Pour the Wine and Stir
For years my sister has been telling me to broaden my wine repertoire. Her exact words are usually, “Amari, you need to expand your palette.” She is what happens when you take one wine course at Cornell University as an undergrad: You start describing wine as oaky and contemplating opening a vineyard in Napa.
Sometimes I like to think of us as wines. While she is an expensive bottle of Merlot or Pinot Noir; rich and piquant, with great potential for aging. I am a $5 bottle of Moscato bought at Trader Joe’s; light and fruity, like a juice box.
I aspire to be taken seriously like red wine. I aspire to drink red wine like someone who is taken seriously. So, when I saw this week’s recipe called for cooking with dry red wine, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to start maturing my palette. But, for some reason, the act of cooking with wine has always seemed somewhat pretentious and unnecessary to me. It’s something I associate with high ranking chefs, more so done for flair than flavor. My intense intake of romantic movies where the protagonist owns a restaurant and Chef’s Table on Netflix had led me to believe cooking with wine is meant for French and Italian cuisine — not Jamaican.