Courtesy of Woodstock Farmers' Market.

I started writing a cocktail column for.'s website a year later in 1999, and I used to joke to friends that I was doing it so that one day I could go into any bar in America and have a decent rye Manhattan.

Then we'd all laugh.(Hell, there was basically only one brand of rye left, and good luck finding it.).But even as we were laughing, everything was changing.

You could see the change at the bar at New York's Rainbow Room, which reopened in 1987, presided over by Dale DeGroff, a genial perfectionist who demonstrated the rewards in recovering those forgotten formulas.By the early 1990s, a small clutch of bars, such as Grange Hall in New York and Enrico's in San Francisco, had adapted the Rainbow Room's focus on carefully executed classics.

The first time I visited New York's Milk & Honey, a year after it opened at the end of 1999, I saw something entirely new coming from its owner, a young Army veteran named.

: a sense of mission.So, go for a robust white from Greece or Spain..

Originally appeared: May 2002.(Keep screen awake).1/2 cup plus 3 tablespoons vegetable oil.

4 garlic cloves, minced.1/3 cup toasted sunflower or pumpkin seeds.