There are all kind of fads and diets out there, most pretty short-lived. What can we say about shopping at farmers markets? Is the Saturday Market a flash-in-the-pan thing, or will it last and perhaps grow?

Sun-dried tomatoes have lasted, and Rice Crispie Treats have come and gone for years and years. Salad greens your parents never heard of seem to be here to stay. Thai and Vietnamese restaurants are spreading and growing in popularity on the Mainland. Sushi is by now a permanent part of the American diet. But do heirloom tomatoes, Nalo greens, and all the products and produce found at farmers markets having staying power, or will they simply be short-lived trends?

I think the success of the markets is firmly linked to the slow food movement, and that looks like it's here to stay. Fast food won't necessarily go out, but slow is coming up strongly. It seems that Old is now New. With this renewed respect for cooking and eating comes a natural appreciation for the farmer and for heirloom products.

I notice that when I am in the supermarket, I don't feel any connection to the farm. It is a supermarket experience, not a farm experience. I can relate to the neatly stacked piles of apples and artificially colored oranges as fruit, but there's no thought to how they were produced or where they came from.

Going to the Saturday Market is an entirely different experience. Although one could shop and run, treating it as though it is just an outdoor supermarket, there's also the opportunity you never have in a supermarket -- to take more time and speak with the farmers. Doing so, one learns what it is like to look out the window at a storm washing away the crop, or to slog through the mud to see if anything can be salvaged after a heavy rain. One can learn about raising cattle or keeping bees, or how to satisfy the demands of Hawaii's chefs for fresh, clean, fancy salad greens.

Though it's now in the forefront of foodie chic to shop at farmers' markets, they deliver real value in many ways. They are both traditional and nouveau. They feed the body and the soul. Slow food and farmers' markets -- I think they are here to stay.

Read more and order this book from Amazon.com

We subscribe to the "Len Evans" principle. Len Evans has been described as "Australia's leading ambassador of wine," and his complex of two restaurants and a shop in Sydney's Bulletin Place was the center of Australia's wine universe for 20 years, from 1969 to 1989. In one of his books I recall he calculated how many bottles of wine he would be able to drink in the rest of his life, and concluded that there simply were not enough left to waste drinking any plonk. Try this calculation yourself, it can be scary.

It was a pleasure to visit the Len Evans Steak House when I was in Sydney. At dinner Evans hosted vertical wine tastings, but mostly I went there for lunch. Walking in, one first approached the wine shelf. There was a high kind of breakfront on which one could lean while tasting and discussing the wines with the staff and other patrons. In true slow-food style, this could take some time, and was treated very seriously.

Having tasted, evaluated, analyzed, praised, criticized and discussed the various wines, one would then review them against the lunch menu, with the help of staff and other patrons again -- and choose what to eat based on the wine you had settled on. Not the other way around. As I recall, there was also a table with different breads, knives, cuttingboards, probably some cheeses and other things, to fuel the process of deliberation. No need to starve while figuring out what to have for lunch.

This is so civilized!  Think of it -- when making a pilgrimage to the Mecca of Australian wine, isn't it sensible to pick your wine first, then the meal? We occasionally still do that at home. Thinking of a wine we've enjoyed and which we have on hand, we might choose the dinner that best goes with the wine.

Len Evan's steaks were impeccable, of course. I don't remember much of the menu, though. Since I was visiting, I wasn't driving -- a taxi would take me safely back to the hotel along with my purchases from the wine cellars below the restaurant -- and so I could indulge. Now that I drive to restaurants I need to skip the wine when we eat out. So we do the Len Evans thing when we are home.

----------------

The Len Evans Principle, better known as his Theory of Capacity, paraphrased and abridged (with apologies):

• There is an awful lot of wine in the world, but there is also a lot of awful wine in the world.
  
• One person can only drink a certain amount in a lifetime.
  
• There are countless flavors, nuances, shades of wine; endless varieties, regions, styles. You have neither the time nor the capacity to try them all.
  
• To make the most of the time left to you, you must start by calculating your total future capacity....there are only so many bottles ahead of you.
  
• People who say: 'You can't drink the good stuff all the time' are talking rubbish. You must drink good stuff all the time. Every time you drink a bottle of inferior wine, it's like smashing a superior bottle against the wall. The pleasure is lost forever - you can't get that bottle back.
  
• There are people who don't want to drink good wine, and are happy with the cheapies. I forgive them. There are others who are content with beer and spirits; I can't worry about everybody.
  
• Wine is not meant to be enjoyed for its own sake; it is the key to love and laughter with friends, to the enjoyment of food, beauty and humor and art and music. Its rewards are far beyond its cost.
  
• What part is wine of your life? Ten percentum: Ergo, 10 per cent of your income should be spent on wine.
  
• The principle should be applied to other phases of life. A disciple kissed a beautiful young lady and she demurred. He was aghast, and said: "Don't get the wrong idea. I've worked out I can only make love another 1343 times. I'm bloody sure I'm not wasting one on you!"

The free range gourmet scored a Blue Lotus chicken at the market this morning. It was killed yesterday. Free range of course. So as long as we are free ranging, what better to have with our dinner than Free Range Pinot Noire?

Ok, I'm getting carried away. This is a nice wine, though, we've had it before. It was recommended to us by Fujioka's.

Notice that "nice wine" is good enough for me, I don't really know if it has a nose or not, or if it is redolent of lychees with a side of Angostura. It was very reasonable, has a cute name and a pretty label.

Ok, yes, it has been described as "Lush and velvety. Immensely pleasurable ... Red berry perfume with a touch of cinnamon Spice, wrapped in a blanket of subtle French oak."

This amuses me immensely. Go into one wine shop and it will have a blurb like that, go into another and find a different blurb for the same wine. Now, you know you've had wines that didn't measure up, that you didn't really care for. Did the wine shop blurb say "musty, stale aroma, fishy taste on the palate?" No, it was probably that lychee or berry stuff. Sure.

What to do in place of personal experience, the understanding of wines that a true wine maven develops after a lifetime of, um, research? Shall I pick up a wine because I like the label? Should I choose because I'm impressed with the flowery description? Is it better to ask for advice from the shopkeeper or friends? Or to check out one or more of the wine blogs or the recommendations in a newspaper? And how does it work for you?

When I used to commute to Australia or travel to London, I consulted expert friends, the shopkeeper or the wine guide I found reliable. Although I was totally unfamiliar with the wines I would find there, I knew that my wine selection was in good hands and that I wouldn't be disappointed. In time, I learned a bit about Australian wines and began to rely more on my own taste and experience.

Asking for advice works really well, and so why not continue with that methodology? The Free Range Gourmet is not a snob, but a practical fellow.

When I choose a wine myself, without looking it up in our favorite wine book, or without any other guidance, I never do as well. Sometimes I luck out big time, but often I never hope to see another bottle of the same again. This particular "free range" Pinot Noir, complete with chicken on the label, was recommended to us at Fujioka's and we've not gone wrong so far with their recommendations.