This seafood saffron infused treat from Valencia Spain is rice that is cooked over an open fire which uses orange and pine branches as well as pine cones; this aromatic smoke infuses the paella. Cooking on the grill outside when it is too hot to be inside makes it excellent summer fare. You can also cut back on dinner dishes if you serve it the traditional way where you eat directly out of the paellera!
But what pairs well with these rich complex flavors? We set out to find out! Continue reading →
June means June Gloom, the start of summer, school’s out, grads and dads, lots of festivals, concerts in the park and wineries!
In the vineyard, because California received an unusual amount of rain and had so much cloud cover and May Gray and June Gloom this spring, this means grape vines reaching toward the unavailable sun grew elongated and weak. What at first might seem like vigorous growth is not always the case.
When vines stretch like this toward the sun, it means etiolation.
With fresh salmon in season, what should you pair with it?
Whether it is Copper River, sockeye salmon, or King, when in doubt, get the Pinot Noir out!
But maybe you’ve been there and done that too many times and you want to venture beyond the tried and true and do something different.
Which is exactly what we did the other night: we tried two Italian RED wines, Italian wines that aren’t pinot noir (aka pinot nero). In fact, these are Italian wines that you may never have heard of but are interpretations of ones that might be more familiar than at first it seems! Continue reading →
wine predator.............. gwendolyn alley 