Despite having a father with an immense wine collection and an enophile for a husband, I am hopelessly clueless when it comes to wine (aside from the basic education I got in culinary school). Still, I love a quaint wine shop just as much as the next person and know when I’ve entered a special place. Perrine’s Wine Shop just opened and it is already getting a ton of buzz. The shop is owned by Burgundy native and former Joel sommelier, Perrine Prieur. The average price of a bottle is around $25-30 although she has some pricier options if you want to splurge. Moon and I stopped in to pick up some bottles on our way to dinner yesterday and I snapped a few pics I thought I’d share. Such an adorable place! I know it will be a regular stop for us.

Wine.

The table for future tastings.

Part of the wine selection.

More wine.

More wine.

The cheese case. Bought an especially gorgeous Italian sheep’s milk cheese.

Pretty Perrine. Know you wine loving boys are going to get an instant crush on this super sweet shopkeep with sick wine skills.

“How are you doing today, beautiful?” asks Kamal Grant, the baseball hat-clad owner and head mad scientist of Sublime Doughnuts. “Good, good,” I say, blushing a little at Grant’s sweet-talking, which he lays on as thick as his doughnuts’ chocolate frosting.

Grant greets all his female regulars similarly, but it’s not seedy or creepy. In fact, it’s kind of brilliant — it dispels any guilt one might feel when walking into Sublime on a mission for delectable fried dough. This particular trip isn’t for me, though. I’m picking up a Sublime birthday doughnut box for my friend, whose birthday I missed. Sublime’s doughnut box has become my go-to gift for doughnut-addicted friends. Yet most people don’t even know it exists.

The colorful birthday box was born out of necessity. Grant’s customers started asking for a doughnut cake. He tried stacking the doughnuts. Too messy. He tried piping borders. Not pretty and unique enough. Then he discovered some large alphabet cookie cutters, and inspiration struck. Why not just spell “happy birthday” — in doughnuts!

Click here to read the rest…

One of my favorite things about writing this blog–aside from my amazing readers–is the friends I’ve made through it over the past five years. Among all of the people I’ve broken bread with, Gene Lee of Eat Drink Man has to be my most kindred food spirit. He has a remarkable palate, he’s a riot to hang out with, and he is just one sick cook. After many meals out together, Gene and I started cooking meals for each other, Moon, Moon Junior and Mrs. Eat Drink Man. These dinners have become somewhat more frequent over the past few months and those meals have been some of our best nights this summer. Gene doesn’t do anything half-assed. He learned to cook from his mother who, despite living in a rural Tennessee town, cooked elaborate, traditional Korean meals from scratch. Gene approaches each meal with the same admirable dedication.

I don’t let just anyone cook in my kitchen (Moon calls it the lion’s lair), but I was more than happy to give Gene free reign. One of the first meals Gene prepared for us was straight up Korean fare. Despite my ferocious love for Korean food, I’d never eaten home-cooked Korean food. Gene remedied that by going BIG and making us an amazing dinner.

Gene getting to work (his TWO coolers full of ingredients not pictured).

The final product: banchan, pork belly, tofu soup, noodles, and more.

Not to be outdone, it was my turn at bat the next time the Lees came over. I made a gratin (boiled the potatoes in cream and everything), rack of lamb, and a ratatouille of sorts using the vegetables from my garden.

The ratatouille before hitting the oven.

The gratin.

The lamb resting on our nifty cutting board we received as a wedding gift.

One thing I had been dying to do was cook together. We had played around with the idea of doing some dishes from one of our favorite Japanese cookbooks, but Gene suggested something more American: burgers. My burgers at home never turn out the way I want them to (read: like Holeman’s or Bocado’s). However, I was confident Gene would help me tame the beast. He did the patties:

I did the prep and worked on making fresh French fries using this AWESOME method from Serious Eats. Gene also turned out some amazing onion rings coated in a crazy good batter he whipped up with some souped up Korean products.

The finished product on some buns we bought from Alon’s (Gene’s candy-like griddled onions sadly not pictured):

Poor Gene was so tuckered out (read: drunk) he didn’t make it past one bite of his amazingly delicious burger (as modeled above). However, before he passed out on my couch, he turned to me as we were cooking and dancing side by side, and said “this is what life is about.” I couldn’t agree more.

(HT to my realtor, Vanessa, for the tip)

The hilarious folks at Best Week Ever discovered these, well, stupid funny training videos from Wendy’s. My personal favorite is below, but you can watch the rest here.