White Wine and Oysters Rockefeller

Over at the Querencia blog, they have taken the plunge and upgraded from OLD Blogger to "NEW and IMPROVED" Blogger.

I have been putting off doing the same thing for a long time, but I fear that I too must take the plunge sometime soon.   I must do what is necessary, not just what is fun.  Sigh....

I am flattered that Steve Bodio and Matt Mullenix have stripped in a line from an email of mine at the top of the rebuild:  

"The worst you could say about them was that too few of them knew anyone who owned a gun, and too many of them had an opinion on what type of wine went well with Oysters Rockefeller."

No doubt a placeholder, but for the record I was referring to the editors at The New York Times who are not bad people; they just see the world through a different set of lenses, which are too often set in Armani frames.  Somehow that seems to color a great deal of what they see. 

Steve and Matt are hawkers and dog men, and so they see the world through an older, more primitive, and more essential lens. 

As do I.

In the wild eye of the thing that is barely tamed we know that there is a code that pulses and which can explode, revealing the rust-free framework upon which all life is hung. 

As I wrote on this blog back in 2005:

One of the great things about going into the field with the dogs is that they are able to "see" so much more than we can.

For me, one of the great joys of working with dogs, is seeing the world through their eyes. With the turn of the seasons I am aware of what food sources are about. Walking across a field I think of drainage and look at slope and soil, and think about the distance to water. Are the fox mating now? Are the raccoons coming down from the trees and moving their young to ground dens? Are possums starting to jungle up in the trashier hedgerows to get out of the cold? Where have the gut-shot deer been dumped? What fields are in corn and in soy? What fields are in cut hay, and which are being grazed by beef cattle and will, as a consequence, have much harder ground and fewer critters about?

If you dig very often you cannot help but think about these things. You come to learn the difference between a black cherry and a black walnut, and to appreciate the birds that spend the Winter almost as much as you delight in the ones that return in the Spring.

It really is like seeing the world through a new set of glasses.

I suppose that sounds like nonsense to some, but I suspect Steve and Matt understand.

We would not trade what we can see through the eyes of a dog and the glare of a hawk, for all the chrome and glass to be seen through the clearest lens set in the most expensive set of designer shades.

And we are quite happy not to know too many people with strong opinions on what kind of wine goes best with Oysters Rockefeller!
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