Edwin's Cellar: The Art & Craft of Matching Fine Wines with Food

This book is for wine lovers who want to learn and appreciate the art of matching fine wines with appropriate foods. I believe that wine is made to accompany food, and that each enhances the other. This book is a guide to this process of quickly finding the right food match for a given wine. In the first part of the book wines and foods are grouped according to similarities, providing a convenient, methodical way to consistently achieve winning wine-food pairings. Pitfalls to avoid are also addressed. in the second part of the book, over 100 wines are examined and “can’t miss” wine-food experiences are presented to the reader. The recipes given here include an assortment of “Bistro” dishes and “Cuisine Bourgeois”, some Classical “Haute Cuisine” dishes, as well as many contemporary dishes from the world of “Nouvelle Cuisine.” The dishes were selected because I felt they accentuated the best qualities of each particular wine. I have attempted to select the dishes that I feel bring out, or magnify, those qualities in fine wines that are sought by wine lovers. The recipes listed here cover the gamut from Escoffier to Emeril. Short videos demonstrating the preparation of these recipes are included in this enhanced version; it is the author’s hope that these will help even novice cooks to be able to prepare these wonderful foods. Many of the recipes in this book also include suggested appropriate vegetarian substitutes for the meat courses in some of these classic gourmet dishes. Low-fat versions of each recipe are also addressed. My goal was to have vegetable dishes and low-fat dishes that closely approximated the look and taste of the original dish as much as possible, so that the presentation of the dish at the table and the feel of the dish in the mouth would not change the wine/food experience, adhering to the goal of enhancing the taste of each wine just as much as the original dish did. So, no matter what your dietary slants, you should be able to enjoy these famous wines with the appropriate foods to enhance the wine-food experience. Gluten-free substitutes are also listed when appropriate, for those interested. When possible, for those interested, low-sugar/low-carbohydrate substitutes for some of the dishes are also prescribed, and low-alcohol wine substitutes are proposed. Do you want to match that special rare bottle of wine with a "can't miss" food dish? Do you enjoy cooking elaborate gourmet “3-star Michelin” meals and have, or plan to stock your cellar with, the wines to properly accompany them? Or maybe you just enjoy having an everyday supermarket wine and want to serve it with the most compatible dishes for maximum enjoyment of these wines. The purpose of this book is to familiarize the reader with the different types of wines and the methodology used to match each of these wines with compatible foods. Want to know how? Read the introduction in the book . . . .