The Epicurean: What makes a pair?

I’ve been thinking about wine more than I usually do. And that makes me ponder the mysteries of love, which, of course, brings me right to swing dancing. Yes, I am afraid it’s going to be one of those posts. But bear with me, if you will. There’s some sense to be made from all this, or at least it seemed so a few glasses of wine ago.

You see, I’ve been thinking about what makes a perfect match, or if not a perfect match, a pairing that works. I was in a Vietnamese restaurant the other day and a woman, non-descript and somewhat plain, was sitting alone at a table. Suddenly she reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone, which had just pinged with a text. As she pecked back a response, it was like watching a flower bloom. Her cheeks flushed, and with each new message a wide smile spread across her face. I swear her lips grew red and plump as she responded. Her eyes glowed warm. You could feel the excitement come off her from several feet and three bowls of pho away. She was beautiful. A lover can do this to a woman. Wine can do this to food. And the right partner can do this to a dancer. Discover what is there and make it glow.

What is it between two people, two elements, two flavors that can draw out the magic, that can make you more than you were the minute before? I know there are as many different answers to this question as there are poets in the world, but I’m thinking on it anyway. It’s Sandy Pogue’s fault. Call him and complain if you wish.

Sandy and Claire Pogue own The Epicurean in Pittstown, and Bill and I managed to sneak out to dinner there last week.

I’d reviewed the place for breakfast a while back and was intrigued by both the passion and precision of Chef Dominique Brialy’s food – French for sure, but with more soul and whim than you might assume. Yes, I ohhhed, and, yes, I ahhhed -- the Hollandaise sauce was that good. But I also smiled. And that was just the eggs and the jam.

I’d been wondering what an Epicurean dinner might be like?

The Epicurean folks don’t serve dinner every night, or even every week for that matter. They serve dinner when they feel like it. You put yourself on an email list, and they send a notice. If you want to go, you make a reservation.

So a few weeks ago, a dinner invitation plinked into my inbox, and, after doing the babysitter scramble, we booked two spots. It’s my 40th birthday this week, and we decided to celebrate.

Most of the seating at The Epicurean is communal. Groups are placed with some space between them at long wooden tables. You sit in soft lighting surrounded by country-store shelves stocked with jams, specialty olive oils and pretty little knickknacks.

The setting seems to say – go ahead and be pretentious if you must, but really it’s OK to sit back, and relax and enjoy. Even the wine glasses are casual, the kind of thick, comfortable cup you’d use to drink wine with a friend on the back porch. It’s not an obvious approach to a $20-to-$30-an-entree French restaurant, but it works. There’s a counter balance between the elegance on the plate and the ease in the air that makes both the better for the match. That’s what got me to thinking.

And then I tasted the wine.

Each item on The Epicurean menu comes with a suggested wine pairing. I decided to give myself over to Sandy and Claire and see where they would lead. The first pairing was frog’s legs flambéed with Pastis and served with citrus garlic butter. The wine was a French white – Bourillon D’Orleans Vouvray Demi-Sec 2007. Both were lovely on their own. The frog’s legs were my favorite dish of the night in part because the smell of the citrus garlic butter and the faintest memory of round and aromatic anise brought all my senses to attention before the plate had even reached the table. The meat was as sweet and tender as a delicate fish, think grouper but with a touch of the richness of monkfish. The wine had a dab of sweetness, but in a light, spring-like kind of way, not a thick summer melt. And then I put the two together. One sip into the pairing, and I was thinking not of fish or of wine or of garlic, but of dancing.

When a good dancer leads you onto the floor, he keeps his center, which, in turn, allows you to keep your own. He may move close to you or apart, but what you feel from him is the same either way, a strong steady grounding that allows you to fly. You can lean back and he will pull back enough to balance you, you can fall toward him and he will push against you to give you strength. He doesn’t dissolve you or become you. He gives you the counter balance you need to go places you couldn’t go without him. And if you follow him well, if you match his strength and center, and if you learn to play with the connection between you so that as a pair you can maintain the counter balance while in fluid motion, well then, that is when dancing gets really, really fun.

I asked Sandy how he paired a wine with a certain dish, and he looked at me and shrugged his shoulders. I braced myself for an onslaught of wine-speak – tannins and acid, and floral hints of prunes or some such. Instead he said, “I pair them when they love each other. When they really love each other.”

I liked that a lot. If I had to describe how he makes a pair, I might have said, “When they dance together.” To me, Sandy’s pairings dance. They hold their own and offer a counter balance that makes a new range of experience possible. If you go, I recommend (well OK Sandy recommends, but I offer a hearty second) that you try the duck with raspberry sauce paired with the Murphy Goode Liar’s Dice Zinfandel 2004. It’s of the best pairings I’ve had the fortune to encounter. Each element hold’s its own, and, at the same time, deep in the counter balance something new emerges. It’s an approach I’m drawn to in food, and dance, and, come to think of it, in love as well.