Ribeye Steak with Red Wine Sauce, Blue Cheese, Pancetta, and Candied Pecans

Ribeye Steaks with Red Wine Sauce, Blue Cheese, Pancetta, and Candied Pecans

Ribeye Steak with Red Wine Sauce, Truffle Mac and Cheese, Salad, and Red Wine

It’s not very often that a wine–or any alcoholic beverage for that matter–inspires what I cook. Normally, I choose a meal first, then think about the beverage pairing. But when Corey and I received a nice bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon last summer, I made an exception.

Corey and I have very different wine preferences: I prefer light, refreshing German Rieslings with floral and sweet notes, while Corey prefers robust reds. When Corey mentioned this predicament to a colleague at his future firm this summer, she kindly sent him a bottle of Orin Swift Cellars Palermo Cabernet Sauvignon 2012–a wine that we both adored. read more

Leek Pie

Leek Pie, French leek pie, leeks

Food brings back memories in powerful ways. This past week I recreated the first dinner Corey and I shared in France for our honeymoon. Our good friend Marshall was teaching English in Noyon, France and we were lucky enough to get to visit him for part of our journey. He graciously prepared this dinner for us and it was an epicurean delight.

We started the meal off with a bottle of Sauternes—a wine made by a rare fungus growth on grapes, which results in a higher sugar content, producing a very sweet but complex tasting wine. We paired the wine with goat cheese, foie gras, Camembert cheese, Moroccan olives, and several fresh baguettes. read more

Carbonara

carbonara, Italian, panncetta, pasta

Everyone loves carbonara! It’s fast, requires fewer than ten ingredients, and is truly delicious. Pancetta adds richness, making each bite savory. If you haven’t tried pancetta yet, you really should! I used to substitute bacon for it, as I didn’t have a good local source.

I recently discovered that I can get cured meats—pancetta, prosciutto, and sopressata, for example—at my local deli for a fraction of the cost of prepackaged varieties. I immediately bought some pancetta, wondering whether it would taste noticeably different than bacon. It actually has quite a distinctive taste, less smoky than bacon, more peppery and porky. read more