The Knife

March of the Prissy Little Bitches

Mario Batali, PLB? Newsletter subscribers, click for video (courtesy Serious Eats).

Here's a phrase you won't find in the Food Snob's Dictionary: "Prissy Little Bitch."

Coined by Melissa Lion at Bookslut.com, the PLB is a chef or foodie who is Just So about Every Little Thing on your plate, up to and including the plate itself. I'd place Martha Stewart and trend-chasing menu writers in the PLB camp; Lion adds Mario Batali (whose cookbooks provide recommendations such as “Find a good organic poultry supplier and support them -- or raise your own.”) as well as bow-tied "Cook's Illustrated" founder Christopher Kimball and Jeremiah Tower, whose book "America's Best Chefs Cook," Lion says, "should have been subtitled, the march of the prissy little bitches."

On one hand, of course, this is all very unfair since anyone who gets excited about Intelligentsia Coffee, sneers at supermarket tomatoes or has even considered sniffing and slurping a sip of wine exhibits PLB characteristics. That said, watch the episode of Sundance Channel's "Iconoclasts" that pairs Mikhail Barishnikov with Alice Waters and tell me if you don't feel just a little like strangling her. 

Windrose Farm: Happiest place on earth

Last weekend was wine country's harvest weekend. I spent it in Paso Robles' wine country and I harvested, but it had little to do with wine.

Windrose Farm in its natural habitat

Although we toured and bought wine at Halter Ranch Vineyard, tasted and purchased lime-pressed olive oil at Pasolivo and had a very good dinner at Paso Robles' much- needed Artisan, this weekend was all about Windrose Farm. And if you have the fortitude to sleep in a trailer, it'll be the best $125 a night you'll ever spend.

(Click on a thumbnail, then drag your cursor across them for captions. Newsletter subscribers can see the gallery here.)

Enjoy the photos; full story to come.