Culinary Adventures with Camilla

Welcome to the first Wine Pairing Weekend post of 2022. Happy New Year! This month, Andrea of The Quirky Cork is hosting. Read  her invitation . She invited us to explore bubbles from the around the world.  If you are reading this in time, feel free to join us in a live Twitter chat on Saturday, January 8th at 8am Pacific time. Just follow the hashtag #WinePW. And be sure to add that to anything you tweet so we can see it. In the meantime, here are the posts the writers are sharing... Camilla from Culinary Adventures with Camilla sabers open Gelukkige Nuwe Jaar with Pannekoeke + Boschendal Brut Rosé Wendy from A Day in the Life on the Farm is Celebrating Little Christmas in Michigan with a Local Bubbly Linda from My Full Wine Glass cracks open Cava: Because everybody needs a go-to bubbly Martin at ENOFYLZ Wine Blog pops the cork on Sparkling Wine from Chablis? Oui! Val de Mer Brut Nature Rosé Anna Mari...

  This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of #CavaWeek Complimentary wine was provided for this post and this page may contain affiliate links. However, all opinions expressed here are my own.     This week, a few of us are discussing the Cava DO ( Denominación de Origin ) for #CavaWeek. I received a nice trio of Cava* and was excited dive right in to my guided exploration. Muchas gracias to Susannah of Avvinare for coordinating! Here are some of the articles that others have shared for #CavaWeek... Absence Makes The Palate Grow Fonder – Getting Reacquaintedwith Cava   by ENOFYLZ Wine Blog Celebrating Fall with a Maset Brut Rose   by A Day in the Life on the Farm Four Estates Plus Four Varieties Add Up to Delicious #Cava   by My Full Wine Glass Sparkling Wine Secrets: Seek DO Cava and Pair with Spanish Pork Chops and Potatoes   by Wine Predator...Gwendolyn Alley The New Town Art and Wine Stroll with Cava DO to Celebrate!   by Our Good Li...

Back in March 2020 - three days before California was locked down with a shelter-in-place order!! - I hosted a birthday dinner for one of my best friends. As it was March 14th - or 3.14 - I opted for a Pi Day menu. Little did I know that that would be the last time in 2020 that I would have friends around my dining room table. It's been a lonely year and a half for sure. In any case, I opened up a bottle of 2018 Cantina Paltrinieri Radice Lambrusco di Sorbara for the occasion and never had a chance to post about it. But Susannah of  Avvinare   is hosting the #ItalianFWT group to celebrate World Lambrusco Day, which is June 21st, so this is the perfect opportunity! If you are reading this early enough, feel free to join the live Twitter chat on Saturday, June 5th at 8am Pacific. Follow the hashtag #ItalianFWT and be sure to add that to any tweets you publish so we can see it. Here's the line-up of the virtual Lambrusco party from the bloggers... Camilla Mann from Culinar...

When I saw the country reveal for our focus in my online #EattheWorld group - Laos - I immediately started researching and discovered that they have similar dishes to some of our other favorite cuisines such as Thailand and Vietnam. So, that evening I tested some recipes to compare and contrast. I shared what I had made and one of my best blogging pals - Wendy of A Day in the Life on the Farm - said that she was going to post pork larb for this event; I decided to share my version now and I'll save one of the other recipes for posting day on October 10th. Stay tuned... Pork Laab As I mentioned, the pork laab (also called larb, laap, larp, and lahb) is very similar to a Thai version that I usually make. You can read that recipe: Thai Larb for the Team, Flat Stanley, and Annoying Person Shifts #FoodieReads . Like other dishes in Southeast Asian cooking, the dish combines savory, spicy flavors with fresh ones. The Laotian version is even more simple to assemble than my Thai...

I love starting dinner with bubbles. Sparkling wine, that is. Besides, this was a celebration dinner for a friend's birthday. So bubbles were a must. I had decided to host a Game-y Night dinner. So we were set to play all kinds of games and eat game meats. Think rabbits, quail, pheasant, and wild boar. I ended up just doing rabbit and wild boar; I saved the quail and pheasant for other nights. When I can get rabbit locally, I do. But, when I can't, I order it from D'artangnan . As part of our cheese platter course, I decided to make rabbit rillettes. Rillettes are savory meats or fish that have been braised or prepared as confit. The first time I made rillettes was with wild boar that my friend had killed. Then I've made them with lamb and with pork . Using rabbit was a first and, I think, my favorite!  And a quick note about this salt. I noticed this canister in the store when I was shopping with my friend in Denmark. "Oh, that's a special salt ...

April through June is always a crazy time of the year for us. Well, it's probably a crazy time of the year for everyone, I suppose. But between Jake's birthday at the end of April, my birthday a week later, Mothers' Day a week after that, our older son's birthday two weeks after that, plus all the end-of-the-school-year mayhem, I just about toss my cookies and want to stop blogging till I can catch my breath just as summer starts.  But, there's so much to celebrate that I almost always have some wine pairing going on...so I tell myself that I just need to buckle down and get the posts published. Fine. This month for our Italian Food, Wine, & Travel group, Gwendolyn, of Wine Predator , asked us to share something about Italian sparkling wines beyond Prosecco. You can read her invitation: here . And, if you're reading this early enough, please join us for the twitter chat about Italian Sparkling wine on Saturday May 6th from 8-9am PST and ch...

Welcome to the  Foodie Extravaganza !  v. August 2016 = Our Very Own Virtual Lemonade Stand Foodie Extravaganza is where we celebrate obscure food holidays or cook and bake together with the same ingredient or theme each month. This month we celebrate Lemonade Day (which is August 20th) by serving up lemonade of all kinds. This month, it's all about lemonade which means you can see additional delicious and lemonade creations in this post. Hooray! Thanks to Lauren of Sew You Think You Can Cook   for hosting this event. She encouraged us: "Bring your favorite glass to the party. Any flavor will do! Make it sparkle, make it sweet, make it tart, or spike it up. You can even choose to cook with it or bake with it, let's celebrate summer!" Posting day is always the first Wednesday of each month. If you are a blogger and would like to join our group and blog along with us, come join our Facebook page  Foodie Extravaganza .  We would love to have you!...

In January, at Brian's Bacon Bash, we were talking about wine trivia and I was inspired to create a menu around this theme: coupes. So I tracked down some crystal coupes - thanks, Nonna! - and to celebrate the next birthday in our group, this is what I'm serving... Recipes and tasting notes will be linked up later. Excited...