First Big Crush: The Down and Dirty on Making Great Wine Down Under
The story behind the bottle, First Big Crush is Eric Arnold’s wild account of his year immersing himself in all things wine…and somehow not winding up in rehab.

Never having held a meaningful job for very long (and getting fired from most of them), Eric Arnold heads to New Zealand — to Allan Scott Wines — seeking adventure and hoping to learn a little bit about wine. What could be better than working outside in the fresh air and drinking wine all day? Before he knows it, he is dirty, wet, cold, and at the mercy of a tank of wine that just might explode and take him with it. So begin Eric’s adventures in the world of wine. He gets sunburned, sore, and drunk — and then does it all over again the next day.

First Big Crush is a story that is as outrageous as it is compelling. Here are tales of first pressings, pruning, and tasting competitions. There are also rowdy nights at the local pub, girls, meat pies, girls, rugby, and tales of hunting wild pig. Along the way, each step of the winemaking process is explained in a way that humans can actually understand. Almost against his will, Eric becomes an expert.

Customer Review: A fraternity boy’s drunken rant
Trash. I cannot believe how such a great topic was ruined by Eric Arnold’s immature writing and drinking. I was so looking forward to a wonderful informative book on NZ winemaking, but I couldn’t get past Eric’s being drunk all the time and talking like a freshman frat boy! Grow up.

Customer Review: Read the “dirty” in more than one sense
Eric Arnold spent a year in New Zealand’s Marlborough winemaking region. Years earlier he spent a day touring the area: “And from my very first sip of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc at ten-thirty or so on that morning, I knew it, too — I was tasting something special. My mouth zipped and zinged, and though I couldn’t describe the flavors I was tasting, I was sure of only one thing: I wanted more. I was hammered by noon, with five wineries still to go. At one point I stole the tour guide’s microphone in the van and started singing karaoke — “The Tracks of My Tears” by Smokey Robinson — even though I didn’t know the words. I might’ve taken off my shirt, too, but I don’t remember. From winery to winery and sip to sip, the wines just got better and better. From the time I got back home to Brooklyn, whenever I was in a wine shop I either bought wine from New Zealand or asked for something similar. Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc was my new Hogue.”

The memory of that firts Sauvignon Blanc sticks in Arnold’s memory:

“For a few years after that trip I was still guzzling whatever New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc I could find at night, and spending my daylight hours working the copy desk at a small business magazine. It was better than working for the Nazi devil woman at PBS, but the same could probably be said for cleaning up monkey shit at the zoo (which, I imagine, is very similar to working at PBS). So out of a desire to drink more, work less, and maybe satisfy a little curiosity, up sprang the idea of just throwing myself into the lifestyle: getting a job at a winery and writing a book about it.”

Arnold initially knows nothing about winery work, but you have to admire his cheerful attitude, no matter what reality throws at him. He learns about rugby, pig hunting, and hard working rural New Zealanders. He finds two particularly difficult areas: the finer points of pitchforking and pruning winter vines in the cold fields. He concludes:

“Vineyard work sucks…I have no idea why, but many people who drink wine think that making it is some sort of relaxed, cushy lifestyle. And I don’t understand it , because I’ve never eaten a juicy steak and imagined how romantic and luxurious a life I’d have if I started raising cattle in Wyoming. Similarly, I’ve never met anyone who got a massage and moved to Sweden or shot heroin and moved to Afghanistan.”

Arnold is excellent at describing the difficulties and joys of working in a vineyard and in a winery. His language may be a bit racy for some readers, his humor a little too broad. Overall, I found the substance worth a few “Oh, grow up” moments.

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The French Menu Cookbook: The Food and Wine of France–Season by Delicious Season–In Beautifully Composed Menus for American Dining and Entertaining by an American Living in
As those who knew him will attest, Francophile and food writer Richard Olney was one of a kind—a writerly cook who had a tremendous influence on American cooking via his well-worn cottage on a hillside in Provence. Born in the Midwest in 1927 and drawn to France at the tender age of twenty-four, Olney was unapologetically attracted to the style, flavors, and tastes of French cooking when most Americans were smitten by the wonders of the new prepared foods in their markets. With unrelenting passion and precision, Olney studied and explored the cuisine, carefully documenting all he had learned for future generations of chefs, cooks, and food lovers. His first of several landmark works, THE FRENCH MENU COOKBOOK was well ahead of its time with its authentic French recipes and then-unheard-of seasonal approach to cooking. Little did we know then that THE FRENCH MENU COOKBOOK would provide inspiration for Alice Waters and her compatriots as they built the groundwork for a culinary revolution in America. Brimming with the honest and enlightening explanations of how the French really cook and the 150-plus authentic recipes, this book is a masterful resource that is a must for every serious cook.

Customer Review: A great supplement to Simple French Food
This book is a great addition to Olney’s classic Simple French Food.

Customer Review: Possibly the most sophisticated cookbook in English
Looking back to 1970, the year this book was first published, puts its sophistications in context and underscores the enormity of its contributions. America was deep in culinary ignorance, eating out of cans and supplementing that metal-tinged blandness with gut-busting mountains of artificial ‘foods’. America was lost somehwere between the post-war meat-and-potatoes era and the chemical concoctions of the 80s and beyond. Small glimmers of possibility illuminated the occassional suburban cocktail party, when hostesses under the influence of Julia Child trotted out a few hotel-food hors d’oeuvres, and a few ethnic enclaves still held up a candle of flavor, but America was largely a culinary wasteland. Servings were large, everything was bland, and mealtime had become TV time. Without flavor or family, American meals were effectively dead.

It was into this lunar food landscape that Richard Olney introduced several revolutionary ideas at once in The French Menu Cookbook. I should say that he RE-introduced these ideas, because they had existed, with varying degrees of sophistication, for as long as people had eaten, but an industrial food system had interrupted that great cultural memory. This book’s structure is its message: the food is introduced not by category, but by course within menus, and the menus themselves are organized by season. For those of us who have heard the gospel of seasonality and regional availability and freshness from Alice Waters and Paul Bertolli, at al, it can be easy to forget that this idea is still, 36 years after The French Menu Cookbook, radical, and so against the grain of the industrial food complex as to be almost an act of treason. But Richard Olney’s way with food started that revolution at possibly the most inoportune moment in Americna history.

A sample menu says it all:

An Informal Spring Dinner

Hors d’oeuvre of Crudites
Shrimp Quiche
Coq au Vin
Steamed Potatoes
Wild Green Salad
Cheeses
Flamri with Raspberry Sauce

all of the above matched with appropriate wines.

Notice the careful development through the courses, the constant shifts of flavor to keep the palate alive, the seasonal ingredients… All of this was deeply shocking at the time.

But there’s one more big surprise: this book is every bit as good today as it was in 1970. It doesn’t feel even remotely dated, like Julia Child’s books do. Maybe, in hueing so faithfully to the principles of freshness, seasonality, and regional availability, Olney tapped into something timeless. And so this book was a classic the day it was published, and remains one of the most sophisticated, satisfying, and inspiring cookbooks ever published.

Very highly recommended.

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California wine prices predicted to rise
demand for grapes could rise by 7 percent this year, according to a reputable industry source. All of this will of course affect wine prices, especially at the low end of the spectrum. I think there will be fewer bargains for consumers six to nine months

Wild Sweets: Exotic Dessert and Wine Pairings (Wild Sweets)

New dessert delicacies, from wild and exotic ingredients.

Wild Sweets introduces a new way of thinking about desserts. The recipes in this book elevate sweets from the ordinary to the extraordinary and the sublime, and appeal to the senses in their taste, texture and shape.

No longer is dessert just one course. Like a complete fine meal, it begins with canapes and cocktails, and builds with sweet dishes made from fruit and berries, grains and seeds, or even sweet vegetables that may be augmented with chocolate or ice wine. Then it finishes with decadent cookies and chocolates. To accompany each dessert course, Dominique and Cindy Duby pair sweet wines and ice wines that draw out the flavors of the dishes and heighten the dining experience.

Wild Sweets will enchant the home cook with the newest and most exciting development in the world of desserts. There are over 250 recipes in all.

Customer Review: Wild Sweets
This book contains some of the most amazing ideas and concepts I’ve seen in the field of desserts and sweets. It explores new ingredients and their application in dessert making. I highly recommend this book for anyone intrested in pastry, desserts and molecular gastronomy.

Customer Review: wild sweets
Very avant-garde in flavor combinations. Crossing the border on what ingredients are “sweet” and “savory”, stunning photography, extremely useful wine pairings and general information on some raw basic ingredients. Nice layout/format and easily readable font. Useful base recipes are a nice addition to any professional’s repetoire. Highly recommended.

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Board pulls 807 Fire and Ice’s license to sell beer – Chattanooga Times Free Press
The revocation only applies to beer. Fire and Ice, at 807 Market St., still can sell wine and liquor. Several residents from the Loveman’s on Market condominium building across the street from the club spoke during the hearing. Attorney Rick

The Wine and Food Lover’s Diet: 28 Days of Delicious Weight Loss
Eat good food, drink a little wine, lose weight! Sounds too good to be true? Not with The Wine and Food Lover’s Diet. Created by a sports doctor with a background in nutrition, this is a diet that combines healthful eating with a love of eating. Imagine a meal of bacon-topped arugula salad, pecan-crusted chicken paired with the perfect glass of wine, and closing with chocolate souffl or some ice cream and a cup of coffee and then, even better, looking at the decrease on the scales the next morning. Dr. Phillip Tirman’s 28-day plan sheds the pounds and the diet angst. He knows that most diets fail because they’re based on restricting the foods everyone loves the most and they’re impractical for today’s busy lifestyles. So he has developed a lifetime eating plan based on satisfaction, not deprivation. The key to feeling slimmer and healthier? It’s the surefire combo that is the foundation of the diet: one protein + two low-glycemic carbs = success. Using this formula, Dr. Tirman has created a menu plan to jump-start weight loss. He clearly and simply describes why high-glycemic carbs promote weight gain, while low-glycemic carbs do the opposite. Included are handy lists of beneficial Savvy Carbs and Super Savvy Carbs, which make it easy to tailor the diet to anyone’s tastes plus 100 really delicious recipes with wine pairing suggestions, illustrated in full color. There’s also clear advice for choosing take-out foods, for selecting diet-friendly restaurant dishes, and for using the diet to lose weight or simply to keep off the pounds already lost. The Wine and Food Lover’s Diet is the ultimate key to a healthier, fuller, longer, and more satisfying life.

Customer Review: I love this book!
This book is not only great for feeling good about the way you eat or “dieting” if you insist. For me it is such a nice change from the status quoe meals giving you gourmet alternatives for quick meals. Plus the bonus that you are being healthy yet feeling decadent! I have tried probably over half of the recipes and they have all turned out so well that a few are now family favorites made all the time.

If you just enjoy food and wine I think you will enjoy this book. I got it as a gift and have given as a gift and we all love it!

Customer Review: Same ol High Protein Diet
I was really disappointed with this book and sent it back. I was hoping for a book that was about having balance, eating healthy but not depriving yourself. Instead, this book is the same old song about eating loads and loads of protein. There are absolutely NO carbs in any of the recipes (unless you count your veggies). This just isnt realistic. Power to you people who can follow Atkins, but our brains need glucose in order to function optimally – I know I do! Dont buy this if you’re hoping for a balanced diet – this is not. I give two stars because the recipes look good and are presented well.

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Wines of the World: Your essential handbook (Eyewitness Companions)
From Alsace to Western Australia, and from Piedmont, Italy to the Colchagua Wine Valley of Chile, Wines of the World delivers essential information about each of the 35 major wine-producing regions in the world. With detailed reports on the top producers; must-have vintages; maps; buying guides; and the style, characteristics, and flavors of hundreds of wines – this is an unrivalled, lavishly illustrated, and portable guide for anyone interested in learning more about wines.

Customer Review: Exploring Wines of the World
Earlier, I reviewed a book in the Eyewitness Companions series on French Wine. What better sequel than looking at wine throughout the world? This volume does a nice job of providing the reader with a background regarding wine and then conducting a country by country tour of the important winemaking countries of the world. As always, one gets breadth at the cost of depth. But the tradeoff appears to me to be well worth making.

The context for winemaking is complicated. The work says (Page 10): “Wine is a pure reflection of its `terroir’ [Page22--". . .a unique combination of climate, topography, and soil types [that] shapes the character of the vines. . .”], and no other single product sums up its cultural, geographical, and historical origins in quite the same way.” Wine apparently began being made in the Caucasus Mountains of Georgia. Over time, grapes and wine spread throughout many countries. Trivia: France leads in wine production, with Italy second, Spain third, and the US fourth (see Page 13). Wine consumption is greatest in France. The US ranks 17th among countries.

The first part of the book explores the history of wine, the “terroir” (how the climate, soil type, etc. affect the grape), the various types of grape (e.g., merlot, cabernet sauvignon, pinot noir, riesling, and sauvignon blanc among many others), what happens in the vineyard, the winemaking process, and the style of wines (sparkling, rose, etc).

With that context as background, the book then begins a country by country examination of grapes and wines throughout the world. Countries featured include the usual suspects, such as France, Italy, Spain, the United States, Germany (and Austria and Switzerland), Portugal, and so on. In addition, new world production in Chile and Argentina are discussed as well as the wine industry in venues such as Australia and New Zealand and Greece, etc. In a short Amazon review, it is quite impossible to summarize all. So, here are a couple samplings of the discussion, focusing on a handful of countries. Part of the fun of this book, after all, is one’s personal exploration of wines of the world!

Spain: First, a background on Spanish wine, including Spanish Wine Law. Then, a region by region discussion of wines, in northern Spain, central Spain, and Southern Spain. For each region, a discussion of the characteristic variety of grapes, the types of wine, characteristics of those wines, and so on.

Chile: Again, the discussion begins with an enumeration of the “terroir” of grapes in Chile, then a listing of top producers in each geographic area, and a brief description of the major wine producers in the country. At the end, one does have a clearer sense of wine in Chile.
All in all, an enjoyable and relaxing tour of the winemaking world. Another typically well done product of the Eyewitness Companions series.

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Wine (101 Essential Tips)
Breaks down learning about wine into 101 easy-to-grasp tips and gives quick answers to all your questions.

Customer Review: Great Little Wine Book
This is a wonderful little wine book. It contains at least 101 little tips to make you more knowledgable about wine. This is the perfect starter book for anyone looking to learn about wine and be able to carry on an intelligent conversation about wine.

Customer Review: Excellent source for beginners
I checked this book out of the library, and liked it so much I had to get a copy for myself! I am organizing a wine tasting group, and my hope is to educate as well as learn along with everyone else. We range from novice to experience wine tasters in our group. This little guidebook is one that I will bring to every tasting as a quick reference for those who want to learn an overview.

My favorite section is “Assessing Wine,” which touches on color, tasting do’s and don’ts, smell, and wine flavors. I wish DK Publishing would put out a poster with this information on it! I guess I will have to let people flip through this book when I want to make a point.

As with all DK books I own, this book is graphically excellent and it uses photography to illustrate its text in a very effective way.

I think this a great book!

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The World’s Greatest Wine Estates: A Modern Perspective
Over the past twenty-five years, renowned critic Robert M. Parker, Jr., has visited both legendary and fledgling wineries all over the world and has tasted hundreds of thousands of wines. Only a fraction of those wines have earned his highest ratings and are considered by him to be truly legendary. In his latest book, Parker brings together what he calls “the best of the best,” taking readers on a personal tour of the wineries that have impressed him most with their dedication to quality, consistency, and excellence.

The World’s Greatest Wine Estates pays homage to exceptional wines and the exceptional people who make them. These lavishly illustrated pages showcase 175 of the world’s most accomplished — and most spectacular — estates. Parker goes be-yond the labels, bottles, and ratings to present the land, the history, and the dedicated artisans practicing their craft. Though they form a wildly diverse group, all of these producers “share an inexhaustible commitment to their vineyards, a passion to produce as fine a wine as is humanly possible, and a vision that the joys of wine are infinite and represent the pinnacle of a civilized society.”

Parker begins with an overview of what makes a wine great — the ability to please both the palate and the intellect, to offer intense aromas and flavors without heaviness, to improve with age, to reflect its place of origin as well as the skill of its producers — and explains how he came to choose the profound wines he features here. He also offers insider tips for ordinary wine-lovers who want to get their hands on extraordinary bottles.

The heart of the book contains profiles of the greatest estates of Argentina, Australia, Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and the United States. Each region is illustrated with a full-color map and accompanied by an introduction explaining the general wine history of the country. In his profiles of individual estates, Parker offers essential geographical information such as grape varietals, average age of the vines, and density of plantation; details about the estate’s history and techniques and the wines it produces; visiting information for those who want to see the process up close; and tasting notes on the best recent vintages from each winery. Each profile also includes photographs of the vineyards and the people behind the wines, and labels from their best-known vintages.

Complete with a list of up-and-coming wineries (“Future Stars”) and a glossary of wine terms, The World’s Greatest Wine Estates is a very special reference for amateurs and connoisseurs alike.

Customer Review: Save the Great Estates from Robert Parker
Robert Parker has done more damage to wine than phylloxera. In this dry tome he continues his crusade to destroy terroir-driven wines. The book is poorly written and fails to convey any useful information; clearly written for the love of money rather than wine. Save your money and buy a decent bottle of wine – and remember to boycott Parker-rated wines!

Customer Review: Great gift
My husband loves to research wine – this book was a highlight of Christmas! Thick book – well-researched.

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Food and Wine Pairing: A Sensory Experience
The only book that presents food and wine pairing from a culinary and sensory perspective.

Demystifying the terminology and methodology of matching wine to food, Food and Wine Pairing: A Sensory Experience presents a practical, user-friendly approach grounded in understanding the direct relationships and reactions between food and wine components, flavors, and textures. This approach uses sensory analysis to help the practitioner identify key elements that affect pairings, rather than simply following the usual laundry list of wine-to-food matches. The text takes a culinary perspective first, making it a unique resource for culinary students and professionals.

Food and Wing Pairing:

• Lays out the basics of wine evaluation and the hierarchy of taste concepts
• Establishes the foundation taste components of sweet, sour, slat, and bitter in food, and dry, acidity, and effervescence in wine, and looks at how these components relate to one another
• Discusses wine texture, and the results of their interactions with one another
• Examines the impact that spice, flavor type, flavor intensity, and flavor persistency have one the quality of wine and food matches
• Includes exercises to improve skills relating to taste identification and palate mapping
• Provides a systematic process for predicting successful matches using sequential and mixed tasting methods
• Gives guidance on pairing wine with foods such as cheese and various desserts, as well as service issues such as training and menu/wine list development

Food and Wine Paring provides students and professionals with vivid and dynamic learning features to bring the matching process to life with detail and clarity. real-world examples include menus and tasting notes from renowned restaurants, as well as Aperitifs or vignettes portraying culinary notables—both individuals and organizations—which set their wine parings in a complete gastronomical, regional, and cultural context.

Culinary students making their initial foray into understanding paring will appreciate the reader-friendly and comprehensive approach taken by Food and Wine Pairing. More advanced students, instructors, and culinary professionals will find this text to be an unparalleled tool for developing their matching process and honing their tasting instinct.

Customer Review: Smart and insightful
Fun to read, great exercises to test your taste. Primarily a text for students it includes some amazing recipes specially chosen to appreciate the subtle flavors of lots of wines. Can make for wonderful tasting dinner amongst friends. Highly enjoyable!

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De Long’s Wine Grape Varietal Table
Learn about Wine the Visual Way.

You consider yourself fairly open minded about wine. You’re familiar with the big five — Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc, and Chardonnay — and are getting comfortable with more obscure grape varieties: the occasional Albarino, Petite Sirah, or Viognier. But just when you thought you had the situation under control, your waiter suggests a Lagrein, your local liquor store is pushing Xynomavro, and your friends now swear by Pineau d’Aunis. What to do?

The popular wine reference, De long’s Wine Grape Varietal Table has been improved and expanded. Just as with the first edition, the world of wine grapes is organized in a clear, concise and easy to use reference similar to a periodic table. The table contains 184 red and white grape varieties organized by both body (vertically) and acidity (horizontally). The Wine Indexes, which help to answer the bacchanalian question “what grape are you drinking?”, now include all wine regions worldwide. To fit all the additional information in, the table is now 24 x 36 inches (printed on 110 lb. acid-free archival paper), and the indexes now comprise an 88 page perfect-bound book. The table and index book are packaged in an attractive and sturdy gift box.

It makes a great gift for novice or expert lovers of wine and is the first in the De Long’s Wine Info Series, a concise set of wine information guides.

Customer Review: top chart
An excellent tool for training, eduction or just curiosity. It is very easy to understand and reference.

Customer Review: Fabulous Chart.
I have many friends who enjoy wine, some of them in the food/hospitality business. They are all jealous of this chart.

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Things Just Taste Better With Wine, Well Pomegranate Wine San Francisco Chronicle (press release) They are a small production winery and their wines are made from 100% California grown pomegranates. Twin Pomegranates Wine believes it is important to maintain the value and integrity of the fruit to maintain the beauty and health benefits for which … and more »

A la carte – Santa Rosa Press Democrat

A la carte Santa Rosa Press Democrat The restaurant is trying to reflect the healthy-eating trend and the healthy Mediterranean diet, offering everything from bite-size snacks and pizza to knife-and-fork dining. The robust, hearty flavors of food are designed to pair with wines. …

Bread & Water, Wine & Oil: An Orthodox Christian Experience of God
Worry, despair, insecurity, fear of death . . . these are our daily companions, and even though we attempt to ignore them or try to crowd them out, they are there, waiting for us in our quieter moments. It is precisely where we hurt most that the experience of the Orthodox Church has much to offer. The remedy is not a pep talk, or any simple admonitions to fight the good fight, cheer up, or think positively. Rather, the Orthodox method is to change the way we look at the human person (starting with ourselves). According to two thousand years of experience, Orthodoxy shows us how to be transformed by the renewing of our mind — a process that is aided by participation in the traditional ascetic practices and Mysteries of the Church. In this unique and accessible book, Archimandrite Meletios Webber first explores the role of mystery in the Christian life, then walks the reader through the seven major Mysteries of the Orthodox Church, showing the way to a richer, fuller life in Christ.

Customer Review: A profound but eminently approachable introduction to the goals and means of Orthodox spirituality
In BREAD & WATER, WINE & OIL Father Meletios Webber offers an explanation of aspects of Orthodox faith that benefits from his individual experiences. An English convert to Orthodoxy, Fr Meletios also has training as a psychologist. Initially Fr Meletios both applies psychological concepts to the Orthodox faith, which we modern people might swiftly understand, and sets the secular science of psychology in harmony with the teaching of the Church Fathers. He draws a distinction between the “mind”, our ways of thinking which can only distract us from religious faith, and the “heart” (his translation of Greek nous), a human being’s deeper insight. Orthodox practice, Fr. Meletios explains, is directed towards nourishing the heart, creating nothing less than a relationship with God, and its rich symbolism of bread and water, wine and oil serve that end. Part I clarifies issues of prayer, fasting (why and how do we fast?), the use of icons, and the church building. In Part II, each of the Orthodox sacraments receives its own chapter. Fr. Meletios walks through the steps of the church’s ceremonies surrounding these, explaining the equally vital but distinct roles of both clergy and people in each. For converts coming from denominations without a sacramental tradition, this will prove very helpful to understanding what all is going on in church.

As a catechumen in the Orthodox Church with training in Classical Greek and an academic bent, I’ve read dozens of books on Orthodox practice written in specialist terminology and abundantly footnoted. But few books have impressed me as much as Fr. Meletios’ work here, which casts greater light on Orthodoxy for the Western convert with the most simple of tones. If you want a gentle and friendly–but still rigorous and spiritually challenging–introduction to the Orthodox faith, but find Frederica Matthewes-Green’s books too cutesy (and nothing against Matushka, she focuses on her own important demographic), Fr. Meletios Webber’s book is well worth reading.

Customer Review: A Spiritual Gift
I highly recommend “Bread & Water, Wine & Oil.” Father Meletios states it best: “We (Orthodox Christians) identify ourselves most clearly by being quite sure who we are not.” True to his “who we are not” theme, Father Meletios explores every dimension of Orthodoxy and its Mysteries, and richly interprets the almost unexplainable. Anyone seeking Orthodoxy will find his engaging style, and clarity of thought about Orthodox teachings most illuminating and spiritually eloquent. Those already engaged in the Orthodox spiritual life will be refreshed with deeper understanding. His genuine and practical anecdotes connect an ancient Faith with modern life, ever so adeptly. Father Meletios’ writings are an immeasurable gift to his readers, and I am grateful for his monumental effort. This book is to be read carefully and savored. It is a treasure; certainly it will be an enduring one. Thank you, Father Mel, from one of the lucky ones who has grown under your spiritual guidance.

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