Meet my favorite accompaniment to champagne — an easy, elegant, delightfully fishy salmon spread.

I am a big fan of cooking meat with white wine. Its acidity and freshness nicely balances the richness of the meat, particularly in slow-cooked beef and lamb dishes, and opens up new pairing possibilities.

One of the best-known food and wine matching “rules” is white wine + fish, red wine + meat. While there are some exceptions on both sides (salmon + Pinot Noir and choucroute garnie + Alsatian Riesling are both winning combos), in general, it’s not a bad rule of thumb — especially on the fish side.

I’m about to turn 37 (yikes), and the older I get, the less tolerance I have for bullshit — especially when it comes to restaurants. I was really looking forward to our trip to France as a return to restaurant sanity.

In my mind (and my household) there are two types of cooks: recipe followers and improvisers. I fall squarely into the former category. There are, however, a few exceptions.

I haven’t made anything from a New York Times recipe in ages. Blame the inexorable march away from print and to the Internet, if you must — I skim the Wednesday food section online at work, when I only have time to focus on the nitty-gritty (restaurant reviews and wine). But for some reason last week the tomato tart recipe caught my eye.