Midlife

If your experiences with staff recs have been good that's all that really matters. Overall, Total Wine doesn't get great reviews for staff wine help, but the only thing that's important is calibrating your own palate to someone there you then learn to trust.

Total Wine has perhaps the largest selection of wine, beer and spirits of any store.............. period. That means they have a lot of very good product and a lot that is not so good. Their pricing is usually very good, but you need to know what you like as you're not likely to get much good help from their employees. A big rap on their staff is that they're highly 'incentivized' to push sales on their house products (since their margins are highest on those). When a 20-something guy in a shirt and tie tries to tell me that a Pinot Noir I've never heard of, from a region I know is not usually great, is better than one from a winery I respect......... my BS antenna goes up quickly. But, if you know something about what you're looking for.............. you can do fine in their stores. The selection is much better than TJs and BevMo combined...... at least here in SoCal.

I work at a place that is part retail food/wine shop and part wine bar now. When the wine bar was set up the owners' first inclination was to deduct their credit card processing fees from employees' tips because it didn't make sense that they should have to pay a service cost on dollars they don't keep. i actually agree with that logic, but the practice is illegal in our state.

Went to Club 33 maybe 30 years ago, so it HAS been there a very long time. Story is that it was set up for Walt Disney to have a place to take guests on the property. I recall a buffet as well, though I know I was there for dinner. The guy I worked for either had a membership or was using that of someone else. Decent meal but I don't recall it as outstanding. The cool part was that it was in the middle of New Orleans Square and you did get access to the park, though this was back when you needed lettered tickets (E, D, etc.) for rides.

I'm involved in a 'discussion' of this series on another board where one poster, who I highly respect, finds it a total waste of time.I don't want to give his extensive comments short shrift but, essentially, he says he expects more from PBS. I see his point, but it saddens me a bit to think that expectations can be so high that it spoils a light-hearted approach to a beloved subject.

I noticed that woman too and I think she was also in a recently aired episide about figs. Given the fact that Vivian Howard works and travels a lot (her husband as well) and I've not heard anything about family taking care if her children....... I assumed she's most likely a nanny. That would make sense.