South African wine and food that Sue researched and prepared for August’s Wine Pairing Weekend post
and more!
And now I’m headed to the International Food Bloggers Conference in Sacramento with great food of course and wine too. Then I attend the Wine Bloggers Conference in Lodi which, believe it or not, has even better food and lots more wine!
I have always been fascinated and amazed by what happens when you pair wine with food.
Because while I love wine, and certainly enjoy wine with or without food, there’s something magical that happens when you combine the aromas and the flavors of wine with food! Continue reading →
— Gwendolyn Alley, Art and Wine Predator (@ArtPredator) May 6, 2016
because Cinco De Mayo is a day where a lot if us, myself included, take a moment to enjoy tequila, the truth is that July 24, for some inexplicable reason, is National Tequila Day.
When Que Syrah Sue and I heard that July 25 is National Wine and Cheese Day, we immediately thought of Italian food!
What goes better with a cheesy pizza or lasagna than a nice red wine like a Chianti or Nero d’Avola? Or a Grillo or Grechetto with a green salad spiced up with cheese? And what about dessert? Tiramisu and cannoli with a Muscato, anyone? And we can’t forget Prosecco!
As we talked and Sue, who is half Italian, developed the menu for an Italian wine dinner focused on cheese, we then decided to go vegetarian. Who needs meat when you’re having this much cheese?
Our Italian cheeses for National Wine and Cheese Day Mon. July 25, 2016:
creamy Toscana with black pepper, formaggio lagorai, Italian truffle cheese, pecorino Romano, fresh mozzarella, parmigiana regianno, mozzarella ricotta, marcapone
Our Italian wines for National Wine and Cheese Day Mon. July 25, 2016:
Hard to believe but here we are, halfway through July! But there’s still plenty of time and lots to do this summer! This week, I’m heading to LA for several wine and music events, and enjoying some good times around Ventura too.
As I wrote about over on Art Predator, this weekend is Ventura’s 9th annual Surf Rodeo held right on the beach where Seaward Ave. hits the sea.
You can bring a picnic and they have a wine and beer garden. We’ll be there on Sunday to hear headliners the English Beat plus the R & B Bombers, Ska Daddy, and the band of our former neighbor, The Pullman; they will probably even play a song that is written about our laundry! Tonight, however, we’re headed to LA to hear Baaba Maal at the Annenberg Space for Photography, where they have a beer and wine garden and you’re not allowed to bring in outside alcohol which is too bad because I have some great bottles waiting for a picnic in a park!
If I could, I’d bring Cusumano’s $15 Nero D’Avola 2014.Continue reading →
What do you pair with SHERRY other than dessert or a fire?
Little did I know! Turns out, there’s quite a lot you can pair with sherry wine, because, like Champagne, Sherry isn’t just a wine for an occasion, it’s a wine to combine with food.
But the fact that Sherry does indeed pair well with food–and not just dessert!– is NOT what got me going on this Wine Pairing Weekend.
Because honestly, when I decided I wanted to do it I had no idea how well it paired and with what until I participated in the Saturday morning #WinePW tweet chat and checked out everyone’s blog posts! (links below)
Wine Predator Gwendolyn Alley in her grandfather’s cellar with a bottle of his sherry
Quite a few years ago, I was enjoying dinner with then California Poet Laureate Al Young (http://alyoung.org/) at the home of his hosts, the Central Coast poet Glenna Luschei and her husband Bill. Bill found out I appreciated wine and he asked me
What we eat and drink matters to our health, and to the health of the planet on which we live and that we share. How the food and wine that we enjoy is produced has an impact greater than we can easily imagine.
“If you want to feed your family healthy food, you’ve gotta ask a lotta questions,” says Patagonia’s founder, Yvon Chouinard.
Fortunately, people are helping us to understand the importance of our choices, and we can hear their message in films like Unbroken Ground.
My concerns for the planet informed me as a child who wrote about ladybugs and litterbugs, the child who started backpacking and rock climbing at 12, the teen who taught mountaineering in Colorado, the woman who was one of the first 20 women to hike the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada, the student who earned degrees in Environmental Studies and in Literature/Creative Writing with an emphasis in nature writing and in Ecopsychology, and the professor who today teaches college composition at a community college where students research and seek to solve environmental problems.
My environmental advocacy doesn’t show up as much in the posts of this blog as it does on Art Predator where I frequently write about a number of environmental issues with a focus the past two years on single use plastic. Continue reading →
wine predator.............. gwendolyn alley 