Mention Italian food, and pasta immediately comes to mind. While pasta is a staple in every part of Italy, pasta and pasta dishes vary from region to region.
The gardens are offering up cucumbers to marinate into cool, refreshing salads, and tomatoes for insalata caprese, fresh pasta sauces, canning, roasting, and eating in huge bites with just some salt, oregano and olive oil.
Just because the holiday season of 2006 is now behind us does not mean that there will be no more gift giving in the next twelve months, as Mother Nature’s gift giving season is about to begin. The luxuriant 2005 Burgundies are coming!
As the American culinary stage has gained sophistication in recent years, selecting an appropriate wine for a meal has deservedly become a prominent consideration. Accordingly, a significant portion of the future content of Viking Life will include this topic.
Is this simply a highly sophisticated plot devised by Al-Qaeda operatives to weaken the bodies and workaholic tendencies of otherwise intelligent Americans?
When one is asked to recount his greatest experiences with wine, it is seldom a matter of simply denominating the finest wines one has tasted. Instead, the response usually begins with an effusive description of the setting, tasting companions, and the culinary fare.
As we approach the holiday season and begin reading the articles in the food magazines and Web sites about the feasible feasts we can offer our families and friends, we are confronted with the issue of wines to be served.
In a prior article, we dealt with four fundamental attributes of wine: body, texture, depth and concentration of flavor, and balance. In this issue, we will consider two additional characteristics of wine, COMPLEXITY and FINISH, both of which are essential to excellent wine.
“How would you like to host a dinner for Aubert de Villaine?" asked my friend Gib Rockwood of Wilson Daniels, a wine importer. I have been a sommelier for 12 years and have had some wonderful wine evenings, but I knew I was in for a special treat.
Some restaurant chefs go to extraordinary lengths to find exactly the right ingredients for their dishes. One is John Besh, who once wanted to strengthen the flavor and texture of his veal-stock reductions at Restaurant August in New Orleans by adding collagen, the protein found in cattle that also produces gelatin.