Yo! Foodies!

It's about time.

Out of my respect for those who suffer from 'seasonal affective disorder', or as we acronymically know it -- SAD -- it being a cloudy January, there is reason to bring Spain into our lives.

And a guilty pleasure.  Spain . . . On The Road Again.

TV series.  Mario Battali.  Gwyneth Paltrow.  Mark Bittman. Claudia Bassols.  Thirteen episodes, tripping around España.  Eating.

It's true that viewers have noted the 'internal dramatic tension' of this series is less than it might be.  And that its comedy fits routinely into the casual, and for the most part limited, conversation of people waiting for a restaurant table when they're hungry and barely scripted.

But that's part of its charm:  finding an Epicurean edge to a world -- if one thinks about it too carefully -- otherwise largely hellish.

Speaking for myself, there are simply times when I want to note the placid sections of the Bruegel vision of which I am a part.  

Being a gentleman of a certain age, I can certainly appreciate Mark Bittman's flirtation with the entrancing Claudia Bassols.

Where did you say that spa is?

At any rate, food and wine, my friends.  

Oh.  And I'll try one of these.  What did you say they were?

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