Pop the cork, fill your glass, sit down at your computer and finish your holiday shopping before it is time for a refill. I’m sure that the Vine Guy will provide his annual wine wish list soon and, as you know, some of the items on his list (i.e. BIG wines) can break the bank — it is a wish list after all. Therefore, I offer the following value-oriented suggestions for the “winos” and “foodies” on your list:
“Hugh Johnson’s Pocket Wine Book 2010” ($15), organized by “wine growing country,” and “Oz Clarke’s Pocket Wine Guide 2010” ($15), organized by “A-Z of Wines, Producers, Grapes, & Wine Regions.”
Both offer essentially the same wine information consisting of vintage charts, food pairing recommendations, the author’s favorite wines, wine statistics (analogous to a baseball trading card) and dictionary-style listings of wine information. Their compact size makes them a great stocking stuffer or hostess gift. They even fit in a sport coat pocket, small purse, or glove compartment of a car.
“Food & Wine Best of the Best Cookbook Recipes” ($30
Don’t have enough shelf space for all the cookbooks on your must-have list and can’t decide which one(s) to buy? The editors of Food & Wine have cherry-picked the past year’s offerings to provide the best recipes from the 25 best cookbooks of the year, running the gamut from hors d’oeuvres to dessert in one volume. The table of contents is offered in two helpful formats: by cookbook and by course. There also is an index in the back of the book for easy cross-referencing. Ingredient lists are separate and easy to read. Make-ahead instructions and helpful editor notes are peppered throughout the book. My mahjongg and book club ladies loved the Potato, Onion and Gruyere Galette (page 170) and the lemon-lemon loaf (page 146) that have become part of my permanent recipe rotation.
The Wine Diaper (3 diaper pack $15 at www.winediaper.com)
Heading out of town this holiday season and hesitant to put that special bottle in checked baggage for fear of bottle breakage and wine-stained clothing? The Wine Diaper really works. In the interest of wine science, the Greenberg boys, emulating their favorite TV show, “Mythbusters,” carefully planned and executed an experiment using the Wine Diaper. They filled an empty wine bottle with water (why risk a perfectly good bottle of vino?), corked it, placed it in a Wine Diaper as instructed on the Web site, packed it in a suitcase and then threw the suitcase, soft-side down, off our deck onto the slate patio 12 feet below. The bottle survived the journey even after multiple throws. Try the Wine Diaper to present a gift bottle, as a hostess gift or stocking stuffer. No children or wine bottles were hurt in the filming of this experiment. The same can’t be said about the suitcase, however. Oops!
“THIRTY MINUTE PASTA: 100 Quick and Easy Recipes by Giuliano Hazan” ($28)
Every busy two-career family needs a go-to cookbook that offers a variety of options during the workweek when pressed for time. Hazan has simplified the “what-do-I-make-for-dinner-tonight?” task by serving up mostly healthy recipes (there are some recipes requiring heavy cream) that have a separate, easy to read, short ingredient list of readily available pantry items that can be made on the fly during a hectic weeknight. Our family likes the penne with asparagus and prosciutto.
“Wine Secrets Advice from Winemakers, Sommeliers, and Connoisseurs” by Marnie Old ($20)
This cute little book is organized into six wine categories: basics, tasting, shopping, pairing, restaurants and at home. Each category contains six or seven subchapters that were written by a different well-known wine expert that even a novice jumping into the wine world would recognize. At the beginning of each subchapter is a short wine-bio about the author and at the end of each subchapter is ‘Marnie’s Corner’ that contributes her brief opinion on that particular topic. The book is inviting, easy to read and helps to demystify the perceived wine pretentiousness. Don’t miss the subchapter on preserving leftover wine (page 162). Looks like Marnie agrees with the Vine Guy.
Worth mentioning but running out of column space: “My Two-Year-Old Eats Octopus Raising Children Who Love to Eat EVERYTHING” by Nancy Tringali Piho ($17) to encourage the development of the next generation of foodies and “Home Winemaking Step by Step: A Guide to Fermenting Wine Grapes 4th Edition” by Jon Iverson ($18) for the do-it-yourselfer, as well as for those who want to understand the winemaking process.
What will be under the tree for the Vine Guy this year? Entirely un-wine-related slippers from L.L.Bean. His old pair are worn out from trudging to and from his cellar. Happy holiday season to all and make good use of all that time I just saved you.
