You may have noticed that the Sweet Partner in Crime and I do a lot of cooking. Comes with the territory with the wine stuff. Friday, though, we decided we needed to head out. We had a nice night at our disposal and we decided to take a stroll. NuVo “Modern American Cuisine,” originally located in Florence, moved to Newport last September to great reviews and some nice buzz. Embarrassingly, we’d never been there, even though it’s less than a mile from The Naked Vineyard. We decided to remedy the situation.

While my hermit status is mostly self-imposed, it still seems that my projects and I are my own worst enemy. My plate is piled high, and it seems to be getting higher! My weekend is focused on being in “catch up” mode, and I’ve resigned myself to that state. And that’s okay. I promised more features and more posts, and as always, “real life” would once again  intrude upon my plans. This posting is from our activities in May, when Rod, Bunny, and I went to the Wine Festival in Paso Robles.

Lissy, 8 June 09, ‘Summer Foods’ thread I love to eat halloumi salads in summer – grilled halloumi cheese with veges, also grilled – most importantly capsicum, I prefer this with yellow and red capsicum. I mix up a dressing of olive oil, basil pesto, garlic and lemon juice (if no pesto available, processing fresh basil with the other ingredients works fine). Some of the dressing goes on the cheese and veges, the rest is reserved for post-cooking drizzling.

Sandy’s Farm Stand 137 River Road Cos Cob Hours: Mon-Sun 9:00am-6:30pm Off the beaten path in Cos Cob off River Road and behind the old Fjord Fisheries Market is Sandy’s Farm Stand.  Sandy’s offers only the freshest Connecticut grown produce as well as some good fresh picks from other areas.  Sandy’s objective is to focus on locally grown fresh fruits and vegetables from the Enfield, Hartford area and bring them to a convenient marketplace for those in the Greenwich area.

I get a knock on my door the other day. My landlord is standing there with branches of bay leaves: “I thought you would enjoy these! I’ve been pruning the tree.”, he said. What a kind and thoughtful guy! One thing I love about summer cooking is knocking up perfectly simple and quick dishes like this one-And, the abundance of chilled Sauvignon Blanc, of course!I had some haddock that Chris had picked up earlier that morning and thought I’d pair the two. Here it is:I threw in some whole garlic,

We grilled pork chops from Walker Farms on the Ducane along with some beautiful radicchio (also from the farmer’s market).  The radicchio was served with the leftover pseudo tzatziki sauce from the 19th.  Additionally, Bruce sauteed some romanesco in olive oil and then tossed it in some of the artichoke pesto.  The meal was topped of with a slice of toasted barley bread served with minced (really hot) raw garlic, salt, and olive oil.  We enjoyed a bottle of Steelhead 2006 Sauvignon Blanc.

I cannot recommend enough the gorgeous towns of Belgium and Ghent in Belgium. We had a lovely overnight stay last week – and it went all too quickly, as trips like these tend to do. Ghent: Medieval town with canals running through, old breweries that were owned and run by monks, cobblestone squares, shops filled with colourful Belgian beer bottles, waffle stores that emit that lovely aroma of roasty and toasty rich baked butter batter, chocolates, bright green vines dotted with red flowers growing

Like its wines, Portugal’s cheeses are little-known, varied, and delectable. It is not a country for the lactose intolerant. Every meal starts with a soft, pungent cheese in the middle of the table, waiting to be dug into with fresh white bread. And then there’s a wine shop like this one, which specializes in Portuguese wines and Ports, and an array of cheeses from a variety of animals: cow, yes, but also sheep and goat. If you can believe it, this ‘meal,’ which began with a crisp Sauvignon Blanc from Southern Portugal, took two hours to ford through.

One of the reasons Madison’s public library wants me dead is my reluctance to read Walter Dean Myers’s SUNRISE OVER FALLUJAH. I returned this to the library, overdue, twice without having read it, before finally getting myself to crack it open (at a point when the creditors’ letters bemoaning my idea that this time, I’m really going to read this! were piling up). Why the reluctance? I love Myers — I have since some kind soul got me to read MONSTER — and I was excited to know SUNRISE OVER FALLUJAH was coming out.

A couple of nights ago Gailor and I found ourselves at the P. F. Chang’s in the Columbia Mall. (Long, boring story as to why.) Something happened that’s never happened to me before. Or rather, it may have happened, but I didn’t notice it.I ordered a glass of sauvignon blanc from the wine list, pointing to the one I wanted to make sure our server got the right one. Now I don’t have the greatest palate for wine in the world, and I’ve never pretended I did. But even I can tell the difference between a sauvignon blanc and a gewurztraminer.