Food, Wine & Cultural Connections
Today, it’s not true that all wines improve with extended aging. In fact, most wines commonly available to consumers are best enjoyed within approximately 3-6 years of the vintage date. If you’re putting down a bottle for longer than that, make sure it’s worth the effort.
Sometimes it’s helpful to question accepted “knowledge”—those tenacious bits of information that are taken as gospel because they’ve floated around in the ether for so long they must be true: You’ll catch a cold from walking in the rain…If you swim too soon after a big meal, you could drown…Elvis faked his own death and […]
In March, I was lucky enough to snag a last-minute tasting appointment at Merry Edwards Winery, located in the renowned Russian River Valley region of California, about 70 miles north of San Francisco. We were staying in nearby Bodega Bay on a family vacation, and it was an irresistibly short trip from there to get […]
Last year John and I attended a horizontal Bordeaux tasting and dinner held by one of my favorite wine gurus at a great little midtown restaurant. It was a fine evening until the drive home. After encountering a couple of wrecks and an interminable number of mystifying slowdowns along I-45, we finally reached our driveway […]
I’m always on the prowl for new and interesting places to get a good cup of coffee in the suburbs northwest of Houston. It’s easy to get spoiled by places like Blacksmith in the Montrose area, where every bean is meticulously sourced and the espresso drinks are made with such artistry. And though Spring and The […]
Heading to down South Las Vegas Boulevard to our dinner reservation, I was surprised that the cab driver had never heard of The Golden Steer. (He did, however, seem quite familiar with the dive bar a few doors down.) Before the mega-hotels, before celebrity super chefs, before the booming Vegas club scene, there were places like The Golden Steer Steakhouse.
Recently, we headed back to the place where it all started, way back in June of 2014, when your humble food and wine blogger put pen to paper (so to speak) to share a few thoughts about the The Refuge Bar & Bistro, the popular Waterway Avenue craft cocktail bar in The Woodlands. Local wine expert Denman Moody […]
The meal began with a Cajun-spiced Bloody Mary. And it just kept getting better. It was the first rain-free interlude during our mostly water-logged family vacation to New Orleans this spring. Day after day of downpour, triggering memories of those 100% humidity bad hair days that were a fact of life for all of us […]
When U.S. wine lovers think of Spain, they immediately think “Rioja.” But there’s a new kid on the block, gaining prominence and shelf space as more people discover its robust yet elegant reds. The accolades for the Ribera del Duero continue to grow, and in 2012 it was named wine region of the year by Wine […]
On Calle de los Cuchilleros, near Madrid’s Plaza Mayor, sits Restaurante Botin. Opened in 1725, it purports to be the be the world’s oldest continuously operating restaurant, and even has a couple of prominently displayed Guiness World Record certificates to prove it. Because of this distinction, as well as the fact that they serve some of […]
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