Another Friday, another delicious dilemma: what wine pairs best with homemade pizza?
Our tradition is simple — pizza night every Friday. It’s easy to make, satisfying to eat, and always open to improvisation.
The Pie. – Photo by myself
Ingredients
1 store-bought pizza shell
1 can of Western Family Original pizza sauce
Mushrooms, green pepper, and onion (rescued from the fridge)
Leftover mild Italian sausage (from the freezer)
Shredded pizza mozzarella
🔥 Assembly & Bake
No instructions needed — just layer, bake, and enjoy.
🍷 Wine Pairing
Wine: 2019 Garnacha Tinta — Las Moradas de San Martin Initio ReservaRegion: Madrid, Spain Vivino Rating: 3.9
Pizza is naturally wine-friendly, especially when topped with savoury sausage and roasted vegetables. This Garnacha was fruity, bold, and balanced — perfect for the cheese’s richness and the sausage’s spice.
Photo – by myself
📝 Final Thoughts
A simple meal elevated by a thoughtful pairing. Whether it’s a weeknight ritual or a weekend treat, pizza and wine never disappoint.
On September 6, Lori and I decided it was time for a night out. We seldom dine out, especially during our summer stays. Still, when we do, the Heidout in downtown Cranbrook is a familiar favourite. Located at 821 Baker Street, it’s a bit of a drive from where we spend our summers. However, it is always worth the effort.
🏠 Atmosphere & First Impressions
The Heidout has a pub-style vibe with a subtle split between family dining and the main area. It’s open, lively, and buzzing with energy. On arrival, we were greeted promptly and seated quickly—something we’ve come to expect from their consistently attentive staff. That evening, Aimee introduced herself and took our drink order with a warm, professional touch.
🍷 Drinks & Menu Highlights
We started with a glass of their in-house Meritage, a smooth red blend that paired well with the hearty meal to come. The menu is familiar to us, and while it’s not Michelin-starred, the food is reliably excellent. This time, we both went for the Heidout Burger—mine with fries, Lori’s with salad. She always looks forward to their house dressing, and once again, it didn’t disappoint.
The burger itself was a standout: salami slices layered with aioli, crisp veggies, and what I suspect were Polski Ogorki pickles. It’s a bold combo, but it works. Rich, savory, and satisfying.
🛎️ Service & Cleanliness
Despite the full house and an event happening in their banquet area, service remained top-notch. Aimee was attentive without hovering, and everything—from the dining area to the restrooms—was clean and well-kept. It’s clear they take pride in maintaining the space.
💰 Value & Final Thoughts
Our total came to $113.62, including wine, taxes, and tip. In today’s dining landscape, that’s more than fair for the quality and experience. Yes, it’s a bit noisy—it is a public house, after all—but we knew that going in and embraced the lively atmosphere.
If you find yourself in Cranbrook, I’d recommend The Heidout without hesitation. It’s a place we return to time and again, and we’re already looking forward to our next visit.
We went all out tonight. Hot dogs, potato salad, macaroni salad, real salad and leftover pasta. Of course you’re wondering what wine would go with that. The winner, completely by fluke!
We have been liking Spanish wines lately,especially Rioja. This one is reasonably priced, a nice wine that Vivino rates as a 3.7. It fits our profile perfectly. Recommended as a decent wine to sit and eat hotdogs with.
Have a great evening. Will be a much better recipe on Sunday.
Here is a story. I once edited and wrote for a short time for a now-dormant online magazine, The Harmony Chronicles. It was a magazine dedicated mainly to independent artists of any genre, recipes, self-help, and anything else we considered interesting. We, as several partners, willingly gave our time. We aimed to make a go at a collective dream. We wrote about what we loved.
It was a good time for all, but it became all-consuming. We wore ourselves out editing, interviewing, and creating material. We hoped this material would interest the public. It basically fell apart from there.
Enough maudlin! I recently felt the urge to start something like this again. I initiated contact with my friend Don (more on him later). The website for his online radio group was active (obviously). Luckily for me, the blog we had started to help out the magazine still existed.
With his and Sam’s (more about him later) permission, I again have access to that website and will begin writing again on various subjects that I love, not just music, but slanted in that direction.
I hope to start churning out some new material very soon, and I will post here and there simultaneously. All articles here will be mirrored on the Kat Radio Group site at HARMONY CHRONICLES
At this point, I am calling any musicians or groups that would be willing to interview for some free publicity. Send your request to johnlorieh@gmail.com
In addition to interviews, I am working on several new recurring series and resurrecting some old ones. Stay tuned.
Today I have chosen a shot of us walking through the treetops at Whitefish ski Resort in Montana. Pretty interesting and a different perspective of a forest. We see a lot of forest from the ground up, seldom from the treetops down. I can only imagine what it would be like doing this in a tropical forest. One can dream can’t we. Anyone out there ever done that?
We had this unit near Balfour, BC, on Kootenay Lake. The sight was perfect in every aspect except one. It wasn’t open all year. It also didn’t have running water, power, or sewage. The new location had more and more, including shower and laundry facilities and much larger lots.
What We Needed
This was the 2nd part of our quest. We were looking for a location that offered us affordability, convenience, and proximity to the necessities of life. These necessities we determined before our search and included:
Access shopping and groceries, again this box was checked.
Access to a variety of restaurants, check.
And finally, a range of outdoor and indoor activities within a fairly large radius from our location. There is skiing, hiking, hot springs, national parks, kayaking, biking, cross country skiing, waterfalls, golf etc. etc., all within a 3hour driving range.
Now What
Now the hard part begins, making this lot a workable living space. We will be presenting our efforts from time to time, and we are still working on it.
To sum up with some helpful advice, we spent many suppers discussing how we were going to deal with retirement. We talked this over more than a few bottles of wine. Our goal was to handle retirement in a responsible and economical manner. We settled on this path based on cost. We wanted to live comfortably and still maximize our available funds to help in funding our travel bug.
Something To Pass On
If we had something to pass along, it would simply be, talk. Put your hopes on the table and figure out a way to get the most out of them. It also very important to not put this off to the “future”. The future is now! It has taken us 20 years to get to this point and we still have things to work out.
As we do from time to time, we make our way down the Centro area of Mazatlán. Today we, or more specifically Lori, were on threefold mission. First lunch, then looking for an object at Michaels Gallery and third, an ice cream cone.
Step 1 was to grab a pulmonia for transport to the Centro area. Somehow this turned into me getting a haircut, funny how that happens. Anyways, slightly delayed we found our chariot and headed down to Plaza Machado. This central square is a major heartbeat in this city. Circled by boutique hotels and fine dining, mixed in with some pizza places and many vendors, it is a wonderful thing to do on a beautiful afternoon and a great experience at night. It and the surrounding streets are beautifully lit and filled with music. There are many shops and bistros and stunning buildings and interiors.
On this journey we decided to lunch at Raíces De Mar Hotel which has an outdoor restaurant. It specializes in Mexican style dishes and is reasonably priced. For ourselves, we started with Lori having her favourite tool to judge a new place to us, a margarita on the rocks. As I had tested several locations over the past few days, I opted for a cappuccino. They passed our test on both beverages.
Photo by Is It Possible To See It All
Art Gallery Photo by Is It Possible To See It All
Now to the food. I chose the Al Placer Shrimp Tostada. A light lunch, listed as an appetizer. Shrimps, cooked and fried, red onion, Persian cucumber, cherry tomato, toasted tree chile, clamato, avocado, lemon juice, pepper and watermelon relish. It was great, ate it a bit quickly, it was just that good and only 150 pesos.
Lori contemplating the menu.
Lori had the Zarandeado Shrimp al Caimanero. This consisted of Zarandeado style shrimp served with mashed potatoes and garlic thyme roasted vegetables, watermelon radish and coriander. The vegetables served were green beans, broccoli and zucchini. She was satisfied with her choice. This was more of a meal and was priced at 320 pesos.
I would recommend Raíces to anyone wishing to try some Mazatlán cuisine without being to adventurous. One of many fine restaurants that both circle the Plaza and are scattered on the streets nearby. Mazatlán has over 4000 restaurants with many types of cuisine and every price range. We are rarely disappointed.
As for the rest of the day, the items we were looking for were nowhere to be found at Michaels. Counting the other locations, she cleaned them out of this particular product series. And we did get some cookies and creme ice cream cones at a place near the cathedral.
This superb example of Chilean wine is a must. The grape is grown in the Cachapoal Valley in Chile. An affordable Gran Reserva at an average price of $21.46 CAD, it is rated as 4.0 by over 800 users on Vivino. This app is worthy of a download as it gives you valuable information on a wine by just taking a picture as it sits on the shelf of your favorite wine store.
Not light, not to bold. I’d say a very traditional wine. Leans to the smooth side, almost silky and is reasonably dry. There is definitely cherry and some oak. We see this as a fine complement to salmon or pasta, and would not be out of place with a nice ribeye steak. Best served at 15 degrees C, I would serve to anyone at any time with any meal.
I promised to do some restaurant reviews and figured I’d start with the new addition to the Gold Zone, an old favourite starting up again in the same Gold Zone location as it was before.
Yes, Gringo Lingo is back. It’s not quite what it was, but it is open and is making strides towards being a significant player in the area. Our experience there was good; the staff was terrific and seemed to be enjoying themselves and working to make being there a memorable experience. I mean, how many bars/restaurants start up random line dances. It was the Macarena, but I’ll forgive them.
A highlight is the terrific happy hour, every day, from 4 until 6, on vodka, rum, tequila and gin. This includes margaritas, so all is good. A round looks like this;
What 8 margaritas look like from above.
As for the food, let’s say it will not be Michelin quality. The menu appears to be a work in progress, but the staff knows it and can assist with any questions. It was served hot and promptly. It is a good bar and grill style and did not disappoint. We had the Chicken Parmesan with spaghetti, the BBQ ribs and the fettuccine. No major complaints, although the ribs weren’t a hit with my partner. We will return before too long and will attend their happy hour occasionally.
The Menu
All in all, it was a good experience, and I would recommend giving it a try.
Since retiring, I have indulged myself in a wide variety of projects, basically all the stuff I’ve wanted to do since, like, forever. One that I am having some fun with is cooking. It is easy to combine with one of my other loves, wine. As my co-conspirator in life has similar tastes, this was a no-brainer to move forward. So, I have put writing a book, learning to speak Spanish and becoming a guitar hero on the back burner while concentrating on this one. Unfortunately, I returned to work and have had to cut back on some indulgences.
Our Saturday night dinner on this occasion was Tuscan Pork Tenderloin. A very simple recipe, quick to prepare with very little fuss or muss. Here’s the recipe. Note it is for 4 servings, but we find far too often that 4 equals 2.5.
Ingredients
Ingredient Checklist
4 servings
1 ⅓ teaspoons garlic, minced
⅘ teaspoon dried rosemary
⅘ teaspoon dried oregano
⅓ teaspoon salt
⅓ teaspoon ground black pepper
1 ⅓ pounds pork tenderloin
Directions
Step 1 Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C).
Step 2 Combine garlic, rosemary, oregano, salt, and pepper in a small bowl. Rub spice mixture all over the pork tenderloin. Place in a baking dish.
Step 3 Bake in the preheated oven until pork is slightly pink in the center, 20 to 25 minutes. An instant-read thermometer inserted into the center should read at least 145 degrees F (63 degrees C). Remove from oven and let stand for 5 minutes before slicing.
Like I said, it’s very simple. We would suggest upping the time to 30 to 35 minutes. That was the only issue we had. The clean-up was super easy as well. We used Jasmine rice for a base, mixed with frozen broccoli and butternut squash. The vegetables were cooked in a bit of olive oil and spiced with salt and pepper to taste.
We paired the dish with one of our go-to wines, Meiomi Pinot Noir. The two went together very nicely. The wine is a typical California Pinot, although it has more of a vanilla taste than most. A popular brand, it goes in the $20.00 range.
Overall the supper was a success and one we will repeat in future. The tenderloin was excellent. The minimal spice only accented the overall taste and melded with the wine. I’d rate it a 9 of 10, very subtle, very good.
