I'm always amazed to hear that people think of you as their personal concierge. I would never think to bother someone when you could just ask the Google. People used to call Velleggia's all the time to ask when Sabatino's closed or what the number for Da Mimmo's was.

What would Klaus Kinski do?

1 bottle of wine, a heavy red or a white that is not too sweet

With instructions like that how could you go wrong? What exactly is a heavy red that is not too sweet? I never understood sangria. You take cheap wine and make it even sweeter and add cheap brandy. Blech.

What exactly is a heavy red that is not too sweet?

The problem with English is that it doesn't use parentheses to denote order of evaluation like computer programming languages do. In a programming language the phrase "a heavy red or a white that is not too sweet" would probably be written "(a heavy red) or (a white that is not too sweet)".

... said Hal as he knocked on the door with breakfast.

I suspect that in HalWorld we would all speak in C++ (or possibly Ubbi Dubbi). On second thought Ubbi Dubbi is probably what they speak in HalHell. I think that the commonly used non-delimited compound words with mid-word capitalization is a direct result of structured programming languages, e.g., HalWorld. How cool was it to have variable names like that? That a markup language like HTML still exists is proof of Satan or EvilEntropy.

Ambiguity makes for great poetry, but lousy recipes. Borges, who was fluent in English because his grandmother was English, made exactly that point about the use of Spanish versus English for writing creatively (in Paul Theroux's The Old Patagonian Express, p. 367) Are we off-topic here? Not if you consider that Borges lived in Buenos Aires at the time.

Hal, you have touched upon a major problem in English. If English grammar were only based on C, everything would be so much more clear.

Your example, though is more Boolean logic, and would work perfectly legally as search terms.

Of course, many geeks do speak English as a computer language, at least among ourselves. Then we get really confused, because of all the dialects.

EL, I still remember vividly when the recipe was published I followed it word by word, line by line and served it at my Fourth of July party. It was 100 degrees that day. The first few guests who gulped it down almost had an acute case of intoxication, not to mention torched esophagus. I didn't realized that the resulting concoction needed to be properly diluted with melted ice (or water). To this day my friends still remember my (in)famous sangria.

I recently read your reveiw on pappas restaurant and was very disappointed in what your experience was.I have been patronizing pappas restaurant for 25 years or more and have rarely had any problems.I think you should return and give them another try from what I was told Don Scott and Marty Bass both enjoy dinning there.Next time you go try the wednsday special they are vey famous for 1 crab cake dinner and 2 sides $12.95 dinning room or $9.99 in the lounge or sports bar,most everyone we talk to leave pappas satisfied .

Jimmy, can I get you another sangria?

Marty Bass both enjoy dinning there

Check please!

I think this thread really lacks solid information on Ixia and Birches, too.

I'd also like more information about children in restaurants.

I'd like more information on how much to tip.

As for kids, I only take tips.

I've heard that Marty Bass doesn't tip.

Anyone got the Marconi's chopped salad recipe?

I have been wondering where I could get a good crab cake.

Trixie, I've been wondering where I could get a good cigarette.

Oh, dear the hysteria is starting again. I think it might be contagious.

Hello? Andy? Is that you?