Bill St. John

Leftover food, especially home-cooked meals, will be much around these next two months. Some people I know cook more than they will need for however many people they're hosting for Thanksgiving dinner just so they will have buckets of leftovers.

The best thing about leftovers is their added flavor, the way sitting around a day or two in the refrigerator augments whatever tastes were there to begin with. The worst thing about leftovers is that, even so, they can feel tired. Wine to the rescue. The perky condiment that it can be, a zesty...

My dad was a children's dentist, floss in hand for just shy of 50 years. He often would take me to his office on Saturdays, his down time, when he could tidy up after the week's work but also practice new techniques — on me.

Though simply named, this is a fairly complex dish if you consider all the elements of fat, sugar, acid, vegetable matter and protein assembled to make it. A lean, precise wine, either white or dry pink, sparkling or still, would not only perform as a counterfoil to the many layers of texture...

A two-part look at the Rhone Valley: Part two, the north.

There are two ways, at least, to look at pairing wine with flavorful, even hot-spicy food. One way would be to be sure the wine itself is flavorful and aromatic so it's not knocked out by the food. The other way is quite an opposite tack: be sure the wine is quiet, demur and humble so that...

A two-part look at the Rhone Valley: This week, the south.

Cooks forget how acidic tomatoes are and, consequently, how only certain wines successfully pair with them at table, notably wines that are also zingy with acidity. Many white wines fill that bill; tangy reds are more difficult to find. But with a hearty dish like this one, a red is what you'll...