Up until this weekend if you had asked me about making homemade gnocchi my answer would have been “sure, if by homemade you mean cutting open a vacuumed sealed pack purchased at Trader Joe’s then throwing them into boiling water, then yes I have”. Only there’s nothing truly homemade about that process and in fact…
Food and Recipes
My nine days in Italy – A preview
I have just returned from Italy where I spent nine days exploring the wine, food, and sights with a group of talented (and fun) bloggers, writers, and other media. We were there for the International Wine Tourism Conference where I presented a seminar titled, “A Sense of Place: How to leverage your region and place…
Giving thanks… and a little bit of wine
…Not your average Thanksgiving wine post… I had a very hard time accepting the fact that I would spend my first Thanksgiving away from my family in Arizona. This was many years ago mind you. We had many family customs that made me nervous to explore what others traditions would be like. My family never…
2011 Wine Bloggers Conference in Photos
Cheers and I’ll see you all in Portland in 2012!
Wine and Food Pairing: It’s not poppycock
Today I am speaking at the 4th annual American Wine Bloggers Conference in Charlottesville, Virginia on the topic of Wine & Food Pairing so I thought I’d let you in on some of the goods. As soon as I have a link to the video of the presentation I promise to post it here… even…
Show Me Some Love!
An article I wrote is currently featured on the website Snooth as a part of their “Bloggers Itinerary Contest”. The editors of Snooth asked wine bloggers to write about their favorite wine country itinerary and submit it to their contest. My article is currently in the running. I’ve lived in Northern California, near Napa and…
Open That Bottle Night, part II: Even special wines are meant to be opened
This past Saturday I did something I’ve been putting off for a long time. Inspired by Open That Bottle Night (OTBN) I opened two bottles of wine that I never quite found the right occasion to do so. They were not my most expensive, rare, or oldest wines. They were just wines that had a…
From Wine Country to Apple Country
Fall is definitely here. I can tell because I wake up every morning and instantly throw on socks and my UGG boots and yearn for something warm to drink. This is my first fall living in New England and since everybody raves about New England falls I figured I had to go do something quintessentially…
Olympic Provisions: A review
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about my goal to do, see, and eat certain things in Portland before the big move date. And with the date growing closer and closer everyday I’ve finally made plans to accomplish them all. This past Monday I checked the first of the four restaurants off the list…
Roasted Beet and Goat Cheese Salad — a must try summer salad
I went berry picking with a friend the other day at Kruger’s Farm on Sauvie Island and after picking an abundance of raspberries we perused their market for additional goodies when I spotted a 10 lb bag of beets. Mind you, I’ve never bought raw beets before, and have just recently grown fond of them. …
WillaKenzie, Aquariva and a Great Food & Wine Pairing
Trying to explore as much Oregon as I can before moving to the Northeast, I accepted an invitation to a wine and food pairing lunch a couple weeks back hosted by WillaKenzie Estate Winery. Lunch consisted of a five-course food and wine pairing prepared by Chef Andy Arndt of Aquariva that turned out to be…
A Different Kind of Bubbles…
After the wettest and one of the coldest Junes on record for Portland I’ve been impatiently waiting for some real summer weather to come around… and it finally did, on July 6th. And boy, this week has been quite the scorcher with temperatures into the high 90’s. Finally! And though I can’t celebrate this fabulous…
Homemade Salsa Bar
As some of you may have heard, I had an incredible week with my mom, sister, and 3 ½ year old niece while they were visiting.It’s always sad, and even emotional to see family leave.But whenever I miss my mom, I try to cook some of her famous recipes, and it always brings me back home. I…
Pairing Wine with Food: The Basics
While preparing for a recent Intro to Wine and Food pairing class I polled a few friends and family members from outside the area to ask what would they want to learn about if they took a class on wine and food paring. Their responses were quite humbling to me. I was prepared for them to…
Meeting Tom Mackey from St. Francis Winery…
… and a stroll down memory lane Most wine lovers have quite a few bottles of wine that they would categorize as “most memorable” wines. Some have many, others have one or two. I’d have to say I’ve had many great wines in my life, but few have left a mark on me that I…
Chef Mavro
… And one of my first major food epiphanies. I’ve had a couple of food epiphanies in my life, but none more memorable than my first experience at Chef Mavro in Honolulu. A few years ago while visiting the island of Oahu I quickly grew tired of the many overpriced mediocre dining options on Waikiki Beach where we…
Mumm Napa
Winter is apparently in full effect this week in Portland, with temperatures as low as the teens (brrr), and guess what’s in my glass… bubbles. Yes, bubbles indeed! Just because it’s cold that doesn’t keep me from drinking bubbly this time of the year. I am of the school of thought that bubbles are appropriate…
Finding My Muse: The Condado de Haza Ribera Del Duero
Wine Blogging Wednesday #63 This months Wine Blogging Wednesday topic, selected by Rob Bralow of Wine Post, was to choose a wine you know well and have enjoyed many times, but have never written about. In addition we were supposed to time how long we enjoyed the wine, and take double that amount of time…
Curried Butternut Squash Soup & Viognier
The rumors are true. Fall has officially arrived. And while most people are giddy and talking about the beautiful fall weather, colors, and activities, I continue to mourn the death of another summer and dread the fact that I have to retire my flip flops and tank tops for another nine months in place of…
The freshest Pizza Margherita you’ll ever try!
It is late August and I suddenly find myself with an overabundance of tomatoes and basil in my garden. Trying to figure out something fun to do with them I decided to make a homemade Pizza Margherita. I was so blown away by the simplicity of this recipe and yet how incredibly delicious it came…
Who’s Your Julia?
I woke up yesterday in a pretty crappy mood. After moping around the house for a while feeling sad, for no apparent reason, I decided I needed to cheer myself up so I treated myself to a movie, Julie & Julia, all by myself. It was “that” kind of day. I’ve been waiting for months…
Dinner at Beast
I dine out a lot. But in all honesty, I tend to go to some of the same restaurants over and over again. Call me a creature of habit. But last weekend I finally had the opportunity to go to one of Portland’s most talked about restaurants, Beast. Beast is certainly a restaurant all of…