Forwarding address? Sure thing!

Hi all!

If you've been following - and I do apologize for such poor updating - I would like to point you to a couple places that I'm a bit more active.

First, you can check out my site at www.ryanreichert.com - once it's launched this will be the hub for all goings on in my life.

For wine specific writing, you can visit oe•no•phile.

This blog may come back into play at a later point, but for now I won't be adding anything further.

Cheers!

Ryan

WSET Update

Hi all,

So last November I completed the Advanced level of the Wine & Spirits Education Trust program (see my post earlier in 2008 re: Intermediate level).

I got my results back late last week, and Passed with Distinction, which is the best you can do overall. I just wanted to share.

Oh, and for anyone that hasn't stumbled upon it yet, I have a wine blog at: blog.oe-no-phile.com

Take care,

Ryan

My new baby.

"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!