Stories

When it comes to serving wine with seafood, we want the wine to marry with the delicate flavors of the fish. In other words, the wine or the fish should not upstage each other in any way. Remaining complementary is key.

Retaining a refreshing palate with wine acidity and working with the flavors from rich and buttery sauces accompanying fish can be challenging.

Most dry white wines will work but it's good to keep some things in mind. Paying attention to the flavors of shellfish or fish you are serving will help guide you in your choice of varietal wine.

Overall, lots of fish have the same basic, gentle taste. A fish like tilapia comes to mind. So with tilapia or any other similar white fish there are lots wines to fit the bill. Choosing wines aged in steel rather than oak, wines like unoaked Chardonnay, Albarino, Pinot Gris, Sauvignon Blanc and Gruner Veltliner will reward you with a nice acidity, cutting through the heavy, buttery sauces commonly served with these types of fish.

When it comes to lobster, crab and scallops, the sweetness pairs nicely with the flavor profile of an oaked Chardonnay.

I don't know if it’s the famous economy, or I'm just going through an I can't stand take-out anymore, but I've started to cook again. Not just grill a burger, which turns out pretty good when done on a stove top grill pan. I've actually been making vats of chile, or chicken and vegetables in marinara sauce, and freezing perfect portions in those great plastic containers everyone else in the world discovered before I did It's been a bone-chilling winter in New York this year, and coming home to something yummy that I can pop into the microwave, then actually eat straight from the container, has been life-changing. So that's what the room with all the white stuff that I used to go into all the time, is for.

I'm telling all of this to you for a reason. Sometimes, I want that comforting supper, and the freezer is bare. This requires imagination. And boy was I lucky last night. I had a sizeable hunk of Velveeta in the fridge. I had bread and butter. And I had fresh pineapple. Am I the last person on earth to discover how completely wonderful a grilled cheese sandwich, made with Velveeta, and slices of fresh pineapple, can be.

I'll probably try it with Kraft slices, or even some fancier cheese, but only when I'm out of Velveeta. You can be sure I'll always have the pineapple at hand.

Read Part 2

I don’t know another food that seems to inspire stronger emotion—passion, even
—than that most humble of desserts, pie. — Joyce Maynard, "Labor Day"

I’ve been thinking about pie a lot lately. It’s only now, as I’m preparing to leave the college where I’ve taught for the last 15 years, that it occurs to me how many works I’ve taught that have included pie. In the early years of my women’s film class, I used a clip in which Snow White sings about her prince while crafting the perfect pie for the seven little men that she lives with. Pie can be a metaphor for comfort, for domesticity, for nurturing and for accomplishment.

Those very suggestions are what also make pie such a successful weapon in the arsenal of slapstick: to be attacked with a pie, otherwise a symbol of warm inclusiveness, is to be shamed, reduced (just ask the British Prime Minister’s pie thrower his intention).

When you’re in love, sometimes you fight. It can be said an altercation or two is inevitable. It is as natural as bugs dying in your bathroom, flowers losing their bloom in the winter, and  food cravings when you're pregnant. Even domesticated animals like cats and dogs do it!

Fighting, arguing, disagreeing or whatever suits the fancy of the debater can be as unpleasant and that is why, after an elongated tête-à-tête was resolved I wanted nothing but a slice of pie à la mode to ease my emotions.

In a city as big as New York, this shouldn’t have been a problem but verbal combat can leave gaping wounds and with vital emotional juices still oozing decision making, never my strong point to begin with, took the rear seat.

We went wandering. Anger aroused, wagers were placed. I bet you can’t find apple pie. I bet I can. We fought some more, in the streets like immature children, found some pie, argued some more, I ate the pie, wretched pre-packaged pie, silent treatment. That didn’t last long. Tears and all the rest before temporary resolution occurred. Circle game.