Food & Wine

2021 DRY CREEK VINEYARD DRY CHENIN BLANC ($16) Dry Creek’s founder David S. Stare fell in love with Loire Valley Chenin Blanc—specifically the wines of Vouvray—at a time when everyone in California was ripping out the variety. For many years now, the winery has used grapes from Clarksburg for the wine; the result is a crisp, peachy white that’s also a stellar value. 2020 STEININGER RIED STEINHAUS RIESLING ($39) In the depths of winter, I keep thinking back to this sunlight-filled Riesling from Austria’s Kamptal region. Its dry, vivid flavors recall wildflowers, lemon zest, and fresh herbs—just the lift you need for cold weather. I had it in Maine in August with raw oysters; now I think I’ll find another bottle and revisit that pairing. 2016 MASI COSTASERA AMARONE DELLA VALPOLICELLA CLASSICO ($65) Last fall,…

Gather Round THERE’S A SCENE in the 1990 movie Days of Thunder where Robert Duvall’s character, Harry Hogge, is in his workshop whispering lovingly to the steel chassis of a stock car that Tom Cruise will race to victory. “You’re going to be perfect,” Hogge tells the inanimate metal frame. Cue the dramatic music and montage of his team assembling and painting the No. 46 car in the colors of a bottle of Mello Yello. The Alabama woodworker Samuel Fisher looks more like a founding member of The Allman Brothers Band than a fictional NASCAR legend, but I can imagine him in the 500-square-foot workshop of his Birmingham home talking to planks of wood before turning them into one-of-a-kind tables and cabinets. A visionary craftsman, Fisher can look at a flitch of…

BEHIND THE WARM GLOW of Light Soy, the playful fish-shaped lamp, is a story of savvy environmental activism and genius design. Since its launch in 2020, Light Soy has been the signature lamp from Sydney, Australia–based Heliograf. The lamp’s cheeky name and form are inspired by shoyu-tai, the small, fish-shaped soy sauce holders that were invented in Japan in the 1950s and popularized outside of the U.S. for takeout orders around the world. The tiny, squirtable container is made from single-use plastic that is nearly impossible to recycle. It has a big carbon footprint for about a teaspoon of soy sauce. Heliograph’s Australian founders, Angus Ware and Jeffrey Simpson, believe that with the right sourcing and design, plastic can be a beautiful and sustainable material. Each Light Soy lamp is made…

WHILE KITCHEN SINKS GENERALLY FUNCTION as a dumping ground for dirty dishware, they could be doing much more. Enter workstation sinks, which are built to accommodate add-ins and accessories like cutting boards and drying racks to maximize the sink’s functionality when counter space is at a premium. Read on for our favorites. DELTA LORELAI WORKSTATION This workstation comes in a variety of sizes to fit your kitchen and is available as an undermount (resting below the countertop) or top mount (which drops in over the countertop). The included accessories—an acacia cutting board with a phone holder and a dish rack with a utensil holder—slide across theworkstation ledge for aseamless transition fromprep to cleanup. Plus, it comes with a protective bottom grid and push-to-close drain. (From $450, deltafaucet.com) ROHL CULINARIO WORKSTATION BY HOUSE OF…

THE THIRD-WAVE COFFEE MOVEMENT ushered in an era of stoicism when it came to coffee drinking. If you dared adulterate your perfectly roasted and brewed single-origin coffee—gasp—with anything beyond a bit of foamed milk, you were shamed by what felt like everyone around you. But I love the occasional flavored coffee—especially when it’s done right. So when I came across a bottle of syrup from Transcendence Coffee flavored like my favorite South Asian dessert, gulab jamun, I immediately had to order a bottle. Started by Mitalee Bharadwaj and Lisa Yala, two friends who met working barista jobs in college, Transcendence is shaking up the coffee world by introducing flavors inspired by global cuisine. They are onto something: Often, syrups for coffee are cloying and artificial tasting. The gulab jamun syrup is the…

I ATTENDED MY FIRST DAY of culinary school in cowboy boots. It was a rookie move; the shoes, comfortable in most contexts, stood up poorly to four hours of kitchen work and made my whole body ache. The next day, I bought my first pair of proper kitchen shoes—comfortable, slip-resistant, closed-toe Dansko clogs—and since then, I have developed a small collection of kitchen clogs. The ones that I am complimented on the most are my colorful Calzuros. First popularized by medical professionals, Calzuro shoes are Italian-made rubber clogs that come in more than 15 vibrant colors. They have little bumps on the insoles that massage your feet as you wear them, an enormous bonus for cooks who are on their feet all day. They’re waterproof, protective, and comfortable, and you can…