About Me

Freda Mooncotch is The Wine Wench™ and a Certified Mixologist, I’m helping people rethink the way they drink…and more recently, eat. After returning from harvest in California, my blog has evolved from just wine to both wine and food. Drinking wine and learning about wine should be a fun, enjoyable experience that educates your palate while stimulating your intelligence. Eating food should be equally enjoyable as well as healthy and nutritious. My goal is to help you unleash your inner Chef and uncork your inner Sommelier because each of us is a Chef and Sommelier in our own right according to what we like!

As a writer, I don’t see my writings and rants as an attempt to convince or change people. Nor is it my wish to enter into debate or argument over what is happening within our agricultural and food industries and eventually the grape farming industry. Lastly, while fear is a catalyst for change, it never creates lasting change because it loses its power when greater fear comes along. Additionally, I understand the emotional aspect and sensitivity that surrounds this food topic. Like religion and politics, this subject tends to bring out the worst in many people. It is my intention to speak to your heart. It is there that you will make the necessary and right decisions. Like my favorite leading sustainable farmer Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms says in his book Salad Bar Beef:

Our hearts define what our minds believe. Call it spiritual, call it what you want. But it is a fact. And if our hearts are in agreement, this discourse on the problems with the current beef industry will be easy to understand. If, however, you think that how an animal is fed has nothing to do with the quality of its meat, that animals are more mechanistic than biological, that natural relationships are made to be manipulated instead of followed and that the soil is just so much inert material to hold plants, then we will just disagree and that is that. Nothing I can say will change you, nor you I.

It is in that spirit that I would like to, hope to, appeal to your heart because it will be a futile attempt to do anything more. When we see things a certain way and have strong thoughts and feelings about something we will not budge! No one can change our minds no matter how eloquently the facts are presented or the credentials of the presenter. Change only happens when we have a change of heart. If you can see with your minds eye (your heart), your thoughts about a topic will change too. Like Joel, I believe that change starts in the heart, not in the head. So, think of me as the girl next door who has only one interest: to make your experience fun and educational, that is what you will find here on my blog.

Sustainable, Organic, Farm Fresh Food - Farm to Fork is a motto that I’ve embraced. Good gastronomy goes with good wine, they shouldn’t be separated. Through a series of events we have lost site of traditional farming and have replaced it with alternative farming practices that are devastating not only to the animals, farmers and communities around those farms, but our health and the environment as well. Consequently many problems have arose from these unnatural practices. If we continue to demand more food for less at the expense of quality, we will continue to see the integrity of our food dissipate, and experience increasingly devastating consequences to our health, animals, and the  environment.  Every time we open our wallets we are voting and voicing our opinion. Take the time to educate yourself on what is happening to our food. Listen to the radio interviews with some of the key people in the locavore, sustainable, organic, farm fresh foods movement. Visit the websites and organizations under resources, watch the videos or pick up a book to learn what you can do to make change happen. I suggest watching FOOD Inc., a documentary uncovering the trillion dollar big AG businesses and visit The Weston A. Price Foundation.

Favorite Quote:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. – Marianne Williamson