Tarts and Vicars

But not like that.

Today at church, being Easter Sunday, we had communion! And today the church answered my favorite question of the white-grape-or-cranberry dilemma by providing congregants with a choice between wine (nice wine, better than the usual communion wine we have) and Oceanspray cranberry juice. Schveet.

Celebrating Jesus' very different death, the Lord's Supper was done differently today in that we went up to the table in rows and served each other the wine and broke the bread (which, by the by, were whole wheat rolls- say what? Why doesn't anyone do matzoh anymore?). The lady that served me served a very generous portion of the good wine. About one third of a normal wine glass, I'd say. And it took a few good swigs to finish. Having skipped breakfast, the bread and more-than-expected wine were the first foods I had today and I feared a little flush coming on, especially since I had to down it so fast because other people were waiting to partake of the elements. The redness would have been awfully hard to explain and I wasn't about to interrupt my row's communion experience just to tell everyone that I wasn't drunk, but just lacking aldehyde dehydrogenase. Luckily, it was just a faint little blush and no one really noticed. Oh, how hilarious and uncomfortable that could have been.

Speaking of nice wines, I should really learn a little about them. I don't much like wine, have a very unsophisticated taste, and actually prefer beers to them. But it'd be handy, and absolutely help with the snobbery, if I knew just a little about them. Take the day at Borough's Market for example. Among the many awesome samples to enjoy there was what we thought was wine. I, not being refined, chose the sweet while Fi went with medium. Then we both got shocks as we drank and discovered our little samples were stronger than normal wine. Fi drank hers slowly, so was not as overwhelmed with surprise as I was, because I am not smart and take huge swigs of things I don't know. Turns out we were drinking sherry. Sherry, if you are like me, or Fi, or Claire, and are unsure of what it is, is a fortified aged wine that can range from dry, medium, to sweet, that is slightly higher in alcohol content than normal wine (14-20% versus 5-13%). It's by no means excessively strong and can taste very nice, served for an aperitif or after dinner, but of course, that's only if you know you're drinking sherry, and not if you're gulping down what you expect to be cheap and mild wine.