Food & Wine February 2025

2023 BIELER FAMILY DAISY PINOT GRIGIO ($15) This vivacious bargain may not turn the winter of your discontent into glorious summer, as Shakespeare had it, but at the very least, it will turn it into a balmy spring day. The scent of ripe melons comes from a touch of Moscato, and that melony note is accented with fresh pear and citrus zest flavors. 2022 PATZ & HALL SONOMA COAST CHARDONNAY ($40) It’s heartening to see winemaker James Hall back at the helm of the winery he founded back in 1988, which he was able to buy back from industry giant Ste. Michelle Wine Estates this year. This Chardonnay (which he consulted on) is true to his style: rich but never too much so, with layers of complexity. 2023 REEVE BOSCO…

Back in Action LAST YEAR, I WROTE ABOUT my kitchen renovation blues while enduring a project that felt like it might never end. At that point, my wife, Jen, and I had been cooking in our basement rec room for almost six months, giving our toaster oven and hot plate a workout while waiting for the kitchen to be completed. The breaker tripped when we made coffee, and our laundry room doubled as a dishwashing station. Fun! To my surprise, that editor’s letter resonated with many of you, who graciously wrote back to commiserate and share your own smart tips for cooking through a renovation. Thank you for being so generous with your ideas—I’ve included some of them here (see “Reader Reno Cooking Tips,” at right). As it turns out,…

WE KNOW WHAT YOU’RE THINKING: Why do an unsalted butter taste test when most butters seem to taste the same? How much variance could there possibly be in an ingredient made of milk solids, water, and butterfat (the natural fat found in milk)? As it turns out, each butter brand had subtle nuances that came to light when testing them side by side. Armed with salt-free crackers, we tasted 27 unsalted butters, ranking them for aroma, color, spreadability, and flavor, to find the best butter of them all. BEST OVERALL KERRYGOLD PURE IRISH UNSALTED BUTTER Kerrygold’s butter is the cream of the crop. It has a deep richness (thanks to its 82% butterfat) and sweet, earthy, and grassy notes, and it spreads like a dream. Although it’s unsalted, it has…

CHEF PETER KLEIN GREW UP with bags of cavatelli in the freezer. “I’m from North Jersey, so we called them ‘gavadeels,’” says Klein, now the executive chef of the Austin cocktail bar and restaurant Holiday. “The first time I said that in a restaurant to a server, the look on their face was utter shock and confusion. I was like, ‘Sorry, cavatelli.’” On any given Sunday, Klein’s mother would hand-crank big batches of cavatelli with her BeeBo cavatelli maker. Initially made by the Berarducci Brothers Manufacturing Company in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, the BeeBo is a small hand-cranked machine with wooden rollers that easily attaches to your counter. Feed it long strips of dough, and you’ll be able to crank out cavatelli just as well as you could make them by hand,…

MORE AND MORE RESTAURANTS around the country are producing consumer packaged goods (products like sauces, spices, and drinks) that are sold and shipped nationwide. Part souvenirs, part status symbols, these five restaurant-made products are the secret ingredients to elevate weeknight recipes and dinner parties alike—and they make a much better host or housewarming gift than that ho-hum bouquet or bottle of wine you picked up on a whim. KANN COFFEE Made in collaboration with Portland, Oregon–based Deadstock Coffee, each sip of this dark roast from chef Gregory Gourdet’s Portland restaurant Kann is an homage to coffee’s key role in Haitian history. This blend, kissed with vanilla, star anise, and cinnamon, plays especially nice with creamy oat or whole milk. ($36 for a 10-oz. bag, kanncoffee.com) VIA CAROTA SPARKLING FRENCH 75…

IT’S COME TO MY ATTENTION over the years that some of us are neat, and some of us—i.e., me—are decidedly not. The neat people tend to see non-neatness as a moral failing; cleanliness is next to Godliness, as the saying goes. The non-neat, on the other hand, just kind of dump things in random places and see zero evidence of God being ticked off at all. But recently, I decided to organize my kitchen junk drawer, which, I have to admit, had a TNT-went-off-in-here look that was a bit much. I needed help. So F&W commerce testing editor, former chef, and self-professed very neat person Jennifer Zyman stepped in. First, I asked her how a drawer like mine would make her feel if it abruptly materialized in her own kitchen.…