The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

I n the food and wine business, the weather has everything to do with the harvest. The recent weeks of rain and snow flurries here in the Great Northwest are what make great grapes for crush and make next fall's late-harvest vegetables so abundant.

But I am like many of you: bored to tears with butternut squash. How much is too much of a good thing?

I am ready for more texture and more variety - something only spring can do for us, and she's a while off.

This yearning for something brighter and lighter in food is what brought me into the test-kitchen.

I decided to create a spice blend that could be applied to foods of this season that might at least partially satisfy our craving for spring.

On these dark, dismal evenings, I like to have a partner in the kitchen. It took me years to find Wine Guy, who loves to help prepare meals. You wouldn't think this stubborn intellectual/brainy dynamo would be good in the kitchen, but he excels here, and, like myself, loves to pair good wine with good food.

So when he heard I was butter-roasting a chicken for dinner, he picked-up a '07 Poet's Leap Riesling to pair with dinner. Good going, smarty pants!

You have heard me speak of this wine before, and if you haven't tried it by now, do so. This delicious, 100 percent Riesling made from Columbia Valley grapes under the umbrella of Long Shadows Winery is created by internationally acclaimed German winemaker Armin Diel.

Winemaker/business man Allen Shoup brought to Walla Walla several internationally acclaimed winemakers to work with his Long Shadows Winery. Here, the winemakers make their own signature wines, using Columbia Valley grapes, and apply their own labels. Armin Diel's '07 semidry Riesling is a scrumptious wine rippling in white peach, sliced kiwi, kumquat and ripe melon nuances, with an incredible tongue coated in a long-lasting honeybee jelly.

For your consistent perfection year after year Armin, you have earned 98 points from Wine and Country Living. Congratulations Armin, and to all the staff at Poet's Leap, Walla Walla.

Until next week, "Eat Art and Drink Imagination!"

Butter-Roasted Chicken Stuffed in Lemon-Tarragon Gremolita Serves 4

1-whole chicken

1-cube butter, room temperature

1-teaspoon coarse salt

1-teaspoon cracked black pepper

3-tablespoons chopped parsley

2-tablespoon lemon-skin zest

2-tablespoon minced tarragon

2-minced garlic

1-cup white wine

Method: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Rub entire stick of butter over rinsed and dried whole chicken. Mix gremolita ingredients and stuff bird; place chicken on a rack in a roasting pan and tent with oiled foil, oiled side down, on chicken. Bake covered for 50-minutes; remove tent and bake another 10- minutes until chicken is browned well. With pan drippings, add white wine and deglaze, whisking, and reduce by half. Slice chicken and drizzle sauce over meat and serve.

Hear Judith Speak! @ www.chefjudithhenderson.com