I'm not saying that Sergeant William Fritters—well, now he's ex-Sergeant Fritters—of the Evansville, Wisconsin, police department demonstrated the best possible judgment. Not as an officer or as a citizen. But it seems to me all he needs is a good lawyer and a sympathetic jury of his peers.

Ex-Sgt. Fritters, while off-duty, allegedly sold an alcoholic concoction he had personally prepared to a couple of local bars. He was charged with two counts of selling intoxicating liquor without a license, which is a misdemeanor, and resigned from the force.

According to police, ex-Sgt. Fritters made a home brew known as Apple Pie Everclear, almost certainly using apple cider, cinnamon, sugar, and either 151- or 190-proof unflavored grain alcohol, which is sold under the brand name Everclear. A 750 ML bottle of the 190-proof stuff—that's 95 percent ethyl alcohol—usually goes for less than $20.

Poor Ex-Sgt. Fritters. He bought the grain alcohol at a local store. He labored over a hot stove. He bottled his concoction himself. He delivered it to the back door of two local bars. He made a profit of about $3 per bottle.

He sold 24 bottles monthly, earning $72.

A hardworking, mostly honest man, wouldn't you agree?

The thing is that Ex-Sgt. Fritters didn't operate a still. He wasn't producing untaxed alcohol. He bought the alcohol legally, cooked up something with it, re-sold it. I figure the $72 a month he made didn't even pay his labor costs.

A good lawyer might argue that there is no real difference between an enterprising off-duty cop making a grain alcohol beverage and selling it to a bar and an devout granny making a rum-laden plum pudding and selling it at a church fair.

Most important, ex-Sgt. Fritters was desperate. The poor guy supposedly told the arresting officers that he had "just gone through a divorce and lost his house, car, and all his money."

His lawyer should insist on a trial, and demand a jury comprised entirely of other desperate divorced men.

Not only will they find him innocent, they should give him a commendation for selling the stuff instead of drinking it.

An eighth-grader who bought a bag of barbecue-flavored potato chips in a school lunch line ripped open the bag and found a dead mouse inside.

Good thing he looked before he ate, because I can't see how barbecue-flavored chips and barbecue-flavored rodent would taste much different.

The boy, apparently, was shaken up. "He was pale and lost his appetite," a spokesperson for Lewis-Palmer Middle School in Monument, Colorado, said.

The school is pretty sure it wasn't a prank thought up by the boy.

The Frito-Lay company said it would investigate, but that it has a rigorous quality control program.

So who might have done it?

I'd applaud if it turned out to be the school nutritionist.

Finally, the discovery of an effective way to wean kids off junk food.

You'll think I got this wrong, but I did not.

A recent story in the New York Times extolled the virtues of rats as dining companions, at least compared to other vermin.

To be fair, this was on the op-ed page, not the food pages, and the op-ed page is where newspapers bravely present alternative points of view. The story, by Steven A. Shaw, a respected food writer, makes the point that rats in restaurants are "more a distraction than a disaster for public health."

This story, of course, was in response to the recent widespread photographs of rats, overcome with nocturnal bliss, taking over a Taco Bell/KFC outlet in New York's Greenwich Village.

To me, it sounds as though Shaw has lost a little perspective. Maybe he likes those cheesy bean & rice burritos a little too much. Perhaps you would like to know a few of the dangers to public health that he feels are worse than rampaging rats:

Flies.
Pigs.
Sheep.
Cows.
Home cooking.

That last one, according to Shaw, seems to be the most hazardous of all. Next time you're invited home for dinner, tell mom to wash her hands, clean her cutting boards, roast her chicken to dryness, burn the meat loaf, and put that dripping steak she bought on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator so blood doesn't dribble onto her tuna casserole.

I get it now: Rats don't harm people. Mothers harm people.

First it was the three-martini lunch. Gone.

(I have to say, it was never a great idea. The last time I had one of those, about 25 years ago at the old Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Boston, I was with a former U.S. Assistant Attorney General who drank his three and became enamored of a woman dining alone at a table near us. He decided to win her affections by bringing over the remains of his half-eaten chocolate cake, never doubting that she would swoon with pleasure. I'm proud to say I held him back.)

Now it's the ritual of wine with lunch. Almost gone.

This is Wine Week at the Smith & Wollensky Restaurant Group. That means that the nine Smith & Wollensky steakhouses throughout the United States, as well as five other restaurants operated by the group only in New York, are offering luncheon customers tastes of 10 different wines for $10 through this Friday, March 23.

Quite often, vintners show up to pour their wines. It's cheap. It's fun. Some of the profits go to charity. It's even educational, since you will certainly taste wines you haven't tried before. The wines selected for the tastings are not from jugs, nor are they the bum stuff in bins found just inside the front door of wine shops.

Perfect, right? Not quite. I'm sad to admit that I'm one of those cowardly people who no longer drink wine at lunch.

I love wine with lunch. I have always thought that wine is better in the light of day, when it sparkles, than at night, when it broods. Wine at lunch makes me happy. Wine at night makes me sleepy. Still, I stopped, because that seemed the prudent thing to do.

I suggest those of you who no longer drink wine at lunch try it this week. (Persons who operate heavy machinery or drive school buses are requested to ignore this advice.) See if it makes you happy. I know I haven't been quite the same since I stopped.

I remember taking a fellow to lunch at the restaurant L'Express in Montreal. He was a hard-working civil servant in a tedious job, and he drank an entire bottle, as he did every day at lunch.He said to me, "My friends ask me, 'How can you possibly drink a bottle of wine and go back to work in the afternoon?' "

I asked him what he told them.

He replied to me, "I tell them, 'How can I possibly go back to work if I do not?'"

If you are a normal person, there's no reason to read on.

This report is for people who have 1982 Bordeaux in their cellars. I assure you that I do not, but I know some people that do. They are overzealous, and they often behave oddly in the presence of what they call their "cellar treasures," but I always appreciate invitations to their homes.

Recently, I was invited to a private dinner featuring six of the greatest Bordeaux from the celebrated 1982 vintage.

Let me make you even more envious. The meal was cooked by Lee Anne Wong, who is an executive chef at New York's French Culinary Institute and a maestro behind a stove. You might know of her because she finished fourth in the first edition of Top Chef, the reality cooking show on Bravo.

(I don't wish to appear unkind, but I've eaten the food of a few of the cooks who finished ahead of her, and whenever I run into Wong, I generally ask, "How the hell did you lose to them?")

My rich friend with the wine cellar brought out Mouton-Rothschild, Lafite-Rothschild, Latour, Margaux, Haut-Brion, and La Mission-Haut-Brion. All but La Mission-Haut-Brion are classified as "first growths," which means they cost so much even a lot of rich guys can't afford them. If you are one of them, a rich guy without 1982 first growths in your basement, I recommend that you read no more. You will start wondering why your life is so meaningless, despite the money you have accumulated.

My friend supplemented the first growths with a few other 1982's, such as Krug Champagne and Domaine Leflaive Bâtard-Montrachet. But I digress. Let's get down to the red wines.

(Oh, maybe not. The Leflaive, served in a magnum, was extraordinary. It wasn't a bombshell, but it had become elegant and profound in its old age. If only that should happen to us.)

Interestingly, my friend served no so-called "right bank" wines, the ones from Pomerol and St.-Émilion. He had bought the best ones, including Pétrus, at the time of their release, but he subsequently sold them all after declaring them uninteresting. That's particularly noteworthy, because Pomerol is thought of as one of the triumphs of the 1982 vintage.

My feelings about red Bordeaux are simple: When consumed young, they're wasted. When properly aged, they're unsurpassed—even by great red Burgundies.

So I wasn't surprised that the wine I liked best at this dinner I now consider one of the best of my life. I'd put it in the all-time, top-ten club.

It was the Latour.

Latour is not generally my favorite Bordeaux. I'm a Haut-Brion guy, which merely did okay at this meal. Some of the other drinkers voted for Mouton, La Mission, or Lafite (subtle, elegant, and ethereal, my number-two wine of the night).

I'm supposed to say something sportsmanlike now, such as, "Each man is entitled to his opinion." Let me say this: They were wrong.

I'm not claiming that at another tasting on another night one of the other six wouldn't have finished ahead of the Latour. When you're drinking old wines, you have to expect bottle variation. This bottle turned out to be the best Latour I've ever tasted. (I had a an opportunity to try 1945 Latour once in my life, and it was tragically corked.) The color was bright, clear, posh, a glowing garnet with the barest hint of age.

It was simply luscious, not an adjective I'd use often with old wines. The fruit hadn't diminished at all, but instead had become cleaner, purer, deeper. It offered insights into a better wine world.

I found myself bowing my head—or perhaps I was just transfixed by Wong's squab, miraculously soft and moist yet with a hint of crispness, served in a black pepper gastrique and accompanied by parsnip purée and spinach with garlic crisps.

Sometimes I can understand why people aspire to more money than they need.

Finally, I found what I'd been looking for all my life.

My dream job.

I came upon it accidentally, when I read a story about a new book called Twinkie, Deconstructed: My Journey to Discover How the Ingredients Found in Processed Foods Are Grown, Mined (Yes, Mined), and Manipulated into What America Eats. It's a good title, I suppose, although I could eat a package of Twinkies in less time than it takes to figure out what it means.

In the book, you will learn that the Interstate Bakeries Corporation, makers of Hostess Twinkies and Ding Dongs, Drake's Yodels and Devil Dogs, and Wonder Bread ("…provides essential vitamins and minerals—an important part of your family's healthy diet") employs an executive with a magnificent title: Vice President of Cake.

Maybe you wanted to be a fireman when you grew up, but not me. I just wanted to eat cake. You have to figure that this lucky guy gets all he wants.

I called the company asking for an interview with the Vice President of Cake. I have to admit, I misrepresented my intentions. What I really wanted to find out from him was when he was going to retire—or maybe get promoted to Executive Vice President of Sweets. Then I could apply for his job.

I received a blow.

The position no longer exists.

Two different spokespersons for the company gave two different stories—one said the Vice President of Cake had become the Vice President of Mass Marketing. Another said the new job title was Vice President of Snack.

I didn't know which one to believe. It probably shows how befuddling a situation can become when too many Twinkie-eaters become involved.

Here is a list of ten foods that nutrition experts say will put you in a good mood:

Milk
Oily fish
Strawberries
Spinach
Sweet potatoes
Turkey
Brazil nuts
Low-fat yogurt
Caffeine
Cottage Cheese

Supposedly, they all contain magic ingredients like whey protein or omega-3 fatty acids or serotonin boosters that make you less irritable, or fend off depression, or calm you down.

I'll concede that caffeine, which is more a drug than a foodstuff, seems to fend off gloom. As for the rest, just reading that list put me in a bad mood.

Unless you're coming off a hunger strike, those ten items will never make you happy.

I've modified the list. Here are ten similar foods that I guarantee will put you in a good mood:

Chocolate milk
Smoked salmon on a bagel
Strawberry ice cream
Creamed spinach
French fries
Thanksgiving dinner
Honey roasted peanuts
Full-fat Greek yogurt with honey
Double Chocolate Chip Frappuccino
After-dinner cheese course

I'm not a nutritionist. I'm a realist.

Under a headline promoting them as "A feast in a single bite," the Los Angeles Times is enthusiastically sanctioning a new kind of pot pie flourishing in Southern California.

It's not a chicken pot pie, a turkey pot pie, or a beef pot pie. It's a root vegetable pot pie.

Would you care to know what makes these pies especially great? Allow me to quote from the Times article: "The brilliant touch is a wild herb salad that sits atop the pot pie, a tangle of spicy cress."

First of all, the headline is confusing. They are not one-bite pot pies, crusty hors d'oeuvres. For that matter, the article gets the fundamental importance of the pot pie wrong.

Nobody wants to find a tangle of salad greens atop their pot pies. I sure don't. What I want to find is plenty of meat inside.

I get depressed when I buy one of those supermarket pies and they're little more than carrots and gooey gravy. I'm always poking around under the soggy microwaved crust, desperately trying to find one more gristly chunk of protein, muttering to myself, "I had two bites. That can't be all the beef they put in there."

Vegetarian pot pies are like vegetarian hot dogs, a fundamental culinary mistake. I'll tell you what this country needs: A vegetable-free pot pie, served with a tangle of spicy meatballs on top.

Part of my job is to come up with interesting food descriptions, which is not as easy as it sounds. There simply aren't that many colorful ways to say "the chef drizzled aioli over the garbanzo beans."

So whenever I find an individual who is a master of food talk, I like to give him credit. Such a fellow is Chief Deputy Jimmy Apodaca of the El Paso County Sheriff's office.

A reporter for the El Paso Times, Daniel Borunda, was kind enough to pass along a press release consisting of a single quote from Apodaca. It concerned weevils found in noodles intended for inmates.

When any of us go out to eat in the lesser restaurants of New York and find weevils in our noodles, or, for that matter, cockroaches in our coq au vin, we're fortunate if the joint takes the dish back and doesn't charge us for it.

In the El Paso prison system, when such an event occurs, officials leap into action. The weevils were discovered as lunch was being prepared. According to the Chief Deputy, this is what happened next:

"When we learned of the discovery of the inferior food component we immediately took action and removed the food items."

That's what they call weevils down in tough-talking Texas, inferior food components.

I wonder what they've started calling gunshot wounds?

My guess: Aerated Human Exteriors.

Two ounces of pot and $200 was found in the mashed potatoes served to a jailer at the Leflore County Jail in Greenwood, Mississippi. He was suspected of having the marijuana smuggled in so he could distribute it to inmates.

Apparently, officials became suspicious after the jailer, Robert Earl Hannon, had a large serving of potatoes delivered to him after he said that he didn't eat potatoes.

More proof that Mississippi is not known for its criminal masterminds.

In a really dumb column, a writer for The New York Times failed to excoriate a woman who wants Girl Scout cookies banned as a threat to our national health.

He did say the woman was "slightly obsessed." Otherwise, he treated her with kindness and respect. He even said, "…is it really so nutty to ask if the Girl Scouts need to be in the business of selling 200 million boxes of cookies a year?…"

Yes, that is a nutty question to ask if you're a columnist for The New York Times.

The woman, who lives in New Jersey, has a website she calls National Action Against Obesity. Check it out.

There you'll find a cartoon of a Girl Scout pulling a wagon filled with cookies standing at the door of a house. The little girl looks like Chucky's sister.

That level of thoughtfulness got her a guest appearance on Bill O'Reilly's show. A guy like him I expect to pay attention to a nut like her.

Not The New York Times.

I will concede this: Girl Scouts sell a lot of cookies. The cookies might even make people fat.

But don't blame the Girl Scouts.

If that's the way we're going to go about solving America's obesity problem, lets lock up the Amish, who sell those greasy funnel cakes at county fairs. After that, we can slash the tires on Good Humor trucks.

I feel sorry for the Girl Scouts. Their motto: Be Prepared. I bet they weren't ready for this.

The crime: Armed robbery.

The mission: Bring the desperado to justice.

The reward: Coffee. In fact, a year's worth.

This is one posse I won't be joining any time soon.

I have sympathy for Troy Malchow, owner of Perfetto Espresso, located in Mountlake Terrace, just north of Seattle. A gunman described as a white man, about 5'8" and 140 pounds, took his money and ran. I have to say, from the description, the perpetrator doesn't sound that intimidating.

On the other hand, he does have a gun.

And I do not.

I don't want to sound gutless, but the reward that Malchow is offering, a year's worth of free coffee to anybody who can help police find the robber, doesn't sound particularly lucrative. Even with a slice of pound cake on the side, I wouldn't go after the guy.

I suspect Malchow is making a mistake, merely offering coffee. Having visited the area, I believe that residents of Washington state would gladly take a bullet for a free mocha macchiato.