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Wine Tasting 101 - Drink What You Like!

This is a belated posting as I just found it in my drafts folder. Despite its tardiness, I wanted to publish it anyway  because it was an interesting experience. I've updated it slightly. Do you like to go wine-tasting? Maybe it’s because we live in California, but it’s our favorite way to spend kid-free time - checking out local vineyards and meeting local vintners. When friends take our boys, leaving us to our own devices, they don't even have to ask what my husband and I are doing. The question is: “ which tasting room are you trying?” Okay, so, I’m a little predictable. I love wine. But I’m the wine drinker who dreams of dishes with which to pair a wine versus the wine drinker who talks about the actual wine – as in ‘the nose’, ‘the finish’, etc. So, for a friend’s 40th birthday, I got us tickets to Wine Tasting 101, a seminar at a local wine tasting room. One Friday evening the stars aligned, the two couples were able to sync schedules, line up people...

Week One: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme {Spice it Up!}

For six weeks this trimester I am teaching a Friday afternoon elective - what our school calls a Schoolwide Enrichment Model, or SEM: Spice it Up! I agreed to teach one dozen 4th through 6th graders all about herbs and spices. What the heck was I thinking?!? Just kidding. For the most part, they were all great...and I love watching kids cook and nosh on healthy, fresh foods. This week our focus was on parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. We made green beans with gremolata (parsley); sage shortbread; and rosemary-thyme lemonade. Recipes to come.... I had the kids smell, touch, and taste the fresh versus the dried herbs. Here are a few things I saw in their spice journals... My impressions of parsley... "The herb tastes like a carrot. The spice is dry." "Parsley tastes like broccoli. I'd make it with cheese tortillas." My impressions of sage... "Smells really bad" "I'd pair it with roasted meat." "It was really gros...