Rik Leaf's Blog, page 19

#1 A Whirlwind of Epic Nose-Plowing Proportions

An Odyssey of Adventure and Discovery

This is Chapter #1 of the Audio Book series as author Rik Leaf reads Four Homeless Millionaires – An Odyssey of Adventure and Discovery.

Promontory Press has conveniently collected all the various links for purchasing a physical copy or downloading an e-book. CLICK HERE

listen to ‘#1 A Whirlwind of Epic Nose-Plowing Proportions’ on Audioboo

It’s Your Head & Your Ass

Remember, it’s your head and your ass.

It’s Black Friday. A day universally recognized for its stupidity (bargains based on falsely inflated prices before they are ‘slashed’) greed (trampling the elderly, the disabled and this year…a pregnant woman) and of course the staggering hypocrisy of beating the hell out of each other over a bunch of useless crap the day after giving thanks for what you have in your life.

Considered the unofficial start to the holiday season, this year please remember…it’s your head and it’s your ass.

It is your choice to stick your head up your ass and see the world from that perspective. Remember this when the tryptophan finally clears your system and the bruises start to bloom and your credit card balloons into a staggering spectacle of insupportable debt.



Remember this as you stagger blindly in a disoriented stupor, whacking your emotional knees and elbows off the mental clutter. Remember this, even as you are lashing out at innocent cashiers, inflicting yourself in a thousand inconvenient ways on the hardworking people whose only fault was being unfortunate enough to be riding the same bus. Remember this as you languish in the spiritual poverty of a bankrupt soul, spiralling into the gaping maw of Christmas party dysfunction, chemical dependence and public nudity.

Please remember…it was your choice.

Rik Leaf is a professional Producer/Presenter, recording artist, slam poet & published author who spends the majority of his creative time & energy dreaming up ways to inspire people to live awesome lives.

Interested in booking Rik for your Conference/Festival/Event contact,

Ronnie James, Artist Agent

info@justartists.org

Wine Education – Exposing Myths

Wine Myths

 Five Wine Myths Ruining Your Life

1. The Older the Wine, the Better it Will Be

Not true. Sure there are wines like grand cru Chablis or Savennières from France or Barolos from Italy, are renown for improving with age. But many wines, (the majority if truth be told) are intended to be enjoyed right away. In fact, most wines are consumed within 48 hours of purchase, which is something the winemakers know. They also know that people aren’t going to pick up their bottle again if it doesn’t drink well under those conditions, so they produce it with that in mind. Don’t be afraid of youth, in many cases it is the best possible time to enjoy a wine. So relax and enjoy the moment.

2. Corks are for Quality Wines – Screw Caps are the Cheap Stuff

Not true. There are a few factors in the choice of closures. Screw caps interestingly enough, are the most effective closure for sealing a bottle of wine. New Zealand and Australian winemakers were the early adopters of the new technology. Cork closures are the next best. Wines with corks that are aged for years need to be stored on their sides to keep the wine in constant contact with the cork. Otherwise the cork can dry out, and allow oxygen to adversely affect the wine. The cheapest closures are the synthetic corks, which are exclusively used for youthful wines not intended for ageing.

3. Serve Red Wine at Room Temperature

True…sort of. The thing is this rule of thumb came along before the days of air conditioning and A/C. It would more accurate to say, serve at cellar temperature. At the right temperature a wine will best display its aroma and flavour. Too cold it won’t show the fullness of aromas and flavor. Too hot and you can be left tasting nothing but alcohol. You want to serve white wine 7-13C (45-55F) To put that in context, the average fridge runs around 2°C (35°F) So if you are pulling your white wine out of the fridge to serve it will actually be too cold. Try to serve dry, crisp, acidic wines closer to 7 and rich, sweet wines closer to 13. You can serve rose wines at the same temperature as white. You want to serve red wine between 13-18°C (55 to 65°F) Lighter, fruitier reds like Beaujolais and Barbera d’Asti would be closer to 13/55 and full-bodied Cabernet Sauvignons, Shiraz and Malbecs at the top. And when and if you find yourself celebrating with a bottle of bubbly, just remember that champagne and sparkling wines are chilled the most at 6-8 (45-48F)

4. Pair Red Wine with Red Meat and White Wine with White Meat

True…except for the exceptions. Rose is great for hors d’oeuvres. Combining the fresh acidity of light body whites with the fruity character of reds, rose is your ‘go to’ wine for appies. Unoaked white wines pretty much go with anything you can squeeze a lemon on. Something like a citrusy Sauvignon Blanc will compliment everything from smoked white fish to grilled salmon and potato salad.

Low alcohol wines pair best with spicy foods. So if you’re serving curried chicken or Thai stir-fry, try pairing with a Riesling. (Just a quick word of caution, this pairing can be so delicious you and your dinner guests may find yourself in a compromising situation, moaning and groaning in gastronomic ecstasy. You’ve been warned)

With lighter meats like chicken or pork when the protein isn’t the primary flavour, base your pairing with the sauce. You can also look for natural matches, something as simple as Italian wines with Italian foods. Often the high acidity of a Chianti, Barolo or Barbera finds what it’s looking for with the high acidity of tomato-based meals.

Earthy wines are great with earthy foods. Pinot Noir and bison rib eye steak and wild mushrooms. Finally, if you’re pairing wines and dessert, try wines that are a touch lighter and less sweet. A Moscato for instance can work well with glazed and grilled fruit.

5. You Have To Spend a Fortune for a Great Bottle of Wine

Wine is like any artistic expression…it’s entirely personal. The pompous palettes of the world will look down their noses at the rest of us, but so what…let them. Wine is personal…like Nickelback. Personally, I can’t stand their music but millions of people love it. Jazz is some of the most challenging music played by some of the best players around, but I don’t want to listen to any of it. It’s the same thing with wine…it’s personal. It’s a personal expression of the winemaker and it’s a personal experience for the consumer. Wine education is learning how to assess a glass of wine to identify what you like and then enjoying what you like. In the same way we don’t all have to like Nickelback., we don’t all have to like high tannins, or sweet wines or oaked Chardonnays.

Rik’s World of Wine on Pinterest

 

I am just getting my ‘World of Wines’ set up over at Pinterest in an attempt at cataloguing my ongoing discoveries and recommendations. Please feel free to check it out HERE.

Rik Leaf is a sommelier, writer and producer who loves sharing (and sipping) great stories with friends. A lifelong passion for travel, culture and adventure has taken him around the world and fuelled numerous CDs, videos, articles and his book, Four Homeless Millionaires – An Odyssey of Adventure and Discovery

The post Wine Education – Exposing Myths appeared first on Rik Leaf.

Five Wine Myths Ruining Your Life

Wine Myths

 

1. The Older the Wine, the Better it Will Be

Not true. Sure there are wines like grand cru Chablis or Savennières from France or Barolos from Italy, are renown for improving with age. But many wines, (the majority if truth be told) are intended to be enjoyed right away. In fact, most wines are consumed within 48 hours of purchase, which is something the winemakers know. They also know that people aren’t going to pick up their bottle again if it doesn’t drink well under those conditions, so they produce it with that in mind. Don’t be afraid of youth, in many cases it is the best possible time to enjoy a wine. So relax and enjoy the moment.

2. Corks are for Quality Wines – Screw Caps are the Cheap Stuff

Not true. There are a few factors in the choice of closures. Screw caps interestingly enough, are the most effective closure for sealing a bottle of wine. New Zealand and Australian winemakers were the early adopters of the new technology. Cork closures are the next best. Wines with corks that are aged for years need to be stored on their sides to keep the wine in constant contact with the cork. Otherwise the cork can dry out, and allow oxygen to adversely affect the wine. The cheapest closures are the synthetic corks, which are exclusively used for youthful wines not intended for ageing.

3. Serve Red Wine at Room Temperature

True…sort of. The thing is this rule of thumb came along before the days of air conditioning and A/C. It would more accurate to say, serve at cellar temperature. At the right temperature a wine will best display its aroma and flavour. Too cold it won’t show the fullness of aromas and flavor. Too hot and you can be left tasting nothing but alcohol. You want to serve white wine 7-13C (45-55F) To put that in context, the average fridge runs around 2°C (35°F) So if you are pulling your white wine out of the fridge to serve it will actually be too cold. Try to serve dry, crisp, acidic wines closer to 7 and rich, sweet wines closer to 13. You can serve rose wines at the same temperature as white. You want to serve red wine between 13-18°C (55 to 65°F) Lighter, fruitier reds like Beaujolais and Barbera d’Asti would be closer to 13/55 and full-bodied Cabernet Sauvignons, Shiraz and Malbecs at the top. And when and if you find yourself celebrating with a bottle of bubbly, just remember that champagne and sparkling wines are chilled the most at 6-8 (45-48F)

4. Pair Red Wine with Red Meat and White Wine with White Meat

True…except for the exceptions. Rose is great for hors d’oeuvres. Combining the fresh acidity of light body whites with the fruity character of reds, rose is your ‘go to’ wine for appies. Unoaked white wines pretty much go with anything you can squeeze a lemon on. Something like a citrusy Sauvignon Blanc will compliment everything from smoked white fish to grilled salmon and potato salad.

Low alcohol wines pair best with spicy foods. So if you’re serving curried chicken or Thai stir-fry, try pairing with a Riesling. (Just a quick word of caution, this pairing can be so delicious you and your dinner guests may find yourself in a compromising situation, moaning and groaning in gastronomic ecstasy. You’ve been warned)

With lighter meats like chicken or pork when the protein isn’t the primary flavour, base your pairing with the sauce. You can also look for natural matches, something as simple as Italian wines with Italian foods. Often the high acidity of a Chianti, Barolo or Barbera finds what it’s looking for with the high acidity of tomato-based meals.

Earthy wines are great with earthy foods. Pinot Noir and bison rib eye steak and wild mushrooms. Finally, if you’re pairing wines and dessert, try wines that are a touch lighter and less sweet. A Moscato for instance can work well with glazed and grilled fruit.

5. You Have To Spend a Fortune for a Great Bottle of Wine

Wine is like any artistic expression…it’s entirely personal. The pompous palettes of the world will look down their noses at the rest of us, but so what…let them. Wine is personal…like Nickelback. Personally, I can’t stand their music but millions of people love it. Jazz is some of the most challenging music played by some of the best players around, but I don’t want to listen to any of it. It’s the same thing with wine…it’s personal. It’s a personal expression of the winemaker and it’s a personal experience for the consumer. Wine education is learning how to assess a glass of wine to identify what you like and then enjoying what you like. In the same way we don’t all have to like Nickelback., we don’t all have to like high tannins, or sweet wines or oaked Chardonnays.

Rik Leaf is a sommelier, writer and producer who loves sharing (and sipping) great stories with friends. A lifelong passion for travel, culture and adventure has taken him around the world and fuelled numerous CDs, videos, articles and his book, Four Homeless Millionaires – An Odyssey of Adventure and Discovery

The Good, Bad, Fake & True

A Host of Entertaining Ideas

ENTERTAINING IDEAS PODCAST CLICK HERE

Social Media is a platform of connectivity that has done more to undermine communication than any other construction since the Tower of Babel.

It’s a world where we are profoundly connected, but rarely, if ever actually have an actual conversation.

You are in a moment somewhere, having whatever kind of day you’re having, with whomever you happen to be with.

Then you check Facebook.

It’s all snippets and sound bytes, links, rants and comments.

The late night comedy network link is funny.

The sensational racist story…rage inducing.

The asinine politician – exasperating.

20 seconds ago you were in a good mood but suddenly you’re mad as hell.

Then there’s your one over sharing friend, whose complete disregard for boundaries makes you feel uncomfortable just reading their post in private.

Another friend’s masterful presentation of a fully fabricated life leaves you feel like loser living your all-to-real life.

The common thread unraveling through all the good, bad, fake and true is that there is no context for any of it. Nothing is organic, just coming up as a natural part of your day and the moment you’re in, your stage of life or state of mind.

Every thought and idea is just a random, disconnected piece of data that you consider in the most cursory, superficial way possible.

LIKE. SHARE. COMMENT.

But it affects you. So you try to process joy, fear, depression, compassion and rage in under 30 seconds with nothing but the click of a mouse.

You lash out. Sling some shit. Accuse. Deride. Gush and fawn.

Then you close it down. Get back to the moment you’re in.

Abandoning your emotional words, accusations and comments to create a life of their own.

Your racial slurs and insensitive pronouncements are still out there, living in your name. Representing your contribution to the conversation you’re not really having with anyone.

Be careful who you let into your life

Sometimes the ones with wise sounding words are the greatest fools

And bowed heads and downcast eyes hide hearts filled with bitterness and pride

Professions of love are followed by acts of abuse or neglect

So you need to remember not to forget

To be careful who you let into your life

 

 

 

 

Beaujolais Nouveau 2013

It’s Thursday, November 21/13 so I’ve GOT to write about Beaujolais Nouveau. On the third Thursday of November each year, Beaujolais Nouveau is the first opportunity to taste the new vintage from France’s Beaujolais region.

This year, harvest was two to three weeks later than in recent years, due to France’s cool and rainy spring. The later hang time for the grapes on the vine has apparently provided more some more interesting ‘goings on’ than in recent years. Which may be true, or just something the marketing department agreed upon as this year’s schtick.

Beaujolais Nouveau is made from Gamay grapes that typically produce fragrant, fruity wines full of red fruit flavours like raspberry and cherry. Carbonic maceration is a winemaking technique often used to produce Beaujolais Nouveau, that extracts colours and fruit flavours but very little tannins. (tannins are like parents representing responsible adult-like sensibilities) So basically, it’s like throwing a house-party-on-your-palette, with a wild assortment of flavours like kirsch, banana, bubblegum and cinnamon-like spices. It’s SUPPOSED to be an unpretentious, youthful, fruity wine, meant to be drank right now. You also drink it slightly chilled, so around 13C/55F.

By law, Beaujolais Nouveau can’t be released until midnight of the third Wednesday in November after the vintage…so the morning of the third Thursday, which of course is today! It also can’t be sold after August 31 the following year. It’s all about celebrating the moment people!

It’s a kitchy, fun and fruity wine that honestly probably makes a lot more sense in the Beaujolais region in France where exhausted berry pickers and winemakers enjoy a well earned respite after their hard labours. Be that as it may, when I walked through the doors of the liquor store today in Victoria, I practically face-planted into the big display. Which I took as a sign. So I bought a bottle and brought it home and we toasted the fruits of other another successful harvest that we had nothing whatsoever to do with. Which is just how I want to keep it!

Try it out and let me know what you think.

 

New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc

Sauvignon Blanc

It’s been called the varietal that woke the world to New Zealand wines, and if I’m looking for a dry, bright, citrusy white wine it’s definitely top of my list of favourites.

The Gush – Everything from soil and climate to winemaking style goes into making a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc an aromatic masterpiece. We often talk about aromas in terms of how intense they are. With these wines the aromas are so pronounced they literally leap out of the glass in an explosive potpourri of green bell pepper, gooseberry and passionfruit. Sometimes there are hints of greenery that will make you think of fresh-cut grass, tomato stalks, melons & lime. (I also imagine lithe, super sexy, elves gracefully sipping from elegant flutes in Rivendell…but that might just be me) The style from the North Island can tend to have a little more tropical characters, while the more southern style is a bit crisper and vibrant.

Playing Matchmaker –  Pairing with food think green. Sauvignon Blanc is all about its herbaceous notes so it typically pairs well with green herbs like parsley, rosemary, basil, cilantro or mint. It’s amazing with grilled fish, especially oily fish like mackerel, whitebait and fish and chips. Also great if you’re doing Greek or Mexican food with avocados, tomatoes, green onions, olives and sharp cheeses like feta.

Bottom Line – you can find some great inexpensive varieties that won’t break the bank or the budget. Fat Bird & Oyster Bay from Marlborough or Matua from Hawkes Bay are great. This is a youthful expressive wine that’s not meant for ageing and falls into the ‘drink now’ category. Find something in your price range and enjoy the adventure!

Inexpensive  Under $20.00  
Mid Price $20-40                                                                                                                                          
High Price $40-60
Premium $60 +
 

My Last 24 Hours

It started yesterday morning with Zara showing me Jared Leto’s 11 minute City of Angels short film while we were having coffee in the sunroom. I loved the collection of people. Some whose dreams had turned out, some whose dreams had broken. The famous and the obscure mixing together showing how are more alike than we realize. It made me happy I was a dreamer, and I decided I had it in me to keep going for one more day.

Later I watched a documentary on Youtube called Unrepentant – Canada’s Treatment of First Nations. It’s unfortunate that the audio and video don’t synch for most of the film, cause admittedly it’s really distracting. But the story was one every Canadian needs to hear, because it’s our story, our shared history, and it’s wrong that we don’t think of Canada when we talk about genocide, ethnic cleansing and segregation.

Stories of RCMP arriving by boat in West Coast communities with guns mounted on the front, forcibly removing children as young as 5 years from their families placing them in church run concentration camps. Where institutionalized abuse included whipping, shock therapy, dental and dietary experiments and forced sterilization…on children! Official reports by government agents touring residential schools in Western Canada, reporting death rates as high as 69%. Rates due to the regular practice of forcing healthy children to sleep, eat and play with children with tuberculosis, guaranteeing the healthy children would be infected. They showed pictures from university textbooks documenting this.

A United Church minister from Port Alberni at the centre of the documentary said he got into the ministry because Jesus was a revolutionary. The poor and marginalized of society constantly being shit on finally had a champion. And that’s what motivated him. He wasn’t strung up on a cross, but identifying with the Aboriginal community led to the United Church taking unprecedented steps to destroy his life and career.

Institutionalized indoctrination by government and religious organizations is no excuse for our ignorance. Because it’s a dangerous racist ignorance, that finds expression every single day in this country. Like the crowds of Canadians gathered to honour their veterans on Remembrance Day, who stood by in complicit silence and watched as an Aboriginal Veteran was Arrested. Not a word of support. Not a word of protest. It made me thankful I know truth other than my own, and am not afraid to see the world through the eyes of others.

First thing this morning one of my housemates posted a link to a video called, The Innovation of Loneliness. It’s brilliant and poignant and simply shows the emptiness of social media and the overstimulated and disconnected experience. And right on the heels of that, another friend shared a story of a photographer in New York who asked strangers to pose together in photos that expressed a greater degree of intimacy than they actually had. The results were inspiring and encouraging. CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO It made me excited all over again to be an artist, and to have found a way to share the way I see the world and everyone in it.

Last night was our first community house supper together in quite awhile. There are 12 of us who live here, and it is a constant effort to maintain a point of connection. How sad and pathetic to actually live in community and find yourself sitting in your room feeling lonely and depressed. But it happens. We’ve found the time spent making, eating and cleaning up after meals is worth the effort. It felt good to sit around a table looking into each others eyes sharing stories of the day. Simple. Beautiful.

That’s what happened for me in my last 24 hours.

 

Big Deal Book Endorsements

Lets Do This Thing!

listen to ‘Lets Do This Thing!’ on Audioboo