jamie goode's wine blog: Wine, hawker food and avian flu

Monday, April 23, 2007

Wine, hawker food and avian flu

Last night I met up with chums again for a rather unusual wine dinner. On a rather steamy Singapore evening we headed off to the bustling Adam Road hawker centre with bottles, ice bucket and glasses. It made for a strange sight, I'm sure. This particular hawker centre consists of a large circular seating area, fringed at its perimeter by a profusion of small food stalls. You grab some food, grab a seat and eat.

We drank an expressive Schloss Johannisberg Riesling, a soft, almost ethereal German Gerwurztraminer, and bold, pithy Domane Wachau Riesling Smaragd and a Vasse Felix Cabernet Merlot (which I was rather proud to have spotted as a Margaret River Cabernet blind).

Today I'm in a conference on 'Novel and re-emerging respiratory viral diseases at the beginning of the 21st century'. That's bird flu and SARS among others. 25 of the world's leading experts in the field are gathered from the four corners of the globe, half the time is alloted for discussion, and then I go away with the tapes and produce a book from it. Usually, by the time I've finished the book, I have some understanding of what was going on during the meeting itself. I do eight of these books a year; it's my other life - what I do when I'm not writing about wine. However, after 15 years of learning a great deal on a range of biomedical topics, plus a smidgeon of psychology, some agriculture and even a bit of environmental statistics, it looks like my editing days may be drawing to an end, later this year. Now when I can concentrate all my energies on wine, I'd like to think I could achieve something.

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5 Comments:

At 4:06 PM, Blogger boymeetsworld said...

Oh Maxwell Road hawker center, how I miss you so! It's not that strange to see caucasians going all out with wine buckets and ice at maxwell, there are a couple of advertising agencies there, the locals are pretty much used to eccentric behavior. Try repeating the ice bucket & wine glass thing at Geylang road, try pairing wine with feisty local delicacies, it would be interesting to see if the Riesling/Pinot & Asian food pairing so often cited works as well as sommeliers say.

 
At 5:54 PM, Blogger Salil said...

Inspiring. I'll have to try and emulate the trip to a hawker centre (Newton Circus isn't too far from where we live) with the bottles/ice bucket/glasses in a few weeks, once I'm back in Singapore. Now to figure out what wines would work best with chicken satay. (Riesling, Gewurz - maybe Sauvignon Blanc as well?)

 
At 7:26 PM, Blogger boymeetsworld said...

Hmmm... chicken satay.... I would think NZ Sauvignon Blanc, a crisp counterpoint to the peanut and spice. Or maybe a crisp Vignoier?

 
At 11:05 PM, Blogger ~ Phyll said...

Alamak, chicken satay goes well with cold, pink Bandung, la! :)

Ok, so what kinds of wine go well with char kwe tiauw and po piah?

 
At 6:40 AM, Anonymous avian said...

There are numerous strains of influenza virus that are present naturally in wild birds, yet only a few cause infections in domesticated birds and a lesser few in humans. Of all the subtypes of influenza virus, influenza A subtype H5N1 or simply H5N1 causes the most severe illness in both infected poultry and humans. This strain of highly pathogenic influenza virus has caused millions of dead poultry and the most severe cases of avian flu in humans. It is also responsible for the most number of deaths of avian flu patients.

 

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