On Gluttony

The world divides people into two camps: those with restraint, and those without.

This is a tiresome, useful fiction.

It exists to comfort the moderate and to excuse the crude. It leaves no room for the third camp—the only one worth belonging to—which is occupied by those whose restraint is exercised in a single, vital direction: toward the relentless, discerning pursuit of more.

More beauty. More insight. More strategic depth in a glance than others find in a lifetime of study. More flavor in a single, deliberate bite than in a hurried feast.

This is not greed. Greed is a blunt instrument, a hollow consumption. This is gluttony—the highest form of appreciation. It is an engine of insatiable curiosity, powered by a palate that rejects the mediocre on principle and refined by the patience to pursue the sublime to its source.

The Genteel Glutton does not wolf down the world. He savors it. He dissects it. He understands that the structure of a perfect sauce and the structure of a lasting alliance obey the same foundational principles. That the color of a wine and the mood of an era are born of the same, subtle terroir.

This letter is his tasting menu.

I am E.M. Kent. Consider me your curator. My only credentials are a bottomless hunger and the good manners to use the correct fork.

You are here because you, too, have felt the quiet ache of an appetite that a regular meal cannot satisfy. You are here because you understand that true satisfaction lies not in satiation, but in the pursuit itself—the pursuit of the exquisite, the strategic, the beautifully made.

Consider this your invitation to the table. Mind your posture. Savor each note.

The first course is already served.

—E.M. Kent