Home-cooked meals are always the best!

One of the best things about Facebook is catching up with friends and family that you haven't seen or talked to in years and then trying to catch up on the last 2-5-10 years that you missed! hehehe Thanks to Facebook, I got to go to a friend's wedding to Seattle and went out to KC last weekend to try and make up for lost time by visiting friends.

One friend that I recently got back in touch with, has become a chef in the time that we were apart. So OF COURSE the first thing I said was, "When are you going to cook for me?" As part of fair trade, I brought the wine.

Since I had left that Pinot Grigio back in KC, I was down to my LAST bottle of wine in the house: a semi-dry red from St. James Winery.

Yeah yeah yeah...I know wine purists may turn their noses up at Missouri wines but @STLWineGirl (http://www.stlwinegirl.com/) recently held a class at Provisions to show off how good Missouri wines could be. (Sorry I missed it, Angie!)

As someone who doesn't normally drink red wines, a semi-dry was just perfect because it had a smooth taste with very little tannin. This also was an excellent choice since the main dish was a spicy chili. I ended up having to put in two big glops of sour cream to mix with the chili. hehe

But for the appetizer, we actually started with a white "daily drinking wine" that is inexpensive and you can get anywhere: Barefoot Chardonnay! (http://www.barefootwine.com/) They're just so easy to drink an accessible to everyone. Plus I can't help but think the baby footprint on the label is just SO CUTE! I can't resist. hehe

Anyway, as I last mentioned, I have a couple of classes already marked down on my calendar so I encourage you to check them out as well.

November 10th - Beer and food pairing class with @STLWineGirl at Provisions (http://www.stlwinegirl.com/UpcomingEvents.html)

November 17th - Wine and cheese pairing at Wine Merchant (They just released their class list via their mailing list!) http://www.winemerchantltd.com/

Unfortunately, it does not appear as though Whole Foods Galleria will have any more classes the rest of the year.