Waverman Lucy - The flavour principle : enticing your senses with food and drink

THIS BOOK WAS BORN WHERE MANY JOURNEYS BEGIN, IN A CAR

P alates sated and bottles emptied after a sumptuous meal at Lucys house, the host had kindly offered to drive her guest home. (Good thing one of us was sober.) We got to talking, as many food enthusiasts do, about our favourite subjectabout hot new restaurants, talented chefs, exotic ingredients, memorable meals. Then things turned philosophical. What makes a great recipe tick? we wondered aloud.

The answer, in retrospect, seems simple to us now, though it took the better part of the drive to nail it down. Every great dish has a centre of gravity, an overarching flavour or essence that pulls together other ingredients into a compelling whole. Its not necessarily the main ingredient, but its fundamentally what the dish is about. The aromatic spices in an Indian curry, for example, the earthy bass note of a porcini-crusted veal chop, the fiery chilies in a Thai soup, the smoky rub on barbecued ribs or the zesty grapefruit in a Saigon-style salad.

Flavours seemed to us like a fine working principle for a book that would showcase Lucys latest globe-trotting kitchen explorations, a culinary passport, if you will. On one level, thats what youre holding in your hand. Its an eclectic flavour-based journey of menus that embrace fresh trends in gastronomy emerging from such regions as Spain, Vietnam, Korea, Scandinavia, southern Italy, the Pacific Northwest and the American South.

But were here to satisfy your thirst too, because in our world it would be unthinkable to dine and entertain with casual flair without having something transcendent to sip between bites. Thats another reason for the theme. Key flavours serve as critical cues for selecting blissfully perfect wines, beers, cocktails and spirits. Feel like fragrant curry? An oily-textured, aromatic white such as viognier has the necessary power to stay the course. Creamy soup? Match its texture with a full-bodied buttery chardonnay. Smoky barbecue? Jammy zinfandel or a cool mint julep deliver a slightly sweet, fruity complement to keep up with the sugar in the barbecue sauce (sweet food always calls for sweetness in the beverage). Beppis suggestions, sometimes very personal and unconventional, are there to make things easyor at least to inspire debate. (Well be monitoring Twitter for your feedback.)

If you already know a lot about the world of drink, we hope our approach will make it easier for you to play matchmaker should you care to take on the rewarding challenge. Lean on the chapter headings as a rough guide to pair a spicy dish with peppery syrah or gingery gewrztraminer. Or take the opposite approach and serve a piquant dish with a boldly fruity wine to cool the palate with rounded sweetnessunderscore or contrast, they both can work. Feel free to use these pages as a sort of reverse phone book too. When youve got a wine begging for a dish to help it shine, consult the index for a suitable match.

We pay due respect, of course, to classic regional pairings where relevant. Its tough to beat raw oysters with crisp, ice-cold muscadet. But many of the fresh menus here open up the field to a vast array of affordable and tantalizing wines that have cropped up around the world. Argentine malbec, New Zealand sauvignon blanc, Chilean carmenre, Oregon pinot noir and Niagara riesling, among other styles, enjoy a welcome place at our table. So do robust West Coast pale ales, refreshingly bitter Czech-style pilsners and old and new cocktails based on bourbon, gin, rum, tequila and sake.

This is much more than a recipe book. Weve included a liberal sprinkling of tips on cooking techniques and descriptive passages about some of our favourite ingredients and beverage styles. Be prepared for the occasional rant, as well, becauselike most of youwe hold strong opinions about food and drink. Youre welcome to disagree, as you inevitably will. We, too, have had our share of friendly food fights in Lucys kitchen while compiling this book. Lucy still cant believe she let Beppi get away with his contention that most cheeses are a catastrophe with red wine, and Beppi continues to harbour a grudge over Lucys refusal to include his experimental bacon Jell-O recipe, which he thought would be a bold showcase for California pinot noir. To quote the cook: Beppi, some flavours are best left alone.

Were honoured to be partners in your kitchen. Were just sorry we cant be there to help with the dishes.