This town's like the one they sang about
in The Green Green Grass of Home
All the perfect picket fences
And gingerbread cottages in a row
Brightly colored walls on every house
And if figure on the lawn
Peace and calm
I found where I belong
Til the murder in our Avalon
You could hear the children laugh and play
All their games on any day
Pretty Moms and Handsome Daddies
Would walk hand-in-hand down the street
Any summer night
You could never find another place
Where your life would be so good
I considered this my jackpot won
Til the murder in our Avalon
Now and air of uneasiness
Pervades everything
I can't seem to get any rest anymore
Might have been a heaven on earth
A place we could be
Safe from all the rest of the world and humanity
There was no stranger
No homicide
You killed our love
It was clearly a job from the inside
Now the trees are greener than before
But a chill is in the air
People go about their business
And everyone acts like I'm not even there
I've been told it's time to move along
And that life continues on
I've described your heinous crime in song
It was murder in our Avalon
(from http://www.wikihow.com/Pair-Food-and-Wine)
Build on the basic understanding of what might match. It's easy enough to say that chicken goes with white wine, or beef goes with red wine but which wine exactly? And is this choice clear cut? The wine that goes with the food will depend heavily on the manner in which the food has been prepared. For example, it isn't as simple as saying that chicken goes with white wine. If, for example, the chicken has been poached, making it simple and delicate, a simple wine such as a young Semillon will be good. When roasted, the fat makes the chicken richer, thus requiring a heavier textured wine such as an aged Semillon. If barbecued, the chicken becomes smoky, and goes well with a wine aged in wood, such as a light Chardonnay. When chicken has been cooked in cream, it becomes really rich, a heavier Chardonnay will pair well. When it's made into a darker dish, such as by adding soy sauce, it can take a light red such as a Pinot Noir. Place chicken into a red wine marinade, and it makes sense to pair it with red wine.
Learn the different flavors within each wine style and seek to match these to the food ingredients. For example, fruity elements and wood overtones impact the wine flavor and are important considerations when partnering the wine with food. If you can taste peaches, coconut, tropical flavors, smokiness, herbs, etc., then take those flavors and find their food equivalents.
Weight of the wine has an impact on pairing with food. Wines are light, medium or full-bodied, referring to the depth of flavor on the mid-palate. When trying to discern the weight of the wine, either ask the retailer, or check the depth of color. Apart from Pinot Noir, the darker the color, the heavier the weight.
Use your sense of smell to help you pair food and wine. The two senses are one, and you can trust your nose unless it's blocked. Wine smells can be floral, perfumed, mineral, fruity (common fruit smells are peach, melon, and fig), butter, nuts, earthy, truffle or mushroom, meaty, or even like the barnyard. If the smell is unpleasant, avoid it. An aging wine can have overtones of toast or engine fuel.
the avoidance of excess or extremes, esp. in one's behavior or political opinions.
"he urged the police to show moderation"
Aristotle said, "Moderation in all things" and even wrote a book
detailing multiple situations to which is can be applied. On the
surface, moderation seems to be a wise and prudent approach to take with
many things from diet to politics. Still, Americans seem to find it a
very difficult thing to practice.
Yet . . .
"A wise man is superior to any insults which can be put upon him, and the best reply to unseemly behavior is patience and moderation."
-Moliere
"Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody."
-Mark Twain
"Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess."
-Oscar Wilde
"Complete abstinence is easier than perfect moderation."
-Saint Augustine
. . . They overheard you
Just the other day
A simple word
About the
way we get along
If only I were sure
Of the semantics
Having doubts
'cause I'm
One hopeless romantic
Could it be
You're slipping away
from me
What will I do
If what I'm thinking is true
And you want to
be
Really free of me
I won't last very long
Very far from your heart
And this third-hand intelligence
Might be the way that it starts.
Heard
somebody say
They thought they saw you
Walking in their way
You were not
alone
They said he didn't look like
Thinking to myself
Must be
mistaken
Try not to believe
but still badly shaken
Why would you
Deceive me in things you do
So many years
Sharing our laughter and
tears
Lasted very long
Maybe I was wrong
Not to ask you
Why you
feel
We've drifted apart
And this third-hand intelligence
Might be the
way that it starts
Are my sources reliable
Wait and
see
Wait and see
Is my psyche too pliable
It could be
It could
be
If somebody said
The sky was falling
Soon
we'll all be dead
Have to quit our stalling
Try to be prepared
Would you believe it's true
Or would you question
All the things you do
And change your direction
From spinning round
When it hits the ground
That's just not true
Any believers are few
When you've seen it all
It could never fall
Any more than
I think you could
Tear us apart
And
this third-hand intelligence
Might be the way that it starts
. . . or the late Christopher Hitchens who I liked to refer to as 'our modern-day' H.L. Mencken. . .
(from 1999's No One Left To Lie To; The Values of the Worst Family by Christopher Hitchens where he is quoting his contribution to the Los Angeles Times in January of 1998)
Montesquieu remarked that if a great city or a great state should fall as the result of a apparent "accident," then there would be a general reason why it required only an accident to make it fall. This may appear to be a tautology, but it actually holds up very well as a means of analyzing what we lazily refer to as a "sex scandal."
If a rust-free zipper were enough on its own to cripple a politician, then quite clearly Bill Clinton would be remembered, if at all, as a mediocre Governor of the Great State of Arkansas. It is therefore silly to describe the present unseemly furor as a prurient outburst over one man's apparently self-destructive sexual compulsions.
Until recently, this same man was fairly successfully fighting a delaying action against two long-standing complaints. The first was that he had imported unsavory practitioners like the disgraced Webster Hubbell. The second was that he viewed stray women employees as spoils along the trail. . .
. . . Had Clinton begun by saying: "Yes, I did love Gennifer, but that's my business," many of us would have rejoiced and defended him. Instead, he disowned and insulted her and said he'd been innocent of that adultery, and treated the voters as if they were saps. Having apparently put Ms. Lewinsky into the quick-fix world of Jordan and Morris, he is in no position to claim that it's a private emotional matter, and has no right to confuse his business with that of the country's. Which is why he has a scandal on "his" hands, and is also why we need feel no pang when he falsely claims that the press and public are wasting his valuable time, when the truth is exactly the other way about."
