You know when you go to a Shabbat dinner and the conversation is awesome, but the food sucks and the wine is awful? It’s so disappointing, and I’d definitely argue that it detracts from the experience of Shabbat. There are tons of resources for kosher food and Shabbat meals online, but I just wanted to share a quick guide to some of my new favorites:

First of all, I hope The Jew and the Carrot is already part of your daily blog routine, because they’ve got all kinds of awesome contributors, and useful posts like this list of Kosher Organic Wines, and this post on how to host a sustainable Kiddush at your shul. They’ve got a recent post on kosher grilling which you should definitely check out now that it’s summertime and the charcoal is cheap.
Shabbat dinner: Should be yummy!
Speaking of grilling, I hope you’re all gearing up for the Kroger Kosher BBQ Festival and Contest held every year in Memphis, Tennessee. This year it will be October 21st, and I’ll be making the trek from Nashville. You can find out more info about past years’ contests and how to enter your shul here. Or check out a review of last years’ entries over at the BBQ blog.

More often than not the contribution I’m asked to bring to Shabbat dinners is wine, and I’ve got a few standards. The Teal Lake Shiraz, or the Bartenura Moscato. But this week I stopped by a wine store on the Upper West Side and was steered towards a bottle from the Yogev winery in Binyamina by a very helpful (and cute) sommelier who asked me out as I waiting in line with my bottle. Haven’t decided if I’ll take him up on the offer yet, but the wine was excellent, and after Shabbat when I checked it out online I found that kosherwineguy.com liked it, too. Next time I’m looking for wine I’ll definitely stop by kosherwineguy before I visit my attractive sommelier.

For recipes, I’ve recently become a fan of RecipeZaar’s kosher section. They have weird things like a lime almond cheesecake, but I’ve made anything bad or unsuccessful form them, so definitely worth a click.

Don’t forget to say a bracha…