23 November 2005 Although I’m absolutely the wrong nationality to participate fully in this week's feast(s) of Thanksgiving, I do still give heartfelt thanks for:
-being married to a restaurant critic and great cook
-living in London – whence it’s so easy to get to great restaurants and riveting wine regions
-the winemakers and vine growers of the world who know so much more than I do
-having, as far as I and various medical assessors can tell, inherited my paternal grandmother’s genetic tolerance of alcohol. She never liked wine much but she loved gin. When she heard in her 70s, on what she called ‘the wireless’, that too much gin was bad for you, she switched to whisky – and lived to see 98.
-knowing more than enough people who share or at least tolerate my email addiction, including various family members who have been known to email me from a yard away (‘ready for a cup of tea, Mum?’)
-absurdly generous friends with well-stocked cellars (actually, now I come to think of it, I could do with even more of these)
-a ridiculously hard-working team who either do or are about to help me with the running of this demanding website
-you obliging visitors and purple pagers, without whom I’d have no excuse whatsoever to log on as soon as I wake up
Wishing all of you the happiest and most mellow of holidays.
See also Tam's suggestions for combining Beaujolais Nouveau with Thanksgiving foods. Some of her selections are pictured above.
