Pairing Wine with Chinese Food: Match Flavors Not Just Ingredients
During my Wine Pairing Chinese Banquet I challenged a few friends in the wine business to find wines that would complement Chinese food. We ended up with 20 bottles of wine, including one corked, paired towards all ten items on the menu. Many of the selections were rather unconventional but really worked quite well. With each course we compared the merits of each selected wine and even attempted impromptu pairings. There were a few disappointments but most were overwhelmingly successful.
Have you ever wondered why the wine lists in your average Chinese restaurants are so limited or non-existent? One would think that with a cuisine so wide-ranging and creative, there would be a sophisticated wine culture accompanying Chinese food. Well, there is. It’s just not the same wine we know of. When mentioning “wine” to a Chinese you need to differentiate between the indigenous “grain-based wine” made from rice, sorghum or barley and the imported European “grape-based wine.” But it doesn’t mean grape wine is not fitting for Chinese food. 
So it was on this July 4th weekend my partner, Warren, and I along with some of our neighbors went to the beach. Our wonderful friend Chick invited all of us to spend the weekend with him and his family at their beach house, which is in a small coastal hamlet of Slaughter Beach at the mouth of the Delaware River. Kim, the Yummy Mummy, and her family were part of the group. If you’ve been following her blog you’d know about the “horrors” that happened during the weekend. But don’t believe all of them!
In this world there are those who nurture and those who are nurtured. Kim, the Yummy Mummy, is the poster girl of the nurturers. It was her encouragement that started me writing Red Cook, and she continues to be a champion of my blog. So when she 
Do you remember in March I let the garlic in my kitchen sprout? Yes, it’s been almost three months and no news about the shoots. I am guilty of being neglectful with you, my readers. The fact is I’ve harvested the garlic shoots (蒜苗) twice but I was not motivated enough to record the events. This weekend however I collected another batch of these flavorful young shoots and made the classic twice cooked pork (回鍋肉). This time I am determined to share the marvelous herb and dish with you.
Located virtually on the equator, Singapore offers a wide variety of fresh fruits year round. Although many tropical fruits are harvested year round, a small number of them are seasonal. When I lived in Singapore I used to follow these seasonal fruits like people in temperate climates follow changing season. Among the seasonal fruits, mango is the one I always eagerly anticipated. Its season starts at the end of the dry months, which is around July. Local mangoes start appearing in the market around August and continue to be available through October.
Memorial Day is over and we’re now officially in the summer season again. Whites are back. So are barbeques, picnics, ice-cold beers and leisurely simple meals. It’s time to dig out our recipes for cold summer dishes. But what can you do to jazz up the boring standard fares in your recipe collection? Why not add some Chinese cold dishes to your repertoire? Drunken chicken (紹興醉雞), for one, can give your summer meals some extra pizzazz. 