Omnivore - Thanks for the memories

As Scott Henry reported a few days ago, another landmark is saying bye-bye. Pearson’s Wine, a 40-year-old Buckhead store, closes Saturday night, New Year’s Eve. You still have time to stop by for some considerably reduced prices.

The store was part of one of my more pathetic foodie moments long ago. I’d finished undergrad and was about to move to Elberton to begin five years of working for rural weekly newspapers. I was poor, as usual, and married. I’m talking so poor that we rolled the car battery in a (“borrowed”) grocery store cart to a service station for recharging every few days.

One day, feeling extra-sorry for myself, I drove to Pearson’s and bought a relatively expensive bottle of wine — probably the first of good quality I’d ever bought. ( The drinking age was 18 at the time.) Then I walked to a gourmet shop not far away and bought a little bottle of Beluga caviar. I sat in my car in a parking lot and drank most of the wine while I licked the caviar I dumped into the palm of my hand. I also got all teary and sad. I was moving to Elberton, for Chrissake.