Palate

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” That’s what my husband always says about wine. Wine is a living entity that changes within the bottle, acquiring new qualities and losing some others. Most of this is related to where the wine is from.

Hi, I’m Jon Yeager, and I run the cocktail creative PourTaste with my wife Lindsay, and we’re here to do what we do best: talk cocktails!

If you are a mom, you've probably done the blue box tango. Should you buy that 52-cent blue box of macaroni and cheese because you know your child loves it, and because it's easy and cheap? What if you could recreate a dish that was fresher and healthier?

Wisteria Lane would be proud. Neighborhoods across America are finding themselves again, and a big part of their newfound community interactions revolves around food.

I have to be honest with you: I procrastinated and waited until the last minute to start writing this column. It was three days before deadline and I had nothing. Naturally, I immediately went into panic mode.   

You’ve just been announced as husband and wife and are en route to your reception. Dancing with your grandma to “Brick House?” Acceptable. Uncle Ben’s unsolicited stories of you when you were younger to unsuspecting tables of guests? Embarrassing, but acceptable. Food for all of these fine folks coming up short? Absolutely less than acceptable. 

Native American Indian tribes created names for the monthly full moon occurrence, reflecting the time of year and what was happening in the world around them. January’s was called “the Wolf Moon” in reference to the hungry wolves heard at the perimeter of the village at night.

The holidays are all about tradition. It’s everywhere, dripping from the holiday trees in shopping centers — that were put out way too early, as usual — to family dinners in homes around the world. While we love tradition, wouldn’t be fun if we shook things up?

Entertaining with wine can sometimes be intimidating. But wine should be fun and exciting, and you should feel free to experiment — I encourage you to entertain and be entertained by everything wine has to offer. Try some of these ideas and begin to demystify the wine experience.

Host a Party

The chef and I got a little tipsy — and a few pounds heavier — for the research on this article. In our “tour de alcohol,” we discovered some pretty fantastic ideas for pairing foods with an array of spirits, sometimes even literally injecting our chosen cuisine with scrumptious liquids.