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 [...]

This month’s wine tasting dinner featured red blends from the 2007 vintage from Washington State. It was another fabulous evening of great wines, the company of wonderful friends, and LaGayle’s (Mom’s) excellent food. All six wines paired extremely well with our dinner of tomato basil soup, arugula peach salad, grilled steaks, sautéed mushrooms, cilantro lime [...]

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 [...]

2011 Iron Vintner Challenge (June 8, June 15, June 22, and June 29) The second annual 2011 Iron Vintner Challenge, hosted by Willows Lodge in Woodinville, Washington, is a month-long culinary competition where local winemakers battle for the title of Iron Vintner. The cooking competitions will take place on three consecutive Wednesdays in June at [...]

Thai food is so popular that I wanted to do another Thai dish for a challenging wine pairing. Since our family especially enjoys spicy dishes, I decided to try a red curry dish using strips of sirloin steak in this recipe. Delicious! The menu for this pairing consisted of the Thai red curry beef dish, [...]

A few weeks ago, Kori and Colby went out to dinner with some friends at a popular Seattle restaurant known for its southern cuisine. Several in the group ordered the fried chicken, one of the restaurant’s specialties, and then began discussing what wine they should order to go with it. As they talked, one person [...]

One of my favorite foods is crabmeat au gratin; however, it’s not something that I eat often. While it is “yummy” as my granddaughter says, it is very rich. I decided that it would be a great food to incorporate into one of our challenging wine pairing dinners. Dungeness crabmeat was used in this preparation [...]

Recently, many of you were so kind to respond to our Wine Peeps Survey. This month’s challenging wine pairing meal came directly as a result of that survey. It was suggested that we try a Thai pairing. We do not eat Thai food regularly so I had to do some research on Thai dishes and [...]

The Wine Peeps love barbeque…the kind that takes hours to smoke. However, this kind of cooking is usually done in the spring and summer when the time for outdoor cooking is the best! When I came across a recipe for spicy sweet oven roasted spareribs, I couldn’t resist trying it for this month’s challenging wine [...]