Posts Written OnJuly 27, 2006

Most of us in the food and wine blogging community qualify as foodies and wine geeks. That means that we make things from scratch instead of just buying it — things like salad dressing, ketchup, marinara or even duck confit. We buy local, organic ingredients when we can instead of mass-produced and shipped-around-the-world junk. We’re members of Slow Food. We’ve joined CSA programs. We seek out free-range, organic meats. We don’t eat at McDonalds. We don’t eat Doritos. We don’t eat Hostess Cupcakes. Or do we? I get accused of being a "food snob" all the time, and I bet…

I absolutely love cooking with fire and this weekend, Nena and I are hosting what will probably be our biggest party of the summer. It’s only 13 people, but with all that we have going on these days, it seems pretty big anyway. Now, I don’t plan dinner parties that are anywhere near as ellaborate as the Obsessed One, but I do try to introduce our sometimes culinarily-challenged friends to some new things every time out (while keeping some old standards around as well). So, I do a fair amount of menu planning ahead of time — and one certainly…