There are several rules you are tacitly agreeing to just by swinging open the vault-like door of the snow-white, ice-cold crypt of design that is Moss. The first rule, of course, is that you will not, under any circumstances, touch anything. Your children—and please take a moment to hang your head in shame for bringing them along in the first place—must be held at all times. And do remember that you are risking possible ejection should you even think about eating or drinking anywhere near items like Melissa Dixson’s taxidermied canis lupus.

Murray Moss has been known to bend the rules on that last one for his parties, serving only innocuous, quarter-filled glasses of white wine (which I whined about during the Los Angeles store opening). Still, each time a glass falls to the concrete floor—even with the design-conscious it’s bound to happen—I see him wince, or perhaps that’s the secret signal to dispatch the team of minions who quickly sweep away all memory of shattered glass, Men In Black-style.

Last night at Moss it was, at first blush, the same old scene. Philippe Starck and Sam Nazarian were there to hype their new SLS Hotels, in which Moss will have a store. Starck smiled, Nazarian shmoozed, glasses shattered, Moss winced, minions dispatched, but something was…different.

Moss served food.

Of course, this being Moss, he still wanted to curate the experience. That’s why if you wanted caviar wrapped in proscuitto, chef José Andrés had to prepare it for you.

Which meant placing it directly on your tongue.

We were allowed to self-administer other items like black squid ink olives. (No idea if these were actually olives or ink, by the way.)

Scallops in yuzu were delightfully citrusy without being too scalloppy.

Little plastic pouches of watermelon juice had grilled shrimp attached. Like a ceviche injection?

They called this a Spanish omelette. Eggs whipped to the consistency of clouds.

They said: Bagels and lox. I said: Caviar ice cream cones.

“Airbread” was balloons of dough, stuffed with some pretty intense cheese and that mouth-watering proscuitto.

And of course, your own personal mojito atomizer for a spritz between bites.

Moss even ventured into drinks of color, serving these orange gelatinous martinis. Some klutz near me ended up breaking one of those. After roughing her up a bit, they let her stay.

On the way out I was sure to thank the lovely Gita, who does PR for Moss. The food was amazing, I told her, and I took lots of pictures. “Good,” she said. “Because it’s never happening again.”

One of my favorite magazines both to write for and about, GOOD, had a party last weekend here in NY. The theme was greenmarket gourmet! All the vendors were so cute and of course gave us many, many samples.

It was right on the East River and although it was oppressively moist, a nice breeze kicked up as the sun went down. To get there, I rode a bike over the Williamsburg Bridge for the first time.

Never before have I been so thrilled with the spread at a party. Sugar snap peas! Strawberries! Sausage! Heirlooms you could just pick up and eat like an apple! Honey lavender gin cocktails!

Come to think of it, I have been drinking a lot of gin this summer. Normally I would not touch the stuff. But there have been so many interesting drinks presented to me that include gin. I believe gin is in!

For the next few days I’ll be live-blogging the Art Center conference over at Core77. The theme is Serious Play and last night’s opening was pretty seriously fun. Should be a good time; as you can see from this illustration Jeff Decoster drew of me at the last Art Center conference, I just kick back, relax, and type 1456 words a minute for twelve hours at a time until my fingernails pop off.

While you’re at Core77, check out “La Tour Awful: The Truth Is Rendered” a piece I wrote about that Eiffel Tower proposal that got everyone buzzing a few months ago.

Okay, back to raking my bloody fingers over the keyboard.

On this week’s Studio 360, the fabulous weekly radio show hosted by Kurt Andersen, they’re airing a segment I got to see being produced when I was in Miami last year. During Design/Miami, Aric Chen, Tobias Wong and Josée Lepage created a tattoo parlor where they took the concept of limited-edition design collecting to the extreme. You could get a one-of-a-kind piece of artwork by famous designers like Hella Jongerius, Yves Béhar and Tord Boontje right there on your body. FOREVER.

While covering the event for UnBeige, I met Studio 360 contributor Tania Ketenjian, and I snapped a few shots of her and the buzz surrounding the tattoos. In the slideshow for this week’s show, Studio 360 ended up using one of my shots, the only temporary tattoo available, as modeled by the lovely Jill Singer, one of my editors at ID. You can listen to art collector Ronnie Pirovino get one by graffiti artist Kaws in the segment (that buzzing sound still makes me cringe):

Another good reason to go out on a Monday: Prohibition was repealed 75 years ago today. Beer figured into my childhood more prominently than most people; I was raised in a hops-based economy thanks to Anheuser-Busch, headquartered in my hometown of St. Louis, Missouri. I couldn’t help but wonder what Prohibition did to my beloved Bud. An article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch shows how A-B proprietor Gussie Busch sucked it up and soldiered on. While other local breweries dried up, A-B adjusted and weathered the 13-year ban:

With the onset of Prohibition, brewers were forced to adapt. Anheuser-Busch churned out yeast, ice cream, refrigerated trucks, a non-alcoholic malt drink called Bevo and a de-alcoholized version of Budweiser.

The company sold off trucks, automobiles and about half of its real estate holdings. From 1919 to 1922, A-B incurred four straight years of losses, totaling $5.6 million — its first losses for which records exist — before breaking even in 1923.

Even though people began guzzling legally again in 1933, the taps never again flowed like they did pre-Prohibition. For a story I’m working on, I just spoke to an editor at WineBusiness.com who said the beer industry today is completely stagnant. Tonight, to celebrate the repeal of Prohibition, you’re more likely to uncork a bottle of red wine.