Everything I Know I Learned Getting Lost on the 405

Every time my knickers start twisting in the matter of the Council on Foreign Relations/Rockefeller/Kissinger conspiracy to control the minds of the bots who run the New York Times, and the rest of the universe, a message in a bottle from the real world, and the greatest city on earth, bobs up.

To wit, today, in the food section:

PIES ’N’ THIGHS This restaurant’s new home is a Brooklynite’s imaginary version of a meat-and-three in the South. The thighs are as crunchy and as golden as ever, and the pies are honest, American and sweet. They’re enough to restore the faith of anybody who’s eaten too many fancy desserts that look like Frank Gehry’s rejected sketches. (Pete Wells) 166 South Fourth Street (Driggs Avenue), Williamsburg, Brooklyn; (347) 529-6090, http://piesnthighs.com/
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/29/dining/reviews/29cheap.html?scp=2&sq=pies%20and%20thighs&st=cse

Everything I know about anthropology and migration and sociology and the fabulousness of cities I learned from thinking about why my Sicilian mother-in-law on Lovering Avenue in Buffalo used to put mint in her meatballs.