Thursday, September 28, 2006

Winosaur.

My boyfriend, being the culinary genious that he is, knows a lot about wine. He can talk about tanins for hours, and even owns half a dozen differently-shaped wine glasses to best compliment the different varieties. I know a lot about wine too- like, for example, if you chug it like beer you'll wake up after an hour-long blackout drooling all over your best friend. We both have a lot of knowledge to bring to this relationship, which is probably why it works so well.

While he was at work the other day, I started flipping through one of his hoity-toity food magazines. It was one of those magazines that contained recipes with no less that eighty-seven ingredients, most of which are only available on the black market. It's a striking contrast to the food magazines I get, which shed enlightenment along the lines of "Try putting sliced hot dog in your Kraft Mac-n-Cheese!"or "How To Sneak Vegetables Into Your Children's Food Without Them Throwing Them At You!", so I'm sure you can imagine my intimidation. In Boyfriend's magazine, somewhere between a recipe for Sauteed Liver Of Firstborn Son and "How To Blow Your Rent Money On A Mushroom", I came across a nice article on wine, geared towards complete schlemiels like me. I said to myself, "Well, this can't hurt to skim over. Maybe they'll even interview Charles Shaw!"

The article had a lot of interesting and informative things to say. I'm probably light years away from ever being able to taste the difference between a merlot, pinot, and cabernet, but at least I'm not pronouncing the "t"s in them. And, although I actually like White Zin with ice cubes, I know better than to ever do it while anyone is watching.

Proud of my freshly-gleaned wine knowledge, I started rattling off facts to Boyfriend as soon as he got home from work- over two glasses of Vintage Year Subject Matter, Red. A few sentences into my diatribe, Boyfriend got that really amused look on his face, like he was watching an elephant paint the Mona Lisa or a bunch of one-legged preschoolers tap-dancing to The Good Ship Lollipop.

"And, and, and, and, did you know that you don't have to drink white wines chilled, or reds at room temperature!?! You totally can do whatever you want! As a matter of fact, I can totally drink this Pinot Noir chilled, and it's not even tacky! I think I'm gonna do that right now."

As I lept up out of my seat, Boyfriend pulled me onto his lap. "Sweetheart, do whatever makes you happy... but there is a difference between 'chilled' and 'I'm gonna throw some ice cubes in there.'"

Damn.