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WHAT BOTTLE TO BRING
By Carolyn Evans-Hammond, published in Outreach Connection and distributed privately,
There’s something ethereal about eating salmon roe—it starts like tapioca pudding without the custard then becomes the most amazing series of tiny saline explosions in your mouth. Sea spray fireworks. Doesn’t take much to get into it. It’s like that bubbled packing plastic you used to spend hours popping as a kid. Fish eggs can be just as addictive.
I was at Blowfish restaurant on King the other night with my friend Catherine eating small hills of salmon roe piled on wee squares of sticky rice when the topic of tripe arose. One of Catherine’s finer qualities is she’ll eat anything twice. Her current gastronomic ambition: to eat tripe. Tripe. Canadians eat tripe about as often as chicken brains and I can see why. I, having tasted it years ago, remember it to be pretty much the most dank and frothingly disgusting thing I’ve ever put in my mouth. It is of course the lining of a cow’s stomach and looks and tastes like you might expect—a wrinkled and cinched grey layer of rank spongy rubber. But it could have been because I had it at a budget Chinese hot pot restaurant in
Which brings me to the sake. We drank sake that night from rather large wine glasses the waitress kept topped up. Now I know the fattest margins come from the bar tab but serving sake in wine glasses strikes me as perilous pushing wrapped up as a nicety. Sake weighs in at 15-20% alcohol, which is why it’s normally served in small cups. Drinking it like an ordinary white wine with the lightest fare imaginable is an extrordinarily bad idea from the drinker’s perspective, which I didn’t realise until the next morning. I wouldn’t try it at your next dinner party.
Which brings me to dinner parties. Christmas is behind us now, or will be by time this is published, but we’re still in the thick of dinner party season--not to mention the densest concentration of cocktail, wine and cheese ,and holiday open house dos. And with each occassion comes the chance if not expectation to bring wine.
What bottle to bring
Someone said to me yesterday, “I’m going over to
There’s only one way to think about this kind of situation: by zeroing in on the lowest common denominator. Matching the wine with the food gets around the need to create vinous euphoria for every palate around the table. So find out what is being served and then bring stuff you would like to drink with it.
If it’s a party where the wine is a gift rather than something to be uncorked with you, ignore your own preferences and focus on those of the recipient. Start with the country s/he prefers to drink from then move to the grape variety. With that information, you could look to a critic or LCBO consultant for a recommendation in your preferred price range. And if you’re in a rush or completely at a loss, it’s hard to go wrong with a small bottle of fine
This column is distributed privately, appears in Outreach Connection weekly, and is posted at www.wine-tribune.com. Seasoned journalist and qualified sommelier Carolyn Evans-Hammond has written for several major publications including Decanter Magazine, The Times newspaper, and Wine & Spirit International magazine in the U.K., as well as Maclean’s magazine, Taste magazine, Tidings magazine, The Toronto Star and The Province in Canada. Her bestselling book, 1000 Best Wine Secrets, is available at most major bookstores, and signed copies are available through her website.