Dear Ask Molly,

-Never knowing what to expect in Philadelphia

Dear Never Knowing,

There is no...

For a while I have puzzled over the phenomenon Frank Bruni describes in his Times piece on gender roles in the dining room, and not for lack of something better to do with my time. No doubt, female diners feeling slighted when being attended to by besuited waiters ranks...

White wine fatigue sets in at some point during the summer. The Austrian gruner veltliner, Sancerre, Muscadet and sherry that sustained me though blazing July and August seem a bit less enticing when I start to consider the wool blazers shown in store windows. The best wine to...

We know that organic produce is good, but what about wine made from organic grapes? The dedicated Whole Foods shoppers among us know that "organic" means "grown without synthetic pesticides and fertilizers," and that is mostly what it means for wine as well.

Yet wine that is grown organically...

Would you consider me a total moron if I couldn't tell the difference between red and white wine? If the answer is yes, would it dismay, please, or just confuse you to know that plenty of wine experts can't tell the difference either?

This idea isn't as ridiculous as...

If your family is anything like my family, Thanksgiving dinner is governed by ironclad rules and customs. One is that my mother, out of sheer perversity, will muster her annual argument in favor of trying a new cranberry sauce recipe. Each year my sister and I will lobby hard and...

Even though the warm weather makes me doubt the calendar, it is October and high time for scoping out autumn produce at the farmers' markets. Nestled among the winter squash are apples, both edible and drinkable.

Hard cider and applejack can be thought of as the original...

It takes a sharp tongue to write well about wine and drinking. Good writing on the sensuous appreciation of drink makes the reader want to order one of what the author is having; bad drinks writing makes the reader want to pass on the next round and go play a...

I am an old woman, and I'm not afraid to admit it: I have been known to open a bottle of sherry and enjoy it. But I don't keep a bottle stuffed between the sofa cushions, and my other hobbies don't include cross stitch, Wheel of Fortune and going to...

Simple pleasures such as hamburgers and unadorned vegetables take center stage in summer. It's not just because they taste good, or because tomatoes and sweet corn are about to hit their peak. It must have to do with the amount of heat in the world, and how it doesn't seem...

In France, the idea of the righteous agrarian freedom fighter doesn't provoke laughter as it would in the U.S. The nation cheers when the farmer-firebrand José Bové bashes in a MacDonald's. It is the French way of showing solidarité for the farmer, who occupies a cherished position in French...

When I was underemployed after college, I worked at a wine store in Boston. The other employees and me kept a semi-vigilant eye out for underage customers, but the store was in a tony area populated by wealthy adults, and presumably their miscreant children bought their booze elsewhere. Or so...

Experts the world over have made their chops telling people what wine to drink with dinner. These wine connoisseurs pontificate that there's a wine to go with every dish, from pad Thai to steak au poivre. Perhaps because of this, other drinks have long conceded the fine dining territory to...

It is hard to know what official position to take on pink wines. Not too long ago, no self-respecting drinker would touch the stuff, as pink wine meant sweet white zinfandel and the tasteless people who like it. Then, the world (and I) discovered lovely French rosés and Spanish rosados,...