Be Sure to See Wine Enthusiast's New Top Wine Restaurant List

Hurray, hurray, hurray – the Wine Enthusiast Magazine’s August 2011 issue will present America’s 100 Best Wine Restaurants.

Not just wines, but the restaurants in which they are perfectly matched with cuisine. At last, a wine list set in the context of enjoyment!

A single glass of wine is always a pleasure, but when served with the appropriate cuisine, dining can become a memorable experience. This is because terroir, unless interpreted in the strictest soil-only sense, is expansive and inclusive.

What makes a wine great is not merely the liquid in the bottle nor the ground in which it grew. It includes the skills of the blender, the cellar master, the marketers, the sommelier and finally, the chef and the supportive restaurant staff.

Each of these talented individuals adds to the clarification of experience that is the essence of meaningful terroir.

Using the creative lists in Wine Enthusiast’s August issue, it’s now easy (and a lot of fun) to locate the stateside restaurants that embrace this more contemporary concept of terroir. Just take a look at their innovative destination titles: 

• Emerging Stars
• Best Blow Your Mind Bottle Collection
• Bragging Rights for Wine Buffs
• Best Dinner and a Show
• Sexy Sips
• Old School Made Cool - Wine Lists with History
• Best Blow Your Mind Bottle Collection
• Superb Saké Programs
• Outstanding Cocktail Programs
• Beer Trailblazers
• Trend Watch: Pop-Ups to Temp
• Restaurant Radar: New & Notable
• Best Bets for BYOB

With topics such as these, is it any wonder that the Wine Enthusiast Magazine has over 700,000 monthly readers.

And this month they have produced another not-to-be-missed issue.

Don't wait to get your copy as this is sure to be a sellout issue. Just be sure to write your name on your office copy as everyone will want to borrow it – the issue is that good. 

Your Culinary World copyright Ana Kinkaid/Peter Schlagel 2011

KINGS OF PASTRY Is a Must See Great New Culinary Film

The acclaimed filmmakers Chris Hegedus and D A Pennebaker have created a stunning new documentary, Kings of Pastry, that follows Jacquy Pfeiffer and 15 other very talented chefs through the rigorous three day pastry competition at the Meilleur Ouvrier de France (MOF).

Granted permission to film only one day before the famed competition began, the MOF directors demanded that the filmmakers follow very strict guidelines: no camera booms, radio mics, lights or other equipment could be used.

In addition, each day’s filming was conditional. Yet after the first day, the chefs amass approved their return because they recognized that, like themselves, these filmmakers were masters of their media.

For three days Hegedus and Pennebaker filmed the intensity and stunning talents of the competing chefs. But their camera recorded far more then spun sugar and curving chocolate. It captures the strength and courage that great creativity requires.

This remarkable film, which anyone who loves food should see, is a treasury of truth about the meaning of vocation, so passionate it becomes, dispute stress and effort, joy and truth itself… a truth that the filmmakers described as “like ice, like fire.”

Every scene seen in Kings of Pastry is genuine, full of those real moments of icy concentration and burning conmittment that those, who have also labored for love of expression, know are so seldom seen beyond the kitchen.

You will cry and you will cheer the final ribboned collar awarded and understand why, as only one who loved the profession can, the justice of the Judges' decision. 

Bravo, Bravo, Bravo!!!

Your Culinary World copyright Ana Kinkaid/Peter Schlagel 2011