Languedoc Tasting: Expressive Wines and Multiple Styles

Tweet Some things about the Languedoc just don’t seem very French at all.  Frontier lands, Spanish culinary influence, Gypsy lore, uncontrolled wine production, and more.  In a recent visit to the edge of the region’s northwest Mediterannean shoreline, Camargue, we reveled in almost unlimited sightings of wild white horse and pink flamingo from the comfort [...]

Gastropub Victory: The HORSESHOE

Tweet I finally had my chance to check out the London gastropub scene.  Staying out in Northwest London’s handsome, tree-lined, Victorian row house street defined village of Hampstead, I booked us into The HORSESHOE, a welcome gastro/microbrewery rebirth of an old, dreary run down pub on Hampstead Street which years ago convinced me that there were better places to sip ale.  Fresh paint, smart [...]

Perennially Crystal Quail

Tweet Regulars know it’s not possible to completely describe the transcendental experience of a Crystal Quail evening.   After the ritual pilgramage through the back-est of Center Barnstead, New Hampshire country roads and arriving in the middle of nowhere to find a small 18th century farmhouse glowing in the setting sun just twenty yards uphill of the rear over sized garden whose bounty is being prepped [...]