Harvest Day

We harvested homegrown mushrooms today. Good for spaghetti.

Caine's Arcade

http://cainesarcade.com/

Love Handles for All

Revolutionary thinking??  If you want to lose weight, you need to stop eating. This is the obvious truth, Robert believes, but a hard story for anyone to tell. It is difficult for anyone to make money selling you something this simple. So, we'd rather believe that exercise (and sports gear) and diets (and packaged portions) and organic food (and glamorous Whole Foods) are the solution. We are fat because we are rich.

Key quote: “We’re simply not genetically programmed to refuse calories when they’re within arm’s reach,” said Thomas A. Farley, New York City’s health commissioner, when I spoke to him recently.

And Love Handles for All

By FRANK BRUNI

Published: April 16, 2012

What if we have it backward? What if the 310-pound man trying to jam into the middle seat and the 225-pound woman breaking into a sweat only halfway up the stairs aren’t the undisciplined miscreants of modern American life but the very emblems of it?

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What if fatness, even obesity, is less a lurking danger than a likely destiny, and the surprise isn’t how many seriously overweight people are out there but how few?

Those are among the unsettling questions raised, at least implicitly, by “The Weight of the Nation,” an ambitious multiplatform project that takes the full measure of our girth, its genesis and its toll.

A book with that title will be published next week by St. Martin’s Press, and it boils down information from a more sweeping, ambitious, four-part documentary to be shown next month on HBO, which produced it with input from the Institute of Medicine, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health. HBO will also make the documentary available on many Web sites, including the network’s own.

Distilling many decades of research, “Weight” chronicles how we’ve eaten our way into disease and sometimes despair. About two-thirds of American adults now qualify as overweight or obese, according to the C.D.C.

But here’s the scariest (and trickiest) part, which deserves much more attention than it has received and must be factored into our response: we may be doing nothing more or less than what comes naturally to us. Our current circumstances and our current circumferences may in fact be a toxically perfect fit.

Following in the heavy footsteps of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” “The End of Overeating,” “The End of Food” and much else, “The Weight of the Nation” makes an especially persuasive case that gluttony isn’t Americans’ problem. Agriculture and abundance are.

Over the last century, we became expert at the mass production of crops like corn, soybeans and wheat — a positive development, for the most part.

We also became expert at feedlots for livestock and at processing those crops into salty, sweet, fatty, cheap and addictive seductions. This has downsides.

Densely caloric and all too convenient food now envelops us, and many of us do what we’re chromosomally hard-wired to, thanks to millenniums of feast-and-famine cycles. We devour it, creating plump savings accounts of excess energy, sometimes known as love handles, for an imagined future shortage that, in America today, doesn’t come.

“We’re simply not genetically programmed to refuse calories when they’re within arm’s reach,” said Thomas A. Farley, New York City’s health commissioner, when I spoke to him recently. He is one of dozens of leading physicians, academicians and public-health experts who appear in “The Weight of the Nation.”

John Hoffman, an executive producer of the documentary, told me: “Evolutionarily, there was no condition that existed when we were living with too much fat storage. We’ve only known a world of plenty for maybe 100 years. Our biological systems haven’t adapted to it.”

This is probably summed up best by Michael L. Power and Jay Schulkin in their book “The Evolution of Obesity.” “We evolved on the savannahs of Africa,” they write. “We now live in Candyland.”

Our systems aren’t just rigged to gorge. They’re also rigged in many cases to rebound from weight loss and put pounds back on, as Tara Parker-Pope explained in a cover story for The Times’s Sunday magazine last year. So we’re fighting against that bit of nature, too.

Then there’s this: the battle is perpetual and maddeningly nuanced. “When it comes to smoking or drinking, people generally have to go cold turkey,” notes David Altshuler, an endocrinologist and geneticist, in the documentary. “But fundamentally we have to eat.”

Every meal is a surrender that can be only partial, a feat of calibration. “We underestimate how hard it is to change your behavior not once — not for a week or a month until you’re cured — but to change it every day for the rest of your life,” says Altshuler.

If we’re going to wage a successful war against unhealthy weight gain and obesity, we need to understand all of that. We need to stop vilifying obese people, who aren’t likely to be helped by it.

And we need to rethink and remake our environment much more thoroughly than we seem poised to do.

The kind of consciousness-raising and corporate prodding being done by Michelle Obama — laudable as it is — won’t be nearly enough. Neither will the extra green space for exercise that cities like Nashville have commendably created, or New York City officials’ admirable exile of sugary sodas from public school vending machines.

These important steps, plus others under consideration, are just the start. Let’s move, yes. But let’s do it a whole lot faster, because what we may be trying to hold back is a near inevitable tide.

Women's Tennis

The Pierce family spent the day today watching women's collegiate tennis. Sixth ranked Stanford against top ranked UCLA. Robert really enjoyed the day. All the women did a fantastic job. They are amazing competitors. Each of their parents must be very proud of their intensity and hard work.

UCLA took the day, soundly beating the Cardinal.  Of course, Robert didn't take sides this time.

Walk in the Park

In Case You've Ever Wondered

Where do tennis racket strings come from?

http://www.tennis-warehouse.com/LC/NaturalGut.html

Mendoza: The Pierce's Home Away From Home in 2010

No mention of Hotel Nutibara!

http://travel.nytimes.com/2012/04/08/travel/36-hours-in-mendoza-argentina.html

36 Hours in Mendoza, Argentina

Nicolas Wormull for The New York Times

In the vast Parque General San Martín. More Photos »

ARGENTINA’S financial crash in 2002 was actually a boon for the local wine industry. The devaluation of the peso meant that winemakers in this northern region of the country could deliver high-quality vintages to the export market at very low prices, even while the cost of making wine was dropping. Real estate prices also fell, and investors rushed in to snap up prime wine acreage at a fraction of the cost in other regions. Ten years later the result is a vibrant wine scene with a great array of bottles for different budgets and palates, cutting-edge eco-sustainable cantinas and a new generation of innovative winemakers. The city of Mendoza itself makes a good base for a visit, with new hotels, restaurants and bars in the historic center, and a mix of architecture that showcases Art Deco alongside ’60s modern (the vintage pickup trucks are also a throwback to another era). Just a short drive away are vineyards, adventure sports and resorts under the shadow of the Andes with wine lists that feature the best of the region.

Multimedia

Slide Show

A Weekend in Mendoza, Argentina

Map

Mendoza, Argentina

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Nicolas Wormull for The New York Times

The tasting room at Vines of Mendoza, where samplings include a flight of Mendoza’s famous malbecs. More Photos »

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Nicolas Wormull for The New York Times

Tango at the luxurious Park Hyatt. More Photos »

1. PREPPING YOUR PALATE

Start your tour of the city with a wine sampling at Vines of Mendoza. The tasting room features about 100 producers, and it’s the only spot in the city where you can try so many in one place; the multilingual servers are well trained and knowledgeable. Samplings include a flight of malbecs, Mendoza’s most famous grape, for 75 pesos ($17.65, at 4.25 pesos to the dollar), or an overview of the varietals from the region, like torrontés, merlot, bonarda and a couple of the blends. The tasting room is owned by Michael Evans and Pablo Gimenez Riili, whose 1,000-acre cooperative vineyard in the Uco Valley gives those who dream of making their own wine the possibility of owning as little as three acres of vines, with access to a state-of-the-art facility and an excellent in-house oenologist. Tours and barbecues can be arranged at the tasting room. A hotel consisting of luxury lakeside villas at the vineyard will open in early 2013 (Espejo 567; 54-261-438-1031; vinesofmendoza.com). On May 1 the tasting room will move nearby to Belgrano 1094 and will have more space and sidewalk tables.

9 p.m.
2. THE ART OF GRILLING

This being Argentina, the city’s most famous chef, Francis Mallmann, is a master of the simple art of wood-fired meat grilling. In the courtyard of his flagship restaurant 1884 (Belgrano 1188; 54-261-424-2698; 1884restaurante.com.ar), an array of different cast-iron grills (like the parilla, a barbecue grill, or a plancha, a cast-iron griddle) and wood-fired ovens are on sizzling display. The seven-hour-grilled lamb (cooked in a mold on the grill) with mashed potatoes (100 pesos) brings new meaning to the term tender. The setting is also quite romantic (although the servers could raise their game).

Midnight
3. NIGHT BIRDS

After-hours in Argentina gets going late, so don’t be surprised if most people don’t show up until after midnight for empanadas and cocktails at El Palenque (Aristides Villanueva 287; 54-261-15-429-1814), a bustling restaurant and bar based on an Argentine pulpería, or tavern, on Aristides Villanueva, the city’s night-life artery. Well-heeled Mendocinos at outdoor tables sip on wine out of pinguinos, penguin-shaped pitchers (29 pesos).

Saturday

9 a.m.
4. PARADING THE PLAZAS

Much of Mendoza was reduced to rubble during the devastating earthquake of 1861, and the city’s five airy plazas were built to provide some safe open spaces in the event of another disaster. They have become the cornerstones of the city, especially on the weekends. At the most popular, the Plaza Independencia, ice cream and yerba maté vendors sell their goods, while kids run around and locals relax on park benches listening to the bands that congregate. Wander from here to the other four plazas to get a good sense of the city’s layout. In the Financial District, the Plaza San Martín is dominated by a statue of the general who led Argentina to independence; Plaza Chile has the best children’s playground; Plaza Italia is dedicated to the country that gave Mendoza so many immigrants (there is a statue of Romulus and Remus and a fountain with 1,400 ceramic tiles from the Cathedral of Bologna); and Plaza España, with its green spaces, is arguably the most beautiful of all.

11 a.m.
5. MORNING TIPPLE

About a 50-minute drive from Mendoza, past smaller towns and along country roads lined with vines, Achaval Ferrer (Calle Cobos 2601, Perdriel; 54-261-488-1131; achaval-ferrer.com) started out as a side project for three wine-loving friends, including the Italian winemaker Roberto Cipesso. But their wines, particularly their three malbec crus (each from different soils and altitudes) have quickly gained acclaim — especially the Finca Altamira 2009, which earned a 99-point rating from the wine critic Robert Parker. The tour and tasting offer an informed overview of a small, high-quality estate, and for 100 pesos one can sample about five wines from their cellar.

1 p.m.
6. TWIN PAIRINGS

Bodega Ruca Malen’s surprisingly elegant restaurant (Ruta Nacional, kilometer 7, Luján de Cuyo; 54-261-413-8909; bodegarucamalen.com) faces the Andes at the edge of one of the property’s vineyards and involves a five-course daily tasting menu, 320 pesos, pairing the vineyard’s wines (as well as some other favorites of the owners) with seasonal and local plates. The combination is excellent and, despite the number of courses, not overwhelming. A small plate of chorizo with criolla sauce and Argentine cereal, for example, comes with a glass of Yauquen malbec cabernet sauvignon blend 2010; beet root cooked in honey and cinnamon with burned goat cheese, with a Ruca Malen syrah 2008; and a medallion of grilled beef with baked onions, olives, raisins and Arauco olive oil perfumed with lavender from the estate’s garden, with Ruca Malen malbec 2010 and Kinien malbec 2010.

4 p.m.
7. DEEP DETOX

Even if you aren’t staying at the new Entre Cielos resort and vineyard (Guardia Vieja 1998, Vistalba; 54-261-498-3377; entrecielos.com), it is worth stopping at the spa and the six-station hammam, 20 minutes from the city center. After multiple steams and scrubs, your skin will glow and most of the alcohol you’ve consumed at tastings and lunch will exit your system. The menu includes lymphatic drainage massages and facials. If you want to continue the vineyards tour instead, stop at Bressia (Cochabamba 7725, Agrelo, Luján de Cuyo; 54-261-524-9161; bressiabodega.com), a short drive away and home to distinctive, more Old World-style blends (like Bressia Profundo).

9 p.m.
8. REGIONAL STAPLE

Think of the lomo as Mendoza’s answer to the Philly cheesesteak — a grilled sirloin sandwich with melted cheese, fried egg and mayo. At the old-school city institution Don Claudio (Tiburcio Benegas and Aristides Villanueva; 54-261-423-4814), the dish is served in a bright, canteen-like space, with large bottles of ice-cold Quilmes, the country’s favorite beer. The lomo will put you back only 41 pesos and the brew 15 pesos, so consider it a cheap date. Later, head to Plaza Pellegrini and watch locals perform tango alfresco.

Sunday

10 a.m.
9. BRUNCH STOP

Maria Antonieta (Belgrano 1069; 54-261-420-4322; mariaantonietaresto.com) is the chic new dining spot in town that serves fresh, seasonal dishes that are a refreshing change from the dominating steak joints. Besides house-made muffins and freshly squeezed juices like strawberry and grapefruit, breakfast choices include huevos al agua (poached eggs). The cheerful whitewashed interior and sidewalk seating make good choices for whiling away a couple of hours with a coffee and the paper, and there’s free Wi-Fi.

Noon
10. GREEN ESCAPES

Rent bikes at Bikes and Wine (54-261-410-6686; bikesandwines.com) and head to Parque General San Martín, a green oasis of more than 1,200 acres (Central Park has less than 900) designed by the landscape architect Carlos Thays in 1896. On Sundays picnicking families stream through the huge cast-iron gates and head to spots like Cerro de La Gloria, with its glorious view across the city and foothills of the Andes. Want to get closer to the mountains themselves? Argentina Rafting (54-261-429-6325; argentinarafting.com) has kayaking, mountain biking and hiking day trips for $73, and Discover the Andes (54-261-156-571-967; www.discovertheandes.com) offers hikes like the Vallecitos trek (with stunning views) for $200, with lunch.

IF YOU GO

In town, the Park Hyatt Mendoza (Chile 1124; 54-261-441-1234; mendoza.park.hyatt.com) is still the city’s most luxurious hotel, with a great central location and a good wine bar, although rooms seem somewhat dated for the price. Doubles from 1,122 pesos ($264) plus tax.

The sweet new B&B Casa Lila (Avellaneda Nicolás 262; 54-261 — 429-6349; casalila.com.ar) is run by a friendly couple; $140, with tax.

In the heart of the wine country, the year-old Entre Cielos (Guardia Vieja 1998, Vistalba; 54-261-498-3377; entrecielos.com) has a vineyard and spa; rooms are spacious and very comfortable. From $380, plus tax; includes a hammam session and breakfast; $266 low season.

Cavas Wine Lodge (Calle Costaflores s/n, Alto Agrelo; 54-261-410- 6927; cavaswinelodge.com) sits in the shadow of the Andes and is a popular spot for honeymooners and those on wine tours; $605, plus tax, with breakfast; $360 low season.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: April 6, 2012

An earlier version of the 36 Hours column, about Mendoza, Argentina, misspelled the given name of the photographer. He is Nicolas Wormull, not Nicholas.

Tenis Tambien

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