with your wine

Everyday lentil soup

Lentils, unlike most other dried beans, don’t require pre-soaking or hours to cook. You can get the entire thing done in less than hour, which includes chopping the vegetables. If you want a heartier soup, consider adding sliced smoked sausage or browned Italian sausage. Red wine would pair best, but any wine you like should work.

GROCERY LIST

6 c chicken or vegetable stock

1 c lentils

1 onion, chopped

1 carrot, diced

1 stalk celery, diced

Directions

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1 bay leaf

2 tsp cumin salt and pepper to taste

1. Brown the vegetables in a couple of teaspoons of olive oil until the onion is soft. Add the garlic, bay leaf and cumin and mix well.

2. Add the stock, bring to a boil over high heat, reduce to a gentle simmer, cover, and cook until the lentils are done, 30 to 45 minutes. Check for salt just before the lentils are cooked. And, if the soup is too thick, add more stock.

Makes 6 cups, takes about 1 hour

Ask the wine guy

Q. Do wine glasses make a difference?

A. Surprising l y, t h ey d o. Th is d oesn’t mean that you need to spend $100 on a wine g l ass, b ut t h e b etter qua l ity t h e g lass, the more you’ll taste of the wine (including any f laws). One rule o f thumb: Spend $1 on a g lass for each $1 y ou s p end on wine, so that i f y ou drink $10 wine, use g lasses that cost $10.

—Jeff Siegel

ASK THE WINE GUY taste@advocatemag.com

Well-removed from Big Tex and the Midway, past the Cotton Bowl, sits the Creative Arts Building at Fair Park. While it’s not the State Fair of Texas’ sexiest attraction, the sweeping structure is a hub for a relatively unknown subculture: the competitors.

Competitions at the State Fair are aplenty. Among the arts and crafts contests: painting, sketching, needlepoint and Lego architecture. Food-contest categories feature baking with KARO syrup, chili, chocolate, relish, jam, SPAM creations, bread baking and cooking with cheese, to name a few. Collections contest categories run the gamut from apothecary items and thimbles to sports memorabilia and pipes. There are fashion-design contests and diorama competitions. The list goes on and on. We tracked down several neighborhood residents who, through experience, understand the spirit of State Fair rivalry.