Parties of the Month or Making Sense of Wine

Parties of the Month: Memories for a Lifetime

Author: Donna M Schueli

Parties Of The Month...Memories For A Lifetime is a comprehensive book with entertaining ideas for any size gathering! It covers:

• Party & decorating ideas
• Games for adults
• Tips for singles to meet someone at parties
• Theme-oriented cocktails, toasts & recipes
• Unique, fast and easy entertaining for every month of the year!

Parties Of The Month will help you entertain, giving you special advice, choices, and ideas when celebrating with a date or spouse to large groups of family, friends, or business associates.

Author Donna Schuelie wroteParties Of The Month for people with busy lifestyles. The ideas and recipes are healthy, quick, and inexpensive. The book is set up in an easy-to-find January to December format.

Celebrate New Years with Champagne Chicken; Enjoy a Touchdown Taco Bake at your Super Bowl party. For Valentine's Day, see the Aphrodisiac section for sensuous food ideas. Have a memorable Easter Egg Hunt. Serve red, white & blue frozen drinks at your 4th of July picnic. Learn how to give a Halloween party of a lifetime with fantastic costume ideas. Enjoy Pumpkin Pie Martinis. Serve red & green pepper wedges for Christmas. The ideas are limitless.

Interesting book: Lonely Planet Ireland or Frommers Maine Coast

Making Sense of Wine

Author: Matt Kramer

This new edition of Matt Kramer's classic guide to wine features a new preface and an all-new chapter that covers changes and advances in winemaking since first publication in 1989. The superbly written text explains everything an oenophile needs to know, including the creation and naming of wines, wine cellars, presentation and glassware, pairing wine with food, and much more. Kramer explores connoisseurship through the practical devices of "thinking wine" and "drinking wine," making for a most enjoyable and engrossing journey through one of life's most dependable pleasures.

Sacramento Bee

...Kramer remains as pleasurable to read as ever.

Publishers Weekly

Recommend Kramer's book to cherished adult ``children'' who refuse to be weaned from the beer bottle--this book may do the trick of transforming wine drinking into a familiar pleasure. While much wine writing verges on pedantry, columnist Kramer brings a disciplined reporter's ear to his job, along with wit and intelligence to spare. A relatively recent convert to wine, the author remembers how intimidating the drink can be, and seeks to tame it by solving the mysteries of its history, customs and manners. Why, for example, are many corks branded with their vineyard's name and year? As a precaution and tool for identification, lest the bottle label deteriorate in a damp cellar, and the cook or host need to verify the contents. Kramer is also not afraid to say, in his blunt style, that the overly technical language often used to explain how champagne comes by its bubbles is ``gobbledegook.'' And because he asserts that wine is meant to be imbibed with food--``without the context of food, wine is a eunuch''--his final chapter includes recipes for such delicacies as blanc-manger and butternut squash soup. (Sept.)

Library Journal

The author, a widely published food and wine writer, discusses the fundamentals of wine, as well as its fine points, from a perspective that combines common sense with scientific fact. Topics such as wine storage, service, and matching wine with food are dealt with in a no-nonsense fashion. Perhaps more interesting is the opening discussion of connoisseurship and the social dimension of wine. Some recipes are offered in the section on wine with food. The point of view taken is refreshingly free of dogma. This is recommended reading for those interested in wine and is a useful supplement to such standards as Andre Simon's Wines of the World , edited by Serena Sutcliffe (McGraw-Hill, 1981. 2d. ed.).-- Bruce Hulse, Vanguard Technologies Corp., Washington, D.C.

Table of Contents:

	Preface to the Second Edition	7
	Preface to the First Edition	11
	Acknowledgments	17
	Thinking Wine
	The Notion of Connoisseurship	21
	Wine in the Cellar and Society	35
	Appellation and Authenticity	61
	The Creation of Wine	79
	Twenty-First Century Fine Wine--The Consequences of Success	101
	Drinking Wine
	The Wine Cellar--A Brief History	123
	The Wine Cellar--Are You Ready for Reality?	135
	The Presentation of Wine	173
	Food Is the Meaning of Wine	187
	Bibliography	215
	Index	221