Cline ancient vine zinfindel and dark chocolate: now that’s a Friday night
I don’t ask for much these days. As a mom of an almost-five-year-old who really, really likes me to put him to bed, I don’t get out much. So after a long week, when Friday night finally rolls around, I drink.
I know what you’re thinking, but work with me here. I’m not talking vodka in a secret flask inside my semi-attractive yet hefty mom purse. The perfect wine to match the delectable meal Keith and I have prepared for ourselves, to unwind and satiate — that’s what I’m talking about.
Tags: chocoate and red wine, cline ancient vine zinfindel, cline zinfandel, dagoba eclipse, dark chocolate, ghirardelli midnight reverie, green and black's 85% dark, red wine and chocolate, what red wine goes with chocolate
Serving wine with turkey is easier than you might think
Our (apparently coerced) Guest-clacker today is Stephen Degon, a retired manufacturing and engineering executive whose hobbies include food and wine. That means he loves to cook, eat, and drink, but not write about it.
Well, it’s that time of year again, when we all start to think about the perfect Thanksgiving feast. Thanksgiving is such a special holiday because it reminds us of how fortunate we are, even if we are in the throws of a financial downturn. It means family and friends without the need for gifts. This should lead to a no stress holiday right?…WRONG! Everyone feels enormous pressure to make the perfect meal, accompanied by the perfect sides, and served alongside a perfect wine.
Which brings us to what we really want to talk about…wine. Turkey is a fowl, so it should have white wine, right? How about the dressing? Does it contain lots of meats? How are the veggies prepared? All of these questions should factor into your wine selection, but most important is “what kind of wine do you really like?”
Here are some suggestions, depending on your particular leanings.
Tags: bordeaux varietal, cote du rhone with turkey, red wine headache, sauvignon blanc with turkey, thanksgiving, thanksgiving wine choices, what wine goes with turkey, wine for thanksgiving, wine to serve with turkey
My favorite tastes of autumn – Fresh Foodie
Join Debbie as she raves about whole foods, rants about chemicals and generally celebrates cooking and eating with fresh, local, nutritious foods. And sometimes she might get a little feisty….
We’re in the heart of it now… the beautiful season we call autumn. There are so many things to love about the fall in New England: the spectacular foliage, the crisp sunshiny weather and the seasonal foods. Let’s celebrate the fresh, whole food and autumn-inspired recipes that the season brings us. You just might find a new favorite.
Tags: autumn dishes, autumn recipe, butternut squash sage pizza, cabbage recipes, chicken pumpkin and kale stew, fall dishes, fall recipe, roasted butternut squash seeds, sweet and sour cabage, tassajara warm cabbage salad, toasted winter squash seeds, winter squash recipes
CliqueClack’s looking for a few good writers
TV’s in full swing and we’re just about to enter November sweeps. Do you have something to say about what you watch? Are you a sci-fi junkie, or maybe nighttime soaps float your boat? Perhaps you’re up-to-date on all the latest TV news and have your own take on what it means for the television world. You might just be a writer looking for an outlet, a place to share your unique voice. Hopefully you’re snarky, knowledgeable and funny, without being insulting and overbearing.
With November also comes the holidays, and well, people eat during the holidays. Do you like to cook? Bake? Eat? Maybe you create original recipes and want to share them with the world. I’m betting you like to scour the internet for top-notch recipes too, don’t you? Maybe you like to eat out and drink out and write about your experiences. You might consider yourself a food snob, or you want to tell all the food snobs where to go and praise the simple food in life. If you’ve got something to share about all things edible, CliqueClack Food may have a place for you.
You can go about writing for CliqueClack in a number of ways:
Tags: cliqueclack is hiring, food writers, hiring writers, looking for writers, tv writers, writing gigs
Daylight savings time makes me hungry (or How the sample guy at Trader Joe’s saved my life yesterday)
There’s almost nothing good about Daylight savings time. Now that we’ve changed the clocks back (fall back…), I wake up — mind you, at an ungodly early hour — and it’s light out. Yeah, who cares? I’m cooking dinner by the light of the moon and craving foods with vitamin D. How can that be right?
You know what else? I’m hungry. Sure, it made sense that on Sunday we ate dinner at 4:45, since our bodies technically still believed it was almost six o’clock. Yes, you read that right. I might as well start cultivating the white hairs upon my head, because we could have taken advantage of the senior citizen early bird specials that night. But yesterday it was Tuesday, so you’d think my body would have somewhat adjusted.
No dice.
Tags: daylight savings time, hunger, samples, trader joe's
Pasta with tuna, red wine and capers
In the event that I came off as a total food snob when I referred to baked ziti as plebian (even though I think it’s completely delicious!), here’s one of our favorite recipes that most food snobs wouldn’t even consider making (because there’s canned tuna in it). We did, however, serve it to a food snob far more snobby than the likes of me, and it was a well-loved meal.
About 7000 years ago, or something closer to fifteen years, I acquired a fun little cookbook by Barbara Russo called Quick and Easy Elegant Pasta (long since out of print, unfortunately for you!). It’s all true. The recipes are so simple to make, with few ingredients yet lots of flavor, and there really is something distinctly elegant about each recipe. Whether an ingredient or a combination of ingredients, an interesting method or presentation, there’s something special about each of these recipes.
Over the years, her recipe for linguine with tuna and red wine has morphed into something revered in our household, both for the amazing base recipe Ms. Russo created, but also because we have altered it to suit our ever-changing culinary sensibilities.
Tags: cooking with red wine, easy pasta recipe, food snob, Pasta, pasta recipe, pasta with capers, pasta with red wine, pasta with tuna, red wine sauce
Is prix fixe good or bad? – Eat, Drink, and Be Snarky
Just the other day an e-mail found its way into my inbox, advertising the new prix fixe menu at one of my favorite local restaurants. Somehow, I’m always excited when I get mail like this, but I’m not quite sure why. After all, prix fixe menus sort of take away all the great parts about eating out. With a prix fixe menu, you don’t get to choose whatever you want, you don’t get to control what courses you are served, and sometimes you don’t even get to pick the wine out!
Yet, there is something really appealing about a prix fixe menu and all the things it does offer.
Tags: prix fixe, tasting menu
Most Commented (Past Week)