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 [...]

Bob Blumer who hosts the shows The Surreal Gourmet and Glutton for Punishment on the Food Network is the author of this fun, attractive, and informative cookbook, Glutton for Pleasure: Signature Recipes, Epic Stories, and Surreal Etiquette. In many ways, both the book and the author are over the top but in very interesting and [...]

Now that we are into the winter season, what better meal on a cold, rainy or snowy night than chili? Of course, the official name is chili con carne, which comes from the Spanish language and means peppers with meat. Chili is actually just a spicy stew. There are almost as many versions of chili [...]

A good friend gave us some fresh fish from Alaska including a package of ling cod so I thought it would be fun to have fish and chips for this month’s challenging wine pairing. We all know that fish and chips is a popular take-out food that we associate with England, but I decided to [...]

Red beans and rice is a favorite “Louisiana” dish. It is a traditional Creole dish; however, over the years, it has become very generally used by everyone. It is just as popular in restaurants as in homes. Red beans and rice originated out of the need for an easy meal on “washday” in the Creole [...]

Well, it seems that fall has already arrived here in Seattle. Even though the official end of summer has not passed, the overcast skies and cooler temperatures tell us that summer is indeed over. Nevertheless, we wanted to have another tasting dinner featuring refreshing white wines before we turn the page on the summer of [...]

Are you ready for some football? We, Wine Peeps, are avid sports fans and are excited that football season has arrived. So whether you are a collegiate football fan or an NFL fan or both, the beginning of the season is a good time to think about food for those tailgates or meals for watching [...]

Sauvignon Blanc has been one of our favorite white varieties for years. Our trip to New Zealand in 2005 solidified that love, and we have a soft spot for Sauvignon Blanc from the Marlborough region of New Zealand. Since that trip, we have made it a point to try Sauvignon Blanc from other countries/regions when [...]

This past weekend, the Washington wine industry hosted its 23rd annual Auction of Washington Wines. The Auction has raised more than $24 million since its inception in 1988 to benefit the uncompensated care program at Seattle Children’s Hospital and since 2001, the Washington Wine Education Foundation, funding viticultural and enological research across the state. This [...]

More than a few times I’ve had someone ask me, which is the ideal setting in which to review a wine, with food or without food? My standard reply is: when do you normally drink wine, with food or without it? For most people, the answer is with food. So the best evaluations of wine [...]