My New Years Eve Menu

[Jenise]

Playful and festive, I hope. Guests have been sent the menu but only the name of each course, not the ingredients. They have no idea what they're getting. Each serving will be tiny.


California Dreamin'
Scot Conant's citrus-cured salmon (a gravlax cured with thin slices of tangerine, lemon and lime), arugula

Rose Parade
Seared scallops on a strip of classic Italian pink sauce, fresh basil

Rocket Fuel and Your Lucky Shot
A creamed french onion soup with espresso, 2018 embossed shot glass filled with black eyed pea salad

Guy Lombardo's Elbow
Roasted marrow bone, saffron risotto

The Hangover Cure
A slider: pork belly, marinated shrimp, brussels sprout slaw, miso-butter toasted bun

Times Square and Fireworks
New York Cheesecake, strawberries with szechuan peppercorns

Guy Lombardo's Elbow

That's funny!

And the wines??????

[Jenise]

I haven't really given that any thought yet! Guests will bring wines that will have to be incorporated, too, one of whom claims to be allergic to champagne.

Aha, that works. The menu has clearly been carefully planned so I thought there might also be a wine-matching component for each course, to add to the fun.

[Jenise]

I do have a few things standing by, but I just haven't made all the choices yet.

"Allergic to champagne"? Wow - that's a terrible allergy!

[Jenise]

Yes, and she's not using that as a euphemism for dislike. She believes she's allergic. I love her, but .

Yes, and she's not using that as a euphemism for dislike. She believes she's allergic. I love her, but .

But...you keep inviting her back?

You have more patience with fools than I do.

[Jenise]

That's the one strange thing about her, and I can live with it. I've tried to talk her down out of that tree but it's just not going to happen. She's really a great person, and also, among all the people in my neighborhood she's THE one here who buys and shares $50+ bottles.

What does she imagine she is allergic to - the effervescence? Anything from that area? Does she drink any fizzy wines?

One of the stranger self delusions I've heard of.

I did know one person, also of the female persuasion, who swore that she couldn't drink red wine because it would make her sick. While that is possible on the face of it, I rather think that the fact that she used to pound down 5 or 6 drinks of hard liquor before starting on wine may have had something to do with it. She didn't lack for friends (male) mind you.

[Jenise]

What does she imagine she is allergic to - the effervescence? Anything from that area? Does she drink any fizzy wines?

One of the stranger self delusions I've heard of.

I did know one person, also of the female persuasion, who swore that she couldn't drink red wine because it would make her sick. While that is possible on the face of it, I rather think that the fact that she used to pound down 5 or 6 drinks of hard liquor before starting on wine may have had something to do with it. She didn't lack for friends (male) mind you.

I had thought it was just fizzy wine but apparently it's anything fizzy. We had lunch together a few weeks ago and when she tasted the Vanilla Seltzer she chose and realized it was fizzy, there went that. Have to admit I couldn't resist pointing out that seltzer means fizz, but it's just the addition of CO2 to a still liquid. "How can you be allergic to CO2?" She didn't know. "You're a journalist," I reminded her, "investigate it." Pretty sure she didn't take me up on that.

Most ludicrous "allergy" I've ever heard of? My stepmother. She claimed to be allergic to pork chops. Roast pork was okay, ground pork was okay, but pork chops--no. Definitely wasn't the brightest bulb in the chandelier.

Oh well, gives you something to do with last night's champers that was left out and went flat...

Or you could just make a fuss out of taking her glass of Champagne, putting it in a cocktail shaker and shaking the heck out of it until the fizz is extinct and say "There - just for you...."

Perhaps the lady needs a very "last century" device: the champagne stirrer. It is specifically designed to remove those troublesome bubbles from champagne. For example, see this lovely Cartier model: http://www.inezstodel.com/en/product/Ob ... tier.shtml


Jeff

Which just shows to go that beautiful objects don’t have to make sense.
I have a SiL who swears fizzy wines give her a headache, I don’t argue, more for me.

Sounds like a misuse of the word "allergy" to me. As a kid I never liked fizzy drinks. I just didn't like the way the bubbles felt in my mouth and the way they got up my nose. I used to stir glasses of soda with the straw or a spoon until the soda was flat. Perhaps your friend's reaction to Champagne and other fizzy drinks is the same thing. But that's very different from a true allergy. Has she described the symptoms of this "allergy" to you?

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

I can't figure it out, Paul. It makes no sense, and it's impossible to decode. The only thing that's clear to me about it is that she's not open to finding out it's not an allergy. She's very definitely a picky eater. She's "allergic" to fizzy drinks, gets migraine-level earaches from spicy food in her right ear (but not the left), and claims to hate ham because she didn't grow up with it. Never mind that we all love a million things we didn't grow up with. Won't eat tomatoes, onions, and a lot of other things. Not at all adventurous--eats pretty much the same things all the time. Doesn't cook. Could live on cheese and bread.

Sounds familiar. (Did I use my outside voice for that?)

Anyway, I've given up trying to understand how people eat. It's one of the most quirky things people do and that's all there is to it.

Well as it turns out, my mother-in-law sent me a book for Christmas called "First Bite, How We Learn to Eat". It's about the psychological and cultural factors which lead us to like and dislike various foods. I've just started it but I'll be on the lookout for anything regarding champagne allergies.