Eating Better

Pinot Noir Wine Report

Pinot Noir is cultivated across a remarkable range of regions, each shaping the grape in distinctive ways. Burgundy in France remains its historic benchmark; Oregon and California have developed influential New World identities; New Zealand expresses it with clarity and lift; Germany’s Spätburgunder continues to gain global recognition; and in Champagne, the variety plays a central role in both still and sparkling wines. While its global footprint is extensive, this article concentrates on a more local comparison, focusing specifically on Oregon and California to explore how climate, geology, and regional philosophy shape two of the most compelling expressions of Pinot Noir in the United States.

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Viognier Wine Report

Viognier – She Tastes Like Summer | A Romantic Bossa Nova

A cinematic Bossa Nova ballad that paints a picture of Viognier—the lush, sunlit white wine of Sonoma—as a fleeting summer romance.

“She Tastes Like Summer” is a romantic, sensual, and cinematic original from James M Sims, blending the gentle sway of Bossa Nova with poetic storytelling. This full arrangement—featuring nylon guitar, piano, flute, and soft strings—captures the essence of Viognier, a fragrant white wine reimagined as a woman met at golden hour: barefoot, whispering, unforgettable.

The song unfolds as both a sensory portrait and emotional memory, weaving notes of stone fruit, jasmine, and honey through the language of love and longing. Perfect for wine and food lovers, romantic listeners, and those drawn to reflective, cinematic music, She Tastes Like Summer invites you to savor the feeling of warmth, passion, and nostalgia that lingers long after the glass is empty.

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Pinot Noir

Pinot Noir, A Touch of Brie, A Whisper of Ham – A Sultry Jazz Ballad of Wine, Flavor & Romance

This is a sultry, jazz-inflected ballad that anthropomorphizes food and wine into romantic figures, bringing the sensual experience of a charcuterie board to life through lyrical storytelling. Inspired by the soft elegance of classic jazz and the expressive phrasing of a French chanson, the song follows the delicate courtship between Pinot Noir and a duo of culinary icons—Triple-Crème Brie and Aged Prosciutto—each cast as distinct characters in a candlelit dance. Brie is tender, poised, and irresistibly soft around the edges, while Prosciutto is mature, composed, and quietly magnetic. They meet, flirt, and melt into each other, as Pinot Noir watches from the sidelines like a gentle narrator, swirling silently in his glass.

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Sauvignon Wine Report

Step into a candlelit jazz lounge where love, flavor, and music intertwine in Sauvignon, Aged to Perfection, a sensual vignette from the Epicurean Reveries collection.

This smooth, 60’s-inspired jazz piece tells the story of fleeting desire and exquisite taste through the lens of fine food and wine. Sauvignon, Aged to Perfection imagines a tasting room tryst where ingredients become lovers—the crisp Sauvignon Blanc, the tangy Chèvre, the lean Bresaola, and the wild Gooseberries. Each brings a unique “flavor” to a brief but unforgettable encounter of chemistry and impermanence.

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Whether you are cooking and baking at home or you are a food and beverage manufacturer, home recipes and commercial formulations that call for eggs often use egg replacers. This can be for a variety of reasons, such as:

Food allergies
Vegan diet
Low/no cholesterol
Lower cost
Greater shelf stability
Support a clean label
Avoid egg bacterial pathogens like salmonella

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Soy is arguably one of the more controversial nutrition topics. On the plus side, soy is rich in nutrients, and diets containing it seem to provide health benefits, such as lower blood sugar levels, improved heart health, fewer menopause symptoms, and perhaps even a lower risk of certain cancers.

On the other hand, some people are concerned about soy-rich diets being truly healthy, and in fact, perhaps even being bad for your health. For instance, some fear that eating too much soy may increase the risk of breast cancer, hinder thyroid function, or have feminizing effects in men, to name a few. Furthermore, any soy you get in the US is most certainly a GMO (94 percent of the soybean crops in the United States were genetically modified to be herbicide-tolerant), which has implications for your health (think Glyphosate and Leaky Gut Syndrome leading to chronic inflammation).

This article reviews the latest scientific evidence to determine whether eating soy is more likely to positively or negatively affect your health.

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I love to cook and don’t shy away from complex and time-consuming recipes; in fact, I take pride in the artistry and technique that I employ. But over the years, I have become increasingly aware, and therefore, concerned about the health implications of the foods, cooking techniques, and even cookware that I have been using.

One of the challenges of cooking, in general, and especially stove-top, but also in baking, is how to avoid sticking. While I have been mostly concerned about this from the perspective of producing a beautiful end-product, the clean-up can be an issue as well.

This article talks about non-stick cooking and the health-related factors that I think you might also find to be important enough to influence how you cook. My last article was “Health Implications of Cooking with Oils,” and this topic serves as a nice complement.

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We are constantly hearing about the health benefits of various types of oils that are used in preparing our foods. There has been much attention paid to such factors as caloric intake, the content of trans fatty acids, inflammatory triggers, levels of Omega-3 and 6, mono and polyunsaturated fats, and the implication to your overall health in general including obesity and cardiovascular health. What you don’t hear about so often is what happens to these oils when used in cooking, and particular, as their smoke point is reached. This article will provide a lot of information about all the oils we typically used in cooking one way or another with a particular emphasis placed on the implications of cooking with these oils.

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It Never Tasted So Sweet?

Who doesn’t like a little something sweet now and then? And why has there recently been such a dramatic increase in the number of processed foods that have some sort of sweetener added, more often than not, it is high fructose corn syrup?

This article serves to provide an extensive inventory and inform you about the spectrum of sugars, sweeteners, and sugar substitutes. There is a natural dichotomy inherent to a conversation about sugars; as we know that all sweeteners have some mix of both pros and cons (typically more of these). When you get down to it, all sweeteners are an attempt to fulfill our craving for sugar (raw energy). But like the saying, ‘Ain’t no sunshine without rain’, the pleasures of consuming sugars or sweeteners come with some sort of cost, sometimes more significant than you might imagine.

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The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) had extended its deadline to August 25, 2017 for submitting comments on GMO labeling of food products.

Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) — also known as GM foods and bioengineered foods — appear in our food supply in various forms, affecting both plants and animals as well as oils, seasonings, and food additives.

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Pinot Noir Wine Report

Viognier Wine Report

Pinot Noir

Sauvignon Wine Report

Egg Alternatives for Cooking and Baking

What’s The Scoop on Soy?

Non-Stick Cooking and Your Health

Health Implications of Cooking with Oils

Sugars and Sweeteners

It Never Tasted So Sweet?

USDA GMO Labeling Law is a Failure