Thursday, March 30, 2006

Nice Life

I get to work today and make my coffee and go upstairs go check the email. I see LAURA.

LAURA: Good morning, Ryan. How are you?
ME: I'm great, Laura. You?
LAURA: Oh, I'm sooo stressed out.
Pause.
Long pause.
ME: Oh?
LAURA: You see, last night was "special dinner night" at my house, and we had some friends over, and the dinner really posed a challenge for me. I've got the jitters just thinking about it.
Pause.
Long pause.
ME: And?
LAURA: And I was serving a maple-and-Calvados glazed pork crown roast with this really great, homemade apple-chestnut puree. It takes me all day to make, because you have to soak the roast first in salt water, then in a brine, and then finally in the maple/Calvados glaze. It's really tiring. Anyway, I took the whole day off work to do it - that's why you missed me yesterday - and I really really really wanted to impress my friends, because she's a purchaser for Neiman Marcus and he's a chef, I think. But I had a really hard time picking the wine.
ME: Right.
LAURA: Because you have to admit that a dish this complex deserves a wine of equal complexity, right?
ME: Absolutely not.
LAURA: So I wanted something earthy, because a kind of brown, dirty characteristic would be a great foil for the maple and chesnut. And I wanted something with a little citrus to pick up on the apple fruitiness.
ME: The fruitiness. The apple fruitiness. Word.
LAURA: Exactly! And this wine HAD to have an underlying acidity. That's just a must when you're trying to balance the richness of a meat like roast pork.
ME: Right on.
LAURA: So ALL DAY I was worried about what wine to get, and still, even now, I'm shaking just thinking about it.

You are insane, Laura.

1 Comments:

Blogger t(h)om said...

hey ryan, i heard we're having pinotage this weekend. is that true?!?!? you know that's my absolute favorite.

why don't you come to work on sunday? we can get heady and give tours and hang out. c'mon it'll be fun!!!

it's earthy-crusty-brown-fruity-apple citrus-acidity-baby!!! (i'm so jealous of your job, but not of the goofballs you see everyday. say hi to bob-o for me. ask him what happenned on march 31 1972 for me, k?)

31/3/06 10:16 AM  

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