The Sermon on The Meat
Brothers and sisters, on this glorious Sunday morning the Wine Evangelist is moved to deliver a sermon on the topic of one of America’s most casually and unquestioningly accepted crimes against the senses. The fact that today is a Sunday makes it especially appropriate to deliver instruction on this topic.
My flock, across this great land tonight, so many Americans will sit down to a lovely communal meal, perhaps enhanced by a soul-thumping selection from The Cult Wine Club. This meal, so lovingly prepared by that stalwart steward of hedonism you call Mom or Dad, will be blemished by one small detail.
Regrettably, this meal may feature gray, overcooked meat.
Now just for a minute, allow the Wine Evangelist to share a small detail with you about his own personal family life. Today, in his small trailer in American Canyon, California, The Wine Evangelist does not do very much entertaining. Mostly he entertains only thoughts, and hatches plans for establishing the Dominion of Pleasure.
But there was a time where he was responsible for the preparation of viands and sundry meats at family events, and regrettably this was a source of conflict, reprehension, and yes, even shame in the Wine Evangelist’s ‘old’ life. You see, my children, I have always enjoyed my meat - be it squab, turkey, pork loin, guinea hen, lamb, or Prime Rib – cooked rather rare. I realize now that I enjoy my meat this way BECAUSE IT IS THE ONLY WAY MEAT SHOULD BE PREPARED. You are so instructed. In an effort to enlighten my family, particularly those belonging to “The Greatest Generation,” on the pleasures of juicy, tender, immensely savory rare meat, I have prepared the Sunday or Thanksgiving roast in this fashion. Poultry and pork preparation, in particular, are in greatest need of reform.
Invariably, this led to conflict in The Wine Evangelist’s life. Many family members, in particular members of “The Greatest Generation,” objected strenuously to this culinary choice. They inquired about the availability of a microwave. They delivered sermons of their own on the topic of foodborne disease, and offered cautionary apocrypha gleaned from a lifetime immersed in the culture of asceticism. So frightened by the prospect of properly prepared meat, some threatened to “go vegetarian tonight.”
That was when I, your servant, realized that not every American family could be saved from overcooked meat. This is a lifestyle choice like any other, brothers and sisters. You can lead a hog to the mud-patch, but you cannot make him wallow.
And I can lead you to a wine, for example this 2000 Hendry Ranch Zinfandel I am currently enjoying in generous draughts, but I cannot make you buy it. I can show you its effulgent blackberry fruit, its bulging cabinet of your granny’s baking spices, its hedonistic, jaunty posture in the glass, but only when you join this Pleasure Ministry called The Cult Wine Club, this Day-Glo colored bus bound for The Dominion of the Senses, will you be seduced by wines like this. You are so instructed. Welcome aboard.
Your Brother in Dionysus,
The Wine Evangelist