Andrew J. Lederer

providing the soundtrack to the yellow brick road of samples that was Saturday at Whole Foods, Bowery.

Slices of apple, chunks of grapefruit, popcorn, ginkgo and kombucha beverages, dried bananas, raisins, mango (papaya?) and pineapple, two kinds of sherbet, cookies, a pile of pomme frites accompanied an array of sauces, mango salad, some kind of bean salad, chimichurri london broil (I could've had a second piece if that old guy hadn't taken the last one for his wife) and more.

Happiness-inducing stuff. (Who needs Oz when the yellow brick road is so magical?)

to American ways left me frustrated when I got to the Trader Joe's wine store on (Easter) Sunday and found it was closed. I had missed Purim by a couple of days but it is celebrated later in Jerusalem -- this year simultaneous with Easter -- so I figured I had a chance to revel in the Jews triumph over the evil Haman (make loud noises here) by following the commandment which states that the normally temperate Jews must get so drunk that they can't tell the difference between Mordecai and Haman (good and evil).

I figured I'd drink a whole bottle of "Two-buck Chuck" and my Judaic duties would have been heroically carried out.

Of course, I didn't even remember this by the time I got to the wine store, but I still wanted to buy a bottle of wine.

This time,, as you know by now, the Jews (or this Jew anyway) were thwarted by the Hamans of the world and I could not.

In fact, I didn't get around to buying wine until yesterday. (Award-wining 2006 3-dollar white. Though I'm usually a red guy, I'd purchased salmon to cook in my new, cast-iron grill pan, so I figured what-the-hell.)

Which I'm drinking right now.

And feeling the effects -- and wanting to drink more than I should -- I remembered the lost opportunity to drink a bottle in one sitting and be a better Jew.

And I felt sad.

I mean, I can drink the whole bottle of wine tonight.

But there would be no higher purpose.