Tag Archives: food

Uncorking the Secrets of the World of Wine: Somm, American Wine Story, Beginner’s Guide to Wine, The Science of Wine, & Land and Wine

26 Oct

My grandmother and father were born in France and whenever there was a special family gathering, wine was always a part of the celebration whether Beaujolais Nouveau that made an appearance at Thanksgiving or the Champagne that toasted in the new year.  It was a special experience when I graduated from my Shirley Temples (ginger ale with maraschino cherries) to be given a glass of wine at these family gathering.  Because of our heritage I was primarily exposed to French wines, but I have grown to appreciate vintages from around the world.  Two of my favorite varietals are Syrah/Shiraz wines with their blackberry richness and peppery kick and the floral Gewürztraminers with their lychee bouquet.  If you live in this area, there are wine trails in both New York and New Jersey where you can meet local wine makers and sample their wines.  Some even give tours of the property and hold special events featuring music and food. One of my husband and my favorite local wineries is Cream Ridge Winery here in New Jersey, but there are so many to explore.  If you are a wine novice or an oenophile (wine connoisseur) there are many great documentaries and books on wine available to you with your Hoboken Library Card; here are a few to sample.

Somm

somm
Somm, a documentary from 2013, gives an insider look into the Court of the Master Sommeliers and the Master Sommelier Exam.  Somm shows that job of the sommelier (somm) is very serious.  Those studying the art must learn about regions, grape varietals, methodologies for production, and more to understand the complexities of flavor in wine.  The exam requires all of this knowledge, plus the ability to develop a palate to determine the type of wine during blind tastings.  On the other hand Somm also showed that wine can be fun and some of my favorite moments in Somm were seeing the sommeliers gentle joshing as they prepared for the test and the funny comments of their partners, who had become wine widows to all their studying.  Somm is available on DVD from several BCCLS libraries.

Universal Class: Beginner’s Guide to Wine

univ-class
For our Hoboken patrons who are just beginning to learn about wine and looking to learn more for themselves, you can take a free Beginner’s Guide to Wine course online from Universal Class.  You will learn about American and European Wines with a brief overview of some other regions as well.  You will also learn about the aging and tasting process.  The course is self-paced and you have up to 6 months to complete it.  There are other great courses available from Universal Class on everything from Fashion Design to Excel.

And don’t forget as mentioned in a previous blog you can check out each month Wine Enthusiast Magazine and Food and Wine Magazine to get suggestions on new wines and food pairings/recipes.

American Wine Story

american-wine-story
American Wine Story is a charming 2014 documentary focusing on several West Coast winemakers.  At the heart of the story in one vineyard, where the sister of the departed founder had stepped in to take over, wanting to preserve his legacy for his young son.  I found it really touching how the community came together to help continue the vineyard.  One of the things I have noticed when visiting local vineyards is the sense of camaraderie that the winemakers share.  It seems in America the small nascent community of winemakers are often not only colleagues, but also friends and one definitely had that feeling in American Wine Story.  You can borrow American Wine Story through Hoopla Digital (now BCCLS patrons can borrow 20 items per month from Hoopla including books, movies, music, comics, and TV shows)!

Wine, Women & Friends

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Wine, Women & Friends is another documentary that gives an inside look at the wine making process at a small French vineyard and the strong bonds of community that accompany the wine making process.  Carole LeBlanc and Jo Béfort, are a nurse and veterinarian for their “day jobs,” but the couple is very passionate about creating quality wines.  Wine, Women & Friends looks at a year in the life cycle of their wine’s production.  It also gives an interesting look at their experience of being women in what is often still a male dominated field in France.  Wine, Women & Friends is available on DVD from the Hoboken Public Library or through Hoopla Digital.

The Science of Wine: From Vine to Glass, by Jamie Goode

science-of-wine
You may remember from a previous post I discussed The Drunken Botanist by Amy Stewart (BCCLS October Author of the Month) which discussed the plants used to create a wide variety of alcoholic beverages including grapes used for wine.  I find learning the science behind every day things interesting and insightful.  For those wanting to delve deeper into how wine is created and enjoyed check out The Science of Wine by Jamie Goode, which is available in its second edition from the Hoboken Public Library. The first section focuses on the vineyard and looks at things such as irrigation and how grapes develop.  The second section focuses on the winery and things like use of oak barrels and why cork is used for sealing bottles.  In the third section The Science of Wine focuses not just on the wine itself, but also on the tasting of wine, for example discussing a study that showed how sommeliers brains are activated differently than an average person when tasting a wine.  It includes engaging full color pictures throughout.

Land and Wine: the French Terroir, by Charles Frankel with a foreword by John Varriano

land-and-wine
Terroir is a term used to describe how the land and environment the food we eat or drink grows in effects its character.  The Science of Wine covers terroir briefly, but for an in depth look at how the terroir in France effects different wines, check out Charles Frankel’s Land and Wine.  Frankel merges his love of wine with his training as a planetary geologist to look at how the land itself effects different type of French wines.  The book is setup moving through the different regions of France based on their historic age geologically, but also provides an index of region, wine names, and grape varieties so you can jump to your favorite.  It is wild to think about how dinosaur fossils in the ground may have impacted the wine you are drinking with your meal.  Land and Wine is available from the Hoboken Public Library.

-Written by Aimee Harris, Head of Reference

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Four Tasty Treats for a Variety of Appetites: Bon Appétempt, An Appetite for Violets, El Bulli, and Antique Bakery

17 Jun

Whether you crave fiction or memoir, something to read or watch, the library has a variety of enjoyable delights to checkout.

Bon Appétempt: A Coming of Age Story, by Amelia Morris

bon-appetempt
Fans of Amelia Morris’s blog and budding home cooks and writers will enjoy her memoir Bon Appétempt.  Morris is an aspiring writer, who spent her teen years and early twenties dieting and seeing food as not a comfort, but as calories to count; this makes her seem unlikely to have a popular food blog.   However, she is inspired one day to throw a dinner party for friends and after a beautifully impeccable layer cake featured in Bon Appetit she recreates fails to live up to its promised perfection and must be served in a bowl, she is inspired to create a blog that juxtaposes the food styled version of recipes from magazines and cookbooks with her own more humble attempts.  She dubbed her blog with the pun Bon Appétempt.  Her memoir by the same name, however, starts well before the blog’s creation in her childhood detailing her experience growing up with divorced parents and eventually falling in love with her best friend from high school.  Morris’s life often seems to be similar to the food in her blog, not quite reaching the perfection she had hoped for.  Yet as my French grandmother would often say about a lopsided cake or fallen soufflé, “You can’t eat the looks” and sometimes the moments that are not as expected are the sweetest and most nourishing in the long run.  Morris learns to embrace her life, imperfections and all and along the way finds joy and success in food writing.  Bon Appétempt includes recipes, many of them reinterpretations of not just dishes from cookbooks, but also from family and friends on which Morris puts her own distinctive twist.

 

An Appetite for Violets, by Martine Bailey

an-appetite-for-violets
For fans of Downton Abbey, there is Martine Bailey’s An Appetite for Violets to sample.  I was intrigued by the title since I’m a fan of the flavor of violets (violet ice cream is delicious), but it is something unusual to find now a days, especially in the US.  In Bailey’s novel, violets become symbolic of more than a taste, but also a desire for a life that leads to the downfall of some of the characters.  An Appetite for Violets has elements of mystery and romance.  It focuses mainly on a servant at Mawton Hall, Biddy Leigh, who though she was about to get engaged, instead is swept along on her new mistress Carrina’s journey to Italy.  A few chapters also focus on another servant Loveday, who is seen in flashbacks of his time in his village before he became a slave.  I felt this at times distracted a bit from the main story, but his friendship with Biddy was a sweet spot in a novel that contains a great deal of scheming and social maneuvering.  We learn in the very first chapter that Carrina has died under mysterious circumstances, which adds a level of suspense in the chapters that unfold after that flash back to a year before.  Most chapters begin with historic recipes that though less detailed than our modern ones are charming in their language such as a recipe for Taffety Tart where we are told that it should be filled, “with pippins and quinces and sweet spice and lemon peel as much as delights.”  An Appetite for Violets should surely delight readers of historical fiction.

El Bulli: Cooking in Progress

el-bulli
If you are curious about molecular gastronomy, the documentary El Bulli will be riveting.  I was fascinated by this Spanish documentary of famed molecular gastronomy chef Ferrarn Adria as he works with his team for the six months before the yearly opening of his world renowned restaurant.  The process moves from the chefs’ ideas and playing with different techniques effects on a variety of ingredients to the final scenes of that year’s finished menu.  The year the documentary was produced they were working on a water theme and one dish actually uses small chunks of ice to add texture and a unique sensory experience to a dish.  So many cooking shows involve challengers tasked with throwing together ingredients on a time limit so it felt like a unique perspective seeing how actual restaurant dishes evolve over time under the masterful taste buds of expert chefs.  Adria has since closed El Bulli, but the documentary remains to be savored.  Hoboken Public Library Resident Card holders and other resident BCCLS library Card holders can access the documentary online from Hoopla or on DVD.  Ferran: The Inside Story of El Bulli and the Man Who Reinvented Food by Colman Andrews is also available for those looking for more insight into the legendary chef and restaurant.

Antique Bakery

antique-bakery
Those looking for a comic animated series will enjoy a visit with Antique Bakery.  When I saw that the anime (Japanese animation) for Antique Bakery was available on Hoopla (as well as on DVD), I was curious to check it out since the Hoboken Library also has some of the volumes of the Manga (Japanese graphic novels) that the series is based on in our collection.  Like many animes, Antique Bakery is intended for an adult audience.  The series centers on Keiichiro Tachibana who is compelled by a childhood trauma to open a Western style bakery, even though he doesn’t like to eat sweets.  He hires a motley crew to work at the bakery including a former boxer with a sweet tooth.  Pastry chef Yusuke Ono can attract any man he wants, except Tachibana who is immune to Ono’s charms.   The animation is unique with both two dimensional and three dimensional animation used.  I especially liked the clever intro with the drawings of the characters surrounded by what looks like a real model of the bakery.  Despite only being drawings, you’ll wish that you could taste the fanciful European style pastries the bakers create.  I found this series to be delightful fun, though it does at times touch on some serious issues such as domestic violence. At only 12 episodes it is not an overly large commitment for binge watching (and less calories than snacking on actual sweets).

-Written by Aimee Harris, Head of Reference

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