Gewürztraminer Baby...

Ooh! A wine grape with an umlaut! 

Found some charming, blushing Gewürztraminer grapes while hiking around the vineyards the other day. Which got me to thinking, does Gewürztraminer pair well with anything besides fish? I've rarely had the wine, as I'm just not too much of a fish/seafood person.

What? It pairs with Asian foods? What? Pairs with a ham and gruyere tart? Whoa nelly. Well, I guess I have a new wine to explore!

Food &Wine has all the deets right here.

Tzatziki on the Beach

Back home now, instilled with a healthy infatuation for the foods we ate in Greece and Turkey.

I'm convinced we ate the best tzatziki on the face of the earth. We found it on the menu in the lovely taverna above Panormous beach on Mykonos. Even the Aldous Snow imitator to our right couldn't detract from the smooth coolness of the dish. It was really something special.

I've been trying to reverse engineer the dish, with some success, but it's not quite perfect yet. Tomorrow I'll try an existing recipe I found from Ina Garten - http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/tzatziki-recipe.html

Wish me luck!

The foods of Istanbul

Well, we've been here for maybe 12 hours or so, and we are already just loving the churning excitement of Istanbul!

This is pomegranate and pistachio lokum, found at an incredible shop just down the street. A thing of beauty.

I'll let this picture be worth a thousand words. More soon...