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Hello and welcome to Focus on OLLI. What is OLLI? OLLI is a program at UNLV dedicated to active retired or semi-retired individuals who understand the importance of keeping themselves engaged. OLLI is the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at UNLV. Every month this program will dig into favorite classes, interesting teachers and members as well as special events offered through OLLI.
Wesley Knight 0:00
This is a k, U, N, V studios original program. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 jazz and more the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.
Keith McMillen 0:16
Hello and welcome to focus on Olli. Olli is a program at UNLV, dedicated to retired or semi retired individuals who remain engaged and active in civic activities and lifelong learning. Olli is the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at UNLV. Olli is made possible by support from the Bernard Osher Foundation, established by philanthropists Bernard and Barbara Osher with a mission to support lifelong learning, higher education and the arts. This series is designed to give you an in depth look at the Olli program and encourage you to join in the fun. And today, we're going to look at taste, maybe not the taste you're thinking of our topics today include food, wine and tobacco. And to help us with this, we have people who are very knowledgeable in each of those fields. And I'm going to start to my right with Tori Kolinsky.
Tori Kolinski 1:16
Hello. I'm Tori Kolinsky. I teach the wine classes at Olli I found out about Ollie at my library, the windmill library, where were several people in my book club already belonged to ollie, and they said I should come and see what there was to offer. And I discovered musical theater and tobacco class called cigars, and several other interesting classes. And then I decided, heck, I have a knowledge of wine, which I acquired from travel and going to wine classes at the International sommelier guild. And then I said, Hey, I got a passion for wine. I can do this. So I stepped up and started teaching classes.
Keith McMillen 2:01
Thank you. And next is Ken Moser.
Ken Moser 2:04
Hi, I'm Ken Moser. I'm a Certified Master Chef Culinary Institute of America graduate. I've been cooking since I was a six year old boy. Love cooking, and I joined the Olli program, partially because the musical theater in which my brother did costume and set design for. And when I did that, someone came into my classroom and said, you know, you could volunteer and you could teach here. You know, you got a lot of knowledge about food and wine and cooking and stuff like that. So this is my fifth semester cooking, and I really enjoyed a lot.
Keith McMillen 2:39
Thank you. And Fred Amadeo, Hi, Keith,
Fred Amodeo 2:43
I got involved with a mutual friend, Gail, who was having conversation with my wife about doing things and expanding our social life and our educational life. And she found Ali, and we went and we started, and we went for a couple of three years, and a friend of mine said, oh, you should teach. You're a teacher, and you should get into it. So I did a few different classes, and someone said you should do a cigar class, which I did. I'm a certified retail tobacconist, and studied tobacco, and cigars in particular, and pipe tobacco, and offered a class, and to my surprise, it was well received, and ran another one, which we went out and sampled different cigars around the valley here in different settings and to see what they have to offer. And that's what we're doing.
Keith McMillen 3:33
All right, just to give you folks an idea of the breadth of topics that you might understand if you come to Olli, let's start with food, because everybody's interested in food. Ken and you teach a class specifically to learn how to cook more healthy and yet relatively fast. In your class, you make two entrees in an hour and a half.
Ken Moser 3:59
So how I got involved with cooking and cooking fast and eating better. I got diverticulitis and needed to learn how to eat again. Being a certified master chef, I should have known better to eat better. But one of the things that I seen that I wasn't drinking enough water, and I have a bunch of people that have passed away, older people that eat a lot of processed, fast food, frozen foods. And I've said you can make something healthier all you need. I do this in a classroom, not in a kitchen. We do it so I have a Bunsen burner and an air fryer, and that's what I cook with. So what I'm showing people is that with a little bit of prep and a little bit of forethought, you can make healthy, good meals in a short period of time and enjoy them and enjoy doing it.
Keith McMillen 4:54
And I will vouch for that. I took Ken's class a semester or two. Go, and the first thing I did was go out and buy an air fryer, and I now have frozen filets of fish in my freezer. I can pop one out at night, and the next night, I'll have a nice fried, cooked fish. You know, I don't know why they call it an air fryer. It's more like a broiler or a hot air thing, but whatever. And thank you for that, because you've helped me a lot. Thank you. So on top of that, when you have a good meal, you probably want, some folks want wine with it.
Tori Kolinski 5:32
Oh yeah, I'm a I'm a big believer in food and wine pairing, because wine, after all, is food, it's fermented beverage. And I think the interesting thing about this topic that Keith put together here is that fermentation plays a role in all three of what our expertise are. Obviously fermented grape juice is wine, and if you're going to be smoking a good cigar, then there's a fermentation that's involved. And not all of Kent's foods, but a lot of Kent's foods are fermented, and that's one synergy. But then on the other end, when you have your finished product, you have your cooked meal, you have your cigar. Wine can be a perfect pairing, and some of those pairings are pretty standard, like we learned growing up, that red wine goes with steak and white wine goes with fish. But now we're learning that you need to consider the whole dish, not just the protein, if you're having protein, but also the sauce that's involved. So there's a lot, a lot that we can experiment with, and I believe that pairing the wine with the food raises the whole meal up to a higher level, and so I like to say better together.
Keith McMillen 6:47
Thank you, Ed, Fred, to top off a good meal, I'm going to guess you probably will sit back somewhere with a good cigar.
Fred Amodeo 6:55
Absolutely, cigars like wine can be paired with a multitude of different varieties of flavors, strengths, aromas, consistencies, and based on what you had for a meal and what you drank with wine, there are a host of different cigars that will go for that will go with that. So if Ken is producing a beautiful steak with potatoes and asparagus, and we're putting a beautiful Cabernet with that. And it's a what we would consider a hearty meal at the evening's end, if you still have your Cabernet, you can pull that out and have a beautiful cigar, full bodied cigar from Nicaragua, Dominican Republic. If you go in with a sweet wine, a dessert wine, there are other types of cigars that you'll be able to pass up with that and just sit down and relax. And that's the beautiful part about smoking a cigar kind of ends the evening on a really light night. Nice note.
Keith McMillen 7:51
Interesting. You have comments. Ken,
Ken Moser 7:56
I grew up in a house that my dad smoked cigars all the time, and my sister didn't know what good wine was, but it was drinking. Didn't know how to enjoy a glass of wine. She just drank glasses of wine. But, um, yeah, food and Well, I think the whole experience of community and brothership and love, and that's what, that's why I cook. And people ask me how, why did I cook? From my heart? Cook from what you feel? Yes,
Keith McMillen 8:29
one of the things, because we've chatted about this program, obviously, before now, is that Tory was telling me that, because the climates are changing in France, certain varietals or grapes aren't growing where they used to grow, but the varietals that you're allowed to grow are very controlled in France,
Tori Kolinski 8:53
exactly right. The wine laws in France are probably some of the strictest, and they must be followed. But because of climate change, change, Bordeaux, for example, the I N, A O, which is their governing board for wine, has just approved eight new grapes being grown. Now, people say, well, is that going to change your Bordeaux blend? Or what's going to happen? They've only approved for small amounts of grape vines to grow just a few here and there, and they're going to test it out and then make more decisions later on. And a lot of these grape varieties are coming from Portugal into Bordeaux. And again, it's a new thing, but if you don't know about Bordeaux wines, obviously they're known for their Bordeaux blends. We've heard that term Bordeaux blend. And a reason for the blends is because Bordeaux was a region where during the harvest, you could get hail storms or you could get rain storms, and so sometimes grapes were picked not at their optimum ripeness. And because of this, they would have five grapes that you could put. You could put Cabernet Merlot, cab, Franc, Petit Verdot, you could mix them together. And because they ripen at different times, you might put a little more of this in this time, because the grapes were more ripe and a little less of that. And that's how that came about.
Keith McMillen 10:21
Interesting. And grape vines are now growing with companions, if I understand what you were telling me earlier, Fred,
Fred Amodeo 10:29
they are there's a macanudo, which has been around for a very long time, has found the gentleman who goes out and looks for tobacco has found tobacco in two regions that normally are not known for tobacco growth. One is in the Rioja region of Spain, where they grow their grapes for their Spanish wine. And another one is in the Bordeaux region of France, and they had cultivated this tobacco and incorporated it into a new blend inside of a cigar. So cigar has three parts to it. It has a filler, which has anywhere from two to up to seven or eight different types of tobaccos set at different stages in the tobacco production of cigar production, it has a binder, and then it has a wrapper. The wrappers are the most prized possessions of it all, and this is some of the tobacco that they're finding is wrappers, and they're also finding from the fillers in there. And the wine countries, because of their beautiful soil and the nutrients that go into the growing of grapes also are infused in the tobacco. So they are a perfect match with Bordeaux wines or Rioja wines. And then if you go to food, it's no different. So there's a difference between Texas Longhorn steaks and wagoo steaks and the differences from night to day. There's a difference between a crisp Sauvignon Blanc and a Cabernet Sauvignon from France or from from anywhere. The same with cigar tobacco, they come from different parts of the world, so it has a different flavor, different potencies, different nuances that add to the enjoyability of the of this tobacco when you smoke it. And the nice part about cigars, which people aren't aware of, because in our country, we tend to group everything together. A cigarette has 598 ingredients. If you light a cigarette and put it in an ashtray, it will burn. If it's a camel or just a field of the old days, it will burn completely through. If it's a modern day with a filter, will burn right to the filter. If you light a cigar and smoke it and put it down, within two or three minutes, it goes out. There's nothing combustible in it, other than tobacco, and it's grown what we would consider to be pretty organic. So it's again, nothing. I'm not saying that they're the healthiest things in the world, but they're not what people think they are compared to other tobaccos that are out there. So that's why they're so enjoyable on the palate after a good meal, glass of wine, it's a great companionship with all three of those interesting,
Keith McMillen 12:56
interesting. So how would you all go about trying to pair all this together for a meal. What would you start with? The entree? Would you start with a wine? How? How would you do this? Any ideas? Well,
Tori Kolinski 13:13
I think the natural flow would be to start with the food and then go to the wine, or the food and the wine together and then go with the stay with the wine and go to the cigar. And there's, there's some general rules. I imagine it's the same for you guys, bold with bold, light with light.
Ken Moser 13:29
Yes, absolutely. Would start with whatever the proteins or whatever you're going to use. And then, as Tori said before now, we do a lot more ideas with the starches and the vegetables. And vegetables have changed because of pairing this with that and growing all different kinds of things that weren't possible 20 years ago or 40 years ago. So things have really changed.
Keith McMillen 13:56
Yeah, one thing that caught me by surprise, and maybe I'm just late to the game, is roasted vegetables. You know, I've eaten brussels sprouts before, but when I had them roasted, it became a whole new animal. That's
Ken Moser 14:11
that's an interesting thing in my last and in the summer semester that we just finished, I did a roasted gazpacho, which most people do fresh grown vegetables and just and blend it and make the gazpacho, but I roasted the vegetables first, total different flavor, total different texture and robustness and the flavors or whatever. So that all what you just said, Keith is right on point that different cooking techniques and different things make different way different. You can take the same recipe and roast it and not roast it, and you'll have two different
Tori Kolinski 14:51
products and and those changes, you know, also are are being seen in the wine world, because now we have a. Orange wine is back, very popular. So white wine made in a red wine style, which would pair beautifully with with Ken's Ken's roasted gazpacho.
Keith McMillen 15:09
Did you say white wine in a red wine
Tori Kolinski 15:12
style? Correct? Because it used to be that. Well, normally when you make a crisp white wine, you take the skins aside and the stems aside and the seeds aside, and you just take that beautiful juice and you make a nice, crisp white wine. Now, red wines, the inside of the grape is not red. The color for the red wine comes from the skins. So if you are making an orange wine, you keep the white wine grape juice with the skins, and it leaches this beautiful orange color, so it makes a more complex wine that is yummy and pairs wonderfully with some of these new cooking techniques that Ken just described.
Keith McMillen 15:51
I guess I got to go pay attention to the wine aisle in the store next time. Fantastic. So what does that do to your cigar choices. Fred,
Fred Amodeo 16:01
well, it opens it up, because if you take a traditional gazpacho with a traditional white wine, you're going to go with a much milder Connecticut or a very light, medium bodied cigar, or something in the realm of a Rocky Patel 1492 or you're going to go to El septimo Connecticut wrap, which would go really well. But when you roast those vegetables, you add that smokiness to it. And the orange wine, which is very I just had a bottle last week, it was absolutely delicious. You might be able to pick that up and go with something like an Alec Bradley princesada, which is more on a heavier side of a medium bodied cigar in the upper echelon of that. And I go into a full body, full bodied you'd use for that red meat, red wine type of deal. So there are a host of different cigars that you would be able to to do. And what's beautiful about is that you don't have to lock in with one single type of cigar. If people are not in tune to all of the flavors, usually go with the one that you like. There's just simple rules. A lighter cigar, not the color of the wrapper, but a light bodied cigar is something that you would do in the morning or with light meals as you progress towards the evening, as you go to medium and then you go to full body. The medium and full bodies can be used anytime during the day, but in the morning, if you're not a seasoned smoker, you don't want to have a cup of tea with a full bodied cigar. It would just not make sense. It will distort the tea, and the tea will also distort the flavor of the cigar that's trying to impart and making it not pleasurable for either experience as you're sitting there trying to enjoy
Tori Kolinski 17:37
it. One thing I did want to mention is when I took Fred's cigar class. The most important takeaway for me was, if I'm going to be smoking a very full what's the correct term, full full body? Full bodied cigar to do it on a full stomach,
Fred Amodeo 17:54
absolutely. Oh, really, yeah. Full Body means one of two things. Full body could be the flavor. So you could, you could have tobacco that imparts flavors of cocoa, sometimes even red meat. It gives that consistency of red meat on your palate. It'll give you a heavy cocoa, sometimes a macadamia or a peanut type flavor on there. So these flavors on the palate, if they're perceptible to the person will be prevalent enough to make a decision on what you're going to smoke after a meal and a full body can also mean the nicotine that's inside of it. Now you don't inhale cigars. It's, that's kind of a no no. It's, it doesn't make for any more pleasurable and actually makes it for a much more difficult smoke. It's like sucking a liquid through a straw into your mouth, and before you swallow, then you expel that smoke. The smoke is what layers on your palate and also comes through your nose, and the factory bowls and that which picks up all the flavors, just like when you cook. I mean, if Ken was to break open some onions and garlic and start saute them in front of us our mouths, we're going to start salivating, because we know what that means.
Ken Moser 19:01
That's that's one of the interesting things with the ollie program, because I do a hybrid class with a lot of people online. I and I try to explain to them, you need to come to one class, at least, because everybody in the building will say, What's Ken cooking today? Because you could smell it down the hall, and the flavors and the smell and the aromas people eat with their eyes and the smell and then the taste. So they already got an idea with all the same with all three
Fred Amodeo 19:29
of wine. I mean, one of the things of wine is nosing the wine. What's the first impression that you get? Cigar smoke is the same thing. People either like it or they don't like it. There are many people who don't smoke any kind of tobacco, but enjoy the smell of a good cigar which is different than a cigar that might not be handmade, might be machine made, which has a different aroma because it's not the same production and the processes of making that
Ken Moser 19:53
I find that really true, that there's a lot of people, especially you know, in the restaurant business. I've been around that women don't like smoke, or don't like tobacco or anything. But if the gentlemen are in the room doing having an after dinner cigar and whatever their smell is really good, they like to smell.
Tori Kolinski 20:16
What do you mean, gentlemen? I smoke cigars.
Ken Moser 20:18
No, I'm this. I wasn't trying. Yes,
Keith McMillen 20:23
you're in generics, right? Yes, yes, yes, because I know there's a couple of ladies at Ali that have expressed interest in cigars. So not a concern. Holly represents some challenges. Actually, you've got the least challenge. You can bring wine into the classroom. No, oh, you can't.
Tori Kolinski 20:45
No wine. It's all just information. And interesting that you mentioned that some of the people that come to my class don't drink wine at all, but have their own reasons for coming to the class, obviously, for the information and the learning, but also one of my students is a grandmother, and she has these family meals, and she brings the she's a little more money than the rest of families, so she brings the wine to go with the family meals, and her cache in her family has gone up quite a bit because she's bringing better wines, not necessarily more expensive, but wines that more naturally pair with the food they're having, and just raising the whole experience. And now she's the hero of the family.
Keith McMillen 21:30
Wonderful. You face a challenge because we don't have a kitchen.
Ken Moser 21:35
Yes, we don't have a kitchen.
Keith McMillen 21:37
You carry your kitchen in on a wagon, yes.
Ken Moser 21:40
And since you don't have a kitchen, you don't have the mise en place, which is all the things to put together. So it's interesting days when I get there and I look for something and it's not there. So I have to improvise. Sometimes I've gotten much, much better by planning a little bit more. And that's what the class is all about. About is planning and setting yourself up for success with the right ingredients and the way right way to do it. And like Keith said before, I do two meals, sometimes three meals, and an hour and 45 minutes with an air fryer and just a hot plate.
Keith McMillen 22:13
And they're amazing. The aromas alone will drive you crazy. And Fred UNLV is a no smoking campus,
Fred Amodeo 22:22
correct? That tends to be, again, it's an international thing. It's not just a national thing. And I understand it, and I'm in agreement. If you're in a restaurant you don't want smoke around the restaurant, one of the better places to actually enjoy a meal, wine and a cigar, is right here off of paradise ferrara's restaurant, where you can go and have a great Italian meal some fantastic wines in their wine list, and then you can go outside to the Al septimo lounge and enjoy a cigar with a glass of wine and unwind from the meal and have good company and relax. Those are far and in between, unfortunately, but there are lots of cigar lounges here in town that you can go for different times of the day. There are those who go out during the afternoon for work. They'll sit down at the computer, have a cigar, cup of coffee, and they'll do their work there two three hours. Others go in there after work and just to unwind before they go home. And then there's the ones that are open after in the later evening that you go out with, with your other significant other, maybe for a meal or someplace. You go down, you unwind at a cigar lounge and just relax. And they're all friendly. The thing about cigar lounges is that you can be from any walk of life, sit down, have a cigar, and you can just solve all the problems of the world.
Keith McMillen 23:39
I've run into those situations in the past. Yeah, it's amazing. A couple glasses of wine, and problems seem to be controllable now. Ken, you had mentioned earlier, and I don't mind putting in a shameless plug here. You volunteer for a lot of things. Yes, and you are cooking for the cast and crew at Super summer theater.
Ken Moser 24:03
Yes, Spring Mountain Ranch State Park. Super summer theater has been out there for 50 years. This season, we do a cast cooking barbecue for the opening of each show this weekend. This year, I incorporated a dinner and a show and I had the mayor of Las Vegas, Shelley Berkley, came this and gave us a proclamation and gave us some money to donate for the and she's been coming out there. Her and her husband, her first husband, have a brick out there. And I do for this summer, but for shows out there. So I spend 12 weeks out there, enjoying myself, plus I also, I'm the Executive Vice President of the Foundation assisting seniors. I help seniors and veterans with durable medical equipment. One of the things that I was fortunate in my cooking career to retired at an early age, and my mother said, I need to give back to the community, and I've been giving back for. In that last 17 years,
Keith McMillen 25:02
and we thank you for that. Absolutely. Any recommendations for somebody who wants to try cigars who maybe hasn't smoked in, say, 30 years?
Fred Amodeo 25:14
If they're interested, there are several good places in town that have good people who work in the human door, and they would help anybody with a good cigar, you explain your situation. You know, I did or I didn't smoke. I'd like to try something. I don't want something overpowering. And they will give you a host of different usually Connecticut wrapped cigars, which are very toasty tea like and when I mean toast, it's like toasting a piece of white bread. And it's that softness in there. You can you can taste the toastness, but it's not very hard on you. Tea. Sometimes it'll get it up front. Sometimes you'll get that little bit of a snap on your tongue, like when you drink tea near the end of it, black tea when you just get to the end of it. And that's usually the best way. Or somebody like myself who might be able to gear somebody towards a good smoke. But it's interesting, you were mentioning barbecue and smoking. There are cigars that are sometimes there are finished inside of curing barns that are go absolutely phenomenal with barbecue. Just fantastic pairing. And you start off with smoky meats and sides with it. And again, there are plenty of wines to go with that type of food, and then have a cigar that has that smokiness to it. It's just a great day.
Keith McMillen 26:26
How about you Tori, a recommendation for somebody who maybe hasn't had wine since they lived in California when they were 18 years old?
Tori Kolinski 26:33
I'd rather give a couple of tips that I like to give to people. Number one, know what you like, but be willing to try something else, something outside the box. There's so many great wines coming from different areas. I just tried one recently from Sicily, from the it's called Aetna e t n, a brand new grape never heard of before, brand new to me, not to them. It's been going for hundreds of years, and that's wonderful. And do yourself a favor. You've heard this expression for many years. Americans drink their red wines too warm and their white wines too cold. So put your red wines in the refrigerator 20 minutes before you plan to drink it, and take your white wines out of the refrigerator 20 minutes before you plan to drink them, and your experience will be improved exponentially.
Keith McMillen 27:26
Fantastic. Thank you all for a very informative discussion, and hopefully there's a few people out there who might try to come to Olli and find out more about what they can drink, eat and smoke next time up, I think we're going to be talking about games, but we'll find out in a month. Thank you so much for coming. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for listening to focus on Olli. There are several ways to get more information. Our web address is Olli. O, L, L, i.unlv.edu You may also email us at Olli, at UNLV, that's Ollie. O, L, L, I, A, T, U, n, l, V, at sign unlv.edu, you can also just give us a call at 702-895-3394, Monday through Friday, between the hours of eight and five. Except of course, on university holidays, you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai