I was immensely relieved to find that Bill Wilson is alive and well on Twitter. I even found an e-mail address for him and sent him a note. (Again, trying hard not to be stalkerish.) We'll see if he responds.
Meanwhile I have plunged into his backlist of 77 audio-only wine podcasts, starting with the ones on "The Big Six" varietal grapes:
1. Riesling
2. Sauvignon Blanc
3. Chardonnay
4. Pinot Noir
5. Merlot
6. Cabernet Sauvignon
It's all a tremendous amount of information, and it's clear that much of my quest in becoming the ultimate waitress is going to involve a lot of memorization. Which wines go best with which foods? If someone is a fan of white zinfandel but is looking to try something different, what's your best bet for something they'll like? (Answer: a Riesling.)
And it's not just wine. If I'm going to upsell the customer on liquor – that is, suggest they try a brand of alcohol more expensive than the cheapest possible no-name "well liquor" in the bar stocks – I'll need to know immediately what kind of alcohol is in that drink:
Customer: I'd like a Tom Collins
Ultimate Waitress: Certainly sir. Is there a particular type of gin that you'd prefer - we have Tanqueray, Beefeater, Bombay Sapphire....
I'll also need to know all – and I mean all – the ingredients in each item on the menu. Now, in Reader's Digest's "Twenty Secrets Your Waiter Won't Tell You" article, they claim that if you ask the waiter whether a dish is made with vegetable stock, the waiter will tell you "yes" even if they have no idea, even though most dishes are made with chicken stock.
I am guessing that is because most waiters are twenty-somethings, and they just don't think like us forty-somethings. As a forty-something waitress, and a mom, I'm immediately going to assume that the customer is asking because they have a rare poultry allergy. And if I tell them wrong thing and it turns out the dish was made with chicken stock, they are going to go into anaphylactic shock and die. (I'm not making it up about the poultry allergy either: someone mentioned it in the comments on the article.)
So memorization is going to be a life-or-death thing for me as a waitress. And as a sometimes-believer in the promise of technology for education, I knew that memorization = flashcards, and flashcards are definitely something technology can handle to make life easier.
Type "flashcards" into the iTunes app store, and you'll get a large selection. I had a hard time choosing between "flashcard touch" and "mental case hd" for iPhone/iPod touch. Both are $4.99, which is "expensive" for an app, but I knew I would need something heavy-duty, and when it comes to apps, you generally get what you pay for. Both also have the advantage that you can import already-made flashcards from an online flashcard community (yes, there are such things). I knew it would actually be more helpful to create my own flashcards, because that's what psychologists call a "generative" activity that is more powerful for memory than simply looking at something and trying to recall it. However, I could imagine that it would be helpful to check my knowledge, particularly about wine, against other people's knowledge, just in case Bill W. misses some information in his podcasts. Though I have come to trust him immensely.
I ended up going with Mental Case primarily because they tout a Mac version of the app that you can put on your desktop computer and use to actually create the flashcards, rather than typing on your phone. (I hate typing on my phone.) Then you simply use your Wi-Fi to sync your Mac and iPhone apps, and you get all the notes from your Mac on your iPhone and vice versa.
It really works, and it didn't take me long to figure it out.
Now, you have to spend an additional $19.99 for the desktop app, but you can try it free first for 30 days. I'm hooked, and as someone old enough to remember $60 Reader-Rabbit CD-ROMS, I'm not offended by the price of twenty-bucks for good software. I did realize later, though, that perhaps you can get around the same problem -- not wanting to type on your phone -- by using your desktop to create the cards online in the flashcard community (quizlet.com for the flashcard touch app, flashcardexchange.com for the mental case app) and then downloading them to your phone app. That might make the desktop app unnecessary. But the Mental Case approach works well and easily, and I'm not sure that would be the case for the other option. And I've got way too much to learn about wine and liquor to spend any more time researching flashcards. If you've investigated this other option, please comment below so we can all learn how well it works, and that way others might save some cash.
Note also that you can go online to quizlet.com and flashcardexchange.com and use other people's flashcard stacks to study on your desktop computer, without buying the apps at all. There are a number of flashcard stacks on wine, some posted by people who are obviously studying to pass a sommelier exam. But again, I knew that creating the flashcards is something I would need for menu-learning and also would help me remember the material better.
I also liked the fact that the Mental Case developers deliberately chose a name for their app with a double-entendre meaning both "briefcase for your thoughts" and "crazy person." I just hope the latter doesn't describe me for attempting this whole project. And for hoping I hear back from Bill Wilson....
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