Category: Lifestyle

A Valentine’s Day Prelude

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I’ve been in a Valentine’s mood for the last few weeks. Ever since hearts and cupids started showing up in the stores right after New Years, Valentine’s Day has been playing like a love song in the back of my mind. I even impulsively bought a Valentine’s day mask and heart shaped pendant the other day and I have Nat King Cole’s “L-O-V-E” on repeat in the kitchen. It’s funny because Valentine’s Day was never my favourite holiday. I looked at it as just another excuse for the kids to eat way too much candy. Maybe it’s the Covid quarantines, on and off lockdowns, and the fact that, through forced confinement, our family has grown even closer this past year, but this February I’m all about the hearts, roses, sweet treats, LOVE and yes, even the candy. Really, I can’t wait for a reason to celebrate. Are you feeling the same?

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Juggernaut 2018 Hillside Cabernet Sauvignon

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This week’s wine review is brought to you by my husband who chose the wine. Standing in our local wine shop last week, I might have skimmed past it as I was scanning the shelves, but he pointed it out to me. “That looks interesting,” he said, eyeing a bottle with a vibrantly illustrated label. The owner of the shop, who is also a trusted connoisseur, assured us that we would love it, so naturally, it came home with us. It was the label that caught my husband’s attention – a lion, with teeth bared, lunging with ferocity at some unseen foe. It’s a very masculine image which appeals on a visceral level, but what really struck me were the fine lines of the illustration and the contrasting colours. Specifically, crimson leaves scattered beneath the beast’s turquoise claws and jowls. Like something from a synesthetic dream, and that appeals to me, viscerally.

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Rascal 2019 Pinot Gris and a Rotisserie-Style Roast Chicken

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Wine label art has become a genre of modern art all to itself and is a topic on which whole books could be written. It’s become a fun pastime of mine to peruse the shelves of my local wine store admiring the labels on each bottle and wondering about the meaning behind each image. I like to look at labels through an analytical lens in the same way someone might decipher the meaning of a poem. While many wines have elaborately illustrated labels without mention as to what the pictures represent, there’s also much beauty in simplicity. The first is like an epic poem, so full of fluff that it struggles to keep the line and measure in its extravagance while the latter is a crisp and perfectly executed Haiku. Of course, it goes without saying that no matter how compelling the artwork on the label, the wine inside must be equally, if not more, delicious, complex, interesting. All of these properties converged perfectly in this Rascal 2019 Pinot Gris. The simplicity of the label is what first caught my eye – on the top, a dog with a halo. You know there must be a good story behind the picture. I turned the bottle over and read that Rascal Wine gives back a portion of the proceeds to animal shelters and rescue organizations across the country. It’s no secret how much I love our rescue dogs. That sealed the deal.

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Marchesi Torrigiani 2016 Chianti

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Living in Italy during my early twenties was like experiencing an epiphany or, one might say, a “Big Awakening.” I found everything to be, in a way, more authentic, raw and real. The people are more genuine and passionate, the food is purer, fresher, more life-giving. It goes with out saying that the coffee is far better and the wine is an institution of the kind I had never experienced before. Growing up in the US, albeit with European grandparents, wine didn’t play a big roll in our everyday lives. I remember, at holidays, my grandfather would pull out a Magnum-size bottle of Sutter Home White Zinfandel from the refrigerator with much ado, and I might get a little taste, poured into a liqueur glass. Until I was 18 and boarding a plane to Europe, that Zinfandel was the sad extent of my wine knowledge.

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Gruet Barrel Select 2017 Chardonnay

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Gruet Winery is best known for producing some of the US’s favourite Méthode Champenoise sparkling wines, but did you know that they make an exceptional collection of stills, as well? With Pinot Noir and Chardonnay grapes grown exclusively in New Mexico, the quality of which I have written numerous times, Gruet was established in 1984 by acclaimed French champagne maker Gilbert Gruet, and run under the expertise of his son, the winemaker, Laurent Gruet. But the state’s winemaking history goes back over 400 years, far longer than the history of the United States as a country. New Mexico’s desert landscape, high elevation, fertile soil and dramatic temperature swings provide ideal growing conditions, something Spanish monks of the 1600s recognized when they smuggled vines out of their homeland to plant in the new Americas. Today, Gruet has partnered with the local indigenous population of the Pueblo of Santa Ana and others to grow grapes to the unique specifications of the winemaker.

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How to make gazpacho

Summer Gazpacho with Feta and Oregano

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I adore soup, and not only in the winter! I make so many different varieties of chilled summer soups – from Zucchini Vichyssoise, to carrot soup, to cucumber and yogurt soup – but the King of all summer soups has to be Gazpacho. And it’s my favourite, too – not only because the leftovers make a killer Bloody Mary. (Just add 2 ounces of vodka to a tall glass and pour in the soup. Then garnish with any of your favourite Bloody Mary accoutrements!)

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Borrowed Time Chardonnay

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When it comes to wine, I can’t think of one that’s more derisive than Chardonnay.  Some people love it while others can’t stand it.  Both sides are adamant about their opinions on the matter and absolutely no one is on the fence.  Thanks to mass production and the Chardonnay “boom” of the 1980s and 1990s, many of us associate the wine with the glasses of golden elixir, ever-present in our tipsy aunts’ hands at family gatherings.  It’s a shame, really, because Chardonnay has so much to offer than to be typecast in such a disparaging roll.  It’s the primary grape in Champagne, after all. Continue reading “Borrowed Time Chardonnay” →

Bone Broth Beauty Elixir

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We all know that beauty starts with good health.  The first signs of disease or imbalance in the body often reveal themselves through our skin.  And good health starts in the kitchen, so it’s safe to say, then, that beauty starts in the kitchen. Continue reading “Bone Broth Beauty Elixir” →

Caring for Roses

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When I started Cerise Chérie, I had intended on sharing so much more than just recipes.  I wanted to let you in on all the little tips and secrets that I’ve found to make life easier and more beautiful.  As a photographer I’m constantly striving to find and reveal beauty in everything, and if I cannot find beauty, then I must make it.  Flowers provide endless inspiration for my work, whether it’s the pattern of veins in a leaf, or the way petals are so intricately intertwined, or the way afternoon light falls across them defining otherwise hidden shadows and highlights.  They are a huge part of my life at home and at work.  Not only do flowers provide an ever-changing centerpiece for the kitchen table, but I use them in almost all the photos I shoot – both for this blog & for the work I do for clients. Continue reading “Caring for Roses” →

The Land of Enchantment

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I go to New Mexico to be inspired.  The culture, the landscape, the food, the history, the textures, the colours – they’re all threads in a complex and fascinating tapestry.  At first sight New Mexico may be deceiving – a harsh, desolate wilderness where even the plethora of adobe houses somehow fade seamlessly into the landscape beyond leaving you to wonder whether they ever even existed in the first place.  Were they just mirages on the desert floor?   This is the place where dreams of the American Wild West were born and quickly went to die.  But there’s a reason New Mexico is called “The Land of Enchantment.” There’s a magic here, deep and ancient, rooted in traditions that never die. Continue reading “The Land of Enchantment” →