The Charleston Wine and Food Festival (CWFF) has been a mainstay event in town for the past 13 years, but I had yet to attend. The event tickets are pricey and can add up quickly if you want to dig into the festivities. I decided this year I would stick my toe in the water and go to a couple of events and I am sure glad I did. Much of my experience this year was through connections with passes, but that will change next year because this was an absolute blast. This year’s festival started on Feb. 28th and ran through to March…
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Last week I shared with you the French Onion Panade which was the first course in my Dinner for Six. Below are the other two dishes that I prepared. This chicken recipe is super easy and because it needs to marinate you can get started on it the day before. And those wedges, OMG, they also could not be easier. Both dishes are perfect with the yogurt sauce. Yes, there is a salad on the plate as well. It was just mixed greens and sliced pears. My vinaigrette was olive oil, lemon and white balsamic vinegar with a smidge of salt.…
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It’s Alive Yep, wine is as “alive” as any other agricultural product and can be affected by temperature fluctuations, movement, oxygen and many other factors. Think about it, wine changes as it ages so why not because it got jostled around on a ship as it crossed the pond from France or even after a week in a UPS truck from California to Charleston. There have been several times when we have purchased a new vintage of a wine that we have traditionally really liked. We pop the cork on that first bottle and think, “WHOA! what happened to this vintage?”…
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This past weekend Gary and I had two couples over for dinner. I had several recipes I wanted to try and needed a few guinea pigs. Enter Bryan & Craig and Shawn & Michael. For me, this was an all-day affair as I just decided what yo make on Friday morning and I needed to get to the store asap. But my Friday was a hot mess with a wine delivery by UPS that I had to sign for so I could not leave the house until it arrived. And that was at 4:30p and I had to pick Gary up at…
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If you have been following me for very long you have quickly learned that I love cheese and bread. I can never get enough of either. And they both are perfect with wine. While I do not eat it often the epitome of this pair is fondue. But I never eat fondue because it is a big pain in the butt and can be very messy. Decades ago at a party, had an appetizer that was a baked cheddar bread bite that was amazing and I have never forgotten it. I never was able to find a recipe so it…
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The other night at a dinner party a dear friend thanked me for turning him onto dry rosé wines. He said, At first, he only bought the brand that I shared with him but has since branched out and is trying and finding a slew of new rosé wines he loves. Additionally, the other day in a conversation with another friend she told me a similar story but then added that since she has started to go to the Strong Coffee to Red Wine wine tastings, she has learned that her wine palate is much broader than she ever imagined. As…
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In my last post, I introduced you to the affordable wines of Cariñena D.O.P in northwest Spain. If you missed it, you might want to go back and glance at it now. I was so impressed by these wines that I have been scouring the area wine shops for these super-value wines. Having found five wines at Trader Joe’s, I hosted an impromptu wine tasting with some friends and neighbors to help me evaluate these finds. Part Two: Finding Cariñena All of the wines are red. Four were blends, and one was a Tempranillo. Unfortunately, none were strictly Garnacha, but…
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Finding Cariñena: Part One At the Wine Blogger’s Conference back in November, I had the pleasure of attending a seminar presented by Lyn Farmer, a James Beard Award-winning wine and food writer about the Cariñena D.O.P. wine region in Spain. Never heard of it? Don’t feel bad; I am not sure many at the conference had either. Winemakers in the region have been producing wine for thousands of years, but doing so flying under the radar. Some of the larger producers in the area want to change that and have begun a big push for recognition. This seminar was one of the…
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