A genuine sense of urbanity in Santa Fe isn’t found in museums or galleries. It isn’t found in capital city politics or at the opera or among top-ranked restaurants. It’s on the side of the road, in junky trucks, churning out chili dogs.

In advance of attending the Wine Basics class at Amavi, I developed a mantra: “Don’t chug the wine, don’t gulp the wine, don’t spill it on your face…again.”

But it didn’t work.

The newly opened Casablanca restaurant at the corner of W. San Francisco Street and Burro Alley is still getting off the ground, but its Mediterranean presence in downtown Santa Fe inspires a tahini-soaked daydream.

Opening a bar in Santa Fe, given that New Mexico’s liquor laws appear to have been drafted in 17th-century Salem, is just stupid. Add the pricey rents and it’s borderline mental illness. Opening a restaurant here is an equally unsound endeavor, but with lower profit margins. Open both and you've got Corazón.

Soylent Green is people and chile comes in condiment packets.

Like many people, I spend hours upon hours each day plopped in front of a screen, smearing my ass into the shape of a chair, while I could be harvesting ingredients, hunting down recipes, making proper stock and planning ridiculous meals.

New York pizza is just the shadow of classic Neapolitan pizza in my book, and it doesn’t interest me as a distinct geo-cultural cuisine. What I like about pizza in New York is that it’s available on almost every block and, consequently, there’s enough competition to ensure that it’s generally quite good.

To hell with the breakfast burrito—the congee at Mu Du Noodles’ Sunday brunch is sumptuous enough to make me lie in print about giving up the tortilla-wrapped goodness for good. It’s like a plate of migas crashed into a bowl of miso in a display case full of fine spices and landed in a gift basket of Asian delicacies.

The Kitchen is a kind of fantasy restaurant: It’s a melding of classic European eateries that faded away 100 years ago and casual mom ’n’ pop operations that throw out “gone fishin’” signs when they don’t feel like cooking, all with contemporary food, conservation and community sensibilities.

Even the best-prepared meals can suffer from poor beverage choices. You may make a mean turkey or be expert at cracking a can of cranberry but, unless you happen to excel at enology, choosing the right wine can be a daunting prospect in a store packed with pretenders and cheap tricks.