It's Not Over Till the Pink Lady Swirls

Did you like the photo of Jack Evrensel that we posted yesterday? The problem with trying to translate old newspaper clippings is that the details in the dark backgrounds get lost, and hence you couldn’t see the Top Table man’s mane of curly black hair. (Although someone did email to ask if it was a picture of Borat).

So Jack, we know you don’t like to be the center of attention and you must really hate this, but don’t relax yet. It’s a major milestone you are celebrating this weekend and it is customary on such occasions for people to be made to suffer at the hands of people who actually like them. The photo we will be posting tomorrow is far worse.


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NUTS TO YOU

Laura-Lee Walker has just joined the CF Online team as a "Cool Hunter" and as such she will be contributing news about items she runs across that are new, interesting, useful, delicious, curious or downright inexplicable … maybe even all those things at the same time. A food lover and collector of obscure Indian speed warning signs, you can find her personal blog posted at MySpace.

Laura-Lee’s first posting features Dirty Squirrel Ale, and looking at this photo of the beer’s label has got me to wondering why a squirrel would get the reputation for being dirty. They don’t seem very nasty on the peanut butter labels, but then a lot of people just regard squirrels in general as rats with fluffier tales. Perhaps it is because this particular squirrel on the beer label has a lewd look on his face and appears to be doing something pervy with those hazelnuts. And is it just me? …. Like I know it’s late, and I’m tired, and Lord knows I haven’t gotten out much lately … but are there some mildly x-rated reflections in that rodent’s eyes?

If this has any of you peering at a beer label more intently than would appear to be seemly…don’t blame me.


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TWENTY PERCENT MORE DRINKING TIME

How can good news be so frightening? The good news is that yet another study has concluded that the consumption of red wine is good for you - in this case, maybe even helping you to live 20 percent longer.

The bad news is that the initial results suggest that to achieve this level of longevity, you'd have to drink about 300 glasses of red wine a day. Yes, a day! Gadzooks, that’s a task that might even prove daunting to a judge at the Okanagan Wine Festival Awards.

The study, done by Harvard Medical School and the National Institute on Aging, found that daily doses of resveratrol, a substance found in red wine, may slow the aging process. But I figure, if you are drinking 300 glasses of wine a day, you’re not actually living longer, you’re really just being embalmed.

The other nice thing about this resveratrol stuff is that it appears to have the ability to counteract the effects of a high-calorie, high-fat diet. But here researchers are quick to point out that these results don’t mean that people should feel free to go out and eat a bag of potato chips just as long as they wash it all down with Syrah. Because here is the kicker … the reason they can’t make this conclusion is because they haven’t actually done any studies on people yet, it’s all been done on MICE. Yes, those mice again. And they can’t even at this point determine exactly how much longer the wine is making the mice live because all that drinking has made them so laid back, most of them have given up the 9 to 5 on the tread wheel and consequently haven’t died yet from tiny heart attacks.

Anyway, I don’t know why scientists should be surprised that wine is improving the quality of life for mice. Look at what beer is doing for the squirrels?


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PINK, BUT NOT POWDER PINK

Speaking of wine, Daenna van Mulligen announced yesterday that she has made some interesting and significant improvements to her website.

For those of you who are not acquainted with Ms. van Mulligen, Daenna is a sommelier and new wine writer about town. She has recently written some columns for CityFood and has a regular gig reviewing wines online for Urban Diner. Aside from that, Daenna also organizes wine tasting evenings and special events under the Juiced Wine Group banner, and for the past year, has been publishing her own website via the persona of the “ Wine Diva