COLLECTING AND CORKSCREWS  I’ve always liked antiques. As my mother had little use for anything old, it probably started with being around grandmother’s things. I loved her dainty teacups, the lamp with a ceramic base of a standing Napoleon (that was once broken and laboriously glued back together by my uncle and still sports some…

WHAT TO DRINK ON ST PADDY’S DAY?     As far as my family lore goes, I haven’t even a drop of Irish in me. A commercial DNA test begs to differ, and the way my alleged forefathers, the Danes, got around, it’s not farfetched to think there’s a bit of leprechaun in me.   Irish…

It’s February and it’s shad, shad, shad. I read that in a book of humorous essays by Jean Kerr when I was a child and I’ve never forgotten it. I’ve finally found a place to use it. It’s the depths of February and here in the Midwest it’s gray and dreary, the brief sunshine yesterday…

The Third ‘S’ of Wine Tasting… The ‘nose’ of a wine, how it  smells, is a big part of wine evaluation and enjoyment. After all, it comes right in the middle of the five S’s of wine tasting- See, Swirl, Sniff, Sip, Savor. (A sixth, “Spit” can be added, but is my least favorite part…

To a New Year…             I was going to share a list of pithy and witty New Year’s Eve toasts. But searching for them I found very little that felt pithy or witty. And decided to share this instead.             The dreariest week of the year is upon us- the…

Wild and Wonderful Whites      White wine is overshadowed by red wine. I hear “I only drink red wine” 90% more than I hear the opposite, and when people do profess a preference for whites they often seem almost embarrassed about it, even when its because of bad reactions to the tannin in reds.…

There’s more to wine than what meets the lips.  “Wine brings to life the hidden secrets of the soul…”  …wrote the Roman lyric poet Horace over 2,000 years ago. The ancient Greeks believed that the gods gave wine to humanity to bring us closer to them and to each other, as well as give us…