Tinhorn Creek, Oliver

Photo: Contributed Join our wine writer, Allison Markin, every week for a wine review complete with food and music pairings. Featuring Okanagan and Canadian wines, with an occasional international bottle, Castanet celebrates the bottles of our Valley and the diversity of the Canadian wine

Food for thought

Photo: Contributed How good should food make us feel? Eating is a complex subject. What food we are supposed to eat is a topic of conversation at all ages. As a kid, you eat foods to make you healthy and strong and as you get older you have to balance guilty pleasures like desserts

Tokaji, Hungary

Photo: Contributed Join our wine writer, Allison Markin, every week for a wine review complete with food and music pairings. Featuring Okanagan and Canadian wines, with an occasional international bottle, Castanet celebrates the bottles of our Valley and the diversity of the Canadian wine

Memories of Bambi

Photo: Contributed Did you ever see classic Disney animated movies like Fantasia or Bambi? They were my favourites growing up, but my childhood memories of them are dreamlike — fragments of scenes and songs. They inject themselves into my every-day life in a subliminal fashion.

Win with Wine Month!

Photo: Unsplash/Scott Warman With Premier John Horgan in the Okanagan to promote April as Wine Month in B.C., what better time to savour what the Okanagan has to offer? Castanet is celebrating Wine Month by partnering with Okanagan wineries – and giving you a chance to win!

CedarCreek a BC pioneer

Photo: Contributed April is Wine Month in B.C. Here's the latest in our month-long series of features. CedarCreek Estate Winery is one of Kelowna's oldest wineries. Purchased in 1986, CedarCreek released its first wines in 1987 and was one of the first eight pionee

Hester Creek, Oliver

Photo: Contributed Join our wine writer, Allison Markin, every week for a wine review complete with food and music pairings. Featuring Okanagan and Canadian wines, with an occasional international bottle, Castanet celebrates the bottles of our Valley and the diversity of the Canadian wine

Are holidays for everyone?

Photo: Contributed I read an article recently from NPR that discussed the appropriation of holidays by other cultures, and it got me thinking.  As a gourmande, I am keenly interested in food specialties and traditions, and I love to taste them whenever I get the chance. Fairs,

Ruby Blues, Naramata

Photo: Contributed Join our wine writer, Allison Markin, every week for a wine review complete with food and music pairings. Featuring Okanagan and Canadian wines, with an occasional international bottle, Castanet celebrates the bottles of our Valley and the diversity of the Canadian wine

Let's hear it for comfort food

Photo: Contributed As I write this, my hubby is making one of his cherished grilled cheese sandwiches, using an old iron to ensure the bread gets good and crispy Don't worry, it is the cast iron variety, not the electric kind.) It’s pouring rain, and dreary days deserve th

Township 7, Penticton

Photo: Contributed Join our wine writer, Allison Markin, every week for a wine review complete with food and music pairings. Featuring Okanagan and Canadian wines, with an occasional international bottle, Castanet celebrates the bottles of our Valley and the diversity of the Canadian wine

Not all about the pickle

Photo: Contributed It’s not all about the pickle, but it helps When I was little, my Dad used to say that there was nothing that tasted like a homemade burger. Although he did make a mean burger with special spices and just the right amount of charring on the grill, some of th

50th Parallel, Lake Country

Photo: Contributed Join our wine writer, Allison Markin, every week for a wine review complete with food and music pairings. Featuring Okanagan and Canadian wines, with an occasional international bottle, Castanet celebrates the bottles of our Valley and the diversity of the Canadian wine

Kitchen myths, or are they?

Photo: Pinterest Have you seen the latest news? Do you get to watch the latest silly pet video, and read the funny quote that got posted this morning? The arbiter of life’s wisdom seems to be Facebook these days – if you see something there, it’s for real, especially

Familia Torres, Spain

Photo: Contributed Join our wine writer, Allison Markin, every week for a wine review complete with food and music pairings. Featuring Okanagan and Canadian wines, with an occasional international bottle, Castanet celebrates the bottles of our Valley and the diversity of the Canadian wine

Waste not, want not

Photo: Contributed Holidays in the tropics are spectacular. Being spoiled in the sunshine, relaxing my muscles and my mind for days on end – it’s good for the soul. Once back into our First World routines, I want to keep the good feelings coming, and something that stick

Holiday in small morsels

Photo: Contributed We just returned from Jamaica where we put ourselves in reset mode, focusing on storing away some tropical memories for use on stressful days later in the year. Since we returned home to much more winter than expected, I thought I would share a few tastes of the

Glue of my childhood

Photo: Contributed When I was a kid, things were different. We didn’t have all kinds of packaged foods for lunch; it was simple sandwiches. Peanut butter was the most common filling. I know what you’re thinking: “Here she goes; next thing you know, she’l

What now, February?

Photo: Contributed It’s grey outside. The weather will not co-operate. It’s either slushy and mucky or snowing like crazy. Just when you think it can’t get any worse, It’s February. How is it the shortest month of the year is the hardest one to take? In Janua

Let them eat cake

Photo: Contributed On Jan. 20, my stepdaughter is getting married in Whistler. Since her dad is a chef, he is providing the cake for the occasion. I think most girls look forward to that special father-daughter moment of walking down the aisle, but how many get to say Papa made dessert