Announcing: The First Ever NULSA International Wine-and-Staff Pairing Event

This year, NULSA has decided to re-tool its historic annual Potluck Event into an extremely glamorous and fabulous International Wine-and-Staff Pairing Event, to be held Wednesday, March 26 in Ver Steeg from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m.

The nature of this event is still essentially pot-luck; that is, everything is being provided by staff members who attend. Conversely, if you want to attend, you have to bring something.

But the point is to have some fun pairing whatever kind of food you bring with a complementary beverage, for example: Greek wine with feta cheese; micro-beer with German sausage; port with chocolate. You’re welcome to make the dish yourself, as you might have for the old potluck, especially if there’s some wonderful old family recipe you want to share. But if you don’t feel like cooking, go buy something instead. Just make it something that would really be interesting for people to taste, not something they’d be buying for themselves for dinner at Jewel on the way home. Same with the wine: don’t bring a jug of Almaden or a six-pack of Bud Lite. Look for something out-of-the-ordinary.

The other point is to pair yourself with someone on the NUL staff, who may or may not be from your own department. That way, you can have some fun figuring out what a good combination would be, and no one person has to bring both wine and food. We’re suggesting that people spend in the range of $10-$15 on each item, just to keep everything on a level playing field.

If you’d like advice about specific wines, varietals, or craft brews that would make good pairings, feel free to contact NULSA officers Elizabeth Adamczyk (Schaffner, 312-503-8423, e-adamczyk@northwestern.edu) or Nina Barrett (Main, 847-491-4321, n-barrett@northwestern.edu) , both of whom have professional wine experience and would be happy to consult.

There will be sign-up sheets in the staff lounge beginning in March so you can see what other people are intending to bring, and we can all make plans accordingly.