Go well with

Go well with

I’ve got a food-related expression for you today, “to go well with.” We use this when we’re talking about two things that are even better when they’re together. It’s common to use this with food and drink. We were talking about Waffle House and the hash browns. The hash browns go well with eggs and toast and bacon. You can soak up the broken yolk of your eggs with the hash browns. They each taste better when they go along with the other. They go well together; when they come together, the combination is really good.

Sometimes you’re preparing a dish and you have one great ingredient, but you don’t know what to serve with it. I really like scallops. It’s seafood from the north Atlantic. But I never know what to cook with them. I always wonder, “what goes well with scallops?” I still don’t have a great answer. If you read recipe books, they tell you broccolini goes well with scallops and they say corn dishes go well with scallops. But I still haven’t found that perfect side dish that goes well with scallops.

What goes well with steak? You can’t go wrong with almost any type of potatoes. I like spinach with steak. Sauteed mushrooms go well with steak. Grilled asparagus goes well with steak. Some people think a wedge salad goes well with steak. A wedge salad is like a hunk of iceberg lettuce covered in bleu cheese dressing. I don’t think that goes well with anything, but that’s just my opinion!

We use this with alcohol, too. You can eat or drink whatever you like. But certain combinations are generally thought to be better than others. White wine goes well with seafood. Red wine goes well with steak. A darker beer might go well with chili. A lighter beer goes well with tacos. Tequila goes well with spicy food.

You can use “go well with” to describe colors that look good in combination with one another. Black and orange go well with each other. Yellow and blue go well with each other. The In-N-Out Burger logo is red and yellow; those colors go well with each other, too. I’m terrible at determining what colors go well with what other colors. I have such a hard time picking colors for my walls. Some people have a good eye for this sort of thing. They can look at one color, look at the room, and tell you what other colors go well with what’s already there.

JR’s song of the week

Today’s song of the week is “Uptown Girl” by Billy Joel. You know JR likes to pick songs from the TV shows he’s watching, and this one appeared in The Crown, the last season. Bill Joel is a New Yorker, and a lot of his songs are about New York City. Uptown is where the more traditional New York families used to live, while downtown is a little edgier. According to the stereotype, people downtown might have tattoos or body piercings; that does not fly uptown. That’s not a completely true stereotype, especially not these days, but it makes for a catchy song. “Uptown Girl” by Billy Joel is the song of the week.

See you next time!

That’s all today. I had Chick-Fil-A for breakfast. That, unfortunately, doesn’t qualify as a regional chain because they are now in too many places. But probably my favorite fast-food menu item is the Chick-Fil-A breakfast biscuit. And I got my fix of that this morning. I don’t have fast food a lot, but when I do, I like to make it count. The Chick-Fil-A breakfast biscuit is absolutely delicious, since we were on that topic!

I hope you enjoyed this one. Like I said on Monday, I needed a break from the heavy research, so I this was a perfect day to share a little bit of the American experience. Remember you can join our free Facebook group and tell me and your fellow listeners about your favorite chain restaurants in the US. You can visit PlainEnglish.com/Facebook to join that group.