Nestled on a hillside in northern Virginia, Breaux Vineyards' 105 acres of vines are looking good this year, according to General Manager Chris Blosser.

While California still makes the vast majority of American wine, all 50 states produce it. Virginians have been growing grapes for some 400 years, starting in the Jamestown settlement, and the wine business has surged in the state over the last decade. Soil and climate conditions in Loudoun County, where this family-owned vineyard is located, make it one of Virginia's top wine-producing regions.

The drought plaguing much of the country has hurt corn and soy crops, with the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimating that 2012-2013 corn yields would hit the lowest level since 1995-1996. But the drier than normal growing season can be good for grapes.
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5@5 is a daily, food-related list from chefs, writers, political pundits, musicians, actors, and all manner of opinionated people from around the globe.

Even though Portugal played a key role in the Age of Discovery, traditional Portuguese cooking remains somewhat of an uncharted territory for the American palate.

George Mendes, the executive chef of Aldea restaurant and a first-generation American born to Portuguese parents, is here to lift the lid on what the western part of the Iberian Peninsula has cooking.

Five Cornerstones of Portuguese Cuisine: George Mendes
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Jeremy Harlan is a CNN photojournalist. He has a hungry baby and he loves Vienna sausage.

There they were with their cold, beady branzini eyes shooting a shiver down my spine. I was in trouble. I had no escape. I was about to (gulp) eat...fish.

I appreciate a good dinner party and from time to time, I've been known to scrap together a decent menu. There's always one common denominator: an animal with legs. Our good friends, Lily and Tyler, should know this better than anyone. Rib roasts, leg of lamb, beer-can chicken - they've enjoyed it all.

But last December, we went over to their house for a holiday dinner party. My hopes were high for a large chunk of landlocked meat. Prime rib? Crown roast? I knew Tyler would do it right. So when he unwrapped the butcher paper and revealed a half-dozen of those European seabass, everything went black.
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Sink your teeth into this week's top stories from around the globe.

• Red Vines has issued a voluntary recall of its black licorice because of high lead levels. - Los Angeles Times

• Robert Treboux, the restaurateur behind New York City's legendary Le Veau d’Or, has passed away at the age of 87. - New York Times

• Paper or plastic? Say goodbye to cash and hello to the DipJar, the tip jar that accepts credit cards. - Bon Appétit

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My jaw hit the pavement the first time I saw the truck. Outside Atlanta's CNN Center was parked a FedEx-sized delivery automobile, painted with the colors of the Mexican flag and the portrait of an African-American man wearing a sombrero right smack in the middle. It bore a tagline, “The Blaxican Mexican Soul Food.”

I knew I had to find this Blaxican.

Before he was known as The Blaxican, William Turner was a Boston, Massachusetts-raised father of two who came to Atlanta in 1992 and today, like many Americans, found himself unemployed. Turner was laid off from his job as the marketing director for a non-profit religious organization a year ago.

So with that background, where did the food come in?
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While you're frying up some eggs and bacon, we're cooking up something else: a way to celebrate today's food holiday.

Strike while the iron is hot - August 24 is National Waffle Day.

On this day in 1869, Cornelius Swarthout of New York filed a patent for the first waffle iron. His design was simple: he added a lid on a hinge to a cast-iron skillet, and two dividers in the pan to make individual waffles. You can see his patent application, with drawings, here.

Forty years later, in 1911, Thomas Steckbeck helped General Electric develop the first electric model. A special feature of this design was the built-in thermometer to prevent burning.
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