My wife and I boast to our friends and family regularly that our lives are wonderful and happiness comes easily and often as we sail through life. I am professional wine consumador (certified sommelier 1997 Master Court of Sommeliers) and she is a chef (graduated top of her class from Schoolcraft College with five Master Chefs as her instructors). Our life’s happiness secret which is no secret to those who live like us is delicious food paired with the best wine on a regular basis.
Our night begins by debating who is going to go to the market and get the stuff for our meal. Once we decide who is making the run from there we discuss fish, bird, red meat or no meat. One of us will usually pipe in with a certain crave or the opposite. The goal at the market is to select the freshest veggies and proteins we can find and thinking while we fly through the aisles “this will go good with that” and only buying as much as we need for the upcoming feast because we plan to do the same thing again soon and freshness is the prime objective.
While sprinting through the market the only thing that may limit our fat and acid soiree is if the shopper decides to pick up a hot habanero pepper or some molasses. Once we throw sweet and spicy hot into the picture our palates immediately becomes limited to sweet and bubbly wine. I will never understand the people who think dry Cabernet from Napa goes well with chocolate (high cacao content will help with this pairing but we Americans typically don’t know what that is).
We start the oven, fire up the grill, heat up the pan and start prepping the stuff for cooking. My wife tends to take over the kitchen work and my job is to find a wine to drink while cooking (sparkling is our favorite unless we are cooking with wine we will just drink that) and decant or chill what we will be having with the meal. We have learned over the years that decanting our wine is best and serving it in very nice wine glasses with the appropriate shape really makes a difference. I know this stuff can be perceived as pretention but once you get over caring about what people think about you (pretentious) you settle into decanting and Riedel glassware just fine.
Finally the meal is plated, the proteins are cooked perfectly, the veggies and pasta are al dente, everything is perfectly seasoned, aromatics from the oven are wafting, the wine is open and breathed.
Here comes the first bite, and now a sip of wine……..Aaahhhhh……….Fat and acid!
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