Tuesday, April 23, 2013

#1 Babies, #1 Beer, #1 Procrastinators

Last night I came home with two 4-packs of Heady Topper by The Alchemist in Woodbury, Vermont.

Beer Advocate Top 250 as of  2013-04-23

Currently this is considered the #1 beer in the world according to Beer Advocate. These were purchased for me by a co-worker who happened to be spending some time in the Burlington, VT area and made the unfortunate error of asking me if there was anything in Burlington I wanted her to bring back.

She'll never make that mistake again.

The Alchemist Heady Topper Can

I had no plans to have any last night but I simply couldn't resist. There were explicit instructions to drink it out of the can so I followed instructions against by better judgment.

The result was a very good beer, however, I wasn't sure I'd rank it as #1.

Playful Elliott Up Early

We woke up in the morning to Elliott being playful and jolly in bed with us. We got him a bottle and he fed himself happily while lying on his back and giggling. We didn't think anything of this until we got to talking. We realized that neither of us had any memory of getting him in the night or putting him in bed with us. As far as we can tell he crawled out of the crib, walked into our room, and climbed into our bed all on his own.

Occam's razor would dictate that this is exactly what happened.

Elliott Asleep in Car

When I picked the guys up from day care Elliott was still giggling and happy. Then he let out a one-second shriek of dismay, then went back to being happy again. This happened on and off until I got to a stop light and passed him a toy. That worked for about a minute then it was back to the shrieking. At the next light I tried handing him a pacifier. He greedily grabbed it out of my hand, rotated it to the proper orientation, and stuffed it in his mouth.

He was asleep within five seconds.

The Alchemist Heady Topper in Glass

When we got home I fed them their dinner and had another Heady Topper, this time pouring it into a glass.

I know this goes against the manufacturer's instructions but I found this to be a much more enjoyable experience than out of the can. There's a bunch of mumbo jumbo on the back of the can about hop oils remaining in the can but I think it's a bunch of bull. If you get your hands on this extremely hard to get beer I recommend a glass over the can without hesitation.

Gnocchi with Garlic, Broccoli Rabe, and Parmigiano-Reggiano

To go with the beer I made some gnocchi with broccoli rabe, butter, garlic, olive oil, and Parmigiano-Reggiano. The bitterness of the rabe went very nicely with that of the beer.

Elliott's First Gnocchi

Martin's First Gnocchi

The wombats also got their first taste of gnocchi and seemed to enjoy it quite thoroughly. Of course they enjoy anything small enough to put into their tiny, greedy little mouths. I just hope to God we are able to keep any small poisonous items away from them long enough until their stupid little baby brains learn what to eat and what not to eat. I suppose it's time to stop procrastinating about baby-proofing our apartment.

Maybe tomorrow.

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