THE 'MARTHA' OF FOOD AND WINE PAIRING
Great Tastes Made Simple
By Andrea Immer

Andrea Immer has done it again and we may just start calling her the "Martha" of food and wine pairing. Just like Ms. Stewart has brought affordable style to the kitchens and bathrooms of the masses, Ms. Immer has taken the haute out of pairing wine and food. Her latest oeuvre employs her popular populist philosophy, which means: "High-flying flavor isn't limited to a luxury restaurant. It can be anything from Mom's macaroni and cheese to a celebrity chef's signature lobster bisque." The book divides foods into basic tastes, sweet, earthy, savory, buttery, tart and spicy and explores how these interact with wine. Of course, you might not want to pair the mac and cheese with anything. In fact, you might not ever even want to eat it, but there are hundreds of other, slightly more complex everyday dishes that call for great wines to accompany them: barbecue, gazpacho, ratatouille, potatoes, tomato sauces, lentils, omelets, chicken noodle soup, pizza, pot au feu, tagines… Great Tastes Made Simple is truly an incredibly useful, very well organized book, a great tool for any household. And, if you really want to know, the mac and cheese, says Immer, goes down well with a Rioja Crianza. There you go. While Immer's approach seem be a bit too plebeian to the true oenophile, her credentials are certainly not, being one of only ten Master Sommeliers in the world and having recently earned the title of Dean of Wine Studies at The French Culinary Institute in New York City. Also, we suspect that even the purist will find this book utterly useful and delicious!

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