Liquidity, Okanagan Falls

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

A day for someone special

Photo: Contributed Father’s Day is upon us, so again I’m thinking of family and quality time. My Dad has been gone for more than 10 years now, and my grandfathers are long gone too, but I still think of them as summer gears up. Summer is a time for the fatherly types i

Monte Creek, Kamloops

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

Be my guest

Photo: Contributed Did Be my guest make you think of Beauty and the Beast?  It was the name of the wonderful song Angela Lansbury sang as Mrs. Potts, the teapot, in my favourite animated version. The song is all about Belle enjoying a delicious and delightfully presented d

Elephant Island, 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 do brunch

Photo: Contributed Are you a fan of brunch? I guess it’s a popular thing in big cities for people who go out and party. Sunday brunch as a hangover cure is a known rite of passage in places like Vancouver or Toronto. Here in the Okanagan, we run at a bit of a different pace.

Summerhill, Kelowna

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 you 'procrastibaking?'

Photo: Contributed There is a new trend emerging that is evident on social media, perhaps you have participated? #Procrastibaking is a popular hashtag on Instagram, duly accompanied by pictures of the owner’s accomplishment. As you might guess, this pastime is the practice of

Kraze Legz Winery, OK Falls

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

Ready! Set! Summer!

Photo: Contributed The Victoria Day long weekend is traditional as the unofficial start of the Canadian summer. “May long," as it’s called in many parts of the country, is when the boats come out on the water and the steaks come out on the grill. Sometimes, Mot

Road 13, Oliver - Osoyoos

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

Mom's the word

Photo: Contributed Sunday is Mother’s Day. Many people don’t agree with this holiday, saying it’s too commercial. This included the woman who petitioned for it in the first place; she hated that it became more about sending cards and flowers than something more i

Wild Goose, Okanagan Falls

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

Reaching for the sun

Photo: Contributed The days are getting longer. The Flower Full Moon was just last weekend, meaning spring is officially in the air and in our souls. Green shoots abound, and blossoms of all kinds are bursting out everywhere. If you have allergies, I offer my condolences. For the re

Vanessa Vineyard, Cawston

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

What's over the top?

Photo: Contributed I love to cook. I love to eat. I love a good adventure. That could be why I enjoy trying wacky recipes. My chef husband often shakes his head as I combine flavours and ingredients that at first look would seem to be strange bedfellows. Sometimes his reluctance for su

Quails' Gate, West Kelowna

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

Start the day right

Photo: Contributed Breakfast cereal gun, from the General Mills archives How many times have you heard breakfast is the most important meal of the day? Today, many of us are on the run early, and so breakfast is often more about the coffee than the food—perhaps a donut at Timm

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