COOKING WITH CLORIS--WINE & CHEESE PAIRINGS WITH GUEST AUTHOR VINNIE HANSEN

Vinnie Hansen is the author of the Carol Sabala mystery series and a 2013 Claymore Award finalist for the next release in the series, Black Beans & Venom. Learn more about Vinnie and her books at her website. 

Throwing a party? If your friends are like mine, they are not fussy. The ordinary chardonnay and Brie will be fine. However, as a mystery fan, you might prefer to serve an element of surprise.

In Art, Wine & Bullets, my sixth Carol Sabala mystery, I offer provocative wine and cheese combinations from a self-described “culinarian.” To a recent NorCal Sisters in Crime meeting, I took the combination featuring a dusky Malbec or Shiraz with La Tur cheese, Marcona almonds, and figs.

For this occasion I selected Kaiken Ultra Malbec from Argentina, not because I know wines, but because it was an expensive wine on sale at BevMo. This wine turned out to be a deep, rich, full-bodied sensation.

“That’s divine!” said my sister-in-crime, Ana Manwaring.

The La Tur is a soft Italian cheese made with goat, sheep and cow’s milk. Warning: It is aromatic! I purchased the cheese a few days in advance of the Sisters in Crime meeting. My husband opened the refrigerator and said, “I think we have something going bad in here.” I was reminded of my teaching days when my freshmen read Twain’s “The Invalid’s Story,” which finds its humor in the combo of a dead body and Limburger cheese. I brought Limburger cheese to the classroom so my students would fully grasp the humor. One girl pinched her nose and jumped up and down on the desk seat.

As I warned our hostess, Terry Shames, about the “stinky” cheese, she declared, “I love stinky cheese.” So did many others at the meeting.

Because of the season, I used dried figs for this presentation, although sliced fresh figs would be more succulent and visually arresting. The one advantage of dried figs is the ease with which one can spread cheese on top of them. 

Recently re-released, Art, Wine & Bullets includes three creative wine and cheese pairings. Serve up a wine and cheese sensation the next time you entertain! Savor a good mystery to boot. Bon appétit!

Art, Wine & Bullets

An innocent visit to a premiere Santa Cruz gallery turns into a nightmare case for Private Investigator Carol Sabala. The strangled body of the gallery owner offers an opportunity to cement her reputation and to save her employer from insolvency. But precious time spent assisting her photographer boyfriend impedes her investigation, while his sudden obsession with photographing her impedes their relationship.

When Carol plunges into an art world offering urban graffiti to paintings of polka-dotted cats, she confronts the age-old questions: What is art? What defines an artist? She also confronts what defines a successful private investigator as she unravels much more than a murder case.

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