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!
Pont Du Gard Tomato Salad
We had the opportunity to travel on a family vacation to France back in 2009. I had met a lady through IACP who led tours in Provence and Languedoc. We arranged to travel with her for three days while we stayed in the little town of Arles. We stayed in a small bed and breakfast run by a local chef. Our guide had arranged for the chef to pack a picnic lunch for our first day of touring. The highlight of our first day was a visit to the Pont Du Gard, a famous Roman aqueduct that was built sometime in the first century AD. (To get a sense of the size of the Pont Du Gard, notice the people on the bridge in the picture.) We pulled out the picnic lunch to enjoy on the banks of the Gardon River and I had a discovery of simple yet fantastic fare. Our guide was living at a local winery, so she had also pulled a bottle of a local rose - so recently bottled, the labels had not yet been affixed. Along with the wine, we had a simple salad of fresh tomatoes in a honey mustard dressing. I could…
2016 Huntsville Restaurant Week
Huntsville Restaurant Week has come to an end for 2016. Unfortunately, this was a VERY busy week with the SMD Symposium in town, classes, school, and everything else. Based on everything, I decided that I would focus on lunch for the week. I will say that I was a bit disappointed that some many of the participating restaurants had their lunch prices set at $15 or above. Being a bit "frugal" (OK, so Lori would probably say I'm cheap....), my upper limit for lunch was $10. I ended up running through most of my August lunch budget this week. I don't go out for lunch often as I bring it with me to work, one main reason is that I've been working on eating better and losing a bit of weight. So, I decided to to sacrifice and visit some of the restaurants nearby that had a $10 lunch. Pane e Vino: As I mentioned, the SMD Symposium was in town and Lori was working a booth at the show and I was heading down there, so we met for lunch on Tuesday and walked over to Pane e Vino across Big Spring Park at the Huntsville Museum of Art.…
South American Wine Dinner
Paired wine dinners have become very popular over the last few years. Generally, there are two types of wine dinners that I have attended - those that feature the wines of one winery (or family of wineries) and those that focus on a particular region. I've written a number of posts on a winery focused wine dinner, but recently had the opportunity to attend one focused on the food and wine of South America hosted by the Cork and Crust in Madison. Since the dinner was the day before our anniversary, we turned this into a nice evening out for us. The choices certainly did not disappoint. Our first course was a Shrimp Ceviche with tomato, cucumber, red onion, jalapeno, cilantro and corn chips. If you aren't familiar with ceviche, it is generally a seafood dish that is "cooked" using acid, such as lemon or lime juice, instead of heat. The challenge of making a ceviche is getting the timing right - if you leave the shrimp in the acid too long, it starts to break down and turns dry. The other part of ceviche is the additional ingredients you mix with the seafood. Believe it or not, I am…
July 2016 Huntsville Highlights
Here are some Highlights for July: Fundraising Wine Tasting for HEALS Annette Birchfield of the Wine Cellar is participating again this year in the "Stars Dancing for HEALS" fundraiser. As part of the fundraising, the Wine Cellar is hosting a Wine Tasting this Thursday night, July 21 from 6-8PM. The cost of the tasting is $30 per person. The wines are all being donated by the distributors, so the full amount will be going to support HEALS. (For more information on HEALS, click here.) The wines should all be wonderful! There will also be a silent auction as part of the fundraiser. I have donated a gift certificate for two seats in a future cooking class. Reservations are requested, so call The Wine Cellar at 256-489-9463 to make your reservations. Uncle Maddio's Pizza in Madison There's yet another new pizza place in town - seems like we never have enough. I was invited to the VIP Preview Night and ribbon cutting this past week. During the ribbon cutting, the owners spoke about selecting both the franchise and location. The Madison location is run by three partners and they were looking for a family friendly concept to bring to town. Uncle…