trans Fatty Blog

New Year's Plans

Whatever you do, don't splurge on an expensive meal on New Year's Eve. This is the worst night of the year to eat out. The kitchen is slammed, the servers are stressed, and the lobby is packed with diners primed and pumped for their big night out. Everybody feels the pressure, and cuisine usually takes a back seat to ego and attitude.

Instead, have some friends over for a simple meal, visit a local tavern, or spend the evening slurping champagne with raw oysters. Or go to one of those ridiculous galas if you must, but do it for the scene, not the food.

If you plan to dine at a neighborhood place where you're already a regular, this advice may not apply. But this is not the night to try that hip new restaurant that everyone's been talking about.

Don't eat out on Valentine's Day, either, for similar reasons. With all those expectations, the best a guy is likely to do is break even anyhow, so keep it simple and stay in. Cooking at home can be just as romantic.

And finally, don't ever buy an expensive meal when you're in a hurry. Cuisine requires attention from the diner as well as the chef. No matter how good the food is, your money will be wasted if you're rushed.

DO eat out on your birthday, or your anniversary. This is your special day -- not everyone's -- so the server may even have time to care (or at least pretend). Don't forget to tip them if they do.

Let the Wine Flow

Bring up free trade nowadays, and people normally assume you're talking about "global" trade, meaning across national borders. But once upon a time protectionism was just as likely to apply to interstate commerce within the U.S. And as of 2004, there is still at least one class of widely-consumed product that doesn't move freely across state lines. I'm talking, of course, about alcohol.

That could change, however, depending on how the Supreme Court rules in a case that will determine whether consumers should be allowed to order wine directly from out-of-state wineries. If they can, then it might follow by logical extension that retailers should be able to do so too--bypassing the wholesale distributors who up to now have held most of the cards. Needless to say, the wholesale liquor industry will be paying careful attention.

I'm not an expert on this stuff, but it seems to me that while distributors should be allowed to distribute, producers should be allowed to sell their product as they see fit (provided customers are of legal age). And whatever you think about free trade on a global scale, it's hard to argue against it right here in the good ole' U.S.A.