Favored with a vast store of infallible opinions and skin of purest alabaster, I don’t get out of the hermitage that often.  But if my prudent seclusion helps ensure a creamier complexion and more temperate foothills social climate, it tends to leave me in the dark about many of my neighbors’ diverse and interesting activities.

Facebook helps.

I count Mountain Area Land Trust among my bosom e-friends and look forward to reading the occasional notice of its latest timbered triumph. Mount Evans Home Health and Hospice sends me a heads-up whenever it’s about to do something fun, and I am flattered to believe myself among the first informed of Jefferson County Historical Society plans to screen The Three Stooges al fresco in Heritage Grove.

Nyuk, and so forth.

I’m cyber-tight with Evergreen’s business community, too. Shadow Mountain Gallery likes to give me sneak-peeks at impending sublimities, and I can always rely on Tequila’s to keep me apprised of all Cuervo-related developments.  Receiving up-to-the-minute reports from Hearthfire Books on the progress of its madcap “Where’s Waldo?” promotion, I was tempted to start seeking the skulking sprout myself, then remembered that Waldo has made a career out of being diffident and unapproachable, and figured that finding him would only subject us both to pained small-talk and awkward silences. And what if he really doesn’t want to be found?

Makes you think.

The Evergreen Area Chamber of Commerce was kind enough to post a selection of ribbon-cutting photographs on my “news feed”. (Few items posted on my “news feed” correctly qualify as “news”, but as there is no fee associated with the service it would be petty to quibble over labels). They included that picture taken to formally welcome Suzie’s Café into Evergreen’s commercial fold, which was of particular interest to me because I take great pleasure in having a sandwich there.

But perhaps you misunderstand.

Yes, I thoroughly enjoy most everything on Suzie’s menu, but I actually have a sandwich there. It’s called “Steve’s Special”, and it features prodigious portions of two kinds of meat and cheese piled high on a two-fisted roll and topped with thick slices of bacon. Okay, that’s technically three kinds of meat, but I’ve always considered bacon a food apart, like ambrosia, or Space Food Sticks. Funny thing is, I didn’t know Suzie from Guy Savoy when she dreamed up that heavenly hoagie, but there can be no mistake – it’s all me.

Do I have a point?

More like a tenuous connection followed by a questionable conclusion. Looking at Suzie’s ribbon-cutting photo caused me to slip into a drooling stupor of sweet reverie, and the first thing I saw when I came to was Lisa Delia’s “food diary” post. Most folks hereabouts know Lisa as a top-flight personal trainer and a singer/songwriter of lustrous repute, whereas I, who perceive the world only as flickering images on the wall of my cave, know her principally as that gal who keeps track of everything she eats. Here, I believed, was a kindred soul who treasures a fulsome carte du jour as much as I. Was our shared passion be writ large upon the pages of her diary? Yes and no.

Mostly no.

Like me, Lisa clearly applies great thought and energy to the perfection of her personal menu. Our culinary paths diverge, however, at a philosophical fork. Where I worship at the self-indulgent temple of Bacchus, she seems more in tune with a relatively austere Jainist liturgy. Flipping through her dietary directory, we see that on July 1of this year Lisa breakfasted on a three-egg spinach-and-feta omelet, 14 Rainier cherries and one slice of pineapple – 309 total calories. For lunch, two tablespoons of almond butter, a pinch of unsweetened cocoa powder, one tablespoon of raw coconut nectar, and 14 more cherries – 321 total calories. And dinner? A single 210-calorie slice of homemade veggie lasagna. From these figures we learn that in an entire day Lisa consumes approximately the same freight of calories as contained in my typical salad-course, my typical salad-course being a steaming mound of sliced mushrooms fried in an equal volume of fresh, creamery butter and garnished with bacon. It’s a hearty starter that leaves plenty of room for a 14-ounce butter-fried pork chop.

It’s what’s for dinner.

But I’m no food fascist, and if I prefer a more robust alternative to Lisa’s impoverished table, and worry that she’s not getting the essential fats and cholesterols that are the foundations of a satisfying diet, I know that I must persuade not by censure, but by good example.

And butter’s good for the complexion.