Nashville's best specialty food shop - Corrieri's

Corrieri's is a great place to stop in for a variety of cheeses from across the USA and Europe. The staff is very knowledgable and happy to share all they know with you and they'll also let you sample the cheeses so you know what you like and dislike. Have you ever tried a variety of blue cheeses to see how they compare? Well, you can at Corrieri's and they often have cheeses that are delicious AND have fun names, like the Drunken Cow or the Drunken Goat

Read the entire article at http://www.webbspunideas.com/news.html

German wine and cheese for lunch

Chad Schott, of Drumzrguruven, at Corey's Culinary Club

Chad talking about making didgeridoo's, rain sticks and gourd drums. He also talks about harvesting bamboo in Florida.

This was recorded at one of Corey's Culinary Club events. It was the "Taste of Europe" and we enjoyed European cheeses and wines with Brandon from Corrieri's and Mark from Vinea telling us about the pairings of the two.

Visit Chad's website at http://www.drumzrguruven.com/

Cave Used to Create Munchies but now it Cures the Munchies

The pot cave is now the cheese cave.

Or will be in the future.

Roth Käse USA Ltd., a Wisconsin-based maker of European-style cheeses, offered the highest bid Saturday at a court-ordered auction. The company bid $285,000 for seven hilly acres and the improved cave below, which for several years was home to a clandestine marijuana farm.



The company's representative at the auction, Chuck Olson, offered little comment on the purchase after the auctioneer named him the winner.

"They'll make an announcement shortly," said Olson, who smiled widely after a half-hour bidding volley between him and another would-be buyer. Asked what the company intends to do with the property, he replied coyly, "Make money."

Unlike the previous owner's business, Olson said, the cave's new enterprise will be entirely legal "in a tasty way."

The auction was held in what had been one of the underground growing rooms in a previous marijuana operation. About 170 people, the majority of them spectators, came to watch the court-ordered sale unfold about 90 feet below ground.



Read the complete story in the Tennessean newspaper.

Cheese and Wine Pairings from Brett Corrieri

CHEESE AND WINE COMBINATIONS


Cheese: Blue Daisy
This is sheep’s’ milk cheese, very young, fresh, elegant flavor.

Wine: Aneri Prosecco di Valdobbiadene NV Brut
An outstanding Prosecco! This is more intriguing than most. Minerally, earthy, and elegant, but with all the ripe fruitiness you’d expect from Veneto, Italy’s premium sparkling wine.

Combination:
The earthiness from the single vineyard Prosecco (mineral, chalk) goes superbly with “ewwyness” of sheep’s cheese. (Mark begins “eww-ing”) Both the wine and the cheese have a delicate flavor and texture. We all agree: it rocks.

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Cheese: Humbolt Fog
This cheese is Humboldt County California’s second largest agricultural product. This one is a sheep’s milk cheese with a small window of time to eat it. (You know it’s perfect when the inside half looks like ricotta and the outside is runny.) The boys warned that it was “quite pungent.” The rind is completely edible.

Wine: Bertani Soave Classico 2002
This is darker and richer than typical Soave. The wine has aromas of golden delicious apple and a slightly mineral neutrality, which we all agree should be a good backdrop to the cheese. (Mark likes to say the grape name, “Gargenega…gargenega…”)

Combination:
This is a good combo. The wine lets the cheese shine, doesn’t compete.

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Cheese: Parmigiano–Reggiano Dop 2003
In cheese circles, this popular cow’s milk cheese from Emilia-Romagna, Italy, is called “il formaggio miglioe nel mondo”—the world’s greatest cheese. Brett chose to include it in the tasting “to show how versatile it is and how the taste changes.” He advises to never buy pre-shredded Parmesan: “pre-shredded versions taste like wax.” This cheese is delivered to Corrieri’s in huge, 88-lb. rolls that have already been aged for at least 24 months. Corrieri’s ages the rolls another 6 months.

Wine: Cavit Pinot Noir 2005
This is a good, solid Pinot for penny pinchers. Bright cherry and strawberry fruit with nice mushroomy/earthy undertones.

Combination:
This is definitely an instance where great cheese makes decent wine taste better. Nutty savory character in cheese (umami?) brings out the caramel hue in the wine.

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Cheese: Gorgonzola
This smells like a fish aquarium. Spicy, tingly, sharp mouth feel. Brett says there are two types of Gorgonzola: Gorgonzola Dolce (made in fall when the sheep have eaten silage, or hay, on the farm) and Gorgonzola Picante or Mountain Gorgonzola (made in the spring when the sheep are herded back to the farm and graze on wild grasses and herbs.) We tasted the latter, which has a spicy, wild flavor. (Mark says this is a great cheese for someone with a foot fetish!)

Wine: Barbera Monteforatto 2002
It’s unanimous, this wine is cool. Great aromatics. We smell violets, roses, and raspberries. It’s more perfumy than you might expect from a wine at this price point. Great zesty acidity, too, which should be a good match with the zinginess of the cheese.

Combination:
This is an awesome combination. The textures work well together (both are simultaneously velvety and zippy.) Also both are highly perfumed…YES!


Read more from this article in the Nashville Wine Press.

Taste of Europe...the review

We started off outside on the back deck. We enjoyed the evening by looking out over the Threadventures property. It was so nice and we took folks back to see the horses. Conversations were alive as we talked about travels, books and all sorts of things with sometimes everyone involved in one conversation while other times talking just one on one. Some of the conversations were about literature and movies and talked about Pooh, J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan, C.S. Lewis, Willie Wonka, Charley and the Chocolate Factory but we talked about a little bit of everything under the sun.

The wine began to flow while still outside and than we all went inside to listen to Brandon explain the world of cheese to us and then we all tasted and compared tastes, textures and all the fun complexities of cheese.

We soon moved onto the world of wine and enjoyed some wonderful choices from Italy, Spain and France. They all were wonderful wines with great tastes and they were so pleasing in the way they all danced their own little dances with our taste buds. Mark did a great job of making sure we understood and enjoyed the history, the pleasure and more about the wines.

We also had a fantastic Belgian beer called Chimay. It was excellent in taste, texture and had a wonderful finish.

Chad and Carrie Schott from Drumzrguruven attended and Chad begin to played the didgeridoo for us. Afterwards he discussed how he makes his musical instruments, where he goes to sell them (i.e. festivals, art shows, etc), where he finds bamboo and much more.

We had some really nice door prizes to give away before the night was over. Some of the door prizes were:
$85 gift certificate for Mambu,
two $20 gift certificates for Ellendales,
gourd drum from Drumzrguruven
60-minute massage for Seraphim Salon and Spa.

I now look forward to the next which will be coming up soon.

Stay tuned...

Lunch at Corrieri's Formaggeria

10K Lira= HEAVEN and especially when paired with the right wine. Visit Vinea while the sandwich heating for the wine and be sure to tell them what you are pairing it with. I would recommend the Domaine Pichot Vouvray 2005.

Ingredients of the 10K Lira sandwich:

A real Italian sub. Loads of prosciutto cotto, salame toscano, mortadella, coppa and sopressata. For cheese we add provolone and mozzarella. For flavoring we add spinach and peppadew peppers. All served in a big hunk of foccacia drizzled with balsamic vinegar, olive oil, kosher salt, freshly cracked black pepper and italian seasonings.