Category: Food & Wine

Noir thrillers: pinot with a difference 

When wine lovers talk of pinot, they’re generally using it as shorthand for pinot noir, the grape variety responsible for the world’s most fabulously silky-sensuous red wines. But do the various other grapes with the pinot prefix deserve to share in the limelight? Few make the case for pinot blanc, a white-berried mutation of pinot noir that makes soft, unshowy dry whites that are sometimes dismissed as the unthinking man’s chardonnay. But a couple of recent finds from Germany (where it’s known as weissburgunder) reminded me that it’s capable of rather better than that.

Source: Noir thrillers: pinot with a difference | David Williams | Life and style | The Guardian

Apparently eating cheese could be the key to a longer life

Finally, some good news.

New research from Nature Medicine suggests that eating cheese could be the key to living longer.

That’s right. Cheese is what you need to live forever. The stuff you find on pizza, in toasties, and mixed into mac ‘n’ cheese. The light of your life. That stuff.

The study suggests that consuming spermidine, a compound found in aged cheese, could make you live longer.

Read the full srory : Apparently eating cheese could be the key to a longer life | Metro News

Where to find free Beaujolais Nouveau in Washington, D.C.

Beaujolais Nouveau isn’t the fanciest wine at your favorite French restaurant or liquor store. It’s fermented, bottled and released within weeks of harvest, making it more bright and acidic than most reds. But because French law states that new Beaujolais Nouveaus can’t be sold until the third Thursday in November, uncorking the latest bottles has become an excuse for parties around the world, which frequently include free or unlimited wine. And who couldn’t use free wine right about now?

READ THE FULL STORY: Where to find free Beaujolais Nouveau on Thursday – The Washington Post

Is This Man the Dr. Frankenstein of Beer? 

In a Belgium lab, one scientist is tweaking a more efficient, super-powered yeast — but brewers are turning their backs

Through the winding hallways of the centuries-old University of Leuven in Flanders, Belgium, past the sterile black counters in biological laboratories, buried in the depths of freezers, and suspended in cryogenic slumber, there sleeps a creature feared by the masses.

It’s small — microscopic, in fact — but it packs a punch. The creature is barred from entering certain laboratories in the United States to safeguard against contamination. It’s feared by the general public as an abomination of nature, an organism whose critics say it was created by the hands of man playing god. The creature is the target of lobbyists and NGOs that would like nothing more than for it to be destroyed. But, is this creature — actually a manmade strain of yeast, a single-celled organism humans have been cultivating for at least 7,000 years — just misunderstood?

Read the Full Story at: Is This Man the Dr. Frankenstein of Beer? – Eater

10 of the best foodie retreats in rural France

These charming B&Bs, guesthouses and gîtes offer comfortable pitstops on a French adventure, but with their mouth-watering regional food and wine they may prove hard to leave

Le Mas des Grès, Provence

Ideally placed for a visit to the antiques markets of L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue and the “perched villages” of the Luberon, Nina and Thierry Crovara’s Provencal mas is the epitome of rural Provence. The couple met at hotel school in Switzerland and Thierry later trained under Anton Mosimann at the Dorchester in London. The meals Thierry cooks depend on what catches his eye at the market each day. Often appearing in pink braces over a pink shirt, he chats to guests before disappearing into the kitchen to prepare dishes such as red snapper and basil, Mediterranean meatballs, fried courgette flowers, rabbit with garlic and thyme or sea bass with ratatouille. Their cat, Rokey, spends most of the day sunning himself on the terrace, where two huge trees acts as giant parasols for outdoor meals. The mas is in the heart of peach, melon and honey country, so buffet breakfasts are delicious and there is always a fridge full of drinks beside the pool. The couple also run cooking courses in March and October.

• Doubles from €120, +33 4 90 20 32 85, masdesgres.com

READ ALL 10 at SOURCE: 10 of the best foodie retreats in rural France | Travel | The Guardian

Beer, bière, bier 

Next summer, my wife and I will be visiting Belgium for the first time. Linda loves chocolate and waffles. I have been known to enjoy an occasional beer. Sang the Ink Spots, “My prayer, is to linger with you, at the end of the day, in a dream that’s divine.” It will be something like that. We’re coming, chocolate, waffles and beer. We’re coming. [ – Pas De Merde – ]

In Belgium, beer (bière in French, bier in Flemish but said just like beer in English) is an institution. As much as the Mannekin Pis (terribly disappointing and underwhelming) and frites (delicious in every which way), beer is an integral part of Belgian identity (…)

READ MORE: Beer, bière, bier – Saturday Features – The Kathmandu Post