, so it was best to consume the beer relatively quickly.  Maybe they even invited their Tiwanuku neighbors over to party with them. The Waris must have thrown the best parties in the neighborhood.

Archaeologists also discovered the looted tomb of a very important person in the corner of the courtyard. Around 850AD, “After the burial, there was a tremendous feast that included guinea pigs, llama, Andean hare, and seven different kinds of fish from the ocean 40 miles away.  Dozens of pots and cups were smashed on top of the tomb, just before the palace itself was torn down.”  At that point, it was clear to everyone, the party was over.

Two hundred years after the dismantling of the palace, archaeologists found evidence of another spectacular feast.  “After brewing nearly 2,000 pints of beer, two dozen or more Wari lords held one last drunken blowout at Cerro Baul. Each raised a uniquely decorated drinking cup, toasted one last time and smashed their ceramic cups on the floor of the brewery.  Then they lit the building on fire and left the mountaintop forever.”  Here’s to a little known people who knew how to party until they couldn’t anymore. Cheers.

Thanksgiving is unique among American holidays.  Unlike any other holiday, it weaves together our whole nation on that special day with a tradition of giving thanks for blessings we might otherwise overlook.  We all come together to be a part of a group on that day.  Somehow we all know that, on that day, no American should be alone.  At the very least, despite our many differences, Americans from all walks of life share a common Thanksgiving tradition of turkey, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, and a prayer of thanks.  Though it is true that the first American Thanksgiving was celebrated by the Pilgrims and American Indians near Plymouth Rock, it was really Abraham Lincoln who made it a national holiday.

Prior to Lincoln, Thanksgiving was celebrated only very sporadically and primarily in the Northeastern part of the country, its date declared by individual governors.  Nationally it depended on the whim of the President who had the authority to proclaim a national day of Thanksgiving.

Lincoln led our country in a time of great turmoil.  It was he who said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”  He led us through a civil war in order to keep “the house” of American democracy standing.  It claimed 620,000 lives, more than all our other wars combined.  The battle of Gettysburg was the bloodiest battle of them all claiming 46,000 American lives.  The South would never again launch an offensive against the North.  It was a crucial victory, but it came at an extraordinarily high price.

On November 19, 1863 Lincoln was scheduled to say a few appropriate remarks at the dedication of the Gettysburg military cemetery almost a year after he had freed the slaves.  The speaker before him had spoken for two hours, and Lincoln spoke, but for a few minutes.

But in those few minutes, he redefined a nation, “…that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”  Thanks to Lincoln non-whites were finally included as “the people.”

Lincoln also proclaimed the following Thursday, exactly a week, after his Gettysburg address a national day of Thanksgiving.  All over the northern states a huge effort was put forth to ensure that soldiers on the battle field had a Thanksgiving feast of turkey, pies, bread, butter, and cider. (Given the lack of refrigeration it was probably hard cider)

“In Baltimore, the Union Ladies Committee distributed meals to Union soldiers and rebel prisoners alike.  At Camp Parole, in Annapolis, roast turkey had been the primary topic of conversation for days.  That morning, ‘every face wore a joyous aspect, in anticipation of the good things in preparation for the dinner’.  Orderlies set long tables of turkey, pies, bread, butter, tea and cider.  Fourteen hundred men sat down, Federal soldiers and paroled Confederates, men from every state in the union, probably the first such all-American Thanksgiving meal ever.”[1]

Lincoln made Thanksgiving a national holiday and redefined our nation.  He created, “government of the people, by the people, and for the people” and everyone was finally included in the definition of “people”. Thanks to Lincoln a man born in the Aloha State of Hawaii, with a permanent tan is now President of the United States.  That’s cause for celebration.  Okole Maluna, and Cheers!

“Monday’s child is fair of face, Tuesday’s child is full of grace, Wednesday’s child is full of woe, Thursday’s child has far to go, Friday’s child is loving and giving, Saturday’s child works hard for a living, but the child that is born on the Sabbath day is bonny and blithe and good and gay.”  This was the Mother Goose nursery rhyme on a scroll mounted in my bedroom.  As a kid, I recall hoping that I was not born on a Wednesday and would have preferred not to have been born on a Saturday.  When I asked my mom about the actual day of my birth, all she could remember was that it was the longest hottest day of the summer and that there was definitely no air conditioning in the hospital.  My mom being of absolutely no help, I analyzed several consecutive calendars, calculated in for leap years and figured out that I was born on a Tuesday.  I was relieved that I had not been born on a Wednesday.  But it got me to thinking what do these days of the week really mean anyway?

The seven days of the week were named after the seven planets visible to the naked eye in the ancient world.  In Rome, the days were named: Dies Solis, Day of the Sun; Dies Lunea, Day of the Moon; Dies Martis, Day of Mars; Dies Mercuri, Day of Mercury; Dies Joves, Day of Jupiter; Dies Veneres, Day of Venus; and Dies Saturni, Day of Saturn.

England was a Roman outpost, so the English used the same names for the days of the week as the Romans.  After the Romans withdrew from England, German tribes, the Anglos and later the Saxons, invaded England.  These Germanic tribes preferred to use the names of their own gods for the days of the week rather than the gods of the Romans.  So they renamed the days of the week according their gods that were comparable to the Roman ones.  So Dies Solis and Dies Lunea became Sonntag and Montag (Sunday & Monday).  The day of Mars became the day of the Norse war god Tyw (Tuesday).  The day of Mercury became the day of Woden (Wood Odin)(Wednesday), The day of Jupiter became the day of Thor their most powerful god (Thorsday).  The day of Venus became the day of Frigga goddess of married love (Friday).  The day of Saturn stayed the same, perhaps because Saturn was the god of the harvest and the Norse did not have a god of the harvest.

Thor was not the father of the Norse gods like Jupiter, but, like Jupiter, he was the most powerful.  His power came from his magic hammer and magic belt.  They were the ultimate tools and magnified his strength. Unlike the Roman gods, the Norse gods were mortal and did not embody the forces of nature.  They were kind of like really strong and really long lived humans.  Like the Roman gods, they too roamed the earth.

One day while traveling, Thor and his companions became hungry and thirsty and stopped at the castle of the king of the giants to rest and be refreshed.  The king said, in order to sit at the table with us you must demonstrate a talent that you do better than others.  Thor said, “I can drink with the best of them” So the king gave him a mead horn which Thor tried three times to empty but to his chagrin he failed each time.  Failing that, the king gave him another seemingly easy task which he also failed to everyone’s great laughter and amusement. Lastly, he wrestled an old woman to whom he also lost.  After losing, the king told him that he had been tricked because the horn was anchored in the ocean which can’t be emptied and the old lady was “old age” which beats us all.

The Norsemen knew that nothing, not even the gods could defeat the forces of nature.  Those same forces of nature have created a very hot winter for us this year.  On a hot day like today, I feel like I could definitely down an ice cold ocean of mead. Cheers!

Imagine being so far ahead of your time that it would take around 2000 years for the rest of mankind to catch up to you.  A Greek doctor named Galen was such a person.

In those days, people thought that the gods made you sick, so they would go to the temples and pray and rest, and if you were lucky the god of healing would appear to you in a dream and you would awaken healed.  Though there is much to be said for prayer and rest, a reliable cure it is not.

In America, between 10 – 25% of the people in our country still rely on prayer and rest for a miraculous cure because they don’t have health insurance.  That doesn’t even include the under-insured.  For a good number of people in America, health care has not changed much in over 2000 years.  In America, access to health care costs money. So, access to health care is for people who can afford to pay or have a job that pays for their health benefits.  The rest of us do not.  It was a similar situation in Rome.

In Rome, the “hoi palloi” didn’t understand about hygiene and disease, but Galen did.  To put it in perspective, he was a doctor to the stars.  He treated the superstars of the day: Gladiators, Olympic Athletes, politicians, and the ultra rich.

Galen started off as a sports doctor for Olympic athletes.  He was extremely successful because he was the first to actually treat the cause of the problem rather than the symptom.  He viewed the human body as a machine, and knew that a pain in your hand might be coming from your spine through his study of anatomy.

Human dissection was forbidden at the time, so he learned from animal dissection and the many injuries of his athletic patients.  When he treated the gladiators of Rome, he was able to study dissected human anatomy since the gladiators were able to slice each other up, legally.

To help prevent infection, he would clean gladiator’s wounds with sponges soaked in wine, not for the feel good qualities of wine but for the antiseptic properties of wine.  (After all, alcohol kills germs.)  For broken bones and compound fractures, he would set the bones and wrap the limb in bandages soaked in egg whites, oil, and wine.  In a couple of days, this bandage would harden much like the casts we use today.

He designed hospitals for the treatment of Roman soldiers.  His hospitals had flushing toilets and baths.  He knew that hygiene was important.  Roman surgical tools looked very much like modern surgical tools. Fire pits in surgical theaters indicate that it is even possible that the Romans were practicing sterile surgery. His hospital also had wards.  This way he could prevent cross infection between patients.  It took over 1,500 years for us to relearn the importance of hygiene.  In modern times, sterile surgery was not practiced until WW I.

Galen knew that a balanced diet was important, so Roman hospital kitchens probably served the world’s first hospital food.  Of course, regardless of what the food tasted like, we know for sure that wine was the beverage of choice during meals.  During meals, the feel good rather than the antiseptic quality of the wine was enjoyed.

So if you don’t have health insurance, you can eat healthy, wash your hands frequently, and pray that you don’t get hit by a Gladiator or a bus.  And once you arrive home safely don’t forget to pour yourself a glass of wine with dinner.  Galen would have approved.  “To your health” and Cheers!

I just saw the movie Julie & Julia. A foodie from birth, I relished every minute of watching Julia Child (played by Meryl Streep) transform herself into an American culinary icon from scratch.

She was born in 1912, in the same decade as John F. Kennedy. Hers is oft referred to in America as “The Great Generation” She had once said, “We truly believed we could change the world.” She was not only a little older than JFK, but also an inch taller. Like him, she was born with a big personality, globs of charisma, and an elegantly nuanced sense of humor. She was larger than life in more ways than one.

Her TV show on WGBH (Boston’s public broadcasting station) is credited with being the forerunner of the Food Channel and the prototype of almost all the modern cooking shows today. It was the first and longest running show ever on PBS. Her often replicated formula was cooking dishes with pre-prepped ingredients, teaching cooking techniques, having a mirror above the stove to provide the TV audience with an aerial view of the cooking process, having pre-made finished products to show the end result within a much condensed time frame, then serving herself the finished product with a glass of wine (which was actually beef broth; it looked like wine on black and white TV). She was the first person on a PBS show to win an Emmy. She also won a Peabody and a National Book Award. She wrote or co-wrote 18 books and starred in more than 10 TV shows. In short, she changed the way Americans thought about food and cooking.

Her recipes were long and detailed because she felt obligated to ensure their success. She said, “A cookbook is only as good as its worst recipe.” Her recipes were proven and replicable and she intended for them to be followed precisely. She said, “Cooking is not like free form jazz.” Her respect for the credibility of her work betrays her Ivy League education. She graduated from Smith College with a degree in English at a time when she said, “Women could be either nurses or teachers.” After World War II broke out, she joined the Office of Strategic Services, hoping to become a spy, but instead was sent off to be a file clerk in China. While in China, she found her husband and through accompanying him on assignment in France, she discovered her calling, teaching people to cook. She had never really cooked before in her life until she arrived in France.

In the movie, when Julia’s publisher disappointed Julie with Julia’s comment that her blog was disrespectful, it was not explained in the movie why Julia felt that way. It was the use of profanity to describe food which was, at least partially, why Julia felt the blog was disrespectful.

Julia felt that cooking was an art that could be learned. “She advised viewers to “plunge right in” to boning a chicken and to “have the courage of your convictions” in flipping a potato pancake. Her fearlessness made great television: she roasted ducks, sautéed sweetbreads and stuffed sausages into casings with grunts of effort.” (NYT) In their “Golden Age” 2,500 years ago, the Greeks felt that teachers taught children and that playwrights (artists) taught men through inspiration. It seems they were right.

This movie has inspired droves of us to go out and buy her book Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Now after 48 years, it is finally at the top of the NYT Best Sellers List. She has inspired the Michelin starred Chef Mavro to do the three course dinner seen in the movie through the month of August and for a limited time in September for only $59. As Julia would say, “Bon appetite”. I just ordered Julia’s book, and now I’m heading over to Mavro’s; see you there. Cheers!

I remember walking to Enchanted Lakes Elementary school with my brother in our “hanabadda” days.  We always walked to school and then ran back home. Mornings were cold back then. When we exhaled, fog would come out of our mouths. We used to practice blowing smoke rings like our dad, who was a smoker back then. My brother was better at it than me. Today, I feel like it is hotter than I remember in the days of my childhood. Upon researching it, I discovered that on Admission Day, the day we became the 50th State on August 21, 1959, it was the hottest day ever recorded in Hawaii. It was a sweltering 92 degrees.

In 1959, Kailua was considered “the country.” To get there you had to drive over the Old Pali Road. It was a very narrow windy road which wove up and over the Nuuanu side of the mountain and down the Kailua side. They didn’t even start building the Pali Tunnels until after statehood. In those days, people were careful about not carrying pork over the Pali unless you wanted something supernatural to happen.

In 1959, you could get a brand new 2-cylinder, 2-door, Rambler Wagon for $754. You could then drive your new Rambler on King and Beretania streets in any direction you wanted because they were still two way streets at the time. You could even drive both ways on Hotel street since it was not restricted to buses back then either.

Bowling was a big in sport in 1959. Thirty-five percent of all Honolulu families were bowling back then. Arnold Palmer was the Tiger Woods of that time. In the summer, people would go to the 49th State Fair to ride rides, play games and eat cotton candy. The name of the Fair didn’t change to the 50th State Fair until after we actually became a state. At the time, everybody thought we would be the 49th state.

For refreshment you could drop into the Primo Beer Garden in Aiea and drink Primo from kegs. It was once called, “The beer that made Milwaukee jealous.” Primo’s rival beer in 1959 was “Oly” Olympia Beer which called itself “refreshingly different”. Kids drank Xexchange Orangeade. One small 6 oz. can could make six big glasses of juice, even more if you liked it watery.

In 1959, you could buy a Hicks home with nothing down. A 2 bedroom home sold for $4,990 and a 3 bedroom home sold for $6,690. The homes were “all heart redwood” (which translates to no termites). Hicks Construction Company’s selling points were, “Why pay more.” “We refuse to be undersold.” “Will build it better for less.” Sigh, those were the days.

Ricky Nelson was making girls swoon all across the country. And in 1959, then Crown Prince Akihito (now emperor) married a commoner shattering 2,619 years of imperial Japanese tradition. On their wedding day, it was also the first time foreigners were admitted to the inner palace shrine amidst the swirling petals of the springtime cherry blossom trees.

It was a time of change. KGMB TV and the Honolulu Star Bulletin placed want ads for a “girl” reporter. Evidently, women were a rarity in journalism back then. In those days, the Star Bulletin was about double the size of the Honolulu Advertiser in terms of advertising and circulation.

Oh, and there were only three TV channels in 1959. Sea Hunt with Lloyd Bridges was a popular show which appeared on KGMB at 9PM. The TV stations used to sign off around midnight. Black and White TV was what everyone had. Color TV was new technology at the time and didn’t become popular until after 1961. They say, if you wait long enough, it comes back. Well Primo is back! It even tastes a little better than it did the first time around. Just in time for the 50th birthday of our Aloha State. Happy Birthday! Cheers!

Though the shiraz grape is not indigenous to Iran, grapes were first made into wine in the Middle East.

As a matter of fact, the name Shiraz comes from a town in Iran, famed for its wine production. The story goes in an ancient Persian legend that Jamshid, a grape-loving king, stored ripe grapes in a cellar, so he could enjoy grapes all year long. One day he sent his slaves to fetch him some grapes. When they did not return, the king decided to go to the cellar himself to see what was taking so long. He found them unconscious, having been knocked out by the gas emanating from some bruised and fermenting grapes. Hearing this, the people in the palace thought the grapes had turned poisonous. One of the ladies in the king’s harem, feeling rejected and distraught decided to commit suicide by drinking this poison juice, only to leave the cellar singing and dancing in high spirits. The king then realized that this fermented juice had the wonderful and mysterious power to make sad people happy. Thus wine, along with its wonderful restorative powers was born.

With such a wonderful story, one might wish to think that the grape we call Shiraz originated from the soil of Iran. In fact, it is indigenous to the Rhone Valley in France. In 1997, UC Davis grapevine geneticist, Carole Meredith, and her assistant, John Bowers, used genetic profiling techniques to discover that the Shiraz grape was actually a cross between Dureza and Mondeuse blanche. Dureza grows in the Rhone Valley and Mondeuse blanche is a white berry found in Savoie, a popular tourist destination in the alpine region of France, bordering Switzerland. The Rhone River flows through this area on its way to the Rhone Valley. This explains how these two grapes eventually met and gave birth to the Shiraz grape.

Other interesting notes on Iran is that it was once the center of the Persian Empire. Their first king Cyrus the Great freed the Jews from captivity in Babylon (Iraq) and restored their temple in Jerusalem. The Persian Empire also practiced religious and cultural tolerance, believed in free will, and based its leadership on the principles of truth and justice. According to Herodotus, “Persian youths, from the age of 5 to 20 were instructed in three things: to ride a horse, draw a bow, and to speak the truth.”

In addition, the practice of slavery was generally banned in Persia, though it was a common institution in the ancient world, even in Athens. In the ruins of the Persian capitol of Persepolis, we find the ancient equivalent of pay stubs because it was built by paid workers, not slaves. In 5th century BCE, the international status of Persia could be compared to that of the USA today and the international status of ancient Greece could be compared to that of modern day Iran. What a difference a 2,500 years makes.

The Persian king Darius, also invaded Greece only to be stopped on the plains of Marathon by the Athenians. In addition, he built a 1,677 mile Royal Road. This road was the ancient equivalent of our “information highway” or “pony express.” On foot, this journey took ninety days. Mounted couriers could make the trip in seven days. Herodotus praises the Persian couriers, “Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor darkness of night prevents these couriers from their designated stages with utmost speed.” This observation is also the inspiration for the motto of the United States Post Office. After a long and exhausting ride on the Royal Road, a nice glass of Shiraz will definitely lift the spirits. Cheers!

On our tour through Napa last month we sat and chatted in the midst of Stagecoach vineyard with Dr. Krupp. He said the reason why the vineyard is named Stagecoach is because it was once a bustling stagecoach passage from Sacramento to San Francisco. As I sipped on his very cold and tasty rosé called Black Bart, he said, “Hence the name Black Bart.” At that moment it all came together, and images of the “Wild West” flashed through my mind.

Black Bart was one of the most colorful figures of the “Wild West” and San Francisco’s most famous bandit. In the years between 1875 to 1883, he “held up” 28 stagecoaches. Black Bart’s signature modus operandi was that he dressed in a long linen duster covering his clothes with a flour sack over his hat and his face and sacks covering his shoes too. He would politely ask the stagecoach driver to throw down the strong box, “Please” with his very deep and authoritative voice. He had his rifle in hand, and never used any foul or rude language. After the robbery, he would quickly disappear on foot. In the empty strong box or somewhere at the scene of the crime, he would leave a poem such as this for investigators to find:

Here I lay me down to sleep,
To wait the coming morrow;
Perhaps success, perhaps defeat
And everlasting sorrow,

I’ve labored long and hard for bread
For honor and for riches,
But on my corns too long you’ve tred
You fine-haired sons of bitches.

Let come what may I’ll try it on,
My condition can’t be worse –
And if there’s money in that box
‘Tis money in my purse.

–Black Bart, Po8

Once, in fear, a female passenger tossed her purse out to him from the stagecoach . Black Bart returned the purse and said, “No ma’am, I don’t rob the passengers. I’m only after Wells Fargo.”

With his poetry, polite demeanor, and the fact that he never harmed anyone but the biggest express company in the world at the time,Wells Fargo, he evoked people’s David and Goliath respect for the underdog. (Detectives have surmised that he never actually loaded is rifle.)

Wells Fargo(W.F.) was initially set up in San Francisco to provide financial services to gold miners during the gold rush. W.F. bought gold and silver ore and sold paper bank drafts as good as gold. Prior to turning his hand to robbery, Black Bart was a silver miner. In a letter he wrote to his wife from Montana in 1871 he said he had a bad experience with men who worked for Wells, Fargo & Co. and swore to get back what was his. His experience in Montana kindled his grudge with W.F. He then set off for the Gold fields of California.

He was eventually caught by a Wells Fargo detective when he dropped a handkerchief with the laundry mark FX07 during a robbery. By process of elimination of San Francisco’s ninety-one laundries the detectives caught him. He had not lived too lavishly and was able to return a substantial amount of the stolen money. He was such a nice guy that Wells Fargo only charged him with his last robbery and he was sentenced for only six years. He was released for good behavior after serving only four years and two months.

Reporters swarmed around him when he was released and asked if he would be robbing any more stagecoaches. “No gentlemen,” he smilingly replied, “I’m all through with crime.” Another reporter asked if he would write more poetry. He laughed, “Now didn’t you hear me say that I am through with crime?”

Today it would be a crime not to taste Stagecoach’s Black Bart Rosé. It’s refreshing and fantastic and available at The Wine Stop. And, there’s a great story behind it as well. Cheers!