WITH YOUR WINE

Chicken breast in lemon juice and olive oil

What better to grill than chicken breasts marinated in the ingredients in which chicken breasts were made to be marinated? Plus, it involves pounding the breasts (use a rolling pin), and that is always therapeutic. The Côté Jardin, despite being red, would pair nicely with this.

Serves four, takes about 20 minutes (Courtesy of Barb Freda)

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

Olive oil

Juice from one lemon

2 cloves crushed garlic

A couple of stems of fresh rosemary

Salt and pepper to taste

1. Pound the breasts until very thin. Place in a Zip-loc bag.

2. Add olive oil, lemon juice, the crushed garlic, fresh rosemary, salt and pepper. Marinate in the refrigerator until dinnertime. Remove and grill until the chicken is done.

ask the WINE GUY?

WHY DO WE CALL THE WINE SANGIOVESE, AND THEITALIANS CALL IT CHIANTI?

In Europe, wine is labeled by the region it’s from, so sangiovese made in Chianti (which is in Tuscany) is called Chianti, just as red wine made in Burgundy is called red Burgundy. In the United States we label wines by grape, so it’s sangiovese and pinot noir.

—JEFF SIEGEL

ASK THE WINE GUY taste@advocatemag.com

PHOTOS BY CAN TÜRKYILMAZ AND CAITY COLVARD

Advocate readers were asked to send in photos of their pets. We received droves of darling doggie pics — pointyeared Dobies, droopy-eyed hounds, mussed-up mutts and dogs wearing clothes (which never gets old). The following is but a sampling of the sundry submissions that drew from our editors the most emphatic, “aww”s.

Name: Luther

Breed: schnauzer mix a ge: 4

Skill S /trick S : plays fetch

Peo P le’ S N ame S : Geoff and Rebekah Brown

The Brown family skips the sweets every Halloween and instead serves some 900 hotdogs to their Winnetka Heights neighbors. Last year, they got a dog in return. “My husband was out there in the yard picking up trash at the end of the night,” Rebekah Brown says. “And when he came back in, he was like, ‘I probably shouldn’t even tell you this, but there’s a really cute dog following me around outside.’ ” It was 2 a.m., and the black-andgray schnauzer mix wanted to come in, Brown says. So they gave him a bath, a meal and a home for the night. A search for the scruffy dog’s owners turned up no one. Soon, the little guy was bossing around their lab mix, Dusty, and otherwise making himself at home.

So they gave him a name: Luther, after Martin Luther (Oct. 31 is also Reformation Day). “We tried to find a home for him, and he just ended up with us,” Brown says. They found his quirks endearing. The formerly homeless Luther is a packrat. He has a habit of taking items socks and shoes, for example and hiding them under the couch. And he puts Dusty’s toys where he knows she can’t reach them. Ornery, sure. But this mutt is so darn cute. “Our nextdoor neighbor calls him ‘Buddy’ because he pretty much makes friends with anyone,” Brown says. “He immediately rolls over so you’ll rub his belly.”

NAME: Magnum Bliss

BREED: mutt

AGE: 6

SKILLS/TRICKS: congeniality

PEOPLE’S NAMES: Mark Hupert and Mark Lombard

Magnum is the coolest dog. He’s all black with a ridge down his back, and his people think it would be funny to paint the ridge white for a skunk costume. Not that they would really do it, but Magnum is just the kind of canine who would love nothing more than to lie there and let someone paint his fur. “He’s well-known in the neighbor- hood,” Lombard says. “He’s very sweet and gentle, and he never gets into trouble.” Hupert and Lombard have three dogs and two cats. Magnum came from Stephanie Pippenger, a veterinary technician in Little Elm who, in her spare time, likes to find homes for dogs. She delivered Magnum, all vaccinated, sterilized, housebroken and trained, with a 10-pound bag of dog food, all for free. “It’s amazing to me that there are people who will do things like that,” Lombard says. Another dog, Liberty, came from the SPCA. Her previous owners had failed to adjust her collar while she was growing, and it had to be surgically removed. She was a nervous little ball of anxiety when Hupert and Lombard first got her, but a Buddhist friend trained her, and now she’s happy and social. A few weeks ago, a landscaper knocked on the door and said, “Hey, there’s a puppy hiding in your bushes, do you want him?” And that’s how they adopted Oscar, also known as “That Little Dog”, who is still learning to behave. The dogs are a constant reminder that life is good, Lombard says. “They don’t carry around the troubles of the day,” he says. “I think they’re good therapy, and they remind us to count our blessings.”