100% grass fed beef really does taste a lot better than the ordinary, unhealthy cornfed variety. Props to Ian and King Corn for that revelation.
Holidays are nice and restful usually, which is the point after all. But then I went and threw a seven person dinner party today with no corn in the meal. As the movie will teach you, that’s very difficult to do; almost everything we eat has corn in it, from the beef and the dairy they produce, to artificial sweeteners derived from corn, to the eggs and butter in baked goods, and so on. So I managed it, with difficulty, but it all tasted good in the end. And sometimes arbitrary restrictions like that encourage greater creativity.
Most of the folks didn’t know each other, or that well, but that was part of the point; to try to forge links among the people I know and like. There was a paper reason for everyone there, and I could have invited a few more folks, but I wanted there to be a link between everyone there so we had at least some built in excuses for conversation. And that worked out all right; it wasn’t raucous like old friends would have been, but new friends? Perhaps.
And we didn’t talk except for maybe ten minutes about forensics.