NORTH AFRICAN COUSCOUS, PROVENCE ROSÉ, AND RHONE RED: A COSMOPOLITAN COMBINATION THAT WARMS BOTH BODY AND SOUL

Posted on January 12, 2014February 13, 2016 by Susan Manfull

Provence is a melting pot of immigrants and nowhere is this more apparent than in Marseille where residents hail from neighboring Italy and Spain as well as Greece, Armenia, Indochina, and West and North Africa. Given that Marseille is the Mediterranean Sea’s largest port (and Europe’s second-largest), its cosmopolitan composition is not surprising. Upwards of a quarter of the population of France’s second largest city has roots from North Africa, especially Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria (ref...

11 SHADES OF ROSÉ….MUCH BETTER THAN 50 SHADES OF GREY

Posted on August 6, 2012December 30, 2015 by Susan Manfull

We opened ten bottles of rosé within 24 hours last week. Good friends David and Mark were visiting their old stomping grounds here in Portsmouth. Since we had enjoyed so many rosés while we were together in Provence in 2008, we made those pink wines, now very trendy, our theme for a tasting. I’ve always been drawn to a good theme, a propensity that no doubt stems from growing up with my mother who had one for every rendezvous, be it birthdays—Huckleberry Hound, Raggedy Ann, The Munsters...