Night of a Thousand Wines
It started with a baby horse and ended with fennel seeds. The rest is Twitter history.
I did not set out to become the patron saint of pandemic drinking, but it seems to have turned out that way. I blame it on a horse, although I don’t suppose I can hold the horse totally responsible. I also blame it on sun-dried sushi. In any case, let me explain.
I spend every summer in the Hudson Valley in New York, where I’ve had a house for a million years. It’s beautiful, rolling farmland, cornfields and pastures and apple trees. Animals abound. This summer, my next-door neighbors bought a mare and then discovered she was pregnant. On a day shimmering with heat, the mare had her foal, and my neighbor, knowing I like animals, texted me to announce the birth and invite me to come and see the baby. Such an invitation is, in my estimation, not to be ignored, so I put aside whatever work I was doing, rallied my husband, and headed over.
The barn smelled warm and milky. The mare obliged us by stepping to the back of her stall so we could see the foal, who was dark and leggy and as hoppy as a rabbit. I squealed when I saw him because he was so perfect. He nuzzled each of us in turn and then hopped back to his mother, and then came back for another sniff. At one point, he maneuvered his lips around my hand and…
