in Science and Environmental Journalism, was becoming a mainstream habit. His ability to bring nature into the popular culture is no small feat. Today his name is synonymous with healthy eating, sustainability and the greater good for the planet. Often I think about inviting him to dine at my home, just to meet such a successful advocate of nutritional well-being and Mother Nature would be bountiful. So Pollan and a tulip as a duo is easily envisioned. But why a tulip?

His national bestseller, The Botany of Desire (2001), crosses disciplines that merge humans and plant life in a duet of survival. He spins stories that weave the confluence of science, horticulture, popular culture, economics, social history, and politics. The tulip is one of four subjects that dive intoflycaster’s tale, “Xingu,” which is probably pronounced better after a few of this black beer and “Hooker” – for only the lonely.

While O’campbell’s beer stock is the most eclectic of his wares, he also carries lesser known but nonetheless appealing wines to go along with the interesting philosophy that recently brought him and his wife and two children to the Cape as year-round residents.

Son of a Navy father, he moved “up north” from Virginia when he was 19 and attended Salem State College to become a teacher. “I worked the graveyard shift at UPS and at some concessions in the summertime” until, through a working friend, he landed a job at Downtown Wine and Spirits in Somerville where his approach to sales and buying catapulted him up the