Check out Doc Lawrence's columns below:

Champagne for Breakfast
During each visit to New Orleans over many years, I enjoyed flutes of Champagne with Creole eggs, shrimp and grits, biscuits, ham and andouille sausage. I came to expect it, but always thought that this noble custom was confined to the French Quarter, Quebec City, and Paris. My recent meeting to interview the heiress of one of the world’s great Champagne houses caused me to reconsider these old notions. Champagne, more particularly Laurent-Perrier Champagne, was poured into bottomless glasses all to my delight.

Julia the Great - A Movie and Memories
Her one-liners could be as hilarious as Rodney Dangerfield’s. She was quotable like Mae West and as beloved as Jackie Kennedy Onassis. Julia Child is forever in the American fabric, a California girl who took French cooking into the American kitchen and literally started television cooking. Her talent, wit, refreshing irreverence, and even her love for the Boston Red Sox contributed to her national popularity. I make a living in part interviewing television chefs, always measuring them by my recollections of Julia Child on her TV show, “The French Chef.” I really want them to do something outrageous or say anything funny. I concluded long ago that this will never happen.

 

Tailgating - An All-American Tradition
Tailgating is part of our cultural landscape, an open-air culinary ritual inexorably bound to sports and anchored to stadium parking lots and racetrack infields coast to coast. The almost omnipresent outdoor feast and has taken on some sophistication in recent years. Where beer once dominated, wine is making inroads, not so surprising when the best known tailgaters include celebrity chefs and wine enthusiasts are joined by some NASCAR legends. Also includes a recipe for Mini Muffalettas.
 

Thanksgiving with Fine Wines - The All-American Dinner Deserves Our Best Bottles of Wine
The year is winding down and we’ll help it go in high style. Soon, gatherings will become homecomings highlighted by feasts. Laughter permeates and for a little more than a month we celebrate who we are and find that we are pretty special. Joy is the prevailing emotion, mercifully shoving problems and disappointments into the background. We spent a year dealing with adversity and triumph, accepting everything with equanimity, and now we plunge into the holidays. Also includes a recipe for Grandma's Oyster Dressing.
 

Wine and Texas Chocolates - 25 Years Of Liquid Center Wonders
Love, wine and gourmet chocolates never go out of style. Summer is perfect for losing those recession blues according to Lecia Duke who for over 25 years gained national fame with her one-of-a-kind liquid center chocolates. Born with an insatiable sweet tooth, I made inquiries about a good candy store when I visited Fredericksburg a few years ago and was directed to Chocolat, Ms. Duke’s intimate production headquarters and retail store. I entered a delicious world of chocolate and wine: Willy Wonka meets Robert Mondavi.
 

Wine, Barbeque and Liberty - The All-American Partnership
Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and one of the most complex and fascinating men this nation has produced, introduced the great wines of Europe to this part of the New World. It’s hard to imagine a celebration at Monticello where the gifted host Mr. Jefferson would be serving barbeque with anything but fine wines from his acclaimed Monticello cellar. Also includes a recipe for Georgia Brunswick Stew.