It is cookie season! This is the time of year when Girl Scout Cookies are sold. Many of us have an assortment of these cookies that we’ve purchased from daughters of friends and from young ladies selling them outside grocery stores and coffee shops. The other day a friend mentioned enjoying a Girl Scout Cookie [...]

Recently, I came across a recipe for beef lettuce wraps with wowee sauce. This sounded delicious and seemed like a great prospect for one of our challenging wine pairings. Seasoned ground beef topped with shredded carrots and sliced water chestnuts garnished with wowee sauce was fabulous wrapped in the Boston lettuce leaves. Wowee sauce is [...]

This month I decided to do something a little different with our challenging wine pairing. Rather than do the usual pairing with a meal, we decided to do a pairing with a dessert. German chocolate pie is something that I’ve used many times as the dessert with our tasting dinners. On most occasions, I have [...]

Beef brisket is usually associated with barbeque; however, at this time of year, cooking outside is not always feasible or enjoyable. Having been in the cattle business in Texas for many years, I’m especially partial to the Texas Beef Council whose website offers some great recipes. For this month’s challenging wine pairing, we had two [...]

While I generally prefer flavorful but simple-to-prepare recipes, I decided to make Greek moussaka for this month’s challenging wine pairing meal. Although there are short-cut versions, I wanted to follow the standard recipe. Moussaka is a little like lasagna in that there are layers—potatoes, eggplant, cheese, ground lamb (although beef can also be used) with [...]

Each month when I post about one of our challenging wine pairing meals, I ask for suggestions for challenging wine pairings for us to try in the future. On several occasions, we have received requests to try Korean cuisine. While I had never prepared any Korean dishes, I decided to give it a try. While [...]

It’s football season! So, time, again, to consider meals for watching our favorite teams on television or for tailgating before attending games. Of course, there is a wide choice of favorite foods for these events. However, hot dogs always seems to be a special favorite—easy to prepare, easy to eat, and quite enjoyable. For this [...]

Crepes, which originated in France, serve a variety of purposes. While many people may think of these thin pancakes for sweet dishes, they are just as popular for savory recipes. Here in Seattle, the weather has not been as warm as it usually is at this time of year. Nevertheless, it is summertime so I [...]

This month’s challenging wine pairing was a special treat. Our friends Darren and Mardee invited us over for jerked chicken, and we did our challenging pairing with their fabulous meal. What a beautiful evening in Seattle, out on their deck, eating delicious food, drinking great wine, and spending time with wonderful friends! Jerk is a [...]

Recently, I had a meal with blackened rockfish and enjoyed it very much. So I decided to plan a challenging wine pairing with this fish. If you are not familiar with rockfish, here are the descriptions of halibut, cod, and rockfish for comparison. Halibut has a firm-fleshed texture and mild flavor, cod has a flakey [...]