One of the activities I love best is matching unusual combinations of food and wine across different countries and cultures.  I love it when it works well.

Such was the case with my lunch this afternoon.  The components were:

• Leftover homemade Curried Chickpea, Lentil, and Spinach Soup
• Leftover Korean Kimchi Soup from Osawa Bistro
• toasted homemade levain
• tapenade
• Pinot Bianco from the Alto Adige

Two nights ago I made a soup from this Patricia Wells Provençal recipe, substituting Spinach for the Swiss Chard, and languishing in the wonderful Portuguese chickpeas I’ve been using:

To this I added a small amount of leftover Spicy Korean Kimchi soup with Tofu, remains from last night’s dinner at Osawa Bistro.  The dark, rich flavors of the reheated soup evoked images of a rich whole grain bread and a wine from Northern Italy, so I opened a bottle of Pinot Bianco from the Alto Adige. a Glassier wine imported by Mucci Wines.  I toasted two slices of my whole grain levain and topped it with a garlic/Kalamata olive Tapenade.

Mirabile dictu!