Al Spoler
Host, Cellar Notes and Radio KitchenAl Spoler, well known to WYPR listeners as the wine-loving co-host of "Cellar Notes" has had a long-standing parallel interest in cooking as well. Al has said, the moment he started getting serious about Sunday night dinners was the same moment he started getting serious about wine. Over the years, he has benefited greatly from being a member of the Cork and Fork Society of Baltimore, a gentlemen's dining club that serves black tie meals cooked by the members themselves who are some of Baltimore's most accomplished amateur cooks.
His most rewarding immersion in cooking came through his work as a television director at MPT. Spoler served as off-line editor and assistant director on two series featuring the legendary French chef Pierre Franey. He also worked with Mexican chef Patricia Quintana, and with Bed and Breakfast expert Gail Greco on her series "Country Inn Cooking". Al says traveling all over the US visiting country inns and taping recipes that they prepared in little makeshift television kitchens was an incredible education.
Spoler's tastes in cooking are influenced by regional tradition and contemporary casual French fare. Never slavish to recipes, he is never happier than improvising a Sunday dinner with whatever ingredients come to hand.
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It’s never the wrong season for rosé wine, as its year-round popularity attests. Al takes a look at three superb examples produced in different styles. -
The phrase “gluten-free” has become thoroughly commonplace these days, but what does it mean and who should be paying attention? And if you have to pay attention to it, how do you cook around it? These are questions I think Chef Jerry Pellegrino is prepared to answer, so let’s give a listen. -
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If you can’t manage a Mediterranean cruise, you probably can manage to pick up a bottle or two of white wine from Mediterranean shores. Al looks at three winners. -
I was doing some cooking last weekend and I found myself perusing my spice rack looking for ways to kick up my stew. And I had to ask myself, “how often do I really use all these herbs and spices?” Not often, I had to confess, and then I remembered something Chef Jerry Pellegrino once told me: spice blends are a very efficient way of handling your spices. -
Every now and then I feel ambitious in the kitchen and I buckle down to try something a little challenging. One dish that I’ve been able to pull off is the soufflé. And as Chef Jerry Pellegrino has pointed out, a soufflé does need to be made “just so” but no single step is really all that hard. -
One of the simplest foods we have is also one of the best-liked and most useful. Butter has been around a very long time, and it’s no surprise that over the millennia we’ve figured out a million ways to use it. So we asked Chef Jerry Pellegrino, just what exactly is butter and what can we do with it? -
With Passover just around the corner, we thought it would be a good idea to see what kind of Kosher wines are available these days. As Hugh points out, quality has gotten quite high. -
With all the delicious red wine we’ve been drinking this winter, it’s always nice to have a little cheese on hand to top off the meal. While I do have lots of favorites, I have to admit that few things go with red wine as well as blue cheese. Chef Jerry Pellegrino told me, blue cheese is one of the more complicated cheeses to produce. -
As winter slowly slips away, a lot of us are looking for ways to keep from going crazy during these final weeks of cold and darkness. One traditional outlet has been bread-baking. Chef Jerry Pellegrino recommends quick breads.
