It is not every day you come across a writer willing to sing the praises of pork fat, fruitcake and Champagne rose. But James Villas does this with precision and passion in Stalking the Green Fairy (John Wiley & Sons Inc., 2004, $26.95), a delightful collection of essays about fine drink and good food.
A veteran magazine journalist possessed, in his words, with "a seasoned gullet," Villas was the food and wine editor of Town & Country magazine for 27 years and in 2003 was named Bon Appetit's Food Writer of the Year.
While lacking the narrative flow of his 2002 memoir, Between Bites, this collection of essays stirs up entertaining examples to make common-sense points and sprinkles in a few recipes.
On the whole, Villas thinks we would be better off honoring tradition instead of jumping at whatever is trendy. When, for instance, he is invited to a "cocktail" party, Villas expects to taste some booze. If, as happened at one gathering in the glittery climes of Manhattan, the only beverage being served is wine, Villas has been known to pull a flask of Jack Daniels from his jacket and make himself a highball.
"I resolutely do not drink wine at cocktail parties," he writes. "Wine, after all, is not - repeat not - a cocktail and when some gig is pegged as a cocktail party, is it really asking too much to have a simple gin and tonic or bourbon and branch?"
Wine's rightful place in the culinary firmament, he says in a later essay, is as a dinner companion. He suggests that a smart move when ordering top-dollar wine in a restaurant is to carry a vintage chart in your wallet. He carries one drawn up by Monkton's Robert Parker, publisher of The Wine Advocate newsletter.
Villas also makes a compelling case for drinking Champagne rose, the joyful, genuine article from France that costs more than $400 a bottle, or as he calculates, about $10 a sip.
Less convincing is his argument for drinking absinthe, the alcoholic drink made with wormwood. This liquid, known as the Green Fairy, has been praised through the years by poets, painters and composers. In the title essay of the book, Villas writes that while absinthe was once banned as a potential poison, it is making a legal comeback in most of Europe.
On matters edible, Villas, who has long been a champion of regional American fare, hits fine form when discussing the eating habits of his native South. The king of the Southern table, he says, is the pig. "When it comes not only to the art of curing, smoking, seasoning and cooking pig but also to outright consumption, nobody - repeat nobody - outperforms Southerners."
