Buy Wine for Every Day and Every Occasion: Red, White, and Bubbly to Celebrate the Joy of Living

A gift for a friend who has developed a new interest in African American wineries and collecting their wines.Get more detail about Wine for Every Day and Every Occasion: Red, White, and Bubbly to Celebrate the Joy of Living.

Purchase 101 Champagne Cocktails

If you one a one shot deal when it comes to champagne and wine cocktails this book is it. It is a compendium of cocktails made with bubbly all in one place, with over 100 recipes for fizzin' fun. I will definately be pulling out this book when the parties start rolling around. It will keep the guests on their toes and joyous all night long.Get more detail about 101 Champagne Cocktails.

Reflections of a Wine Merchant

Neal tells us about his personal rise to the top of his trade. Most importantly he tells us why and how. I enjoyed it. I love the stories behind the story. Get more detail about Reflections of a Wine Merchant.

Golden Door Cooks Light and Easy, The Review

Some cookbook's, such as Shirley O. Corriher's excellent Cookwise, focus on teaching; the recipes are merely there to aid each of the lessons. The Golden Door Cooks takes a more traditional approach focusing on the recipes themselves. The introductions to each recipe are generally short and usually involve a story about how much guests enjoy that particular recipe - and it is quite easy to see how they do.

All of the recipes I've tried so far in this book have been delicious. It is a clear demonstration that for certain dishes you don't need loads of oil or cream to make them work (though Shirley will teach you that for some dishes they are!) The soups are a particular favorite of mine both in terms of flavor and ease of preparation.

While the recipes of a cookbook like this one should weigh heavily in the grading, they are not the only thing. Organization and information architecture matter too, and here the book falls down.

The Golden Door Cooks misses on some basic information like the time to prepare a recipe. The reader is left to sort through the various instructions in the recipe to try to add up the time for different steps and guess which ones can be done in parallel. Trying to do this for multiple recipes at once might require MS Project.

The book also focuses on healthy cooking but doesn't make some of the calorie data clear. For example the Salmon with Dill Yogurt Sauce recipe is listed at 130 calories per serving, but the ingredient list includes the Parsnip Potato Puree that is listed at 200 calories per serving. So is the serving size for the puree different when served with the salmon? Does the calorie count for the salmon not include this one ingredient? The book leaves us guessing. While one might be able to intuit the answer in this case, the answer is not so clear when it asks us to drizzle Multi-Pepper Puree on top of the Creamed Corn Soup.

Overall I can heartily recommend this book, but a little more care would have made it 5-stars.Get more detail about Golden Door Cooks Light and Easy, The.

The Psychology of Wine: Truth and Beauty by the Glass Top Quality

The Psychology of Wine
Truth and Beauty By The Glass
Evan Mitchell and Brian Mitchell
Praeger -ABC-CLIO, LLC 2009

Evan Mitchell and Brian Mitchell bring a wealth of wining and dining experience to life in the pages of The Psychology of Wine. While the title may sound like just another stuffy wine tome, never fear. This book is neither boring nor banal. Indeed, it is a book best enjoyed by popping the cork of a favorite Pinot Noir or Pinot Grigio and indulging in the combined pleasures of a good read and a fine wine.

The Psychology of Wine entertains while it educates. It is filled with marvelous myths, amusing anecdotes and savvy advice. Learn the lore behind the birth of Dionysus and the hypothesis of the world's first "accidental" wine. Follow the life of the life the vine from dormancy through harvest. Get to the bottom of the age-old debate of "nature versus nurture." Find out where those dry, didactic numbers used to score wines come from and how to judge wines with a more "soulful" approach. Discover intriguing idiosyncrasies about wine such as the "pathological" nature of Pinot Grigios and which wine grows "wiser" as it ages.

As a foodie, wine lover and travel writer, I particularly enjoyed polishing my wine-speak in Part II, The Language of Wines and the delightful frivolity of Chapter 20 - Games People Play. No doubt as we swirl, sniff, sip and savor a variety of varietals at our next dinner party, we'll play a bit of "This wine is like..." and describe our wines in terms of music, movies and even moods. The Psychology of Wine is a keeper on my bookshelves.

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Lessons in Wine Service (Lessons from Charlie Trotter) This instant

This small but concise book about Charlie Trotter's approach to food and wine service offers an view from the inside. Nicely written and easy to read and hold (on a train?), the book contains chapter summaries that keep us refreshed. A bit redundant in some parts, but those parts are with purpose, namely to remind the reader of the most important points. This is a bargain. I expect to read more of this series. Get more detail about Lessons in Wine Service (Lessons from Charlie Trotter).

An Omelette and a Glass of Wine (The Cook's Classic Library) Immediately

My mother introduced me to the wonders of Elizabeth David 50 years ago! In her English country kitchen, with all the rigors of post-war shortages, she would pore over Elizabeth David's mediterranean recipes. In those days the basic ingredients available in a small village didn't extend to much more than carrots and potatoes. But David's recipes would inspire my mother's creativity, and we would eat the most amazing dishes, with the ingredients adapted to what could be unearthed in the village shop. Now, so many years later, this compendium of articles brings back vividly that - for me - happy time. It is a book to pick up, dip into, take note of her suggestions, try out the recipes. It transports you to France and back again, it gives sensible advice, brings a mixture of common sense and fantasy to the chaos which is modern living today. And yes, an omelette and a glass of wine (or two, as Elizabeth David so sensibly says) is my favorite meal! Thank you.Get more detail about An Omelette and a Glass of Wine (The Cook's Classic Library).

The Smoothies Bible Best Quality

Enjoyed the book even though I have not made a smoothis, and the price was right.Get more detail about The Smoothies Bible.

The Battle for Wine and Love: or How I Saved the World from Parkerization Get it now!

Authentic, honest and intriguing- the book is exactly as how wine SHOULD be! Thank goodness that until we have more of the liquescent version available we fortunately have Ms. Feiring to ignite our awareness and promote those vintners/bottles/revolutionary stalwarts worthy of our consumerism vote. As we need to be cognizant of the food (from farm to fork) so be it with our wine- from guts to glass- let's drink the wine of those who risk being different, authentic and honest!Get more detail about The Battle for Wine and Love: or How I Saved the World from Parkerization.

The Wine and Food Lover's Diet: 28 Days of Delicious Weight Loss Order Now

While this book is labelled as a diet, its the recipes in this book that make it truly shine. I tagged 41 recipes as "must try" on first read!

The diet can be summarised as combining a high protein main with one or two "savvy", low GI carb dishes and a glass of wine with dinner.

The first section (one third of the book) explains the diet, backs it up with science and is an entertaining read. It's followed by a 7 page meal planning section which initially I skipped as I like to pick my own meals. But I reread it and it has useful menu building and wine selection advice.

The second section is what I bought the book for - the recipes. Highlights for me were:
- interesting side dishes. Not difficult but the sort of sides you'd get at a good modern restaurant (like saffron braised leeks)
- well laid out recipes with a nice introduction and good photos (1 page per recipe, with around 1 in 10 having photos)
- techniques you can apply to normal recipes, like removing carbs from souffles and roux's

The only things I dislike about this book is the lack of nutritional info on the recipes and not having photos for all recipes - minor quibbles I can figure out for myself.

This book is unashamedly written for foodies like me. I love it and hope they bring out a second with more recipes.Get more detail about The Wine and Food Lover's Diet: 28 Days of Delicious Weight Loss.

Making Sense Of Wine Decide Now

Will further your interest in becoming a connoisseur (even if you don't know you'd like to become one yet). Best for thoes with at least a basic appreciation. Read after Andrea Immer's "Great Wine Made Simple," which provides a great introduction. "Making Sense of Wine" is more general in content. Get more detail about Making Sense Of Wine.

The Emperor of Wine: The Rise of Robert M. Parker, Jr., and the Reign of American Taste (P.S.) Right now

I am no fan of Robert Parker, but am better off as a wine enthusiast for having read Elin McCoy's biography.

As the title suggests, McCoy's book is divided into two parts: the incredible rise of Parker as a wine reviewer and then his role leading the American influence over the global wine industry. In addition to educating me about the man, I also learned a ton about the wine industry in general, especially the history and culture of the Bordeaux and Burgundy regions in France.

I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in learning more about wine and the impact America has had on the global industry.

McCoy provides an incredible amount of context and detail to Parker's story, at times making the narrative too extracted, like many of the wines Parker recommends. But she is to be excused, for this usually offers needed support for telling the Parker story in the context of American taste.

In fact, the second half of the book becomes less about Parker and more about "the reign of American taste" over the global wine industry. This influence, which Parker clearly served as the catalyst for, has had a profound impact on the types and styles of wine being made around the world. McCoy does an excellent job detailing the downside of this trend, in terms of the homogenization of wine as a result of American preference for fruitier, sweeter, fuller wines.

In reading this book, I appreciate even more the difference between tasting vs. drinking wine. I share in McCoy's concern that Parker's palate maintains a strong influence over which wines thrive, if not survive, in the marketplace. Whenever one person dictates not only what should be drunk, but also how wine should be made, all wine consumers will suffer.Get more detail about The Emperor of Wine: The Rise of Robert M. Parker, Jr., and the Reign of American Taste (P.S.).

Lowest Price Bourbon, Straight: The Uncut and Unfiltered Story of American Whiskey

A friend and longtime Kentucky resident got me hooked on Four Roses bourbon and this is the book I turned to in order to learn more and educate myself on the fine points of good bourbon. Cowdery does a great job of explaining bourbon to a neophyte and his down to earth style is very engaging. He recognizes that taste and preference is a personal thing and provides the reader with methods to measure what they like about a particular bottle and apply that to finding others that suit their taste.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in bourbon and wants to learn more about their history, production, major industry players and some good rules of thumb for finding bottles and brands you like.

Get more detail about Bourbon, Straight: The Uncut and Unfiltered Story of American Whiskey.