Wine Wars: the games people play
Nov. 5, 2009 10:38 am
Updated: Nov. 8, 2009 4:31 am
Nobody wants to play with me.
It all started a couple years ago, when a friend, Joyce, sent me the published version of a food trivia game she’d created and sold to Chronicle Books. It’s called “Foodie Fight,” and it’s a truckload of fun.
I enjoy learning things accidentally, under the cover of play. Unfortunately, I never actually get to play "Foodie Fight." As I say, no one will play with me. There are two reasons. Okay, three.
First, it’s an undeniable fact that in the initial stage of creating this game, way back when the questions and answers were just scribbles on scraps of paper, I helped Joyce do some editing. And I guess some people think that such a thing might spot me an unfair advantage.
The second reason? It’s closely related to the first. I studied gastronomy with Joyce at Boston University, which is how I came to be assisting Joyce with the prototype of “Foodie Fight” in the first place. So yes, in addition to having already seen some of the Q’s and (more importantly) the A’s, I also spent more than two years studying all the stuff contained on the game cards.
Still, if people would just take a chance and play me, they’d soon realize that whatever I gained by studying gastronomy, I quickly lost by virtue of my incredibly porous memory. If my brain were cheese, it would be Swiss; if it were a kitchen implement, a colander. You see where I'm going with this. I assure you, much valuable information has been lost.
But even so, I’ve had little luck coaxing people into playing with me. It’s like my brother, the scientist who studies water stuff, told me last Christmas when I asked my family to play: “Oh yeah, sure. And then after that, let’s play the hydrology trivia game I brought.”
See how he is?
And so it is that I'm facing a fresh round of hostility as I try to get folks to play the brand new board game that Joyce created and sent me this week! It’s called “Wine Wars,” and it follows the same Trivial Pursuit-like format as "Foodie Fight." And I have to say, this one is right in my wheelhouse. I love this game!
Luckily, I was able to coax the Friday Night Cocktail Club into playing “Wine Wars” with me. Over the weekend, we played with a Pear Brandy Sidecar in hand, and it was a blast. I was learning all kinds of new stuff. As you would imagine, I remained humble, only rarely stooping to rub my opponent’s face in it as I thoroughly dominated the game! Heeeeeyaa--so okay, yes, arguably there is a third reason why people don’t want to play with me.
But regardless, I think I like “Wine Wars” even more than “Foodie Fight.” And strangely, even though I had absolutely no part in editing this game and never saw a single question before unwrapping the box, I am much better at it than the food one -- though don’t tell my family -- I still hope to ambush them with "Wine Wars" over the holidays!
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