Welcome to the Cooking with C.C. Blog. I will be discussing all things food and travel related. Be sure to join me for information from recipes, cookbooks, restaurants and places to visit. I look forward to hearing from you!
What Wine to Serve with Christmas Dinner
You’ve got a great menu planned for Christmas and you’re trying to figure out what wine to serve. It can be a real challenge to try to pick wines that will go with the meal and that everyone will like. I asked Annette Burchfield of The Wine Cellar for suggestions for some wines that go well with many foods and would be crowd pleasers. The recommendations are priced between $10 and $15 per bottle. (Figured this was a good holiday budget range – more on budget later.) Here are two whites and three reds for you to consider. Whites: 2013 LaFiera Pinot Grigio - This wine comes from the Veneto region of Italy (area near Venice) and is made from the Pinot Grigio grape. This is an easy to drink crowd pleaser and goes with lots of food. The tasting notes say that the wine “expresses minerality with lovely apple and ripe peach flavors.” This wine is dry and has a lingering acidity. The price for this is $12.99 per bottle. 2013 Kung Fu Girl Riesling – This is one of the wines from the Charles Smith Wines collection from Washington State and is 100% Riesling. The grapes are grown in…
Cookbooks for Under the Christmas Tree
If you have someone who loves cooking on your Christmas list, then consider one of the 2014 cookbooks as a present for under the tree. The fall season, leading up to Christmas, is the big time of the year for cookbook releases. This year is no exception. Any of these would make great presents under the tree. The first two are new baking books from two of my favorite authors - Dorie Greenspan and Rose Levy Beranbaum. I have had a chance to meet both Dorie and Rose through the IACP Annual Conferences. Not only are these two great authors, they are also very nice people as well. Dorie's new book is Baking Chez Moi: Recipes from My Paris Home to Your Home Anywhere. If you don't have any of Dorie's books, put together a collection of the new one and any of her previous books - check out Around My French Table: More than 300 recipes from My Home to Yours. Dorie's recipes are meticulously tested and her books are always well written. You won't go wrong with anything from Dorie. (To see all of Dorie's books, click here.) Likewise, Rose's book are also very well written and tested…
2014 Grower Champagne Tasting
One other thing about the Christmas and New Year's Holidays is the focus on Champagne (like we need an excuse). Tuesday night was the annual Champagne tasting at The Wine Cellar on Whitesburg. We don't open bottles of bubbly very often, so the opportunity to taste a variety of sparkling wine so the opportunity to try 7 different ones is an opportunity I don't like to pass up! Most of the wines we tasted were very good, but my top two from the 2013 tasting are still my favorite. I'll list them all for you in a moment. If you don't already know about "Sparkling Wine," there are many varieties. The most well-known is Champagne. To be called Champagne the wine should be grown and produced in the Champagne region of France using the "traditional method." Today, wonderful sparkling wines come from all over the world including two that were included in the tasting. Prosecco is an Italian sparkler generally from the area above Venice (Veneto). Lambrusco is another Italian sparkler from areas in Emilia-Romagna and Lombardy made from the one of the six varieties of the Lambrusco grape. Both Prosecco and Lambrusco are normally made using the "Charmant" method.…
Original Public House Review
When my wife saw that a new Irish Style Restaurant was moving into the space that once housed Finnegan's, she was looking forward to trying it out. A number of years back, we had taken a great vacation in Ireland and she really loved the pub fare. Over the years, I made many trips to Ireland on business and had the pleasure of eating at a variety of restaurant styles from Pubs to fancy restaurants. So, Lori heard that the Original Public House had opened and the daughter had something else, she decided that we were going there for dinner. The building certainly could use a renovation, and it has been very nicely renovated, however, the inside does not "feel" like an Irish Pub. The food made up for any expectations that we missed from our Irish Pub Visits. I was impressed with our server as she was able to answer my questions. My first question was "What is Buttery Champ?" since I had never seen that in Ireland. She explained what it was and I then commented - "Oh, OK, so it's a lot like Colcannon." She jumped right in and told me sort of, but it doesn't have…