By: Kelly Pollard
This issue celebrates the best of the San Joaquin Valley. We flaunt our favorite restaurants, wineries, parks, and all of the fantastic businesses that make this such a great community. Recognizing the best got me thinking: what does it mean to be the best? The best means something is the most successful, the most useful or helpful. More awesome and amazing. I have my personal bests. I often wonder though, if always favoring a certain person, place or thing, that I’m somehow limiting how I live my life. If my best wine, as in most ‘useful’ to yours truly, is a Sauvignon Blanc, am I missing out on that lonely shelf of Chardonnays? Of course, I’ll gladly drink a good Chardonnay, or almost anything except a blush, but I still have my go-to brand and type.
Same goes for foods. Maybe you’re dying to know what I believe is the best restaurant. Then again, you may not care about my opinion. Either way, I won’t call out a specific place. Maybe I don’t want to share it with you and lengthen my wait to be seated, even if this specific restaurant does have a killer bar area to wait in. Let’s just narrow it down to amazing Mexican food and call it a day. I have my opinion on the best sports teams—I’m all about the Oakland A’s and the San Francisco 49ers. Here I use best and favorite as somewhat interchangeable, although there are nuances. My favorite may not be the same as the best team in major league baseball. Though, go ahead and try to challenge me on that one once the stats are in after the all-star break. And although the A’s are the best, I do love going to Giants games to enjoy their newer, sparkling stadium. My favorite wine may have won less awards than the best wine in the San Joaquin region, but hey, it’s simply my best.
How about children? I can say one son is the best and the other is my favorite. Who wins that contest? The best son could have just won an award celebrating his academic brilliance while the favorite son could have saved up all his chore money to buy me a diamond necklace. Of course, this is completely theoretical, the kind of logic perhaps best reserved for the rare occasion that I am drinking red wine instead of white. I’ll celebrate my theoretical son with the awards even if he leaves his dirty socks all over the house. I’ll equally celebrate my son that showers me with jewelry, although every afternoon features a homework war against him at the kitchen table. So maybe you have a favorite local haunt that we didn’t include in this issue, but you can also claim it’s the best even if we don’t list it. No matter what, when we recognize all that is great around us, we support our communities and make our region a more wonderful place.