If you thought last year's inaugural Sips & Sweets Wine Tasting and Bakeoff Challenge was nice, you're going to love this year's event twice as much.
Instead of five bakeries going head-to-head to serve the public and judges their best wine and dessert pairings, this year's showdown features double the contenders. That's right, 10 local home bakers will square off at the East End Bazaar from 3 to 7 p.m. this Saturday during a festival featuring more than 80 East Coast wines, ciders and meads.
Since someone has to decide which wine and dessert pairings are best, I reluctantly agreed to help judge this year's event. (Twist my arm, why don'tcha?)
Tickets are $30 and include a branded 9-ounce wine glass, four hours of wine sampling, two 9-ounce wine tickets, plenty of live music and unlimited samples of all sweets on hand - while supplies last.
Only 300 tickets will be sold and they can be purchased through Friday at Drug Emporium's Kanawha City and West Side locations, or through the Sips & Sweets Facebook page. Another 100 "non-drinker" tickets for $20 are available for those just looking to sample sweets, enjoy the music and browse artisan vendors.
And fear not, hungry people. If you need a little more sustenance that day, a few food vendors will be on hand as well - including Bricks & Barrels, offerings a selection of sliders and savory eggrolls.
WMXE-FM, The Mix, will be there to entertain the crowd, along with live music from Sasha Colette from 3 to 5 p.m. and the Heavy Hitters from 5 to 7 p.m.
I am so looking forward to this!
nnn
Speaking of sipping and sweet, I received a call from a reader hoping I could help solve a mystery that has been troubling him for quite some time.
"Why does my homemade iced tea keep turning cloudy?" he asked.
He went on to explain the tea is perfectly clear when he makes it, but when he takes it out of the refrigerator the next day it has turned a little murky.
"It still tastes fine," he said, "it just looks different. What's up with that?"
I must admit I was stumped, too, but since the same thing happens to me, I vowed to get to the bottom of it. Apparently, this is indeed a thing, because a quick Google search posing the question generated more than 3.2 million results.
Although certain minerals in water can compromise your brewed tea's clarity (and some sources really geeked-out with explanations involving "convections of mini tornadoes that bind microscopic particles together" - I kid you not) the straight-up answer is pretty simple.
Iced tea gets cloudy when you refrigerate it. Or, more specifically, when you cool it down too quickly after making it.
You can blame the traces of oil found naturally in tea, which dissolve when tea is hot or at room temperature. Once the tea is cooled, however, those oils solidify to create a slightly opaque appearance.
It's like butter, shortening or even the juices that come out of cooked meat. When hot, these are melted and fairly clear. When cooled, they harden and become white or yellowish. (Think of that leftover pot roast you pull out of the fridge the next day. The delicious gravy that was so silky last night is now clinging to the meat in hardened clumps.)
You can make any of those fats clear and melty again by heating them up, and the same goes with your iced tea. If the cloudiness bothers you, just stir in a little boiling water and the color will clear back up in no time.
But if the subtle change in appearance doesn't bother you, no need to sweat it. Cloudy tea tastes no different than its clear counterpart.
Mystery solved. Now I think I'll go pour me a nice tall glass.
Steven Keith writes a weekly food column for the Charleston Gazette-Mail and an occasional food blog at blogs.wvgazettemail.com/foodguy. He can be reached at 304-380-6096 or by email at wvfoodguy@aol.com. You can also follow him on Facebook as "WV Food Guy" and on Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest as "WVFoodGuy."