whatscooking2

Food For FIZZ

The closest I’ve ever come to the classic match of Krug Champagne and beluga caviar was a huge spoonful of sevruga thrust down my throat by a mad French chef, then washed down with a ‘79 Cristal returned from the dining room. As memorable as that was, I know not all good Champagne and food matches are as extreme or extravagant.

A single wine style that stands up to an entire meal is the test of any chef, and no style presents more of a challenge than Champagne. With savory food Champagne begs for fine textures, a restrained hand and subtle tastes. Light butter and cream - particularly with white fish, oysters natural, smoked salmon and nearly all types of roe - come to mind. Champagne also adores fresh and vibrant ices and slightly sweetened fruit, yet it marries well with a bit heavier desserts such as poached winter fruits, Champagne sabayon and fragile buttery tuilles. read more

Food for Fizz

Savory fat/slightly oily foods paired with bubbly work, too, but solid fat and fizz is ghastly. Imagine drinking a mouthful of delicate Champagne with fatty chips, a rich meaty sauce or worse still, hot sour Thai and Vietnamese flavors. That’ll turn Champagne into turpentine. The strong flavors in these foods demolish the delicate flavors in the wine. Frankly, the key is to match them.

But don’t think just tried and true classic matches will enhance your next glass of bubbles. There’re a few unconventional modern matches that work. A blander texture found in a Chinese chicken broth perfumed with ginger, sesame oil and finely shredded jellyfish is an unconventional match for Champagne, but it works... for everyone but the French, who don’t experiment. The yeasty, fruity, limey, sometimes bacony tastes of Champagne layer with the flavors of the food. It’s not a single taste, but rather the ever-altering surprises that either meet the food and burst with pleasure or smack against it and ruin it.

Take the light and subtle sauces of a little fish stock/pan juice, cream and Champagne, lightly seasoned and shaken briefly together over high heat. You have a terrific Champagne and food match. Neither overpowers the other. And what about the match of freshly shucked (unwashed) oysters with a squeeze of lime, a little pepper and icy cold Champagne. They wrestle with each other for a moment, then unite as the zip of the bubbles brush against the wetness of the oysters. The acidity of the Champagne is the foil for the food. Try a slither of lime and wasabi or spicy flying fish roe for a totally different experience.

As far as perfect matches in desserts go, Strawberries Romanoff served with lightly whipped vanilla-perfumed cream is a classic match, created for the ladies of Paris to eat while sipping (or guzzling) Champagne.

You can even find a top match with Champagne cocktails. A Bellini, the white peach and Champagne cocktail first made famous at Harry’s Bar in Venice, is proof of the perfect match of fruit and fizz. Fresh white peaches marinated in a little sugar served with a dollop of his exquisite white peach sorbet and topped with icy cold Bollinger... sublime! back to top

Pacific Northwest offers new question for coffee connoisseurs: 'Wet or dry?'

I go to coffee houses often. Of those near my home and office, I know which do what best. I know which ones have good brewed coffee and which ones have good espresso, which barista is going to put a nice foam on my cappuccino and which coffee house brews iced coffee with the right punch. I visit them in airports and train stations and when wandering the streets of every city and town I visit.

I was surprised in the Seattle-Tacoma airport, in transit to Alaska, when I ordered a cappuccino and was presented with a coffee-related question for which I didn't have an answer. "Wet or dry?" the barista asked me. read more

Wet or Dry?

I tilted my head like a confused puppy.

The barista explained what she meant, I made a choice and was delighted that I had learned a new piece of jargon being used in Seattle, which is of course at the heart of a coffee culture that has swept the nation.

Then I walked into a coffee house in Juneau, Alaska, and ordered a cappuccino. "Yeah, I just made really good foam," said one of two enthusiastic young baristas. Then she asked, "Wet or dry?"

Now, for the people of Seattle to use specialized coffee questions is one thing; for Juneau coffee servers to show similar erudition confused me.

Later I was asked the same question in Sitka, Alaska, too. I wondered where I'd been that I hadn't heard the jargon apparently being bandied about the Arctic Circle. I mean, if they're asking in Sitka, mightn't they be asking in Barrow, too?

So I conducted an informal survey. I e-mailed people in and out of the foodservice industry and asked around at dinner parties: "When you order cappuccino, are you asked if you want it wet or dry, and if you are, do you know what the question means?"

Very few people knew what I meant, and some responded with some hostility, the gist of which was, "Oh, for the love of Pete [or maybe Peet's, in this case] don't tell me there's another thing I have to specify when ordering my coffee."

But people from the Pacific Northwest, including Alaska but excluding San Francisco, as well as a fair number of people from the 847 area code of suburban Chicago, knew exactly what the question meant.

It's all about the milk-to-foam ratio. Wet cappuccinos have lots of milk in them. Dry ones are all foam.

I order mine in between. back to top

Restaurants by the numbers…

$1.3 billion — restaurant-industry sales

on a typical day in 2005

Two out of three — percentage of quickservice operators who have added low-carb items to their menu as a result of the low-carb diet trend

Nearly half — percentage of tableservice operators reporting that takeout represents a larger proportion of their total sales compared to two years ago

One out of three — percent of consumers who have used curbside takeout at a tableservice restaurant

4 percent — median pre-tax income in 2003 for fullservice restaurants with average per-person checks of $15 to $24.99

45 percent — Percentage of 25-to-34-year-olds who have used the Internet to find out information about a restaurant they have not patronized before