I tend to gravitate toward wines I already know I like.

But on a recent trip to the local giant beverage depot, I decided to expand my horizons and try a couple of new wines.

That’s when I got the idea of having a taste test between two wines from the same varietal, from the same region and at the same price point. I’m calling it the Battle of the Australian Shirazes!

I purposely selected wines I had never tried before and with which I was completely unfamiliar. I did no research prior to tasting them. The goal was to make it as blind a tasting as possible.

The wines I selected were the Oxford Landing Estates 2010 Shiraz from Southern Australia and the Stump Jump 2010 Shiraz from the McLaren Vale winegrowing region, coincidentally also in Southern Australia.

Both wines were precisely the same price: $7.99/bottle, which, of course, is my upper limit for budget wines.

I tasted the wines on consecutive days because I wanted to enjoy each wine fully and also because I’m too cheap to waste wine by spitting it out after tasting it.

I tried the Oxford Landing Shiraz first. It was a decent wine and had a full fruity flavor, like any shiraz should. It tasted better than some of the mass marketed shirazes I’ve had — such as Yellow Tail, Jacob’s Creek and Lindeman’s — but I’m not sure it was that much better to justify it being nearly double the price.

The following night I tried the Stump Jump Shiraz. At first I was a little put off by the twist off cap, but more and more really good Australian wines are featuring these nowadays so it doesn’t necessarily reflect on the wine itself. I just prefer the romance of pulling a cork from a bottle of wine, although admittedly it’s easier to keep wine fresh with the screw caps.

From the very first sniff of the Stump Jump, I realized I was on to something pretty amazing here. It smelled fruity, not at all flowery, and the aroma told me before I even poured it that this wine was going to have a great flavor.

And it did. I was blown away by this wine. It has a dominant raspberry flavor with dark cherry undertones and a vanilla finish, which makes me suspect it is fermented in oak barrels.

A lot of times, inexpensive shirazes tend to have a bitter aftertaste, but not the Stump Jump. It was completely smooth from start to finish.

After tasting the Stump Jump, I would have expected to pay far more for this bottle of wine. At $7.99, it’s a real bargain.

Australia has a lot of great shirazes, and plenty of mediocre ones as well. But I would put the Stump Jump among the best I have tasted at any price point.

Winner of the first Battle of the Australian Shirazes: Stump Jump 2010 Shiraz!

That was really fun. I’ll have to try that again sometime!

This salad could go either way. It could be called a Chinese chicken salad or it could simply be called a chopped salad.

The only real difference between the two is the dressing and the crunch.

In the past, I’ve used dry, fried chow mein noodles to achieve the crunch. In restaurants, I think the guest expects this. But because I’m trying to cut down on white flour (and fried foods), I substituted a little fresh cabbage.

There was definitely less crunch, but it wasn’t really missed in the texture. And the cabbage added better flavor than chow mein noodles, which to me always taste kind of sawdust-y anyway.

The other difference is the dressing. On a chopped salad, I would use a simple vinaigrette or a low-fat creamy dressing. But because I was going for an Asian feel here, I used a fat-free sesame soy ginger vinaigrette I picked up at Trader Joe’s.

My sesame soy ginger vinaigrette is delicious, but it is not fat free. I wanted to try TJ’s version, and although it was sweeter than mine, I found it to be delightful.

On both a chopped salad and this Chinese chicken salad, all the ingredients are cut into small peices. This gives it a texture that is a little different and is easier to eat.

Any salad can be made into a chopped salad, including a Caesar salad, a Salade Nicoise, a Cobb salad or a chef’s salad. It’s all about the size that you cut the ingredients and it makes for a nice change of pace once in awhile.

This salad also is sometimes called a garbage salad, although I’ve always stayed away from that name on my menus. It just has kind of an off-putting connotation to me: “And here’s your plate of garbage, madame!”

Chinese Chicken Salad

1 Boneless, skinless chicken breast, cooked and small dice

1/2 head Green leaf lettuce, chopped fine

1 cup Shredded green cabbage

1 large Tomato, ribs and seeds removed, small dice

1/2 Red onion, small dice

2 Green onions, sliced thin

1/2 Green bell pepper, ribs and seeds removed, sliced thin

1/4 cup Crumbled Blue cheese

1/4 cup Crumbed Feta cheese

For Sesame Soy Ginger Vinaigrette

1 TBS Sesame oil

1/2 cup Extra virgin olive oil

2 TBS Rice wine vinegar

2 tsp Low-sodium soy sauce

1 tsp honey

1 TBS Fresh ginger, chopped fine

1 clove Garlic, crushed

Sea Salt

Fresh Cracked black pepper

1. Combine the oils in a bowl and mix. In a separate bowl, combine the vinegar, soy sauce, honey, ginger and garlic. Slowly add the oils to the vinegar mixture, starting with a drop at a time and slowly building, until dressing is emulsified. Then season to taste with salt and pepper.

2. Combine all salad ingredients in large bowl. Dress with vinaigrette and mix throroughly. To plate, use a tongs to pile the dressing high in the middle of a large salad or pasta bowl, trying to attain as much height as possible. Make sure large peices of the chicken are visible.

A word about lettuce: In this salad, I used a green leaf lettuce, which is my lettuce of choice, along with red leaf. You also could use Romaine, a spring mix blend or a mixture of escarole and any other kind of lettuce to get a great texture and a healthy salad.

One lettuce I would never recommend is iceburg lettuce, which ironically is the most popular because it also is the cheapest. Iceburg lettuce is composed almost entirely of water and that’s exactly what it tastes like. Also, it has almost no nutritional value.

It pains me to say this because this is supposed to be a budget cooking column, but where’s the savings if the flavor is poor and there aren’t any usable vitamins or minerals? Do yourself and your family a favor and spend the few extra pennies for greens that not only taste better but are much better for you!

Coming up with daily specials and fresh soups is one of the jobs restaurant chefs have to do every day.

Ideally, chefs will tour local produce markets, reach out to their meat vendors and fishmongers and try to find the products that are at their peak of freshness that particular day.

But on most days, busy chefs barely have time to tour the walk-in refrigerators and try to come up with something interesting that they can prepare with the products they already have on hand.

This roasted vegetable soup is a good fall-back recipe I make frequently because you can use pretty much any kind of root vegetable or squash and it will turn out pretty well.

In this dish, I used butternut squash and carrots, but you could easily substitute acorn or carnival squash for the butternut. And you can substitute parsnips, rutabaga or turnip for the carrots.

Or you could use any combination of these vegetables, just as long as they are thoroughly roasted.

Typically, people associate a roasted squash and root vegetable soup with winter because at that time of year, these are the best vegetables availalble, and because people perceive it is a denser, heavier soup.

But high quality carrots and squash are in the markets all year long and the soup they produce is not at all heavy, and in fact is surprisingly light, if prepared correctly.

The key is to include the right amount of vegetable stock — or whatever kind of liquid you are using — and not to load it up at the end with heavy cream or butter. In this recipe, I left out the traditional last step — adding the dairy product – because I wanted to keep it light due to the warmer weather.

But if you did want to give the soup it’s traditional silky feel, you could substitute fat free half-and-half for the heavy cream and the soup would be lush without being heavyl.

I paired it with some garlic breadsticks I made by modifying this amazing pizza dough recipe I’ve been making a lot lately. In the last step, instead of rolling the dough out into a pizza crust, separate it into eight peices and roll them out into thin logs, brush them with garlic butter and sprinkle with coarse salt before baking.

Roasted Vegetable Soup

1 Butternut squash, cut in half, seeds and fibers removed

4 or 5 Carrots, peeled and rough chop

1 White onion, julienned

2 TBS Extra virgin olive oil

2 cups Low-sodium vegetable stock

Sea Salt

Fresh cracked black pepper

1. Preheat oven to 375F. Spray baking sheet with pan spray. Spray both sides of squash with pan spray and lay face down on baking sheet. Toss carrots in a little oil and place on same baking sheet. Cook for 50 to 60 minutes or until squash is soft to the touch. Remove from oven and allow to cool.

2. Put soup pot over medium heat. When hot, add EVOO. When smoking, add onions, cover and cook until onions are soft and starting to brown, stirring frequently, about 5 minutes.  Remove squash from skins, then add squash, carrots and vegetable stock and bring to boil, then reduce to simmer and let cook about 20 minutes, just to get the flavors to mix together.

3. Transfer mixture to food processor (or blender) and puree until evenly mixed. Be careful with the hot liquid so you don’t burn yourself. Return to pot, simmer anohter five minutes or so, and adjust seasoning with salt and pepper.

4. If you want, you can finish the soup by whisking in about 1/4 cup fat free half and half. In a restaurant environment, I would use heavy cream plus a generous pat of butter to make the soup extra silky.

What soups do you like to make when the weather gets warmer? Share your ideas in the comments section below. And thanks for looking at my blog!

The key to making great fish tacos is not the kind of fish you use or how you cook it.

I’ve made fish tacos with tilapia, grouper and even shark. I’ve grilled it, broiled it and deep fried it.

While getting a high quality, relatively neutral flavored fish is important, it’s not the thing that makes fish tacos taste like fish tacos.

No, the key to fish tacos is: Cilantro.

Cilantro, the wonderful fresh herb that tastes like mint and parsley had a baby, gives fish tacos that incredible fresh flavor that instantly transports me to Venice Beach, where I first discovered my love for fish tacos at an oceanside bodega more than a decade ago.

When you include cilantro in your fish tacos, it brings the rest of the flavors to life, making the type of fish and how you cook it less important. Almost any fish taco will work if you include cilantro.

Whatever else you put on your fish tacos is up to you. I like to include a little thinly-sliced cabbage with the lettuce to give it some crunch.

In most cases, I would say cheese and fish are two things that don’t go together, but when you add a little shredded Mexican cheese mixture or queso fresco to the fish and serve it in a warm tortilla, something miraculous happens.

Normally, I use corn tortillas, but you could use flour tortillas if you wanted. Just make sure thay are the taco-sized 4″ tortillas. If you use a tortilla that’s any larger, you are looking at a fish burrito and everybody knows there’s no such thing as a fish burrito!

In a restaurant setting, I serve three fish tacos on a plate. Wrapping each in a little square of wax paper holds them together nicely. But at home I prefer to set up a fish taco bar because everybody likes their fish taco made a little differently.

I usually serve my fish tacos with chipotle salsa — which I make by mixing regular salsa with spicy chipotle sauce so it has a little smoky heat to it — along with fat free sour cream and my homemade guacamole.

This time, I also included some spicy refried beans, which I made by combining a can of fat-free refried beans, a 1/4 can of water and several shakes of hot sauce, topped with a little shredded cheese.

I have to give one more shout out to the quinoa and black bean infused tortilla chips I discovered recently at Trader Joe’s. If you haven’t tried them yet, pick some up the next time you are at TJ’s. They are awesome and they go great with these fish tacos.

Fish Tacos

1 lb Fresh neutral-flavored fish such as tilapia

1/2 cup Seasoned flour (All-purpose flour with a little salt and pepper thrown in)

1 TBS Extra virgin olive oil

1 cup Shredded Mexican cheese (or queso fresco)

1/2 head Red leaf lettuce, sliced thin

1/2 cup Green cabbage, sliced thin

1/2 cup Cilantro, sliced thin

1 cup Salsa

1 TBS Chipotle sauce

1 cup Fat free sour cream

Guacamole

1 package 4″ Corn tortillas

1. Put cast iron pan on fire. When hot, add EVOO. Meanwhile, drag fish through seasoned flour. When oil is smoking, carefully put the fish into the oil, being careful not to splash hot oil on yourself. Cook until golden brown on both sides, about 4 minutes. Set aside.

2. Combine salsa with chipotle sauce and stir together. Combine lettuce, cabbage and cilantro and mix together.

3. Remove tortillas from package and wrap in a clean dish towel or simply serve them the South Side way, in their wax paper package. Microwave for 45 seconds to soften and warm them.

3. Rough chop fish and place in a serving bowl. Place remaining garnishes in serving bowls with implements to create a fish taco bar. Invite your guests to make their own tacos however way they wish.

What do you like on your fish tacos? Join the conversation in the comments section below. And thanks for looking at my blog!

When I was in culinary school, there was an entire class devoted to egg cookery.

That’s because in the restaurant business, eggs are one of the things you cook the most. You need to be able to cook eggs any style quickly, with several different types of eggs going at the same time: Over easy, scrambled, poached, over medium, omelets. Behind the line during the breakfast rush, it can get pretty complicated quickly.

Depending on the restaurant, eggs are cooked either in non-stick pans or on the big skillet. The key to mastering egg cookery is simply practice. After the first day on the job, after you’ve dropped dozens of eggs on the floor and accidentally broken countless yolks (you need to start over), eventually you get the hang of it.

One of the simplest methods for cooking eggs is hard boiling them. To get perfect hard boiled eggs that are easy to peel every time, there are a couple things to remember:

1. Older eggs work better than fresh eggs. If you are planning on making hard boiled eggs, use the eggs that have been sitting in your refrigerator for awhile. They will be easier to peel later.

2. It’s almost impossible to overcook hard boiled eggs. If you do, the worst thing that will happen will be that the outside of the yolk will become a little green. Once you mix all the hard boiled eggs together into a salad, you won’t even notice it.

3. Start your eggs barely covered in cold water. This will reduce the likelihood of the eggs cracking when you boil them because they won’t jump around as much.

4. To keep the egg whites from seeping out if they do crack, add a capful of vinegar to the water. This won’t effect the taste much and will discourage the whites from leaving the shell.

5. Bring the cold water to a boil, reduce it to a simmer and let simmer only about 2 or 3 minutes. Then turn the heat off, cover and let the eggs sit for about 15 to 20 minutes. Then pour out the hot water and replace it with cold water and let the eggs sit another 15 to 20 minutes.

These same principles apply whether you are hard boiling one egg or one hundred eggs.

Because Sunday was Easter, a lot of people this week have an ample supply of leftover hard boiled eggs. And you know what that means: Egg salad!

Egg Salad

1 dozen Eggs, hard boiled

1 cup  Mayonnaise (Reduced fat preferred)

3 TBS Dijon mustard

Sea salt

Fresh cracked black pepper

1. Peel the eggs under cool running water to wash off any excess shell. One gritty peice of egg shell will ruin your egg salad. If you are using Easter eggs and some of the stain has seeped through to the egg, you can still use it, but use your best judgement because you don’t want to discolor your entire salad. Use the little air gap at the bottom of the egg to start your peel.

2. Dice eggs using either an egg dicer or a knife. Combine with mayo and mustard, season with salt and pepper and mix thoroughly.

I served mine on some whole wheat bread thins with my new favorite chip — quinoia and black bean infused tortilla chips – both of which I bought at Trader Joe’s. Add a pickle and some cole slaw and you are good to go.

If you are making devilled eggs, the procedure is the same except cut the peeled eggs in half and combine just the mashed yolks with 1/2 cup mayo and 2 TBS mustard. Then pipe or spoon the yolk mixture into the egg halves and sprinkle with paprika.

Or you can make low-cholesterol egg salad by discarding the yolks altogether.

A belated Happy Easter to everybody!

When I first started enjoying wines, I didn’t know much about them. Usually, I chose a wine based on its price — under $7.99/bottle — and then just returned to those wines I liked the best.

This was a good way to taste a wide variety of wines, not all of them good, without being influenced by where they were produced, what kind of grapes they were made out of, and what other people thought about them.

Instead, I was guided solely by my taste. And my preferences consistently led me to zinfandels, syrahs and pinot noirs.

One wine I kept returning to again and again was Las Rocas. This wine is unusual because it is made completely from granache, a grape that almost nobody else uses as its primary varietal. That’s because granache tastes differently when it is grown anywhere else in the world except for a mountainous area about 55 miles north of Madrid.

But in this region — known as Calatayud — the grapes take on a wonderfully balanced fruity flavor that makes a delicious, highly drinkable wine that has strong flavors of cherry (like pinot noir) but with a distinct underlying vegetal flavor (like zinfandel).

In other words, perfect for my palate!

It was only later while researching Las Rocas did I learn that the wine is produced from grapes grown in rocky, moutainous terrain on vines more than 50 years old in vineyards that are at a much higher elevation than most wine-growing regions — up to 3,500 feet. The name “Las Rocas” means “the rocks” in English.

This causes the grape plants to be exposed to a lot of direct sunlight, resulting in thicker than normal skins on the grapes. The winemakers soak the grapes in water for several days before beginning fermentation.

Then the wine then undergoes a second fermentation, called malolactic fermentation, in which the malic acid in the young wine is affected by specific bacteria and converted into lactic acid and carbon dioxide. This gives some wines a lush, buttery texture and flavor.

The wine is then aged for six months in slightly toasted French and American oak barrels, which adds a touch of vanilla flavor to the finished wine.

The result is a really decadent Spanish wine that explodes with fruit flavor but never overwhelms the palate. It has a higher than normal alcohol content — 14.1% – which can sometimes cause wines to be harsh, but Las Rocas goes down smooth and easy.

It’s a great accompaniment to any kind of beef, lamb or other dish because it can stand up and even complement strong, protein-rich flavors.

When I first started buying Las Rocas more than a decade ago, it was at or below my self-imposed price ceiling of $7.99/bottle. But when I came across it again recently the price had increased to $10.99.

This put me in something of a dilemma: Should I break my rule and spend the extra money on a wine I know I love or should I stick to my policy of trying a wide variety of inexpensive wines, hoping occasionally to come across a really great one.

I guess I’m getting older because I chose the less adventurous but more satisfying path.

Las Rocas is one of the few wines that I would disregard my own rule and spend a little more to buy because I just enjoy it so much. Check it out if you get the chance. You won’t be disappointed.

Braising a beef brisket is one of the easiest one-pot meals you can make.

It’s affordable, convenient and also delicious. It’s especially recommended if you are having company because you can assemble it hours before your guests arrive and it will sit patiently in your oven until you are ready to serve it.

The brisket comes from the chest of a steer, cow or bull. it is a triangular peice of meat  that on its own is quite tough. That’s because it is a muscle the animal uses a lot.

Meat that is naturally tender — such as the beef tenderloin or the chicken breast — are composed of muscles the animal rarely uses. Since chickens don’t fly, for example, their breast meat does not get much use.

But muscles that are used a lot — such as the leg and shoulder — build up strong connective tissue between the muscle fibers. This causes the meat to be tough to chew.

But you can dissolve this tough connective tissue by cooking the meat for a very long time. And in order to keep it from drying out, you can cook it partially submerged in a liquid. This is the precise definition of braising.

You can braise a beef brisket — which is the same cut of meat used for corned beef, incidentally — in just about anything. Some people use beer, others a tomato-based broth.

Both are great, but for this recipe I simply braised it in beef stock and some mirepoix, which is a combination of seared carrots, celery and onion. Add a couple of potatoes midway through the cooking cycle and you’ve got a wonderfully tender one-pot meal that’s perfect for parties.

Because the beef and potatoes is a little heavier, I balanced the plate with some light zucchini quickly sauteed with white onion and garlic.

Braised Beef Brisket

2 to 3 lb Beef Brisket, fat cap removed

2 TBS Barbeque seasoning

2 TBS Extra virgin olive oil

4 Carrots, peeled and rough chop

1 white onion, peeled and rough chop

3 stalks celery, ribs and leaves included, rough chop

2 TBS Additional EVOO

1 bay leaf

16 oz Low sodium beef stock

1 lb Red potatoes, quartered

1. Season brisket on both sides with barbeque seasoning. Put cast iron pan on fire. When hot, add EVOO. When smoking, place brisket in pan, being careful not to burn yourself on the hot oil. Char on both sides until golden brown.

2. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 375F. Place large pot on fire. When hot, add EVOO. When smoking, add onions, carrots and celery. Cook until onion translucent, about five minutes, stirring occasionally. Add beef stock and bay leaf, then lay brisket on top of mirepoix. Put lid on pot and put entire pot in oven. Cook 90 minutes.

3. Remove pot from oven and add potatoes. Return pot to oven and cook an additional 50 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 200F and hold until ready to serve.

4. To plate, remove brisket to a cutting board. Use a slotted spoon to heap a pile of the potato/mirepoix mixture in center of plate. Use a sharp carving knife to cut thin slices of brisket against the grain and place on top of vegetables. Garnish if you wish with chopped parsley.

What easy meals do you like to make when company is coming over? Share your ideas in the comments section below. And thanks for looking at my blog!

Okay, okay, I know. Butternut squash isn’t exactly the first thing that comes to mind when you think “parmesan”

But I wanted to do a meat-free parmesan dish and my wife, Sandi, just won’t eat eggplant.

Plus I wanted to prove a theory: You can bread just about anything, pan fry it, top it with mozzarella and parmesan and serve it over pasta with a tomato sauce and it’s going to be delicious.

I’m reasonably sure you could make “Paper Napkins Parmesan” and it would taste pretty great.

This is not to take away from the flavor of the butternut squash. It’s mild, slightly nutty and sweet flavor worked very well with the parmesan and the texture was just perfect for breading and frying, at least after I helped it along by softening it in a 375F oven for about 10 minutes first.

The result was a delicious substitute for eggplant parmesan. The crunch of the breading was the perfect complement to the pasta and the combination of the nutty flavor of the squash and the sweet parmesan/gooey mozzarella mix was utterly fantastic.

I’m considering expanding this experiment with some other non-eggplant vegetables, such as sweet potato, acorn squash and even zucchini and yellow squash. Look for them in the coming weeks.

One final note: For this dish, I used the classic three-stage breading method. This is when you first coat whatever you are frying in seasoned flour, then submerge it in an egg wash, and finally dredge it in a bread crumb mixture, in this case Panko bread crumbs and grated parmesan.

The three stage breading method can be used to make just about anything taste great. The flour gives the egg something to hold onto, and the egg absorbs the bread crumbs so the result is a crunchy coating.

Panko bread crumbs are a Japanese-style bread crumb that are larger than regular bread crumbs. They just give you a little bit crunchier texture.

Butternut Squash Parmesan

1 Butternut squash, peeled, seeds removed and cut into cross sections

1 cup All-purpose flour

3 Eggs, whisked together

1 cup Panko bread crumbs

1/4 cup Grated parmesan

Pan spray

Sea salt

Fresh cracked black pepper

2 to 3 cups Cooking oil

1 box Pasta, any kind, cooked according to package instructions

1 jar Tomato sauce

1/2 lb Mozzarella ovalini, sliced into discs

1/3 cup Grated parmesan

1. Preheat oven to 375F. Spray sheet pan with pan spray, then lay out butternut squash discs. Spray with pan spray, season with salt and pepper and bake about 10 minutes, just to soften. Allow to cool.

2. Set up three stage breading station. Bread butternut squash and lay out on sheet pan.

3.  Cook pasta according to package instructions, drain in colander then return to pot. Add about 2 TBS EVOO, season with salt and pepper and stir. Cover and set aside. Meanwhile, heat up pasta sauce in a separate saucepan, cover and set aside.

4. Heat cooking oil in cast iron skillet. When hot (but not too hot), carefully place breaded butternut squash into pan, a couple at a time, and fry until golden brown on both sides, about 4 minutes per side. Remove to sheet pan and arrange in a shingle pattern.

5. Turn on broiler. Arrange mozzarella slices on top of breaded butternut squash slices, then sprinkle generously with parmesan. Place under broiler until mozzarella melted and parmesan starts to brown, about four minutes. Watch it carefully so it doesn’t burn.

6. To plate, use a tongs to pile pasta in center of pasta bowl, nap with pasta sauce, garnish with additional parmesan, then use a long fish spatula to transfer butternut squash rings on top. Garnish with fresh chopped parsley if you wish.

What sort of things do you like to make “parmesan”? Share your ideas in the comments section below. And thanks for looking at my blog!

Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans? I do.

I haven’t been back down to the Crescent City since 2007′s Jazz and Heritage Festival, but I keep tabs on what’s happening by tuning in to WWOZ online every day.

And I reconnect with the city periodically from a culinary perspective, such as this recipe for shrimp and grits.

Up north, grits aren’t as big a deal as they are down south. We prefer polenta, which is also made of corn meal, but usually has a slightly finer grind.

But unlike polenta, grits have the ability to jump from your breakfast bowl onto your dinner plate, where they can serve as a delicious anchor for almost any dish: Shrimp and gits, pork and grits, chicken and grits. If I ever were to open a Southern-style restaurant, I would simply call it “And Grits”.

Grits can be sweet or savory. This past Sunday I took my daughter, Maggie Mae, out to brunch at Stanley’s – a great bar/restaurant in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood near DePaul University, where she goes to school – and among their breakfast offerings were grits sweetened with honey. They were fabulous.

For this recipe, I made standard grits –  with just water and little salt — then ramped them up at the end with butter and a ton of grated parmesan cheese. The result were creamy, nutty grits that perfectly complemented the strong flavors of the shrimp. Even my wife loved it, and she usually won’t eat shrimp.

I decorated the plate with a little braised green chard and some roasted corn-black bean salsa. It not only tasted great, but it looked pretty fantastic as well. I’ll have to save this one for the menu at “And Grits”.

Shrimp and Grits

1/2 lb 16/20 Shrimp, peeled and deveined

2 cloves Garlic, crushed

2 TBS Extra virgin olive oil

1 tsp Sesame oil

1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

1 tsp Pick-a-Peppa Sauce

Dash red pepper flake

Fresh cracked black pepper

6 TBS Grits (not instant)

2 cups Water

Dash sea salt

2 TBS Whole butter

1/4 cup Grated parmesan cheese

For the Roasted Corn-Black Bean Salsa

1 can Black beans, drained

2 ears Corn, shucked and boiled

3 Tomatoes, ribs and seed removed, small dice

1/4 cup Red onion, small dice

2 TBS Cilantro, chopped

2 TBS Parsley, chopped

2 Green onions, sliced thin

1 TBS EVOO

Coarse salt

Fresh cracked black pepper

1. Combine shrimp, EVOO, sesame oil, Worcester and Pick-A-Peppa sauces, and red pepper flake in a mixing bowl, season to taste with black pepper, cover and place in refrigerator to marinate at least 30 minutes.

2. Place grits, water and salt in a small pot, cover, bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer and cook until thickened, about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Turn off heat and let sit at least 10 minutes, then fold in butter and parmesan cheese.

3. Roast corn cobs on the grill until they get a char, then cut the kernels off the cob and combine with all the remaining salsa ingredients. Season to taste with coarse salt and black pepper, cover and marinate in the refrigerator until ready to plate. Using coarse salt rather than sea salt gives the salsa a little crunch.

4. Saute shrimp with marinade in non-stick pan until cooked through, about 4 minutes. To plate, pile grits in the center of the plate and arrange shrimp decoratively on top of the grits. Spoon salsa so that it is falling off the shrimp and grits. Garnish if you want with a little braised greens.

Now that the Lenten season is ending, I have to decide whether to continue Seafood Fridays or not. Does anybody have an opinion? I would love to hear it. And thanks for looking at my blog!

Last week, we discussed how to look at wine and how to smell it. Today, we will examine how to assess how a wine “feels” and how it tastes.

We perceive taste in a number of different ways: The olfactory gland in our nose has a huge impact on how our brains assess flavor. The other primary factor is the taste buds on our tongues.

The tongue can distinguish four primary tastes: sweet, sour or acidic, bitter and salty. In addition to these four, there are an infininte number of variations that we can taste on our tongues.

When we taste wine, where it is on our tongue and in relation to our olfactory gland determines how it tastes. That means that the same wine will taste differently depending on where it is in your mouth.

That’s why in order to get all the flavor from a wine, you must work the wine around in your mouth before swallowing it. This is known as “chewing” the wine.

Wine also tastes differently when it is combined with air. On the next sip, chew the wine and then purse your lips and suck a little air through the wine two or three times before swallowing it. This aerates the wine and releases even more aromas.

If you are tasting multiple wines, you probably are going to want to spit out the wine after tasting it, otherwise you can get pretty drunk depending on how many wines you taste. At traditional tastings, it can be up to two dozen wines!

Finally, the feel of the wine on your tongue also affects how we perceive its quality.

The biggest factor to a wine’s feel is its alcohol content. Wines that are higher in alcohol have an airy feel, while low-alcohol wines have a watery mouth feel.

The temperature of the wine impacts how we perceive it. If white wines are too chilled, they will have far less flavor than if they are at the perfect temperature of 48F-52F.

Red wines should be around 59F-63F, which is usually about room temperture. But if it is very hot where you are, the wine will be warmer and the flavor will be flatter and have less of a bouquet.

The tongue also has nerves that can sense the texture of a wine. Some wines taste silky or velvety while other wines can actually feel harsh on the tongue.

Many wines have a little carbon dioxide spritz to them, even when they are not sparkling wines. I find this a lot on pinot grigios and even sauvignon blancs. While they aren’t as bubbly as a champagne, you can definitely feel an effervescence on your tongue.

Finally, the wine’s astringency can be sensed on the tongue. Many red wines — especially bold flavored wines like zinfandels and cabernet sauvignons — have strong tannins, which have the effect of almost seizing up the tongue, gums and palate.

One of the most wonderful things about tasting wines is that for every wine, each of the combinations of these things will be different. Even with the same wine, the way your senses perceive it can change based on how you taste it, its temperature, how long you let it breathe and a host of other factors.

Once you start tasting wines more frequently, it’s a good idea to keep a wine diary. This is simply a record of the wines you tried and what you thought of them. It’s helpful because it allows you to record your impressions on a particular wine and you can refer back to it long afterward.

There are commercial wine diaries you can buy and even websites that will let you record all types of data about your wine tastings. But a simple Excel spreadsheet is the simplest and most inexpensive option and gives you everything you need — date, name of the wine, what you thought of it.

Tasting wine is a great way to use all of your sense to appreciate wine. By paying attention to the minute details of individual wines, you can enhance your wine drinking experience and live a fuller, richer life.