Things I wish people would shut the eff up about

Today, I’m introducing a new feature:

**Things I wish people would shut the eff up about.**

If you know me, you know this list is long. Today’s edition:

>**Balsamic Vinegar**

Balsamic vinegar, first of all, isn’t vinegar. It’s grape juice cooked to a third of its volume and aged in successively smaller casks- of different varieties of wood- for a *very long time* (twelve years **or more**). Therefore, Balsamic vinegar is crazy expensive. It is thick, unctuous and spry in your mouth. It only comes from two places, Modena and Reggio-Emilia, and somewhere on the bottle it should say DOC or *Denominazione di Origine Controllata*. “Balsamic Vinegar of Modena” doesn’t mean anything. It could be from Modena, Ohio.

It should never be made into vinaigrettes, because it’s too sweet and not acidic enough. It would taste weird, anyway, I’d bet, not that I’ve ever tried making a vinaigrette out of vinegar that costs $30 for a 4 ounce bottle.

That brown, syrupy shit made from industrial waste doesn’t really taste like anything, and the umber-toned, sickly thick “salad dressings” it makes terrify me at the end of every buffet.

I guess what I’m saying is: “**Fuck balsamic vinegar of Modena**.”