About

Coming April 2025, Fire + Wine Backyard Pizza! Read more

Who Are We?

We are a wife and husband team, led by Mary Cressler and Sean Martin, who create delicious ways for you to enjoy cooking and entertaining in your backyard with your family and friends. Combined, we have two decades of experience in recipe development, entertaining, education, writing, and professional cooking.

We also own the award-winning wine country based catering company, Ember and Vine, which was created due to the popularity of the recipes on this blog.

• We are also the authors of the critically acclaimed cookbook, Fire + Wine, published in the spring of 2020, and the forthcoming Fire + Wine Backyard Pizza cookbook (coming spring 2025).
• Featured regulars on AM Northwest, the local ABC affiliate morning TV show in Portland, Oregon, and Studio 13 Seattle. Explore our favorite Vindulge TV segments.
• We are also proud members of Big Green Egg’s Team Green, a diverse group of culinary team members from around the world. We share the passion for cooking on our Big Green Egg Kamado Grill.

Our Recipes

Our recipes focus on our passion for wood-fired cuisine (grilling, barbecue), combined equally with our passion for pairing wine and food. We live in Willamette Valley Wine Country and are truly living the wine country life on a 5-acre hazelnut farm, and want to share it with you.

We love to share original recipes, wine pairings, BBQ tips and tricks, tutorial videos, and occasional food and wine-focused travel-related stories. Basically, everything you need to create memorable backyard experiences for your friends and family!

Find out how to work with us here!

Featured Chef Events

As one of the largest live-fire cooking brands, we are often traveling around the country as featured chefs in addition to local events throughout Oregon Wine Country.

• EGGtoberfest – Along with fellow team green members we have been featured chefs at EGGtoberfest in Atlanta, GA with Big Green Egg in 2022, 2023, and 2024.
• International Pinot Noir Celebration – We have been featured chefs with the largest Pinot Noir and PNW cuisine events in the world in 2023, 2019, 2018.
• Ilani Casino – We were featured chefs throughout 2023 and 2024 the BBQ Festival and the Wine & Food Festival pulling in over 5,000 people per event.
• Feast Smoke, Portland – We were featured chefs at the Smoke event of Feast Portland in 2019 and 2018. We were sad to see the annual event end.
• Toast Nashville – We were featured chefs at one of the largest celebrations of food and wine in Nashville, TN.

Podcast Features

The team at Vindulge is proud to have been featured in some of the largest podcasts in the barbecue, content creation, and beverage industry. We’ve also been part of some great local podcasts like Right At The Fork and The Barrel Dork Podcast.

• BBQ Central Show – The largest BBQ podcast with over 3 million downloads hosted by Greg Rempe. In this episode, it’s all about the beginning of Vindulge, wine, and the new Vindulge Red Wine BBQ sauce.
• BBQ Beat Podcast – Host Kevin Sandridge talks about how much he loves the unique point of view of the Vindulge debut cookbook Fire + Wine.
• The Nourishment Mindset Podcast – Dixie Huey, author, and founder of the website Favor Fat, interviews Mary and Sean about nutritional myths, our favorite recipes, and our cookbook.
• Grill Like A Mother – Taryn from Hot Pan Kitchen interviews Mary and Sean about wine, BBQ – and their take on making perfect dishes.
• Cheeky BBQ Show – Noah Cheek, popular Instagrammer and podcast host interviews Mary and Sean all about where Vindulge started.
• Food Blogger Pro – Bjork Ostrom talks with Vindulge about content creation, a cookbook, and life of a full time content creator.

About Mary Cressler

Mary Cressler is the creator of Vindulge. She is a food, wine, and travel writer, recipe developer, photographer, and author of Fire + Wine cookbook.

She is also the co-founder of Ember and Vine Catering, Certified Sommelier through the Court of Master Sommeliers, and President of the Portland Chapter of Les Dames d’Escoffier. Oh, she’s also the mom of twins, Champagne lover, and former-vegetarian-turned-barbecue-fanatic! 

Her writing has been featured in Wine Enthusiast Magazine, Barbecue America Magazine, Serious Eats, Bottlenotes, The Daily Meal, The Gorge Guide, Palate Press Online Wine Magazine, Snooth, Oregon Wine Press, Wine4.Me, and many more.

A frequent tasting panelist and wine judge for wine competitions, she also participates as a featured chef at food and wine events throughout the country.

When she’s not writing, cooking at events, or coming up with new recipes, you’ll likely find her running, cycling, attempting to bake, exploring new wine regions, or playing with her twin boys and animals with her husband on her hazelnut farm in Oregon Wine Country.

About Sean D. Martin

Sean Martin is a contributing author to Vindulge as well as co-author of the critically acclaimed BBQ cookbook, Fire + Wine. He joined his wife, Mary Cressler, as a full-time Vindulge contributor in March of 2020 after leaving 19 years as an executive in property casualty insurance.

Sean is a chef and co-manages events, food, and beverage partnerships. He is also a member of the Big Green Egg “Team Green” and enjoys grilling and smoking on all forms of grills and smokers.

He’s also fan of cycling, bourbon, and The Walking Dead.

Thanks for stopping by!