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Another Bottle Down featuring Murph Willcott

photograph above by Chelsea Laine Francis

Dear Friends,

As I mentioned in my previous email, I recently had the great pleasure of once again speaking with Mark Rashap on his wine focused radio show, Another Bottle Down, which airs on KOOP radio (91.7 FM) at 1pm on Tuesday afternoons. If you missed it and you're interested in listening to our conversation, you can access a podcast of the show here.

Mark and I had what for me was a fascinating exchange regarding the overlap between wine making, bread baking and cooking. We began by focusing on sourcing pristine ingredients as the prerequisite for pretty much everything that follows. We then moved into a discussion regarding the degree of aggressiveness or intervention with which the chef, baker or winemaker can or should approach the raw ingredients. We also talked about fermentation as a fundamentally magical alchemy across these practices. And finally, we did our best to address the question of why we do what we do. To wit - in a world in which the term "foodie" has become almost pejorative - what is the value of focusing so much on food and wine? Either you like it or you don't, right? Is there a point at which our focus on these minutiae of food, bread, wine, whatever, becomes overwrought, elitist, and fetishized?

Anyway, I had a great time. I was able to talk a good bit about our approach to TFB's menu, my renewed interest in bread baking, and how we put together our wine list. Just thought I would share - hope a few of you might have a chance to listen to the podcast as I'm always up to continue the discussion in the restaurant. We have a table waiting for you.

bon appetit,

murph