"Going West"

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/going_west.png

Fall is upon us

So somehow we're already half way through the month of October. This year really has seemed to fly by without a second thought. I guess that's a consequence of getting old... right.

So anyhow, we are having quite an amazing fall here in NE Ohio. Overall Ohio isn't where I'd like to be for the rest of my life, but I have to at least concede that it does have some redeeming characteristics - colorful, sunny, cool fall days would be one thing that comes to mind. The leaves are all starting to change colors, and there's a crisp chill in the evening air. It's time to visit orchards and pick apples and find misshapen bright orange pumpkins. Rows and rows of jugs filled with amber colored cider line cooler displays in all the grocery stores.

This weekend I'm going on a little road trip with one of my bestest buds, Libby. We're going to drive up to Niagara Falls, and then head south through New York and into the hills and valleys of Pennsylvania. Really this is the kind of trip old ladies from coast to coast delight in - leaf peeping I believe they term it. Winding through the Allegany State Park (NY) and the Allegheny National Forest (PA) - god forbid we spell things with any consistency here! - I'm sure we'll get to see our fair share of fall foliage.

The majority of the trip will focus around a portion of Historic US-6 which we'll follow from Port Allegany all the way back home. I'll be sure to take lots of pictures of our adventure and make a special post/album that I can link from this blog.

In other news, life is going very well. I remain overjoyed with both of my jobs - the accounting and the bartending. I'm taking the Advanced level for WSET this fall, and sitting for the exam at the end of November. I'm really quite nervous about it, as this class is much more in depth than the previous level, and I need to continue comitting lots of geographical and viticultural information to memory. We've also got a blind tasting to conduct, but I'm not as concerned about that as I was initially.

Life continues.

Be well everyone.

Take Over the World w/ Tofu

So I cannot stop raving about this recipe. My friend Christopher passed it along to me from the Post Punk Kitchen.

Tofu Basil Ricotta

prep time: 10 minutes | cooking time: none | makes About 2 cups
Use as a filling for stuffed shells, mixed with tomato sauce in pasta or as a topping for pizza. By popular demand I edited this to say that you should press the tofu before preparing.

Equipment:
Tireless hands, a bowl

Ingredients
1 pound firm tofu, pressed
2 tsp lemon juice
2 tsp olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup nutritional yeast flakes
handful fresh basil leaves, chopped fine (ten leaves or so)
salt
dash fresh black pepper

Directions
In a large bowl, mush the tofu up with your hands, till it's crumbly.

Add lemon juice, garlic, salt and pepper and basil. Mush with hands again, this time you want it to get very mushy so squeeze through your fingers and mush until it reaches the consistency of ricotta cheese. May take 2-5 minutes.

Add olive oil, stir with fork. Add nutritional yeast and combine all ingredients well. Use a fork now, because the oil will make it sticky. Cover and refigerate until ready to use.

Direct link: http://www.theppk.com/recipes/dbrecipes/index.php?RecipeID=5

I made this up last night and added some zuchinni, mushrooms, and spinach. Then I used the filling for some lasagna using out of the jar sauce and no-boil noodles.

I baked everything for 45 minutes at 375, and then let it sit overnight. It cut very nicely, holds together very well, and was an excellent lunch today. It is vegan, but you could easily add some TVP crumbles to give it more texture. I've learned that the "meat" crumbles are especially good in pasta/sauce dishes - I can hardly tell the difference - then again I'm a little more forgiving that other people I know!

France takes on the world... well, New Zealand, South Africa, and California at least

Last night I hosted a gathering for the Cleveland French Language Meet-up group at my apartment. The purpose of the meeting was to hold a wine tasting comparing French (old world) wines to some of their New World (anywhere but Europe) equivalents.

 

I chose three varietals - Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, and Pinot Noir - and found some good couplings with the help of Maggie @ Whole Foods. Here's what we tasted:

 

Sauvignon Blanc

• Domaine Guy Allion – Le Haut Perron Sauvignon Blanc – Touraine, Val de Loire (2007)
• Giesen Sauvignon Blanc – Marlborough, New Zealand (2007)

Chardonnay

• Cave de Lugny Chardonnay - Mâcon-Villages (2006)
• Ondine Chardonnay – South Africa (2004)

Pinot Noir

• Domaine Michel-Andreotti Pinot Noir – Côte Chalonnaise, Bourgogne (2006)
• Parducci Pinot Noir – Mendocino Valley, California (2006)

We also had two other wines - a starter of Brut Spumante from Italy and then finishing with cheesecake served next to a Muscat from Samos, Greece (which was part of last monht's Counter Culture event at WF).

 

There were 10 of us there including myself and a friend, Angela, from my WSET course. She doesn't speak French, so I think she might have been a little uncomfortable at first, but as we moved through the tasting I think everyone relaxed a little and she was fine.

 

I poured everything (except the Spumante and Muscat) blind, placing them in paper bags. Evreyone got some information and then a little "score card" to indicate which of the two wines they preferred and to take guesses at whether each was old or new world, and what the varietal was. At the end we tallied everything up, and the person with the most correct answers received a bottle of Root:1 Cabernet Sauvignon, a really tasty Cab from Chile.

 

With the counts completed for everyone's preferred wines, the French wines took first place resoundingly. Of the three new world choices there were a few votes for the Chard and the Pinot, but everyone agreed to liking the French SB much better than the NZ one.

 

This provided an interesting juxtaposition to an evening earlier this week when I went out with the people from the Cleveland Wine School. We got to see a screening of Bottle Shock, a movie chronicaling the events leading up to the famous 1976 Judgement of Paris. This was a blind tasting arranged by an Englishman living in France to try and expand his business in wine, and putting California wines  up against the likes of some of the best from France. Surprisingly - especially to the French, who comprised the entire tasting panel - the top wines amidst the Cabernet Sauvignons and Chardonnays sampled were from California! Starring Alan Rickman and Bill Pullman, the film was enjoyable and very well made - my favorite parts being some of the beautiful shots of the California landscape.

 

So, I've had a good week, and am excited to host future wine tastings for our French Language group. I'm even considering starting a weekly wine tasting group on Meet-up, but have to put a little more thought into it and see if there's any other interest.

 

I encourage everyone to go out and grab a bottle of wine you've never tried before - or better yet, find a knowledgeable staff member wherever you like to buy wine, tell them what you enjoy, and ask them to point you to something different that you might also like.

 

Cheers!

 

 

 

Warm days and warm nights

As suggested it's been rather warm here lately. Not necessarily in a bad way though. Up until today it was rather pleasant, getting hot but with relatively low humidity, so it was dry. I imagine this is the kind of lovely weather our friends to the West get to have day in and day out... bastards. Then again they have intermittent fires and earth quakes to contend with... hm, I wonder if it would be a worthwhile sacrifice.

That said, tomorrow I believe it is going to rain - I can feel the moisture building up in the air, condensing. I love the rain, but the inevitable humidity before or after is not my kind of weather. I sweat when I sleep, and that means my sheets are gross and need to be washed constantly. I suppose we could get AC, but I'm terrified about what that'll do to our electricity bill. I've not even gotten the first one yet, so until that comes I'm not in any rush to cool the place down with anything more than some well positioned fans. And it's not as if people all over the state, country, and world don't live without the modern convenience of air conditioning. We'll survive. There are far worse things that I could be challenged with.

Since my last entry I've seen The Dark Knight - actually, it was that night. Some friends and I went to a midnight screening at Severence in Cleveland Heights. It was a fantastic movie, and I can't wait to see it in an IMAX theatre. There should be a trip to Pittsburgh, or Columbus, or maybe Cincinnati in the near future. I'll be brief, but echo what everyone else has said, and note that I think Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker was phenomenal. I'm not determined to see a posthumous Oscar, but more so let down that they won't be able to do any overlap with the next film unless they re-cast.

I went to a wine dinner last night at Whole Foods. The last Monday of every month they have a themed tasting for $45 called Counter Culture - it's held at their cafe-style prepared foods counter in the specialty section. Maggie, my wine lady, told me about it Sunday, and I signed up immediately. A tour of Greek wines and accompanying Mediterranean influenced cuisine. It was really stunning, but I won't go into great detail about it now - I have the menu which I can perhaps upload a photo of or transcribe. (Edit: I scanned a copy below.) In general Greek wines are tasty.

Heard it on NPR

Very interesting look at the actual meaning of the infamous "jihad."

 

I wanted to share it with anyone reading, so I'll just link it up - as I don't want to get sued for re-posting copywritten material on my blog! (I'm still waiting for Paris to sue me over those Eiffel Tower pics!!!) Below is the opening paragraph with a link to the full article

 

What Does 'Jihad' Really Mean?

by Jamie Tarabay

After years of using the word "jihadist" to describe terrorists who carry out attacks against civilians and the U.S. military, the Bush administration has finally realized that doing so actually pays those groups a compliment in the eyes of some Muslims. (full story...)

 

I'm sure this is probably nothing new to some of my more gloablly educated readers, but regardless I hope you find it as interesting and perhaps enlightening as I did.

 

Cheers!

Mobile Blogging

So after digging through all kinds of third party applications and other websites looking for some way to post to my blog remotely, I discovered that this entire time (well, I'm not really sure for how long) Blogger has it's very own Mobile Blogging service. So now I can blog from my iPhone without having to log in - or anywhere I can access email for that matter.

Hopefully this additional posting option will lead me to make more frequent postings.

So what's been going on in life over the last couple months... June went by so quickly. I can't believe it's already July, and half way through July at that!

June was our last month in Cleveland Heights, and we have now moved to Shaker Heights, about 4 miles away, to the upper suite ofa nice duplex on charming Winslow Road. Another friend, Dan, has also moved in with us, so we are now three. Things are working out well enough currently, though I think the whole move process was somewhat stressful and took some adjustments for everyone. You'll have that I suppose. Everything got in easily enough though, and now I'm focused on working on one or two rooms.

The main living areas (living room, dining room, bathroom, kitchen - to some extent) are all arranged and unpacked. There are still some things that need to be done in the kitchen. My bedroom is mostly unpacked but things need to be rearranged and set in their place.

Shortly after moving in we got a visit from Rebekah, who was passing through Cleveland a few days before heading back to Spain. We spend a lovely evening with her and enjoyed a nice home cooked meal.

Later that week we had a sorta housewarming and 4th of July party at our place. Uneventful for the most part, but fun.

Working a lot lately, and listening to a lot of NPR.

iPhone got an update to the software (as well as a new phone, but I don't think I'm going to waste the money getting one). I've been playing around with the new features and applications that are available. Lots of cool stuff.

I want to start working on some ideas I've had for a wine website, an application of my own for the iPhone, and my consulting gig. I need to sit down with some friends who have expressed interest in helping - and I'll need it, given my lack of web/programming knowledge.

The advanced class for WSET starts in about 6 weeks. I'm busy reading through the text still. I'm hoping to do better on this exam than I did on the Intermediate, but that's going to mean devoting a lot more time to memorizing and really engraining information into my mind. Also need to start doing a lot of at home tasting (not to get drunk! lol) because we'll have a blind tasting as part of the exam. I'm nervous.

Winery is working out very well. We've had a busy summer, but it's rained on and off almost every weekend since it's been truly warm. Sort of odd. Vintage Ohio is coming up at the end of the month, and I'm kind of in the air about whether I really want to help. Cindy sounds like she's set on putting me in the special reserve tent for our Chardonnay, which is a wine that qualified for Ohio's new quality wine program.

Also, regarding wine, Tony - my former prof at Kent - is in need of someone to help him teach his classes this fall, and said he was interested in having me there. I'm really excited about that, and I think it would be a fantastic experience.

So that's about all for now. I signed up for a Twitter account, so if you're on there feel free to look me up.

Cheers!

WSET update

Just a quick update to let everyone know that I got my scores for my Internediate level WSET certification. I passed with merit - not the highest achievement, but 2nd in the rankings. I probably could have done a little better (not sure what the numerical score was), but I'm pleased with it.

I'm registering next week for the Advanced level which starts in September.

Bought a domain name: oe-no-phile.com - I'm going to set-up some kind of wine information site and start using the Ohio Oenophiles group/blog more seriously.

In other news we're moving at the end of the month - not far, but to a nicer place. I'll update later with contact info.

Cheers!

Ryan

to the West and Back

So we're back from our great California adventure. We had a really wonderful time. Spent time in San Francisco, Napa, Sonoma, Santa Cruz, and other wine regions of norther California. All in all we visited 50+ wineries, and I purchased 35 bottles in all - I'm anxiously awaiting their (safe) arrival in Ohio! Since I work at a winery we ended up being able to taste wine at 99.9% of the stops we made for no charge (saving up to $300 per person!) Also, most places extended a very generous industry discount on all purchases which made the 35 bottles much more affordable overall.

Here is the photo album from the trip: http://picasaweb.google.com/ryan.reichert/California

There are some photos missing at the end from our visit to Copia. I believe I've maxed out the albums photo limit, so I'll probably be updating that link above soon to one where all the pictures will fit (and also deleting some of the duplicates!) The beginning photos from SanFran are a little confusing to look at - we were taking pictures of the gathering crowd and the running of the Olympic torch up Van Ness just minutes after arriving at our hotel. It was a real surprise! Everything else I think is pretty self-explanatory.

I'll post more details soon regarding what we did day-to-day, and a list of all the wineries we went to as well as all the wine purchased.

Until later!

Happy Valentine's Day

I dug this out from my RPI journalist days... enjoy.

V-Day found not all hearts, candy, and roses
Posted 02-12-2003 at 2:47PM
Ryan Reichert Senior Reporter

With Valentine’s Day rearing its head yet again there are people worldwide complaining about how their significant others are inconsiderate because they don’t buy bunches of roses and pounds of chocolate to commemorate this special event. Little do people realize—unless you’re really into researching random stuff in your spare time—that when Valentine’s Day began it had little to do with flowers and love in the form of concentrated sugar. Instead, like some other holidays, such as Easter—to name one of the more serious holidays now devoted to chocolate and bunnies—Valentine’s Day had both a somewhat grim yet promiscuous beginning.

There are at least three saints named Valentine throughout history who are said to have been martyred for the sake of love. Of course, this is according to the people who wrote the Bible, so one can never be completely sure. Anyhow, two of the more famous Valentines were a Roman priest and a bishop of Interamna, two famous Italian cities. Both of these men were put to death somewhere around February 14, and later buried in Flominian Way, the ancient the road leading to the entrance of Rome.

As far as the story of Bishop Valentine goes, in 270 A.D. Claudius II was the ruler of the Roman Empire and ruled that soldiers were not to be married because he saw married men as inferior soldiers, weakened by love. Secretly Valentine had been performing secret ceremonies and wedding young couples, sort of an underground Vegas drive-thru with a little more class.

Well, Claudius found out about this, like Roman emperors did, and had Valentine captured and tortured. When he then refused to stop his practices and renounce Catholicism, he was clubbed, stoned, and finally beheaded. Ouch. Now that’s really not a pretty way to go.

So many years went by, like they do, and the world was a fun place. I’m sure you’re all starting to wonder where the promiscuity comes into play. Well sit back, because it’s the fifth century A.D., and the Pagans are abounding. In celebration to their god of agriculture and shepherds, Lupercus, the Pagans held a festival around mid-February. Conveniently coincidental? I think not.

The month of February had become a month symbolizing love and courtship, and so what better way to celebrate than to worship a god of corn and sheep? Well, the Pagans had it down, and every year held a lottery in which willing young women entered their names into the drawing, and then the more than willing young men drew one name each. The two were then paired together for their “mutual pleasure” for the remainder of the year. Just think, you might not be alive today if there were contraceptives in the fifth century A.D..

Needless to say, this celebration of young men’s rites of passage was much frowned upon by the Catholic Church. Who would have guessed? So most likely in an effort to rid the world of sin, the big C.C. came in and said “No, no, no! This will not do,” and changed things around.

In 496 A.D. Pope Gelasius outlawed the Lupercian Festival. Gelasius wasn’t a stupid man though, and knew that the Roman people enjoyed their games. So in trying to make the whole lottery concept more pre-schooler friendly he devised a system where both men and women would draw names of saints, and then for the rest of the year imitate that saint’s life. Sounds like pre-PBS Mister Dress-Up to me, and you shouldn’t have to guess that the Romans much preferred the previous festivities.

In the end, the Pagans had their day, and reinstated the Festival of Lupercus, but instead geared it towards honoring Saint Valentine, and in courting their potential partners men wrote elaborate love letters and ballads expressing their sentiments. This, as you may have guessed, evolved into the modern day Hallmark Valentine card, and February 14 thus became Valentine’s Day.

So this V-Day be a good significant person, but don’t gorge on chocolates and die of pollen induced allergy attacks, but think about all the fun and excitement that went into making it a holiday. What better way to spend your time?! Additionally, I think the whole Pagan lottery idea is something the administration here at RPI should consider putting into effect. I’m sure it would go over wonderfully with a lot of people. So, the moral of this story: Be good. Be just. Hell, be romantic. Otherwise, like Claudius II said: “No head for you!”

Best bartending one-liner ever

So I'm working at the winery yesterday and I had one of those wonderful moments where the best reply comes right to you exactly when needed. I think it may be the best winery bartender line I've had every.

Scenario: Two women approach the bar to sample wine.
Setting: Grand River Cellars wine bar

Me: "Hi ladies - My name is Ryan. What will you be having today?"

Lady 1: "We're not sure, but we like sweet-ish."

Me: "Well...... I'm German."

END

A thoughtful quotation

Here's something a friend sent me today:

Be mindful of the link between present action and desired future outcome. Ask yourself: if I repeat today’s actions 365 times, will I be where I want to be in a year?

As if my world doesn't revolve around wine enough

Griffin Technologies has allowed my love of wine to expand to new parts of my life. Yesterday I received my new iPhone Elanform via UPS.

The case is a polycarbon (or some kind of plastic!) shell with an exterior made of actual cork. Now how about that for a wine lover? It makes my phone a little thicker, and prevents me from using the dock that it came with, but more importantly it will hopefully protect my phone from getting banged and scratched up should I - forbid - drop it at any point.

So I know some might squawk about how this takes away from the aesthetic of the iPhone, the silvery, streamlined, shiny state that Apple has become so good at producing and marketing. I'm not really bothered though because this reflects something more about me Where some other leather or latex case might take away from the product, I think this is an acceptable addition.

I'd love to know what you all think.

My bean pole nephew

I'm sure I've talked about him, but I don't think I've ever posted any pictures. This is my little one year old nephew, Joey. At Christmas there was a picture of him wearing a Santa hat in front of the tree with a gift wrapped in red paper. I Photoshop'd it so it was B&W with the red accents. Mom hung it in her living room, and decided she wanted to rotate different pictures with the same editing, so this is the one I just finished for her yesterday.

I just like showing him off - he's pretty adorable.

That's all I've got.

Soups!

So I got my hands on a stick blender, and made some soups. Here's what I ended up with:

Soup 1
Chicken base
Potato
Turnip
Cabbage
Onion
Peas
Celery
Garlic
Seasoned with salt, pepper, sage, and a little lemon pepper.

Soup 2
Chicken base
Butternut squash
Carrot
Potato
Onion
Seasoned with salt, pepper, nutmeg, chili powder, and a little cajun seasoning.

Yumalicious.

Welcome to 2008

Happy New Year to everyone!

Sorry I've not made any updates in so long. My resolve to write continuously in a journal always fades with time. I guess I should just accept that I'm not a consistent blogger and be happy with that! All in all I have a hard time forming habits – which is good and bad depending on what you're considering.

My holidays went really well and it was great to get to spend time with my family and friends. Our trip to Toronto got put on hold (indefinitely – maybe next year?), so I just passed the weekend with Lindsay and Danielle in Toledo. It was still a good time, and most importantly I got to see them and Libby, just fresh from Spain and looking mighty fine. I'm very proud of her. She too found that the Camino can really make you think about life and see that perhaps your immediate future decisions aren't necessarily the best or only options. She'll do just as well I'm sure.

Christmas was a joy. Mom bought me an iPhone which I'd been coveting since returning home, and now all I have to do is pay the $70/month phone bill. No matter – it's well worth having the little device. A Phone, music, e-mail, web access, weather, stocks, text messaging, a camera, and more. That's a lot for something that's not much bigger than a deck of playing cards.

The rest of my family and my friends got me some great and in many cases very useful gifts as well. A huge box of household goods/cleaning supplies from my grandparents – who also have re-stocked my supply of socks and underwear much to my pleasure – an espresso machine, books, bar stuff, fantastic J. Crew boxers from Hannah, and gift cards. I'm very grateful for everything.

I saw Charlie Wilson's War on Monday with Dan and thought it a very good movie. I like Tom Hanks and Philip Seymour Hoffman even more so. Julia Roberts took on an interesting religiously driven fundraiser from Texas with an up-do. Very interesting indeed.

I really love our neighborhood and the surrounding area. Shaker Square is less than 5 minutes away and they have a cinema, shopping, and food there. In Coventry there's always something going on, but the streets are generally quiet at night. I'm really pleased with the apartment we moved into, and though we'll look for something in the spring before our lease is up, if nothing presents itself I won't mind staying one bit. If feasible I'm going to look at purchasing something.

Politics have also been relatively exciting lately. The Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primaries are over, and still there is no clear leader in either party. I'm really interested to see how this continues to unfold for everyone, especially people like Gulianni who has taken the approach of winning over larger states rather than the initial more influential ones. Good idea? Bad idea? I suppose we'll see.

That's all I've got for the time being.

R