Thinking Outside the Glass

摘要

I NEVER REALLY THOUGHT about using wine for cooking until the evening my husband accidentally poured Dominus into the osso buco. The prestigious California Cabernet, which sells for about 150 dollar a bottle, is usually best savored from the glass. Still, this "vincident" started me thinking about wine the way cooks do—as an ingredient. The popularity of wine as a seasoning, like salt or garlic, is evident not just in the number of recipes that call for it these days, but also on restaurant menus, where it's now fashionable to note that the pears were poached in Sauternes or the steak was cooked in a Cabernet-reduction sauce. Even grocery stores now sell wine-flavored products, such as Cabernet-Shiraz sorbet.