Blushy & Lushy

Illustration by Hayley Thornton-Kennedy. Source.

I wish this Food and Wine article about pink wine personality was a quiz - because I have loved quizzes forever, since even before I was scratching up the multiple choice questions in the back pages of YM.

But even just as a list, I like it.

For one thing, it's a good reminder that it will, one day, soon enough, be rose season again. That's helpful to know, what with the snow on the ground and all.

For another, it points out that not every rose is exactly the same. Our standard go-to pinks - Provencal but cheap - aren't exactly on the list (Provence is there...but the pricier stuff).

But the wines that do appear on the list are pretty interesting. While I'm unlikely to go down the white zin road anytime soon, I see some pink txakoli in my future. (I'm already a fan of Basque wines - we had a few bottles of red Gorrondona Txakolina at La Cuchara last November and I was sold.)

But mostly, I like it because it reminded me, right off, of that time, over five years ago now, when Cooper and I drank some Domaine Ott - the fanciest of the roses - and were kind of unimpressed. It was at a Dogwood wine dinner and while we liked it, it definitely didn't seem worth the price tag. Perhaps I am a plebe.

Whether or not we were sufficiently enthused by the wine's flavor, drinking it is a great memory of a dinner that was both delicious and a blast. There was a lot of laughing that night - there always was, at those Dogwood dinners.

Which, in the end, reminds me of what I love best about rose. More than any other wine, it seems to always come with a whole lot of laughter.

New and Fun

I am working on a post that wraps up all the fun things we did and cool places we ate in May (SPOILER ALERT: Le Garage is pretty awesome and we still love Keuka Lake). But that's taking longer than I'd like, mostly due to pesky things like the having to write things for people who pay me. The horror. Writing for money.

In the meantime, here are a couple thing that are fun, new, and that I can write about quickly:

• Over the past, oh, six months, I've written multiple articles about oysters. The first two came out this week - this one in Chesapeake Home + Living and this one in The Sun. A third runs next week in The Sun. Writing these has been so great. You know how Julia Child said that people who love food are the best people? Well, as far as I'm concerned, people who love oysters are the best people among those people. And I got to talk to a lot of them this winter and spring.
• Kathy (aka the Minx) and Neal Patterson's new book, Baltimore Chef's Table, just arrived at my house this afternoon - and it is gorgeous. I have to admit, though, as I was flipping through the pages, reading recipes and admiring the really fantastic collection of restaurants included, all I could think about was how much work it must have been to get all those chefs to send in their recipes and schedule photos. I love chefs - I truly do - but being a great, creative mind in the kitchen does not always translate to being an efficient emailer. That said, it's a great book. Buy it.
• I have decided that Seattle mixologist Anu Apte would be my BFF if she lived in Baltimore. You know how I know? This Food and Wine article, in which she mentions her love for Lumosity. ME TOO.

Food and Wine's Newish Blog

When I get busy with work, I get way behind on my food-related reading. You should see the pile of magazines currently sitting in my basement. And forget about reading food blogs - that feels like a frivolity my schedule just can't handle. (Obviously, regular blogging here takes a hit, too.)

Lately, though, I've been making an exception for Food and Wine magazine's new blog FWx. I'm not sure exactly when it started (not that long ago, apparently) - I just know that a few weeks ago, I realized that all the Food and Wine Facebook links that interested me were heading over to this new website, which was really more of a blog, called FWx.

Apparently it's designed for Millennials but - considering I am in no way, shape or form a Millennial - it has broader appeal. Posts like this apple and coffee-tasting tutorial are what keep me interested. Informative, succinct, funny and actually useful.

Exactly the right size and style for a quick break between PowerPoint slides.

Last Week's Dinners: Pho, Pork & Shrimp

I've been work-busy lately, so I haven't been cooking nearly as much as I'd like. 

Fortunately, my schedule is starting to even out a bit, so last week, 

I got myself back in the kitchen. And this is what happened:

Left to right, from most recent to least.

Friday: I wasn't feeling 100%, so I scrounged up an old chicken pho recipe

from the September 2005 issue of Food and Wine. It took a million years

to cook, but the house smelled great and the flavor was worth it. 

And now I feel (mostly) better.

Thursday: Dinner out. Can't cook every night.

Wednesday: I made lasagna for the first time ever. Made up the recipe, too.

Not enough sauce, not enough flavor. And not interesting enough to photograph.

Tuesday: Pork medallions with onion marmalade. Originally published in the 

May 2001 Food and Wine, this recipe was reprinted again in the March issue.

Admittedly, the involvement of raspberry vinegar feels pretty old-fashioned, 

but the pork and its sauce were both fantastic. That said, it took

waaaay longer to make than the magazine suggested. 

And I burned the onion marmalade. But that's nobody's fault but my own.

Monday: Shrimp-fried rice from the March Bon Appetit. Light, easy to make,

pretty healthy, super tasty. As much as I love F&W, I have to admit that BA

just kills it when it comes to easy weeknight recipes. Dixon might even have 

accidentally eaten some vegetables during this dinner, so that's an added bonus.

So that's it: last week's menu chez Pollard. Thumbs up across the board. 

(Except for my lasagna. Sigh. Clearly, I am not Italian.)

As January Nears...

It's food trend season once again.

The January issue of Food and Wine arrived last week, bringing with it a trend suggestion or two. Chefs are focusing on chicken now, instead of burgers as their downmarket food made upscale and fancy? Sure, but I don't know how new that really is. It's been five years since F&W first published Thomas Keller's fried chicken recipe.

That said, the issue was a great one all around - full of interesting observations. A neo-tiki cocktail trend? Yes, please. Mayan chocolate puddings? That fits so neatly with an Aztec-inspired dessert we had at Johnny's earlier this fall.

And Ray Isle's article about how to stock wine based on your drinking personality ought to be required reading for everyone. (Note: I might think that because he confirms what we already do.)

Not to mention, the magazine is a nice escape from Christmas overload. Not that I'm sick of Christmas - I'm not - but even now, a little break from the holiday buzz feels pretty good.

Cook the Mags: Recent(ish) Weeknight Dinners

We go out to dinner a lot these days - thanks, Baltimore Sun! - so when we're at home,

I try to cook dinners that are a little interesting, without being crazy complicated.

I have a zillion cookbooks, but I end up relying more on Food and Wine

and Bon Appetit for inspiration. They keep it interesting.

These three dinners were some of our recent favorites

(that also happened to be easy weeknight meals).

From the March issue of Bon Appetit, this

 parmesan-crusted chicken and roasted Caesar salad have "regular weeknight"

written all over them: They're not fancy food.

But the dinner was super easy to make, not expensive at all, and had tons of flavor.

This shrimp, sausage and lima bean stew from July's Food and Wine was a little

more time-intensive, and a little less healthy, than the chicken -

but it was still a good weeknight meal. If I made it again,

I'd peel the shrimp before cooking, reserving the shells to make

a quick shrimp stock to use (maybe in place of half the chicken stock).

Peeling the shrimp at the table was a pain.

Pain or no, it was very tasty - and a nice change of pace from the usual weeknight dinner.

Again: easy, cheapish, quick, not terribly unhealthy. This grilled chicken salad from the

May issue of Bon Appetit is light - nice for a hot weeknight -

and thanks to 20 cloves of garlic, it's full of flavor. The dressing is fantastic -

I'd use it on a ton of stuff.

I scrapped the olives from my plate (but included them in Cooper's) -

I didn't miss them. Then again, since I don't like olives, I wouldn't really miss them, would I?

All highly recommended!

Recipe Reviews: Totally Approachable Ethnic Food

Sometimes I shy away from the more exotic recipes in Food and Wine, mostly because they involve a) a lot of marinating or b) a million ingredients that I don't already have on hand. If a recipe requires a trip to Whole Foods, I'm probably out, no matter how good it sounds.

Recently, though, thanks to Food and Wine, I've come across a handful of recipes that are a little more exotic than our usual meals, but that are also weeknight-friendly. It's been nice, mixing it up a little.

Recipe #1: Guy Fieri's Mofongo

  

Anything that starts with pork rinds must taste good.

  

Mofongo is a Puerto Rican comfort food of shrimp and plantains. Fieri's version is very simple and very tasty, though it's also kind of rich - maybe a little too rich. We thought it could use a little more acid - perhaps a squeeze of lime at the end. I also added warm flour tortillas to the dish - they added a touch of sweetness that balanced the super-savory flavor of the pork rinds:

 

Recipe #2: Baked Huevos Rancheros

I am a huge fan of eggs for dinner - just last week, Cooper was poking fun at me for making eggs benedict for dinner, pointing out - rightly - that it's my go-to whenever I can't really think of anything to cook. My response: that he should thank his lucky stars that my slacker dinner involves hollandaise. But I digress.

These huevos rancheros are from the February Food and Wine. The recipe was developed by Grace Parisi, who is one of my favorite recipe developers at the magazine. I find her recipes very user-friendly and consistently easy and good.

I made the eggs almost exactly as the recipe suggested - except thatI scaled back for our family, using only five eggs instead of eight. I also put all the eggs in one larger dish, instead of using individual dishes (you make dinner with the dishware you have, you know).

Prior to cheese-ing and cooking:

 

And out of the oven, all cheesy and crunchy and delicious:

I will definitely make that again, the exact same way.

Recipe #3: Luke Nguyen's Pork Banh Mi

Last night, we went Vietnamese, with a very easy, and also very inexpensive, banh mi that's featured in the same article that gave us the mofongo recipe. I forgot to take a picture before I bit into my sandwich, so halfway through dinner, I threw some ingredients on a piece of bread, took a picture and called it a day:

I'd also do this again, without any changes to the recipe (the only thing I did differently was skip the skewering of the pork, since I was grilling on a grill pan and didn't need to worry about losing any meat).

I'll tell you what I won't do next time, though: load the bread with too much sriracha. Ouch.

So there it is: dining a little differently, without spending a fortune on exotic spices.

Recently Cooked: Hits and Misses

I've been cooking up a storm lately, even though I haven't been writing about it much (or remembering to take many pictures). I have, however, been taking notes, especially when it comes to recipes I've pulled from Bon Appetit, Food & Wine and Food52. Some have been great and others...not so much. Here's a rundown (with links to the recipes at the bottom of the post:

THE HITS:

Gingery carrots

Honey-roasted onion tart

Asparagus and mushroom tart

Shrimp pad thai

Tagliatelle with proscuitto (Note: I added way more meat to this dish than recommended - and I'd do it again. Also, I know the whole orange juice pasta thing sounds weird - but it works. Really it does.)

THE MISSES:

The bacon burger idea didn't come from a recipe specifically, but it was inspired by a recommendation in Bon Appetit. Don't follow that recommendation!

Salted caramel "squares"

Snow Day Food: Beef and Vegetable Potpie with Cheddar Biscuits

If I'd known it was going to snow overnight, I would've saved this recipe for today:

That's a half-version of this beef potpie, topped with cheddar biscuits, from the November 2010 issue of Food & Wine. I made it last Saturday night, when it had already been cold out for a few days and I was looking for some serious rib-sticking food.

And rib-sticking it was. It was also pretty easy to make (and cheap, too, since the beef in question is the ground sort). I was a little leery about the cheddar biscuit part, since I shy away from anything that even remotely seems like baking, but making them was easy. And even though it looked like a big old mess when I put it in the oven, after the potpie cooked and sat for 10 minutes out of the oven, it really did look like the photo in the magazine (the above picture was taken just after it came out, when it was still a little liquidy).

Nice flavor, very hearty, and well-rounded, if not strictly healthy. All in all, a good winter meal. Perfect for a day like...today.

A Quick Note on Shrimp and Grits

When we were in New Orleans last fall for Tom and Cail's wedding, we ate a lot of shrimp and grits. Until last week, though, I'd never made them. I'd never even made grits. I found something about them intimidating. That something, actually, is that I know it's not that hard to screw them up.

Then again, as it turns out, it's not that hard to get them right.

This month's Food & Wine is all about southern flavors (unsurprising, since I'm not sure they could get hotter) - including shrimp and grits, which I made:

And they were good. I will caution against oversalting - when I tried the grits, they weren't salty enough, so I added some. Unfortunately, I didn't take the shrimp into account, so the overall effect was a little salty for me when they were combined. Not terrible, but a little intense.

Not only were they good, but they really were easy. Plus, Grace Parisi's recipe adds a little spinach. Antioxidants!

Cool, Over, Never, Intriguing

• Cool: I rarely drink Australian wine anymore (I, like many people, got Yellowtailed out when I first got into wine), but I'm certainly not immune to the adorable map that illustrates this Food & Wine overview of Australian wine regions. Cutely drawn maps are my crack cocaine.
• Over: I'm not saying Turkey's not probably a super cool place. I bet it is. But this is hardly the first article I've read about sailing off the coast of Istanbul. It looks like a gorgeous country and I have it on good authority from my friend Bert, who would know, that Turkish women are some of the most beautiful in the world. But still, how many sailing-in-Turkey articles can be written? (P.S. Sorry to Rasim, my friend since kindergarten, who is Turkish. But I'm pretty sure I'm right.)
• Never: I have watched enough Travel Channel shows to know that I am never going to want to eat like an Icelander, no matter how healthy it is.
• Intriguing: In non-Food & Wine news - non-food news, if you want to be picky about it - I found this Galley Slaves post on what makes an alpha male completely fascinating. Also, revealing. Let's just say it potentially explains a lot about my early 20s, all the way up to the point when I met Cooper. Plus, I do like a nice psycho/socio/anthropological theory.

Entertaining Friday: Running with the Grapes

Ever since my first reading of Peter Mayle's French Lessons, I have been totally fascinated with the Medoc Marathon in Bordeaux. This year, the race happens to be tomorrow. Thousands of runners from all over the world will gather in Bordeaux to run 26.2 miles through some of the world's most venerable grapevines, passing over 50 chateaux in all.

Stops along the way are a far cry from the water tents found on the sidelines of traditional marathons. At points along the course, runners can stop for cheese, sausage, oysters, and of course wine. Tonight, in preparation for the race, runners will carb-load, just like in America, but they'll also drink and dance. Somehow, they'll still get up to don their running shoes (and in some cases, costumes). And they will actually run.

In 2002, American writer Ben Cheever ran the race, and he wrote about the experience in Food & Wine. A traditional American runner - this wasn't his first marathon - it took him a few miles to adjust to the idea of drinking en route. When faced with a glass of Chateau Lafite Rothschild, he stopped worrying (who wouldn't?). Ultimately, Cheever finished the marathon in just over four and a half hours - and he had a great time.

Even on my very best day, I am not a runner. I envy those who are (like Jen and Alicia, who have each run more than one marathon). But even more than that, I envy those people who make it to the Medoc this weekend. Lafite Rothschild? There is a chance that even I might run a few miles for a wine like that.

[Photo: Sydney Morning Herald]

Entertaining Friday: French Country Dining

I have a recurring daydream. It's about a dinner party. A big one, full of interesting conversation and great, late-summer food. All the guests are seated at an impossibly long, simply dressed wooden table. They drink cocktails made with farmers' market ingredients and some of them, inexplicably, wear Gael Greene-style hats. It takes place in my backyard. There are lights in the trees and everything's green and which, in the daydream, kind of looks like this:

Everybody gushes over the simple, but delicious food that's on their plates. Which looks kind of like this:

Unfortunately, in real life, my backyard is a bumpy mess that would never stand up to a super-long table and, anyway, the late summer is usually so muggy and buggy that eating in the yard wouldn't really be practical.

But a girl can dream, right? Which is exactly what I did when I read this August F&W article about Le Pain Quotidien founder Alain Coumont and his gorgeous home in the south of France and the fabulous entertaining he does there.

I tried to quell my jealousy by reminding myself that Coumont probably works so hard during most of the year that he barely gets a chance to breathe, so really he only actually enjoys those couple of summer months that he and his wife and daughter spend at their home, which is 30 miles outside Monpelier.

Unfortunately, that didn't really work. I'm still jealous - and now actively trying to figure out how to level out my backyard so it can handle a table of this magnitude. I wonder if Cooper can build a temporary platform that we can store in the garage. It's probably time for him to start a new project anyway...

[Photos from Food & Wine, August 2009. (c) Martin Morrell]

Artsy Wednesday: It's Not the Taste, It's the Texture

The July issue of Food & Wine arrived yesterday and with it, so many really approachable recipes, it's almost like Bon Appetit! (Seriously, I prefer F&W overall, especially for the articles, but when it comes to weeknight meals, BA is way more useful.)

The issue isn't all about recipes, though, and there are a couple of great articles. A guide to post-Ramsey London, a fourth of July party with Bobby Flay in the Hamptons, and a ton of fantastic wine-related stuff. Including an article on texture.

In Emily Kaiser's article, "A Sensualist's Guide to Wine Pairings," the author admits something that holds true for me, as well: when she drinks wine, it's not really about the taste. It's the texture.

I actually hadn't ever thought about it until I looked at the article, either. But I knew I had something in common with Kaiser as soon as I read this:

"For me, it's easier to discern a wine's texture than it is to analyze its aromas or flavors. And when I pick a wine for dinner, I often seek a particular texture more than a specific taste - chewy or sharp, fizzy or smooth, or some sensation in between."

Hey, Emily! Me too!

The article goes on to include more detail about the texture of wine, and it includes some food and wine pairings built around mouthfeel. Overall, it's an exciting read for me, in that it makes me feel less like I have an insufficient palate, especially compared to Cooper's "not quite, but nearly, a supertaster" palate, and more like I just experience food and wine in a different way than some people.

Oh - and what's "artsy" about this? Well, every painting is about color, right? But it's not only about color. It's also about texture. Just like every wine is not just about flavor.

Entertaining Friday: Match That Wine!

As longtime readers know, I'm a big fan of Canadian wine writer Natalie MacLean. For one thing, I like her recommendations (and that she makes a lot of them). For another, I like her. That's a bonus.

She's had a food and wine matcher on her site for some time now and she's just created a widget that allows you to transport the widget pretty much anywhere online. I've got it on my facebook page now, for example, and on the sidebar of this blog. Downloading it takes about 2 seconds, too. In fact, here it is now:

And in case you're wondering, Nat has more than a few recommendations for wine to drink with your corned beef and cabbage. If you're into reds, she suggests a nice Bordeaux, a New World Cab or a Cab-blend Meritage. If you prefer white, try a Sauvignon Blanc or a Gruner Veltliner. Either way, slainte!

Trendy Monday: Peru

Guess who's power just came back on?

It went out AGAIN sometime around 5 this morning. After several phone calls (and no acknowledgement that I scheduled an emergency visit last week), BGE finally got somebody out here to fix whatever was wrong. So now I can read my email in peace.

Unfortunately, I've got a lot to do today, all of which has been pushed back in my wait for the repairman. So you're just going to have to take my word for it that Peruvian food is hot right now. Well, my word along with Food & Wine's (there's an article in the new issue, but it's not online yet), Elizabeth Large's and Bon Appetit's...

Trendy Monday: Fakery

Almost exactly a year ago, I wrote a post on wine counterfeiting, linking to a Slate article about the subject. At the time, I read a lot about the subject, but didn't post much on it, except to say that I would totally see a movie about any one of the wine counterfeiting scandals that were coming to light.

Apparently somebody in Hollywood agrees. Also, the F&W editorial staff have heeded my unspoken call, and they had Lettie Teague write a story about extremely high end wine counterfeiting. It's a good story - informative in terms of the actual news story and also entertaining. Plus, she counterfeits a wine of her own and tests it out on a group of her more connoisseury friends.

I'm glad this topic is getting more attention, and not just because it's (obviously) wrong. It's also that it's just so entertaining. France. Wine. Money. Scandal. Je l'aime.

Quotable Tuesday: Then and Now

Harvey Wallbanger
Then: Galliano, a vanilla-and-anise-flavored Italian liqueur, is the key ingredient in the Harvey Wallbanger, the era’s essential brunch cocktail.

Now: This fall, Galliano will reintroduce its classic formula. Mixologists are updating the cocktail, as in this Humpty Dumpty from Johnny Raglin at San Francisco’s Absinthe.

Have I been writing too much about the September Food & Wine? Maybe, but I can't help it. I actually meant to write about this yesterday, as Trendy Monday, but in my weekend blur I totally forgot about it.

But aren't the 70s back? I mean, if Mad Men has caused a renewed interest in the early 60s, then a combination of Bottle Shock and Swingtown (which Becky from Hatch has been all over, design-wise)and a whole bunch of people turning thirty (like me...two and a half years ago) has startled us into fond memories of the 70s.

I loved this "then and now" feature in F&W (including the Harvey Wallbanger quote from above - I picked that as a quote just because I remember, as a kid, thinking that "Harvey Wallbanger" was hilarious-sounding). Now, even though I was born in the 70s, I don't think I have an overly romantic view of the decade. I'm pretty sure I'm glad I'm living now, not a few years ago.

But everybody loves a little touch of disco, right? Right?

Thomas Keller's Fried Chicken Must Be Really, Really Special

The September Bon Appetit arrived on Wednesday (I know, right? It was still JULY.) Yesterday afternoon I read a bit of the magazine - the annual restaurant issue. Good recipes, interesting Molly Wizenberg, some food porny photos and...something that stopped me in my reading tracks.

It wasn't an unusual article, really. Pretty much standard BA fare: a backyard dinner with Thomas Keller and Joel Gott and their friends and families. Simple food, including Keller-made fried chicken and chocolate and peanut butter milkshakes that look as delicious as they sound easy.

Nothing out of the ordinary, right?

Except that a little deja vu-ing voice in my head kept telling me that something was wrong. That I'd read this article before. And that I should be really, really thankful for the internet because it saved me from hunting through stacks of old issues of Food & Wine because it only took me about five minutes to find this article in which Thomas Keller visits some winemaking Napa friends for a casual outdoor dinner...and makes lemon-brined fried chicken.

It was in the October 2007 issue. October 2007! Less than a year before the Bon Appetit article appears? I can't be the only person out there who gets both of these magazines, right? I get that Keller is busy promoting his menu at Ad Hoc, where apparently the chicken is a star. But still. Doesn't anybody at Bon Appetit read their competition?

Book Review: He Said Beer, She Said Wine

It absolutely pains me that I'm just getting around to writing about this book, mostly because I read it immediately upon receipt. A month ago. There's just no excuse for it, except for me to say (once again) that I'm slack.

Now that I've gotten my self-flagellation out of the way...on to the book. It's pretty great. While I didn't actually sit down and read it cover to cover, I did glance through every single page - and so did Cooper. And he doesn't really do that.

The premise is pretty simple, and to make matters easy, here's the press copy:

Dogfish Head brewery founder Sam Calagione and renowned sommelier Marnie Old cut through the many misconceptions and caveats that come along with making great food and beverage pairings. Sam and Marnie frame the great drink debate, making a case for their beverage of choice, and the result is a fun, educational and revealing look at how what we drink can bring out the best in our food.

PR copy or no, that does actually sum up the book. What could be pretty dry and boring ends up personality-driven and a fun read - the authors' voices come through loud and clear and there are a ton of pictures of beer, wine, and food - and also of the authors, which I think really adds to the book's easy tone.

So there's a lot of general informational stuff - the types of wine and beer, what to expect, how to read labels, etc. I was already familiar with most of that, but that's only because of excessive drink-reading and tv-watching. And anyway, it wasn't a bad refresher.

I was primarily interested in the actual wine and beer pairing suggestions. They're very specific, and come complete with pictures of the bottles they suggest. The recipes included are pretty simple, and I like that they spell out with great detail how, exactly, you can set up a wine vs. beer tasting party at your house. See, Old and Calagione have hosted their own tasting parties in a few spots (including Calagione's Rehoboth Beach restaurant, which I've never been to, but now would like to go). So they know from what they speak.

I wasn't really up for hosting a full-on party as a part of my review, but I did want to test out their recommendations. Fortunately, my dad's birthday was the last weekend in March, and my whole family was coming up to my house for celebratory drinks, hors d'oeuvres and cake. Since I had a captive audience, I decided to make them work for their dinner.

I was already making scallops (that's the only thing my dad asked for), so I decided to stick with seafood and make Old and Calagione's mussels in a spicy red sauce. Despite never having cooked mussels at home before, everything went super smoothly. The sauce was outrageously easy and it totally delivered the spice (but not too much).

I had absolutely no problems finding the recommended beer (Birra Moretti La Rosa, a reddish brown Italian lager) at Wells, even though I'd never heard of it before (but then again, I'm not that big of a beer drinker). Unfortunately, the first wine store I went to (Beltway) didn't have the recommended wine (Banti Centine Toscana Rossa, a Sangiovese blend from Tuscany that's similar to a "plumper, juicier Chianti), and since that's a gigantic store, I gave up easy and found something that sounded similar in terms of taste (and promptly forgot to write down its name).

As a result, it's hard for me to say whether the beer's near-unanimous win over the wine was a result of my decision or the book's recommendation. My mom was the only person who preferred the wine, and even she said it was only because she really likes wine better than beer.

Neither match was a bad one, but the beer was spot on. In fact, even though I don't really like reddish brown beers, I truly enjoyed this one thanks to the match with the sauce. I wasn't the only one to feel that way, either.

But I digress. The short version of this post is: new book about wine and beer. I liked it. It's a great reference and is also a good read.

And also, mussels in spicy red sauce. Delicious.