Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0821257188, Hardcover)
The most comprehensive guide to matching food and drink ever compiled, by the James Beard Award winning author team of Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg, with practical advice from more than seventy of America's leading pairing experts In a great meal, what you drink is just as important as what you eat.This groundbreaking food and beverage pairing reference allows food lovers to learn to think like a sommelier, and to transform every meal- breakfast, lunch, and dinner - from ordinary to extraordinary. Exceptional in its depth and scope - with over fifteen hundred entries - What to Drink with What You Eat is based on the collective wisdom of experts at dozens of America's best restaurants, including Alinea, Babbo, Bern's, Blue Hill, Chanterelle, Daniel, Emeril's, French Laundry, Frontera Grill, Inn at Little Washington, Jean Georges, Masa's, The Modern, Per Se, Rubicon, Tru, and Valentino. You'll find authoritative recommendations for stocking your cellar and kitchen with must-have beverages, from wines to waters.You'll also learn what to drink with everything from French toast to Chinese food, and what to eat with everything from Pinot Noir to green tea, to create mouthwatering matches.Follow the authors three simple Rules to Remember when making a match - or just dive into the wide-ranging listings in chapters 5 and 6. This incisive, hip writing team (Publisher's Weekly) distills history, geography, science, expert technique, and original insight to create a remarkably user-friendly and engaging reference.Lavishly illustrated with gorgeous four-color photographs, What to Drink with What You Eat is an instant classic essential to every connoisseur's bookshelf.
(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:04 -0400)
Wikipedia in English
Their books aren't for the cook that wants a step-by-step guide. Instead, they are for the intermediate, or advanced, or just adventurous cook that is ready to take at least a few steps on their own.
In What to Drink... they spend a little time informing about their philosophy, how to use the book, and some broad rules about flavor pairing (after all, that is pretty much what food-wine pairing is about, right?). Then they get in to the meat of it. Hundreds of pages of information about flavor pairings, arranged first by food types and ingredients, then by wines. All of that gleaned from their own experiences and interviews with expert sommeliers.
If you are ready to take a step beyond "white with white meat, red with red meat" but don't quite trust your own experience and memory to make the right choice, this is an excellent book of advice. Got a fantastic wine that you want to pick a meal for? Got a new recipe that you want to find a good wine for? This is your book. And they don't confine themselves just to wine. Beer, tea, and water all receive mention when appropriate.
Probably the best thing I learned from this book? If you have spicy food the last thing you want is a wine with low sugar and high alcohol - it just intensifies the heat. (