The glass with red wine holds the answer to a mystery

Here's a fun wine decoder trick you can try. I found it buried in the bottom of my inbox during a recent email clean-up en masse.

This handy tip was sent to me from a coworker I used to work with. I had no idea he ever drank wine, never mind that he could appreciate wine with such versatility and creativity, and at the same time demonstrate the practical nature that keeps the best wine drinkers from extinction, i.e. budget-mindedness.

Though it's an old message, I doubt the techniques he describes below will ever cease to solve the puzzle in question here. No, it's a not the common puzzle of how to decode a wine label with all its various and often highly obscure information -- for that please take a look at last month's Wine Label Week.

Nevertheless the trick below may enlighten more than a few winos out there.

(By the way, check the enterprising last line that my ex-coworker writes -- you've got to love it. Who hasn't wanted to make a little profit from whatever kind of oenological specialty or secret wine knowledge you have come to wield as a wino?)

It is summer and I am in high spirits so I am sending you a message that might save you some money.

Everybody probably has those Ultramar coupons that give you secret discounts. The trouble is how can you tell which ones are a dollar and which ones are 75 cents. Obviously you would like to use the dollar ones before you lose them.

Here comes the red wine. If you look through the open end of the glass through the red wine at the coupon, the red of the wine will filter out the red covering on the blue writing. Furthermore looking through the wine glass will magnify your secret discount denomination also.

If you don't drink, send me a bottle of wine and I will be happy to read them for you.

SNAKSHOT

The ultimate snakshot. I don't know if this image (which was created by my friends who evidently will not remain nameless) is entirely original but I do love the idea of food photography having its own do-it-yourself captioning. It's worth exploring.

Food as art is fun but this is food art at a new level. It makes the point that food's function can go beyond nutrition: All the educational goals of alphabet soup updated to feed minds hungry for Rubik's-Cube challenges as well as geometric visualization and reasoning. I'm tempted to say it's just playing with your food, but clearly this cannot be for kids. It's too good not to nibble on with a pint of beer.

A go-to French bakery for pastries and baked goods, to go

Without Le Fromentier, Montreal's finest breadmaker, I don't think I could've survived my life as a tennis-spectating nomad last week. It helped that this artisanal bakery was on my daily route to the tournament site. I would make a morning trek to its sprawling subterranean studio filled with various giant ovens, both wood-burning and industrial ones, and stock up on fuel for the day.

Le Fomentier does not have a web presence. They are well known in Montreal though. Certainly everyone in its neighbourhood knows how to find the place: 1375 Laurier E. (514-527-3327). When you visit you can pick up the "Carte des pains" pamphlet. But since I'm worried that people like me are not so good at retaining scraps of paper in the Google age we live in, I'm giving Le Fromentier a web presence right here. If for no other reason than it will help me and my friends more easily keep track of which of our favourite loaves are baked on what day.

Le Fromentier, atelier de boulangerie

Carte des pains - Bread Menu

Levain intégral
Le Fromentier et son petit sifted whole wheat flour coated in flour, sesame or sunflower seeds [Daily] *
Le Fromentini sifted whole wheat flour coated in black sesame seeds and tamari [Daily]
La Baguette deux sésames sifted whole wheat flour coated in brown and black sesame seeds [Daily]
Le Mont-Royal sifted whole wheat and rye flours [Tues, Wed, Fri]
Le Sociétal sifted whole wheat flour [Tues, Thurs, Sat] *
Le Prophétique spelt and kamut flours (wheat-free) [Tues, Fri, Sun]
La Bande des sept wheat, barley, oat, rye rice and corn flours with sunflower seeds [Tues] *
Le Galette d'Hippocrate spelt and quinoa flours (wheat-free) [Wed, Sat]
Le Berlinois sifted whole wheat and rye flours, walnuts, caraway and cumin [Wed]
Le Kamut savoureux kamut (wheat-free) [Wed]
Le Céres spelt flour, amaranth, millet and black sesame seeds (wheat-free) [Thurs]
Le Paradis perdu sifted whole wheat, rye flakes, soya, buckwheat, barley and oatmeal [Sun]

Levain et levure
Les Fougasses sifted whole wheat and bleached flours with black olives and thyme or olives and sundried tomatoes [Daily] *
Les Baluchons du Fromentier flavoured rolls (stuffed with artichokes, olives, tomatoes, etc.) [Daily] *
Les Pizzas du Fromentier various toppings [Daily]
Le Provençal sifted white flour, olives, gruyère cheese, thyme and oregano [Tues, Thurs, Sat]
Le Trio sifted whole wheat with barley, oatmeal and flax seeds [Wed, Fri]
Le Concassé raw wheat, rye, cracked whole corn and barley, peeled millet, flax seeds and honey [Fri]
L'Américucurbitacé sifted whole wheat, corn, squash and sunflower seed shells [Sat]

Pousse lente à la levure
Le Nuage white flour [Daily]
La Coudée white flour [Daily]
La Baguette white flour [Daily]
Le Plateau white flour [Daily]
La Dodue, le Pansu et le Panophile sifted whole wheat and white flours [Daily] *
Le Fiérté sifted whole wheat and white flours [Daily]
Le Gros Albert mill-ground kamut [Tues]
Le Grand blond sifted whole wheat and kamut flours, goat's milk [Wed, Thurs]
Le Baguette d'Albert mill-ground kamut [Fri, Sat, Sun]
Le Sourissimo sifted whole wheat and kamut flours with large chunks of gruyère cheese [Sat]
Le Monferrand sifted whole wheat and buckwheat flours, goat's milk [Sat]

Les Succulents
Les Trois Raisins sifted whole wheat and white flours, Sultana, Thompson and Corinthian raisins [Tues]
Les Noisettes et abricots sifted whole wheat and white flours, apricots, hazelnuts, goat's milk [Wed, Fri]
Le Noix et pavot sifted whole wheat, white and rye flours, walnuts, dried apples, coated in poppy seeds [Thurs, Sat, Sun]
Le Baguette aux noix sifted whole wheat, white and rye flours, walnuts, dried apples [Thurs, Sat, Sun] *
Les Raisins sifted whole wheat and white flours, raisins, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove [Thurs, Sat]
Le Pain du verger white flour, apples, milk, eggs, butter, sugar, cinnamon [Fri, Sun]
Le Révolution noire sifted whole wheat and white flours, dark chocolate, cocoa powder, cranberries [Sat]
Le Caravansérail sifted whole wheat and white flours, dates, orange, dark chocolate [Sat] *
L'Irrésistible sifted whole wheat and white flours, raisins, walnuts, dark chocolate [Sun]

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) Le Fromentier makes too many different pastries -- just a few of them are lovingly photographed above -- to commit them to a baking schedule that would allow one to intercept them as they emerge on the cooling racks. However, a thorough and summerlong investigation has revealed that the best viennoisserie called L'Agrumier or "the Citrus-y one" is reliably for sale each weekend, and usually Fridays too (LF is open every day from 7 am, but closed Mondays). This amazing Danish with candied orange and anise is at the height of authentic French pastry making and definitely worth the week of waiting. Other favourites are noted with an asterisk above.

I have to say that last week Le Fromentier made my marathon tennis adventures more sane. And certainly more French too, which is something that in the face of losing defending champ Amélie Mauresmo for this year's tournament roster, cheered me and my innate Frenchness up a great deal (perhaps I just misused the word "sane").

As far as I was concerned, I had my French baked goods and I got to see French tennis star Nathalie "pass the raisin dutchie" Dechy. I was happy.

"The only time it's okay to open champagne at room temperature is when the room temperature is 35 degrees"

Who said that? Never mind who... What's going on here? Answer here.

"Drinking good wine makes me want to talk about it; talking about it makes me want to drink it"

The quotation that makes up the title of today's post is almost as delightful as those now-ubiquitous bons mots uttered by Madame Lilly Bollinger, modern-day matriarch of the Bollinger Champagne brand.

(You know the one that goes: "I drink champagne when I'm happy and when I'm sad. Sometimes I drink it when I'm alone. When I have company I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it if I'm not hungry and drink it when I am. Otherwise I never touch it - unless I'm thirsty.")

Such witty eloquence is not surprising when it comes from an industry perfectionist like Mrs. Bollinger, who, due to fuel shortages during the Second World War, took to her bicycle in order maintain her vast 100- to 90-percent rated champagne vineyards. But when I read that a diet-conscious top-flight athlete uttered today's quote, I gained a whole new level of respect. Which accomplished champion said this? Was it:

1. Conchita Martinez


2. George Foreman


3. Laffit Pincay Jr.


4. Marcus Allen


5. Roman Šebrle

Answer revealed behind the question mark above.