HELP

[Randy Caparoso]

I, for one, am glad Foodie is getting used to me. But if you follow along with some of my missives, Innkeeper, you'll notice that I'm quite color blind when it comes to food and wine matching. To borrow something David Rosengarten once said, I'm for matches that make sense -- not for traditional ones, nor for the de rigeur. For instance, I actually thought your suggestion for Merlot was the conservative, not mine.

This reminds me of an occasion, once, when I was tasting, for the first time, a very light, easy drinking (but interestingly flinty and licoricy) white wine made on the island of Ischia in the Bay of Naples (where they like to serenade you with stuff like Strangers in the Night, in Italian, while you eat). The winery owner was showing me how delicious it was with freshly made spinach noodles in a light, fruity tomato sauce (and it was!), and then he had me crush some itty bitty dried chile peppers onto the plate. The dish became firey hot, but the wine was still delicious (proving that a white can go with red sauced pasta quite well) -- that is, until I happened to give one of my eyelids a little scratch... with the finger I just used to crush the peppers. I think I immediately started to look like Quasimodo, as I had to immediately rush from the table in tears of agony.

Never forgot that food and wine lesson.

Think I'll put it all in a book someday. I'll call it Red Eye with Fish.