It’s Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher’s Birthday. You probably know her as MFK Fisher. Born in 1908, MFK was, and in my mind, still is, America’s preeminent food writer. She wrote 27 books during her lifetime, from The Art of Eating and Let Us Feast, both bestsellers, to How to Cook a Wolf, which taught home-front housewives how to improvise during the food rationing of World War II. So, did this gastronome extraordinaire like a drink? Naturally. She was from the school of thought that every meal, sometimes including breakfast, should be balanced and enhanced with alcoholic drinks. She was obsessed with and a formidable expert on the subject of wines, and insisted her last home be built in the middle of a vineyard. She also liked ales, champagne, and what she liked to call “the big, loud drinks.” Top quote: “A well-made Martini or Gibson, correctly chilled and nicely served, has been more often my true friend than any two-legged creature.”
