SaltShaker

 There’s a thousand little things that go into making a great-tasting sausage, … It’s just attention to detail, every darn one.”
- Ralph Stayer, President, Johnsonville Foods
Buenos Aires - One of the cool things about being in a sort of multi-tasking lifestyle these days, i.e., I don’t have one job that I go to six days […]

 In November 1889, the young army officer Felicíssimo do Espírito Santo Cardoso handed a dismissal letter to Dom Pedro II and conducted the Emperor to the ship that would carry him into exile. That act was more symbolic of the change from monarchy to republic than Field Marshal Deodoro’s cry of “Long live the Republic!” […]

 This is a book that confronts one of the least known but important facts about the world’s cities: that they are home to more than a billion squatters. Within a generation, that number is projected to grow to two billion - and more than half the people living in cities will be squatters. Yet most […]

For those who haven’t noticed, I turned off the feature that required you register and log-in in order to comment. I don’t know why, but apparently the registration software had simply stopped sending out passwords when people register, and even when I manually entered new people who wanted to register, they couldn’t log-in. So commentary […]

 Great things are done when men and mountains meet.
- William Blake, Poet
Mendoza, Argentina - Let the muttering begin… He’s been in Argentina for almost three years and he’s never been to Mendoza…? What kind of wine geek is he…?
You’re right, really, and I don’t have much of an excuse for not having been, not that […]

 I must possess all, or I possess nothing.”
- Skeletor

Buenos Aires - Collectors are an odd breed, regardless of what it is they collect. Wine collectors are a breed unto themselves - amongst those of us in the wine trade, they tend to get referred to as “Masters of the Universe” - generally with a roll […]

 Once again, my life has been saved by the miracle of lasagna.”
- Garfield
Buenos Aires - A curious confluence of events occurred in the last week that brought a particular topic to mind. At first, I didn’t have a term to put on it, but then, my eyes lit upon a passage in the introduction to […]

 My time as President is fast coming to a close. For me, it has been a rare opportunity to make a difference and is the completion of one stage in my life’s mission. For Taiwan, these past eight years, though just a small stretch in the endless stream of history, have been an important stage […]