Wine, Food & Friends: Karen's Wine and Food Pairing Guide, Plus Over 100 Cooking Light Recipes

by Karen MacNeil

The author of The Wine Bible combines thirty sumptuous menus and more than 150 kitchen-tested recipes with wine recommendations for every season of the year and handy tips on buying, ordering, and serving wine. 25,000 first printing.

Genres: Cookbooks, Food

192 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2006

Reviews

[Joan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seasonal menus, with suggested wine pairings, from a “Cooking Light” columnist and PBS series host . . . .

Divided by seasons, each section offers a specific menu and the recipes for each of the suggested dishes in that menu. There’s also an explanation of the process of pairing wine with a meal, a guide to pairings, a wine and recipe selection guide, and information on styles of port, Madeira, and sherry as well as a chart for dessert wines.

The recipes run the gamut, but there are many easy-to-prepare, delicious recipes. Try the Raspberry-Almond Muffins an afternoon snack, White Bean and Bacon Dip with Rosemary Pita Chips for an appetizer, Rosemary-Grilled Lamb Chops for an entrée, New Potatoes with Balsamic-Shallot Butter for a side dish, and Chocolate-Chunk Bread Puddings for a perfect dessert.

On the downside, some of the suggested wine pairings are pricy and there aren’t always alternate suggestions. But for those who enjoy cooking, and like a glass of wine with their meals, this book is worth a look.

[Darby · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I picked up this book, I didn't realize that this author was a host of a PBS show of the same name as the book. I did do a search for the show to see if they carried it on our PBS but it looks like it is a canceled show. I now wish I had read the book earlier as I really enjoyed the book and feel I would have enjoyed the show.

I would give Wine, Food and Friends 4 out of 5 stars. I was looking for a book that had specific recipes and suggesting a wine to go with it. And MacNeil did exactly like that.

The layout of the book is great. It is divided into seasons and then has 6 to 8 themed menus for each season. Such as for Autumn it has these menus: Autumn Light, Homestyle Supper, Asian-style supper, Casual Harvest Dinner, Flavors of Fall, Moroccan Nights and Classic Thanksgiving. At the beginning of each menu she tells you which wines to pair with all or some of the courses and why. The food and recipes she picks are perfect for the season. And all the recipes are from Cooking Light.

She picks very specific wines and even includes images of the label. She has little side bars of tips and little tidbits about the wine. And at the beginning of the book she has general charts about pairing wine with certain foods plus a quick guide where you can look at the chart and see Pinot Noir and see which recipes in the book go with a Pinot Noir.

My main problem with the book is that some of the wines she picks are very pricy and she doesn't offer alternatives. I wish she would have done more wide range. She does do menus with low-cost wines but one of her menus has wines that are $75 and up. And no alternative for other wines in other price ranges. I know I could probably pick a wine that is similar - such as if she recommends a chardonnay out of my price range I could pick another chardonnay but often she has specific reasons why she chose that chardonnay so that might not always work well with the meal just pairing it with another chardonnay. And then another problem is that I not sure I could always find a substitute at all as they are just one of a kind type of wines. But overall the recipes and the pairings are great. And it is a book I would enjoy having on my bookshelf.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

The recipes are great; the wine recommendations are a bit pricey, but provide a good reference; and the seasonal pairings are awesome.