Old Biddy Breaks Out of Summit County!

For the first time in weeks, I escaped this Saturday to one of my favorite activities – wine tasting. Thanks to my friend Bev for getting me out of the house and to Western Reserve Wines for the nudge to visit their weekly $5 tastings.

In the past I’ve written about Western Reserve Wines up in Solon but it’s been a few months since I’ve gotten to travel up to one of their tastings. Last week they sent an email (as they always do as a temptation!) detailing the wines they would open on Saturday. This week they featured one of my favorite varietals – Malbec.

Wikipedia says “As a varietal, Malbec creates a rather inky red (or violet), intense wine, so it is also commonly used in blends, such as with Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon to create the red French Bordeaux claret blend. The grape is blended with Cabernet Franc and Gamay in some regions such as the Loire Valley. Other wine regions use the grape to produce Bordeaux-style blends. While acreage of Malbec is declining in France, in Argentina the grape is surging and has become a "national variety" of sort that is uniquely identified with Argentine wine. The success of Malbec in Argentina led some producers in neighboring Chile to try their hand at the varietal. Grown throughout the Central Valley, Chilean Malbec tends to be more tannic than its Argentine counterpart and is used primarily in Bordeaux-style blends.”

True to the description above, all the wines poured this week were from Argentina. Being a ‘big red wine’ fan, Malbec is a wine I turn to time and time again for my drinking pleasure. Here is a list of those bottles we sampled this week:

• 2010 La Linda Torrontes (the only white in this week’s line up)
• 2008 Antigal "Uno" Malbec
• 2008 Luigi Bosca Reserve Malbec
• 2007 Antucura Merlot/Cab/Malbec Blend
• 2010 Amancaya Grand Reserva Malbec/Cab Blend
• 2008 Vina Alicia Morena Cabernet Sauvignon

While each was drinkable, none of these triggered a purchase by Bev or myself. And funny that although I'm very partial to the Malbec, the only tru Cab on the bar got our enthusiastic thumbs up.  The Vina Alicia was by far our favorite and the Amancaya a close second.  But even with that glowing recommendation, generally we’ll wander out of the shop with at least 2-3 bottles but, sorry Kathi – not this week! We’ll definitely be back to try another group of wines soon.

TASTINGS AREN’T JUST ABOUT THE WINE YOU KNOW!
One reason we love going to wine tastings is the opportunity to meet new people. The weekly tastings at Western Reserve are attended by many of the same group week after week, and after a while you tend to strike up conversations and become friendly. (Not that after sampling four or five wines it’s difficult to strike up a conversation with just about anyone!) Of course, most of these folks are wine lovers and many of them (OK, all of them) are far more wine-sophisticated than am I. It’s fun to get their take on the wines and to find out what other events they go to around the area.

AFTER TASTING DINNER IN HUDSON

One our way home, Bev and I stopped in Hudson to check out Heinen’s market. Kathi had served up a new cheese at the wine tasting called Blue Brie. Unfortunately, Kathi got this from a distributor rather than a local retailer, so Bev and I are on the lookout to find some to take home. We thought perhaps Heinen’s would carry this since they seem to use the same distributor, but no luck for us on the cheese hunting. We’ll continue to search since this was truly a scrumptious cheese and went really well with the intense wines.

After our fruitless search, we stopped to have dinner at Old Whedon Grille on Main Street. For old Hudson charm you can’t beat spending an evening here for dinner. Small and cozy with old creaky floors and an intimate bar, this a good place to hang out with friends. Their menu is not extensive, but what they do offer, they do well. They’re known for their burgers but I haven’t had anything on the menu that disappointed.

Bev and I ordered the BBQ chicken pizza and a Kobe beef burger to share and both were really delicious. The crust on the pizza was perfectly baked and the toppings weren’t overwhelming. The Kobe beef burger was cooked to perfection and so good I had to eat all of my half, even though I was stuffed to the gills.

Thanks Bev for a fun afternoon out and about.

Eating Around Akron - Wine Tasting Dinner at Giant Eagle in Hudson

Yes, indeedie! I’ve been to some interesting wine dinners in the past – on trains, at old mansions, at wine shops and many, many restaurants, and yes, now that I think about it, one at the upscale West Point Market here in Akron. But my local Giant Eagle? Whod’a thunk it?

Give credit to the folks that organized this, it was a very nice event. Chef Tim Monsman created a five course tasting menu that was paired with five wines from Cline Cellars out of Sanoma. For $15 this was a very economical evening and I walked away slightly wine-happy and extremely tummy stuffed….OK, tummy over-stuffed.

Aside from the food being served on plastic plates and plastic cutlery (completely understandable given the location), this was a first-class event. Also, credit to my fellow diners at the table who made me feel welcome (thanks Nancy for including me with your group!).

A fun thing we learned was that the Cline Cellar family are descendants of the Jacuzzi family - yes, that means that their great-grandfather was the inventor of the Jacuzzi.  Neat, huh? 

The Cline Cashmere was originally a blend put together by the wife (who'd had no prior wine experience) for a Breast Cancer fund raiser a few years ago.  It became a hit with the locals and they have been making it every year since.

Some tasting notes – 1) the soup was a bit spicy and overwhelmed the Zin poured with it, and 2) for me, none of these wines were what I’d term exceptional. Wine, of course, is very subjective and other folks at our table made purchases of some of these which indicated to me that they liked them. The Cashmere was popular as was the Chardonnay.)

Here is the complete pairing menu (with photos - I'm learning to use my camera phone but I won't be making that mistake again!)




Pan Fried Corn Cakes with Sweet Chili Sauce served with a Chardonnay

Sweet and Spicy Pumpkin Chili served with a Zinfandel

Braised Chicken, Roasted Garlic Tomato Sauce, Mafalda Pasta served with Cline Cashmere (a vineyard specific blend)

Beef Short Ribs, Lentils, Squash Dumplings served with Ancient Vines Mourvedre

Orange Poached Pears, Toasted Pecans, Crème Anglaise served with a Viognier

The corn cakes were the hit of the meal followed closely by the tender short ribs - Chef Tim did a wonderful job. An even better thing, he provided recipes for each item so that we can recreate these at home. I’m already imagining corn cakes in my very near future!

For any of my local friends who are interested, there will be yet another wine dinner in November. Get your reservations in early as I’m told these are sold out quickly. Chef Tim is also putting together a Beer tasting menu for October 28th, four courses and four locally brewed beers. If you’re a beer fiend, sign up now! Call the store at 330-342-9995 to get further information.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE STARLIGHT BALLROOM?

BIG BANDS

This past Sunday a friend and I attended a show at the Stage Door at EJ Thomas Hall. First, let me say this is a pretty cool venue for small shows. We're sitting directly on the stage and the performers are sitting basically at the edge of the stage with their backs to what would normally be the seated audience. This makes for a cozy atmosphere and I've now been there a couple of times for some great music. Sunday the University Jazz Ensemble lead by Jack Schantz served up some terrific ballroom big band sounds complete with a dance floor where couples twirled and swayed around the room.



Oh, and did I mention that my favorite piano dude played also, Joe Augustine. Smooth!
These kids are pretty talented and they did a terrific job of letting me close my eyes and picture movie scenes of Tommy Dorsey, Artie Shaw and Duke Ellington lording over ballroom floors with names like The Starlight and The Rainbow Room. I think that this setting would make a fantastic fund-raiser event and I'm going to see if I can find a way to make that happen.


One reason I like this idea so much is that I can picture it happening at Greystone. The Summit County CVB took over management of this venue recently and have re-opened the bar area weeknights from 5-9pm. The bar there is so lovely - all dark panelling and lush carpets - add that to the ballroom area that seats a couple of hundred with a stage up front and I think we have the makings of a 1940's era ballroom. Add a couple of "cigarette girls", someone taking photos of all the lovely couples in their finest atire and how cool would that all be?


WICKED....Again!
My cousins and I headed up to Cleveland to see Wicked. Joyce was a first time attendee and although the rest of us have seen it at least once before, I have to admit that I'd forgotten much of the storyline. As before, the performers are top notch (although I wasn't too enamored of the guy that played the love interest, something was lacking in his enthusiasm) and it's always a pleasure to see talented people earning a living doing what they obviously love to do.

This time I listened more closely to the music and lyrics and, of course, each time to you see something like this you take away a bit more of the more subtle humor of the show. Bravo to all of them, they did a terrific job!

HOLIDAY FESTIVITIES
The first holiday party of the season was at my friend Georjette's on Saturday night. What a crowd! She has a beautiful large home that is perfect for entertaining and she really does up a party! Lots of great food, plenty to drink and people everywhere. It was good to catch up with the gals from the OOAKPR Tea we worked on last June - they're lots of laughs. Sometimes you find that we worked so hard putting the event on that we didn't have much time to enjoy ourselves - when we meet again outside of the planning arena it's good to just be able to laugh and joke around.

Here's the little party favor most of us gals got to take home with us. Bitch Grenache South Australia. I'm not sure who had more fun with this - GT for handing them out or us for being on the receiving end? How cute!

GOLFERS, DOG HOUSES AND ORGANIC FARMING

Well, it was an eclectic weekend I’ll say that. Thursday evening found this old biddy back over at 750ml introducing another good friend to the place. This weekend they were serving up PGA Wines. Who knew the PGA had their own label? Once again the flight was 2 whites and 2 reds and again I found the whites just so-so, but the reds were quite good. I bought a bottle of each to give as holiday gifts this year to some co-workers whom I imagine may appreciate the mingling of decent wine and golfing. While we were there a thunderstorm hit and the power went out for a few minutes. It was so quiet and cozy watching the rain beating down on the windows and pavement outside while we were tucked in with a great glass or two of wine and appetizers. What better location to ride out a storm?

BARKITECTURE AND ONE OF A KIND PETS

Friday evening I volunteered to help out at Barkitecture – a fund raising project on the grounds of Stan Hywet Hall and Gardens. Local architects had designed oversized dog houses and they’ve been on display over the summer. Friday they were auctioned off for charity. My task was to sit with a shelter dog at one of the houses and help direct people as they made their way around the exhibit. My goodness….talk about a mismatched couple! Jackie (my assigned Jack Russel mix pup) was very anxious since it was his first day out after being in quarantine for a month. He was a friendly dog with lots of energy and very vocal. And not accustomed to being on a leash either. He barked and lunged at every dog that came by and constantly pulled at his leash as is evidenced by all the bruising on my arms and legs today. This cat person should have known better than to be matched with a dog for the evening. Lessons learned and all that. Meanwhile, it was hard to turn down an opportunity to do something good for One of a Kind Pets, they are a great group of people with a heart-felt mission.

CROWN POINT ECOLOGY CENTER FUND RAISER
Saturday evening was a volunteer gig out at Crown Point Ecology Center. If you’re not familiar, CP is an organic farm run mostly by the Sisters of St. Dominic of Akron. In 1997, Crown Point began to grow produce for distribution to the Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank. Over the last 8 years, Crown Point has donated more than 140,000 lbs of organic produce to the Foodbank. Crown Point also began a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program in 1998. This program has grown from 20 families in 1998 to more than 70 families this growing season.

The fund raising event this weekend was to help financially sustain the farm in it’s current mission. About 300 people attended and our volunteer group provided check-in and auction checkout services as we have for the past 5 years. The food served to the guests was all from the farm – beet salad, bbq chicken and ratatouille. Thanks to the energy of Sr. Marguerite who helped keep us on track when issues turned up, the task went fairly smoothly.

GOOD END TO A BUSY WEEKED

So it was a busy weekend hitting a variety of fun things. By Sunday evening I was very tired and decided to relax by spending some quality time in the kitchen. Last week while perusing my favorite baking web site (King Arthur Flour) I found a recipe for these decadent looking brownies with a browned butter caramel frosting. This had been an experiment for them after discovering smoked salt in their kitchen and playing with it. While the brownies are really very good – the only interesting part came with the topping made of chocolate and almonds sprinkled with a pinch of smoked salt. The salt lends a bit of a twist to an otherwise regular (albeit very good) brownie bar but I don’t think there’s enough of it to really get the flavor they were going for. Next time I’d like to add the smoked salt to the caramel process to further incorporate the flavor into the frosting. Here is a link to the recipe if anyone else would like to try these out. http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/PrintRecipe?RID=1100&radio=1

750ml Wine Bar

Thursday night I met a good friend over at one of Akron’s little hidden gems – 750ml - out at Pilgrim Square on West Market Street. I’ve been in once or twice to look at their wines but not to stay for any of their events. My friend Georjette wanted to see what the place was like, so we set up a girls night out to try it out.

The place is cute as a button – comfy chairs set up living room style that make for good conversation and a small wine bar that attracted a group of friends of the owners. Throughout the evening there were several small groups in and out having a glass or two of wine. There is also a nice patio outside but it was a bit hot for us to be out there this week.

This weekend they are featuring flights of wines from Dancing Coyote Wines in California. Two whites and two reds were in the flight. We started with their Albarino that was fruity yet with a peppery note in the back of the throat and moved onto their slightly sweeter Cha Cha - mostly Chardonnay. Moving to the reds, the Tango is a great blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Tempranillo (which turned out to be my favorite of the batch) and their Petite Syrah. Disappointingly the gentleman that was supposed to be leading the flight tasting was a no show – along with his notes – but we had fun anyhow sampling on our own.

About half way through our flight we decided to order some food and ended up with a nice assortment of goodies. Their Fig-Prosciutto spread was phenomenal and the chocolate truffles….well…extra phenomenal? The smooth creamy dark chocolate paired really well with the Tango and I’m not too ashamed to say I had a slight buzz by the end of the evening. The place closes normally at 9, but thanks to the owners gracious hospitality we were still sitting their chatting away and having a grand old time at 10:30. When someplace is that comfortable, it’s easy to let the hours slip by.

I'm fond of Riverside Wine Bar out in Kent - they have a terrific outdoor patio that overlooks the river and you can wave to the train conductors as they trundle by - but it's a bit of a haul on a weeknight to get into Kent. 750ml solves that problem nicely since it's so close to home.

And, of course, my favorite place to buy wines is still Western Reserve Wines up in Solon, their Saturday tastings have been so helpful in my fundamental wine education. I still don't quite understand the vocabulary of the whole tasting business, but I'm having fun picking wines I like.

Akron Ohio Summer Nights Under the Stars - July 2009

Do you remember the Beach Boys song about having "fun fun fun 'till her daddy takes the t-bird away"? Well, sometimes I think one of these days someone's gonna take my keys from me and put a stop to all this running around having fun. And maybe someday someone will...once I'm older and grayer, of course. Meanwhile, it was a flurry of activity for the past couple of weekends and my poor car (Robert) didn't see much of the inside of his garage.

The Fourth of July was actually fairly quiet except for a very pleasant evening out at Blossom Music Center under the stars. The Blossom Festival Orchestra played wonderfully and had all our toes tapping to some marching music for the most part. Yes...marching music as in the John Phillip Sussa's marches. And, of course, the standard 1812 Overture with cannon. And fireworks. The place was packed, as usual for the holiday but the crowd disbursed easily after the fireworks and the normally expected exit mess was completely avoided. Kudo's for the venue if they've actually done something proactive to move traffic along so well this year. 

Hey, anyone out there like Mustard Seed Market? A couple of Saturdays ago they celebrated Bluesberry Festival with everything blueberry all over the store and some pretty darned good blues played by a local band out front. This is a great way to eat your way through a food store...blueberry smoothies, blueberry salsa, blueberry muffins, blueberry drinks, blueberry ambrosia...YUM! 

My food buddy Bev was with me and we managed to snag quite a bit to eat...which was a great thing since we were then headed over to our favorite wine shop (Western Reserve Wines http://www.westernreservewines.com/) to work our way through their July 12 under $12. This is a great way to sample a lot of wines all at once to determine your own likes and dislikes. For $5 you can't hardly beat it. For those of you that know me, it would come as no surprise that the white wines are generally not my favorites. So far I've found one that I really like and have purchased several bottles for my wine stash. And normally I run across one or two reds that I like. However this month Kathi outdid herself on the selections and I found 4 that I REALLY liked. The malbecs and tempranillo's really stood out this week. The Laurel Glen Terra Rosa Malbec with a touch of tempranillo was yummy good. They describe it as "robust, mouth-filling and teeth-staining" and oooo they are right on the money! The Dominio De Eguren Codice tempranillo was also luscious. Great stuff to drink alone (by that I mean no food, not no companion) or would stand up to some spicy foods. I'm still partial to my Trumpeter Malbec but these two are right up there for my unsophisticated palate. 

 So not being one to think this made for a full day.....that evening was also Porthouse Theater night with the other lovely ladies....and Grant! And having a slight wine buzz is not a bad way to kick the evening off. These theater nights are one of my favorite ways to spend an evening. We all bring a little food to share, a couple bottles of wine and set up for a picnic before the show. This weekend we saw The Odd Couple...which is still a classic play. I remember seeing this when I was just a little biddy out in Ravenna at the original Carousel Theater and even way back then I thought it was funny. 

 Overall, this was great way to spend a day with friends out and about. So a big ol' bronx cheer to those of you sitting around the house thinking there's nothing to do!