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What Pinup Models from the 1940s Would Eat if They Arrived Here in a Time Machine

2012-01-26T21:49:00.003-05:00

It's amazing what a light rain can do to the roads of New York City. The West Side Highway, which under normal conditions is barely tolerable, turns into a slow-moving mess which is made even worse by the fact that they still allow people from New Jersey on the road.

Write your representatives, people. This madness has to stop!

There was little time to cook after getting home. Jen expressed her interest in having a "meaty pasta dish" so I took the soup from the other night, cooked it down, tossed in some blanched broccoli rabe, a little tomato paste, some fusilli, butter, and Parmigiano-Reggiano.

I also made garlic bread with some fresh Italian bread, mashed garlic cloves, salt, pepper, olive oil, and some paprika.

For beer I picked another Christmas gift, this Niagara's Best Premium Blonde Ale from The Syndicate Restaurant & Brewery (formerly Niagara's Best Beer Ltd.) in Niagara Falls, Canada. This beer was unique in that it was one of the least carbonated beers I've ever had. There was no discernible head whatsoever. There was a slight sourness. I'd expected it to be a little sweeter, sort of like that sweet lady on the label. She didn't look sour. She looked like a sweet heartbreaker from the 1940s.

A sweet, cream ale-drinking, Niagara Falls going-over-in-a-barrel, pinup model heartbreaker from the 1940s.

Skyward Sausage

2012-01-24T19:55:00.002-05:00

I haven't done all that much cooking lately. However, I have had a lot of time being stuck in the house and whenever I have a day at home I like to make stock.

We had a tremendous amount of leek tops in the freezer. We still do but we used to too. I used these along with some bones from a roast chicken to make a chicken and leek stock.

I know it seems a little farfetch'd but I felt there was enough leek in the stock that it warranted top billing in the naming of the stock.

We haven't been grocery shopping in over a week so it was a little tight what I could actually make for dinner. I did make this sausage and fennel soup with olive oil, crushed garlic, onion, carrot, celery, fennel, sausage, and a little of my farfetch'd stock.

To accompany the soup I served a crusty baguette, a light salad of arugula and mixed greens with a little lemon and olive oil, Gorgonzola Mountain, and a D'anjou pear who was just two weeks away from beginning to collect social security.

Last night I started playing the Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. To keep with the night's Nintendo theme I continued on my quest after dinner. Jen is always delighted to watch me play a new video game, something that admittedly hasn't happened for about four years. While she enjoys herself her main concern is that it might be boring for me to sit there and play while she watches.

I don't think Jen understands how video games work.

Hand Pies For Tiny Hands

2012-01-22T20:09:00.000-05:00

Jen was stranded in Denver last night. I'd been planning to make her some treats for her late night arrival but instead I stayed where I was stranded: on my back with a heating pad. She finally got in around 6:00 this evening so I needed to put something a little more substantial together for dinner.

Since I haven't left the house since Thursday it was slim pickin's. So it was that I turned to our freezer and fridge to see what I could squeeze out for an emergency meal. I'd hoped Jen would have been home today to run out and get a few things but sadly our food supply has diminished to new lows.

I made the most out of the roast chicken turned creamy chicken stew. I folded it up into some puff pastry dough to make little hand pies.

I guess if they're little hand pies then they're more like finger pies. Much like the pies foretold in the Beatles classic Penny Lane.

.I only made them this size because that was the size of the largest cutter we had. I balled up the remaining dough, rolled it out, and made one more proper-sized hand pie.

I also found one remaining veal saltimboca in the freezer which I thawed out and cooked up on a hot plate in the oven.

I also thawed out all the remaining pancetta and shrimp in the freezer, wrapping them up, and cooking them alongside the veal.

So I stayed in the house all day watching both championship football games where the teams are playing to see who is in the World Series or something. This is extremely unfair. I'm sure there are people out there who would kill to switch places with me, even taking on my illness, just to be able to have this opportunity that is so wasted on me. That's a real shame because I would be all over taking someone up on that tradeoff to be done with this and not able to see the football game.

I need to go to the doctor tomorrow so I have to leave the house at some point. My hope is that he will look at my back and say, "Aha! I see what the problem is!" Then he'll fiddle with a few knobs or gears or levers and I will be back to normal. Yeah, that would be pretty great. I'm pretty sure that has a good chance of happening.

That's how doctors work, right?

The King of Beers vs. the Beer of Kings

2012-01-21T19:23:00.003-05:00

When I was in culinary school one of my instructors was a Czechoslovakian man with a a great gray mustache. It was the kind of mustache you'd expect from a Civil War general more so than someone who has spent most of his life in the restaurant business. Perhaps in Czechoslovakia there are a lot of American Civil War themed restaurants the same way American restaurants put a lot of baskets, old barrels, and fake grapes hanging off the walls.

This man, Mr. Browchuk, would often invite me after class to participate in wine tastings. It might be because he could see, unlike many other students, that I actually had an interest in it other than a means of becoming drunk. I took him up on many an after class tasting where he introduced me to Rosé d'Anjou which taught me that there was another type of rosé other than white zinfandel.

There was an incredible man behind that incredible mustache. On the first day of class he asked us all to tell him his name. Then he taught an entire class (a six hour class) and at the end of the class went through the room telling us all our names without getting a single one wrong. This didn't have anything to do with our culinary education but it sure was impressive.

At the time I attended these wine-tastings I was nineteen. The University had some sort of special license where it was allowed to serve alcohol to underage students for educational purposes. I'm not sure if this is actually legal but it's what they did. It could have been that Providence was ruled at the time by corrupt mayor Buddy Cianci who had pulled some strings to make this "legal." It's worth noting that he also had the license plate "1" which was actually illegal since the governor also had the same license plate. The only difference is that the governor was supposed to have that plate number. Mayor Cianci seemed to get around it by claiming that he was the most important person in Rhode Island.

He may have been right about that.

During one of these tastings Mr. Browchuk told me that he enjoyed a beer called Budweiser. Before I could allow this to tarnish my image of him he explained to me that in Czechoslovakia they brewed the original beer called Budweiser. He said it was a Czech lager whose name was stolen by the American beer. I could hardly believe it. I held that fact in the back of my mind for years imagining what this beer could be like and, more importantly, how Anheuser-Busch could get away with it.

As you can see from this video clip above from one of my favorite shows, Michael Jackson's The Beer Hunter, the town of Budweis has been brewing beer since the 1200s. In fact, Adolphus Busch began brewing Budweiser in America as an homage to the Bohemian lagers he'd had while traveling Europe. He was particularly fond of the lager brewed in Budweis which had been the beer consumed by many of the kings of Europe for hundreds of years.

Actual real Budweiser (from Budweis) wasn't sold in America until recently and even now is only allowed to be sold under the name Czechvar. It's sort of like the Busch/Bush beer fiasco I talked about last month.

Anheuseur-Busch, in order to protect its brand, has employed its arsenal of lawyers to do everything possible to make sure that the beer that inspired its success was marginalized in the United States. The original Budweiser from Bohemia had been called "The Beer of Kings" for centuries. Anheuseur-Busch played off that slogan by calling its beer "The King of Beers." How did they pay the original Budweiser back for all this inspiration? They prevented the use of the word 'Budweiser' (the actual name of the beer), 'Bud' (another Anheuseur-Busch trademark), and any use of the centuries-old slogan "The Beer of Kings."

Ain't that America?

I had a lot of time to think about this today, on my back, lying around and thinking about things. Truth be told, I'd been thinking about this for some time. I'd never had the original Budweiser, and I hadn't had American Budweiser in well over a decade. So that got me to thinking that I would like to do a blind taste test of the two.

Now I'm fully aware of my bias against the American lager. That's why this would have to be a completely blind tasting. How could I accomplish this fairly given that I am only one man, alone, at home, experiencing lower back pain?

First I would need two, identical, opaque service glasses or cups. While I wasn't 100% certain I was still pretty sure that Czechvar would end up being a little darker than the American lager. I marked the bottoms of the cups with the names of the beer they were about to receive.

To be fair I made sure to check and get the freshest possible version of each beer. The American Budweiser had a Born On Date™ of December 6, 2012 while its Czech counterpart had a Best Before date of October 10, 2012. Different dating systems but both were about as fresh as I could hope for.

Then I poured the two beers into their respective cups.

After that I needed some sort of rotational device so I could spin the beers around while closing my eyes. I was at a loss for a moment until I decided to take the turntable out of my microwave, set it up on my table, and use it as a makeshift Lazy Susan.

After they were sufficiently mixed up I had to mark the cups again, this time on the front with a 1 and a 2. This time not knowing which beer is which.

I made sure to hold the beer up at eye level so I could not be influenced by the look of the beer. I didn't know for a fact but I didn't want my taste buds to be influenced by what I expected to be the darker Czechvar.

Then I took notes, sitting on the floor as not to be able to peer into the tops of the cups. It also helped to relieve my back pain to sit on the hard wood. Score!

I skipped over the visual element as I would have to get to that later as I didn't want it to cloud my judgment. And now onto the beer judgment!

Beer 1
On the nose I picked up a very faint and light hop aroma. There were notes of grass or hay and something slightly acidic like a very faint citrus. The malt and yeast gave off a smell of fresh dough and a soft-ripened cheese like brie. It tasted a little reminiscent of Corona but, unlike last night's beer, without the lime. The body was very light and thin with an average carbonation. The flavor did not linger for very long but there was a slight sweetness to it and it had a creamy finish with absolutely no bitterness to speak of. It had a watery quality one would associate with most lagers.

Beer 2
Yup, this one was the American Budweiser. The blind test was over the second I had a sip of this one. There is something so distinct about the taste of this beer, a flavor I recognized from long ago at functions held at establishments with poor beer selections.

Beer #2 had a lot of the same tasting notes. Present was the soft-ripened cheese smell, the dough scent from the yeast, and the smell of straw and hay from the malt. It was slightly less acidic than Beer #1 but with a similar sweetness. The main difference was that Beer #2 had a slight sake taste to it. After researching this a little I found that American Budweiser is made with about 30% rice so that would explain the sake flavor.

Just to be sure I checked under my cup at this point to see if I was right.

Yup. I was. It's amazing how ingrained in me the flavor of American Budweiser was even after not having it for at least a decade.

So what was the verdict? Which one was better? Well, I think I will say that the findings of this test were largely inconclusive. The fact is I didn't really care for either. American Budweiser was more familiar but both were pretty flavorless. I had been hoping I could review them both, make a decision then look under the cup and be surprised. Unfortunately one of the beers had unknowingly imprinted itself on my brain so I was unable to have the result I wanted.

I really had no need for either of these beers so I dumped them and settled back with something a little more enjoyable.

Since I'm a light weight and can only really drink one beer in an evening I poured the remainder of last night's Pearl Jam beer from Dogfish Head into a glass. While this beer had measured as a disappointment to some I must say it was like a special treat after drinking lackluster versions of a lackluster beer style.

America: 0, Czechoslovakia: 0.

Dinner and a Movie and a Pearl Jam (and a Beer)

2012-01-20T19:23:00.002-05:00

I never really cared all that much for Pearl Jam. I'm not really sure why. Don't get me wrong, some of their songs are pretty good. I like Yellow Ledbetter even though the lyrics are a bunch of gobbledygook and it is kind of a Little Wing rip off.

I particularly enjoy the misheard lyrics version of the song (seen above). It's hard to not enjoy it.

You see, in the early 1990s, I was a teenager full of vim and verve and sometimes vertigo and other words starting with the letter V. It was during this time that I got a gig as a camera man for a local Rhode Island band called Mindscream. It didn't pay much. In fact it didn't pay anything other than the opportunity to consume large amounts of Doritos and Crystal Pepsi.

I enjoyed the benefits of this 'job' quite a lot and compiled hours of footage of the band.

About 20% of the footage was of the band performing the song 'Alive' by Pearl Jam. This was partly because of the number of times they played the song and partly because this song is so damn long.

While I never really cared much for the group I do enjoy the Pearl Jam Bootleg Members Only. I acquired this through a guy at work sometime in early 1999. We used to listen to it all the time in the kitchen and it really grew on me. It's a very interesting album in that it features a lot of audio of the band talking and joking around and there is a strange Christmas theme to the album. Interspersed with all the audio are clips of Christmas-themed discussion and Christmas songs, one even performed by Pearl Jam.

I guess the thing I never really liked about Pearl Jam was that they always seemed to take themselves so seriously. This bootleg shows a side of them I had never really seen before. Admittedly this could be because I just didn't really know all that much about the group. At any rate this bootleg showcases the band messing around during Christmas time, doing cover songs, threatening their audience, doing an Elvis impersonations, and just generally being interesting and fun.

After doing an extensive Google Search I can't find any record of this bootleg existing even on pearljambootlegs.org. Even though I own this I have found enough evidence online to prove that it doesn't actually exist.

Last year was the twentieth anniversary of the album Ten. I didn't really care about this milestone as I wasn't a big fan of the album. However, when you are lying around on your back with ice packs all day you have a lot of time to think. I got to thinking that I should really give the band and the album another shot.

I decided to watch the movie Twenty, a documentary, pardon me -- a rockumentary -- about the band. Previously all I really knew about Pearl Jam's history something about Mother Love Bone and a Stardog Champion. Whatever that meant.

Here are some new facts I learned about the band after watching the movie.

It's pronounced "AY-ment" not "Ah-ment."
They hate the word grunge.
Eddie Vedder can climb just like a monkey.
Their Spanish is less than perfect.
Neil Young thinks Eddie Vedder is hilarious.
Ticketmaster thinks they are a bunch of petulant children.
Eddie Vedder has a sense of humor.
Stone Gossard hates the Grammys as much as I do.
In the late 90s Eddie Vedder modeled his hairdo after Ian Gillan in the mid 70s.
Jeff Ament is from the same town in Montana as my favorite senator: Jon Tester!
One of the drummers from Pearl Jam was in a silent movie about a sea monster.
Pete Townshend waited his whole life to meet Eddie Vedder.

To go along with the movie I heated up a generous slice of torciere from the freezer leftover from our Christmas feast. On a cold night, with a snow storm on the way, this was a nice hearty meal was a welcome friend.

But what does this have to do with Pearl Jam? Well, there's another fact that I forgot to mention:

Mike McCready loves French-Canadian meat pies.

And, of course, since I was watching this movie I decided to try one of the latest releases from Dogfish Head: their Pearl Jam Twenty Faithfull Ale.

Okay, I'll be honest, I would never have watched this movie if it weren't for the fact that I already had this beer in the fridge. I also would never have watched it if it weren't for the fact that I'm lying around all day with nothing I can do other than watch things.

I was excited to taste this beer until I saw the review on Beer Geek Nation. After that I was not looking forward to that much. He was not a fan.

I must admit this was not my favorite of the Dogfish Head offerings. While it was decent, it wasn't quite what I'd expected. It actually reminded me a lot of Corona with lime. After checking out Sam's video on the Dofish Head site he says that the band told him they enjoyed drinking Mexican lager so that explains that.

And now that this episode is over and it's not even 7:30 PM I guess I have to find something to occupy the rest of my night. Maybe I'll watch another movie that I've never wanted to see.

I hear those Twilight films are delightful!

What Do People Eat In Utah?

2012-01-19T21:38:00.004-05:00

Apparently the week-long bout of bad health luck I've been having is not quite over. This morning my lower back started to hurt to such a degree that I actually drove myself to the hospital to get it checked out.

Whenever I think of the emergency room I think of Brian Regan and his bit about the emergency room which is pretty much exactly what it is like every time I've ever been. The only difference being that now that we live in a ridiculous yuppie community our emergency room actually does have valet parking.

After researching my symptoms I feared that my kidneys might have decided to start working against me rather than with me. My doctor agreed and thought I had kidney stones. After a battery of tests, being interrogated by two doctors, and a trip through the CT scan machine they decided that I had back pain and told me to put ice on it and take some Tylenol.

I had a lot of time to lie there and think in between tests and doctors. I also had a lot of time to listen to the guy in across from me who was convinced that his sister-in-law's severe back spasms were caused by her not having enough potassium in her diet. No one, not the doctor or his sister-in-law, could convince him otherwise no matter how many times he brought it up.

He brought it up a lot.

Jen is currently in Utah for work. As I laid there in the hospital with time to think I wondered, "What do people in Utah eat?" I did a bunch of Google searches to see if I could find any local Utah cuisine so that maybe I could make something for dinner that was some sort of specialty of the region. I got nothing.

They eat anything. They eat Mexican, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, American, and other fast food places. They eat meat, vegetables, fruits, different variety of drinks, and desserts.

The best I could come up with was this result on Ask.com.

Jeeves would be rolling over in his grave.

Sadly that was the best information I could find on the subject so I decided to eat like a Utahan. A Utahonian? A Utahite? Someone from Utah.

I ordered Chinese takeout! It said it right there on Ask.com, they eat anything! Including Chinese! So I picked up some steamed broccoli and tofu with brown rice and black bean sauce on my way back from the hospital.

The doctor prescribed me some pain medicine but I'm just not that big a fan of pain medicine. Pain doesn't actually bother me that much. It's not because I'm tough, in fact, I'm pretty much a world class, grade A wuss. The fact is that pain always makes me worry that something on me is going to fall off, turn green, or become cancerous. After I took a few trips through the CT scan machine and the doctor said my kidneys looked perfect I felt better. Well, the pain was just as bad, but my worry about a small vole burrowing its way through my insides or a tumor engulfing my pancreas quickly faded.

In place of Vicodin I chose to have a single beer. I guess it does something to ease the pain but it's just a lot more fun to drink a beer than take some vicodin. It's probably healthier too.

I was able to pick this Organic Wyld beer from Unita Brewing in Utah! This was exciting because it was the first beer I'd ever had from Utah. I must say, this was a good way to initiate myself into the world of Utah beers. Utahian ales! Beers from Utah.

This beer was remarkably good, possibly the best pale ale I've ever had. It had a wonderful grapefruit taste but more like fresh juice than like the rind.

It didn't really cure my back pain 100% (or even 10%) but I didn't really care. There was no listing for ABV but I'm guessing somewhere between 5-6% as I didn't really feel anything after having a glass.

Also, I have to say that the Unita Brewing website may be one of the best laid out brewery websites I've ever seen. Sure, they don't tell you the ABV of this beer but it's still a pleasure to view.

I just wish WebMD was as useful as this site. While WebMD doesn't offer as concise and detailed information I've found it a useful tool to panic myself about having cancer.

Cheers!

Dinner With The World's Stupidest Man

2012-01-18T21:05:00.000-05:00

Jen is away on a work-related trip so I tonight I came home alone to make dinner for myself. This was a good opportunity to continue working through our massive inventory of food which included roast chicken, one of Jen's least favorite leftovers.

I decided that I would give my injured fingers some time to air out, however, I didn't want to use them in the preparation of food given their state. I sliced up some mushrooms and tossed them in a hot pan with some butter to cook while I chopped up the rest of the roasted vegetables from the chicken.

Since I was using my ring finger (previously injured in a car door last Friday night) I was a little unstable and the unthinkable happened -- the knife slipped and sliced the tip of my finger.

So, here you have the current state of my hand. Two bruised and recovering fingers accompanied by a now bloody and bandaged third finger. Mr. Pinky, my fourth favorite finger, is still going pretty strong though.

I wasn't about to let a setback like that stop me from my mission. I tossed the chopped carrot, onion, celery, and sweet potato into the pan with some of the roasting juices, a little milk, and cream and let it cook down while I added some of the chopped meat. To finish it I threw in some peas.

While this cooked down I cut out some rounds of puff pastry and baked them in the oven for a few minutes. Finally I layered the stew with puff pastry to create this makeshift Napoleon of leftover junk from the fridge.

I got through the preparation of dinner tonight but it was really only because I was halfway through when I received my latest injury. I think tomorrow night I might need to go back to what I've been doing for the past few days -- boiled pasta or takeout for dinner.

If you're really lucky I won't blog about it.

The One Handed Meal

2012-01-14T19:59:00.001-05:00

Today I had an unfortunate mishap that had a great impact on what I would make for dinner this evening.

In a twist of bad luck the two most important fingers on my left hand (sorry pinky and ring finger) were crushed by a heavy metal plate. This was extra upsetting because these are some of my favorite fingers to use whilst cooking! Also, my third favorite finger on my left hand was shut in a car door last night but survived with only minor injuries.

My least favorite finger on my left hand is living large.

After deciding on a quick entree and throwing it in the oven I made these incredibly brilliant hors d'oeuvres with crackers, Irish cheddar, pepperoni, and thyme sprigs.

I don't have a box of Ritz crackers around but I imagine there is a photo on the box that looks exactly like this.

After we ate these we were still quite hungry so I used up some of our New Year's Eve prosciutto which I wrapped around D'Anjou pear slices and topped with crumbled Mountain Gorgonzola, and a little balsamic glaze.

For the main course I prepared this roast chicken. Since I was one-handed for this evening I was able to rough cut some celery, onion, carrot, and sweet potato, throw them in a pan, and toss them with olive oil, salt, and pepper relatively easily. After that I seasoned the inside of the chicken, stuffed it with a lemon half and some thyme, seasoned the outside, and threw it in the oven (preheated to 475) and quickly reduced the heat to 400 and cooked it for a little over an hour.

And there you have it, a simple meal that you can cook using only one hand!

Special note: every E,R,T,D,F,G,C,V, and B in tonight's blog entry are brought you by PAIN!

Oktoberfest in January

2012-01-12T20:19:00.001-05:00

January is always the same with us. We don't make any New Year's resolutions. At least I don't. I think New Year's resolutions are dumb. I don't really believe in rebirth or dates or numerology or any other such nonsense. Any day of the year is just as good as any other to start something new.

I'm really fun at parties too.

That being said, after the holiday we generally try to keep things a little lighter and that also usually includes a massive cleaning of our fridge, pantry, and freezer. January, to us, is an amalgamation of old things from our freezer, new things we received as Christmas gifts, and a vaguely healthful addition of foods so that we can try to shake off some of the massive quantities of butter ingested in November and December.

After torturing my sister-in-law with salads that were overly laden with fruits I decided to resist all urges and focus on making a salad that she might enjoy. She's not here, mind you, but I know that even knowing about my fruity salads makes her life a little less happy so I figured I'd give her a break this evening.

I baked a sweet potato in the oven then sliced it up, tossed it with quinoa, kale, hot sauce, olive oil, salt, pepper, cider vinegar, and toasted cashews. I'm not sure how she would feel about this given that sweet potatoes are sweet like a fruit. She may also disapprove of the nut element. If she reports any discontent or trouble sleeping I'll try to make something tomorrow night with lettuce, tomato, and shredded carrot to try to win back her favor.

After the salad I browned up some Irish bangers in a pan then added some sauerkraut from Greyrock Farm CSA out of Cazenovia, NY. We got this sauerkraut last month in our delivery from Milk Not Jails. After cooking this down for a few minutes I tossed in some circular cut Red Bliss and Yukon Gold potato slices which I'd tossed in olive oil, salt, and pepper.

While it cooked I added some of my beer to the pan. Which beer?

It was another gift for Christmas, this Oktoberfest from Schmohz Brewing in Grand Rapids, MI. Seeing that it's an Oktoberfest beer I figured I'd best get to drinking this as one of the first beers. It won't quite make it to next Oktoberfest so it's time for a little Bavarian festivity. With the fall like weather we have been experiencing it seemed appropriate.

I served it with fresh bread and whole grain mustard. If I'd had more foresight I would have gotten some brown bread or pumpernickel but hindsight is 20/20.

For dessert we enjoyed a few episodes of Eureka which Jen has recently become obsessed with. I initially disapproved of this show because of what I perceived to be too close a similarity to Bones, however, now I admit that it is not actually like Bones at all.

Anything that is not much like Bones is okay with me.

What The Hake?

2012-01-11T21:00:00.001-05:00

Today, I had the day off. While this may not sound like a big deal to you this is the first day I spent at home, off from work, in about a month.

It was glorious. I set out early to go to shopping and restock our woefully understocked fridge and pantry. Our freezer needed no such help.

After a discussion with my sister-in-law at Christmas it was decided that every salad I make is like a poison to her. You see, she hates fruit in salads. I happen to enjoy adding citrus and other fruits and nuts to salad for flavor, acidity, color, and just plain fun. Tonight's salad, while vegan and fairly healthful, will likely make her recoil in disgust.

I tossed some chopped kale with currants, dried figs, toasted cashews, blood orange segments, pomegranate seeds and juice, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt, and pepper. I also tossed in a small amount of baby greens just for fun.

Lisa, don't worry, next time you come to visit my salads will be entire fruit-free. That's the promise I make to you.

My local fishmonger had the most amazing looking hake today that I had to buy some. Once I saw it I knew what dinner was going to be tonight. I seared it in a pan and finished roasting it in the oven. While it was in there I rendered some pancetta with olive oil and butter then threw in some diced vidalia onion, peas and kohlrabi greens which I served with along with the roasted hake loin. I garnished them with fennel fronds, partially because I thought the flavor would be nice and partially because I like the word fronds.

After taking a bite Jen said, "Can I tell you something that is not going to sound like a compliment but it totally is?"

"What is that?" I said.

"This fish tastes like the most delicious chicken McNuggets I had as a child."

"You were right," I said. "But thank you."

As a side dish I boiled some kohlrabi wedges tossed with sour cream, tarragon, salt, and pepper. This was in our continued effort to no longer dislike tarragon. Another successful mission!

I have long not loved the IPA. Recently, however, particularly in the last year, I have grown more appreciative of the style. Tonight I selected this Christmas gift which was the Mad Tom IPA from Muskoka Brewery. It comes in at 62 IBUS, according to the website, but to me it tasted a little more like 162 IBUs.

This beer was very good but it definitely pushed my outer limits of IPA appreciation. I've had beers that technically had higher IBUs but this one made me make a face like that guy in those Keystone Light commercials from the 90s.

Does Keystone Light still exist? I'm guessing that if it does it makes you make a similar bitter face but instead of being caused by dry-hopping it's caused by bitter disappointment.

The Smiling Saint's Christmas Stew

2012-01-09T21:47:00.003-05:00

Jen emailed me today to declare that she had smelled a great deal of hamburgers today and that she had a craving for hamburgers. I didn't really understand where she was all day that she was smelling a bunch of hamburgers. To the best of my knowledge she returned to her job after an extensive 17 days off and not to a new job peddling hamburgers.

I only got home in time to spend five minutes cooking before I picked Jen up at the train. That's just enough time to heat a pan, toss in some garlic, onion, potato, and peppers, then get them almost to the sizzling stage before turning off the head and dashing out the door.

When Jen got home I put together some quick salad with greens, leftover La Quercia prosciutto from Jen's New Year's dinner, shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano, olive oil, and a little balsamic glaze I'd made a couple of months ago. This was enough to keep us from starving to death as I finished the main dinner.

I briefly entertained the idea of making hamburgers but it would have required a lot of additional ingredients when we already had so much to clear out of the fridge and freezer. Instead I put the fire back on the pan, added some frozen ground beef (an ingredient in hamburgers, I am told), and then added some jalapeno, salt, pepper, hot sauce, and chopped mustard greens.

Since I had a little extra St. Bernardus Christmas Ale leftover I added that into the pot to cook down the stew. Some would say this is a waste of perfectly good Belgian Christmas ale, however . . .

. . . some probably also did not recive quite as many beer-themed presents for Christmas there year. I'd like to think that the smiling saint would approve.

Jen said that she also had a craving for avocados. We both generally share this craving 100% of the time but since she actually mentioned it verbally I chose to add some to the stew with a little sour cream and some slices of her sweet roll loaf that I'd buttered and fried.

I do love Christmas stews and dark winter ales so I paired this with one of my many Christmas presents, this Christmas Ale from Bell's Brewery in Michigan. It was a very nice Christmas beer, dark, mildly spiced, and piney from the West coast hops used in its brewing. One would imagine a piney hop aroma to be perfect for a Christmas beer, like you have swept up all the needles under the tree and thrown them into the mash tun.

This particular drink was a present from my sister-in-law and brother-in-law. I also got to enjoy it in a nonic glass that Jen got me for Christmas. Jen, aside from having a hankering for some hamburgers, also recognized that I have been struggling with only twenty-some-odd different glasses to enjoy beer from. This just could not be allowed to stand.

This is why I married her.

Thirteen Cods-a-Roasting

2012-01-07T20:30:00.002-05:00

Yesterday was Epiphany, or the twelfth day of Christmas. You know, the one where the twelve drummers are drumming. That is Epiphany, the day we normally feast and take down out tree.

However, since we were previously engaged last night we elected to celebrate Epiphany tonight, on the oft forgotten thirteenth day of Christmas.

When I got home from work, after taking a lengthy nap, I made this capricho de cabra con tomate. We had a delicious version of this whilst visiting family in Illinois earlier this week and I decided to recreate it in an incredibly lazy way by just melting some goat cheese in some tomato sauce in the oven. Given that this took about 45 seconds to prepare it was a good way of fending off our hunger until the main courses arrived. It also used up some past-its-prime bread from the freezer.

I took a somewhat lackluster cut of cod, thawed it out, and roasted it in the oven with olive oil, salt, pepper, and Old Bay Seasoning. The result was not pretty but was delicious.

For a side dish I made collard greens with leftover kielbasa from New Year's Eve, onion, olive oil, butter, hot sauce, cider vinegar, salt, and pepper.

For the final side dish I boiled some New Potatoes then tossed them with butter, olive oil, salt, and pepper.

And what beer does one pair with this final Christmas meal of the season? I chose the St. Bernardus Christmas Ale from Sint Bernardus. I'd been looking forward to this beer for some time. The end result was good but not great. It had a very heavy alcohol taste and I think might have been better served to be allowed to age for a year or so to mellow.

Or so I've read.

To close out this Christmas holiday I made up the celebratory plate of dessert reminiscence. The plate contained Jen's fruit cake which still has not mellowed and will be at its peak in a year's time. Also we had some peanut squares, magic bars, and peanut butter chocolate squares made by Jen's mother. Also some of Jen's fudge and shortbread cookies.

There you have it. Tomorrow we will take down the tree and put a close on another eight-week-long Christmas celebration. What wonders will await us next Christmas? What will change? What will be the same? How will we continue our privileged life of excess?

Well, I'm not telling. You're just going to have to keep reading and find out.

Warning: Spoilers Below!!!

It's not going to be that exciting.

Hearty Cabbage Stew with Winter Ale

2012-01-05T19:38:00.004-05:00

Before leaving the great state of Illinois I had the pleasure of visiting a local liquor store and marveling at the selection of beers that are not available to us in New York thanks to the bizarre and cryptic world of beer distribution.

I did, however, have a chance to have have this beer, The Bitter End, by Two Brothers Brewing Company, just down the street from where my in-laws live. This beer is actually available in New York but you know what they say: when in DuPage County, drink like the DuPagians.

After the short flight to LaGuardia we returned to a beginning-of-the-year classic. Every year we start off with a freezer so full that it will not stay shut without the use of some sort of foreign object such as a broom handle. After the constant rushing of the holidays it's always nice to settle back and focus on one relaxing task: cleaning out our freezer. It's also something of a game to see how little we can spend on groceries in the month of January as we move through our inventory.

To celebrate our homecoming I had another late Christmas beer, this Merry Christmas & Happy New Year 2011 from Anchor Brewing. The recipe for this beer is top secret and changes every year. I know far too little about beer to be able to be able to reverse engineer so all I can tell you is that it was different than I expected, spiced, dark, and quite nice.

For dinner I made a cabbage soup which essentially used up all fresh produce in the crisper along with some miscellaneous items from the freezer. I rendered some bacon in olive oil then added crushed garlic, anchovy, onion, carrot, celery, cabbage, potato, turkey stock from the freezer, salt, and pepper. When it was done I topped it with some toasted bread, Parmigiano-Reggiano, and fried sage leaves, drizzling the remaining olive oil and butter over the top.

Two things I love about the winter: winter beer and winter stew. Sure it was only 35 degrees tonight but winter is upon us. It is the season for dark winter ales and hearty soups and stews!

And cleaning out the damned freezer!

New Year's Eve Followed by Christmas Eve

2012-01-03T11:12:00.002-05:00

New Year's Eve started much like any with Jen making a fantastic meal and me getting home around 11:00 PM to eat it. It ended like many too with us watching that horrible New Year's Eve special. Basically we watch this until I can't stand it any more which takes about four or five minutes. Then it's a race to see how long Jen can stand me complaining about how terrible it is which generally lasts another hour or so.

I'm not one to reflect on New Year's about the passing of time or any of that nonsense but each year this horrific slice of television reminds me about how old I am getting by the simple fact that I don't know who any of these people are.

This salad consisted of beets, grapefruit, satsumas, avocado, red onion, and a vinaigrette made by Jen. This may sound like an overstatement but this was quite simply the best salad I have ever had. Maybe this had to do with having to wait until 11:00 PM to have dinner. Maybe it was because it contained nearly all of my favorite ingredients. At any rate I would look forward to having this on a nearly daily basis in 2012.

Jen also made shrimp and grits with kielbasa given that tasso was not available.

Jen also followed the advice of Lidia Bastianich and made this veal saltimbocca but did not roll it. Also Lidia does not add any sort of cheese to this dish. It was delicious. You can't argue with Lidia!

After turning in around 1:00 AM it was a 6:45 AM wake up time for our flight to Illinois! This fact meant that we did not partake in any alcohol for celebratory purposes.

I took care of that when we arrived in Illinois before our Christmas Eve celebration but enjoying the local flavor with this Domaine DuPage French Style Country Ale from Two Brothers Brewing Company which is located the next town over. I was actually astonished at how much it tasted like my home brew which I, regretfully, have not discussed at all on the site yet.

After the mad rush of December -- even more rushy than previous years -- January 1st was the first time I had to sit down and relax in the atmosphere of our third (and final) Christmas celebration.

The Illinois brand of Christmas starts with shrimp cocktail made by my father-in-law.

This year he had some extra shrimp and made some Caribbean shrimp skewers with them. This was a nice break from tradition and a way to make Nana, who previously has spent her Christmases in Barbados, feel much more at home. Or away from home. Or however you want to view it.

Somehow, over the years, the stories and tales of my turkey carving prowess have been inflated and overblown to the fact that I get this task every year. I would grade my turkey-carving skills as a B- but I appreciate the praise of the family and take on this task with a great sense of pride and responsibility. Since my father-in-law if far better than me at actually cooking turkey I am happy to lend my skills to the completion of the meal.

However, I'd gladly trade my carving ability for the ability to be able to cook a turkey properly. I'm still not sure why, with all my years of cooking, I still don't have a system for how to do this in an acceptable manner.

Last night's day-after-Christmas dinner begun with one of my Christmas gifts this Insanely Bad Elf from Ridgeway Brewery and imported by Shelton Brothers in Belchertown, Masachusetts. This is a difficult beer to come by but five bottles are here for me in Illinois. I think I will have to let them age in the cellars here since I cannot really consume five 11.2% alcohol by volume beers in just three nights.

The beer was quite good, sweet with a surprising viscosity. Even splitting the bottle with my brother-in-law I felt the effects of it quite quickly.

The traditional day-after-Christmas and day-after-Thanksgiving dinners are, as always, a sampling of Jen and my basic philosophical difference in life: our preferred manner of serving a hot turkey sandwich.

Still, day by day, we make our marriage work. Marriage is tough, kids! It's all about compromise and acceptance! Keep at it!

After half a beer (and an hour or two to recuperate) I had this Old Man Winter Ale from Southern Tier Brewing Company. After a week of no beer I was determined to make the most of this vacation by enjoying a sampling of many different beers.

That's right, two beers in one night. Things are getting rowdy up in here!

Sockeye It To Me

2011-12-27T22:01:00.000-05:00

Normally we continue our holiday excess from Thanksgiving straight through until our multi-part tri-state Christmas festivities die down sometime in mid January. This year we've implemented a one week cool off between Christmas and New Year's so we can try to gain some small shred of health back before loading back up on fatty meats and baked goods.

When we hit a rare mustard shortfall last month I picked this mustard up because it contains two of my favorite things: mustard and beer! I brushed a nice piece of Sockeye salmon with the mustard with a little salt and pepper to let it sit for a few moments while I prepared the rest of the dinner.

I tried to fill us up on salad by making this little number with mixed baby greens, toasted pistachios, blueberries, satsuma segments, red onion, and goat cheese. I tossed it with my old standby fig dressing of fig preserves, tahini, and balsamic vinegar.

I got a pan red hot, coated it lightly with olive oil, through the salmon in skin down, then tossed it into a 425 degree oven for ten minutes. I probably could have gone with eight minutes but the result was a nicely flavored roast salmon with crispy skin. Stout isn't the first beer I'd pair with salmon but the mustard worked brilliantly.

As I like to do I wilted a pound of spinach with a splash of olive oil and a few cloves of crushed garlic. As I also like to do I piled it high on a plate tor effect. When doing this it gives me a sense of smug satisfaction and achieving height (or as my chefs in culinary school used to inexplicably pronounce it: HITE-TH).

For dessert I broke with my vaguely healthy theme by serving up this butter tart Jen had made. This is a newcomer to the holiday dessert rotation. It's oddly named in that butter is a very minor ingredient. There are many other ingredients that it could better be named after -- raisin tart, sugar tart, coconut tart, walnut tart, just to name a few. Once again there is no beer to report on tonight, merely a mustard made with beer. Soon I hope to return to my normal beer-tasting form.

That way I can review all these Christmas beers in January and look like a total jackass.

Christmas Dinner, Brownies, and a Distinct Lack of Beer

2011-12-26T22:05:00.002-05:00

Our traditional Christmas is filled with lots of travel and this year was no different. Unlike last year we did not need to zip home to try to outrun a blizzard so it was slightly more relaxing than our Cannonball Run-esque journey home last year.

Tonight we had a fairly standard Christmas/Boxing Day meal with baked beans and mustard pickles. Sadly these were the only baked beans I could find and they were vegetarian. I'm a firm believer that baked beans should have a big wad of cooked pork fat floating around in them. Unfortunately we had dinner just a few hours after returning home and my lack of foresight did not allow us the time needed to prepare baked beans from scratch.

This year we had a bit of breach in standard procedure: I made the torciere. This has never happened before. I made the filling on Christmas Eve and I even made the pie dough today, something I generally refuse to do as I am not a baking guy.

That being said it came out pretty good using Jen's mom's pie dough recipe.

Jen made some delicious scalloped potatoes and we served it all up, me with my traditional Woonsocket-style ketchup and black pepper. Jen is extremely tolerant of my style of eating this with ketchup despite the fact that I think most people shudder in horror at the thought.

For beer tonight I had . . . nothing.

I have a few more delicious Christmas beers in the fridge. I really wanted to enjoy the St. Bernardus Christmas Ale tonight but my stomach has just been plain wonky lately. I'm thinking that even with this fairly heavy meal (though in small portions) I would be best served to

Given that Christmas beers are among some of my favorites of the season this is not my favorite yuletide outcome but if that's the worst thing that happens to me this Christmas I'd still count myself as one of the luckier humans on planet Earth.

For dessert I smuggled home some of my Aunt Debbie's brownies from yesterday's Christmas dinner. You see, my Aunt Debbie makes the best brownies (blondies, actually) in the entire world. She's been bringing them to Christmas every year since I can remember. That is except for one year when she tried something new and people were pissed. I was probably at the front of the angry mob wielding a torch and pitchfork and calling for her to sent out to us to face swift justice.

We've calmed down since then in large part because she started making them again. I've also asked her for the recipe about twelve times over the years. I just searched my email and couldn't find it which means she probably sent it to me back in the days when people used email clients instead of webmail. It might be in one of my old backup files.

Does anyone have a copy of Eudora 3.0.5 they could send me?

Sausage, Sediment, and Santa Claus

2011-12-22T20:26:00.001-05:00

After a day we changed from our Hanukkah theme back to the classic theme of cleaning out the fridge and moving through leftovers. With Christmas fast approaching the time for grocery shopping is over and we need to work through some inventory before celebrating the Yuletide.

I started off by taking the remaining sausage, butternut, and kale stew and wrapping it up in dough to make this calzone with a little fresh mozzarella.

This sausage and butternut stew lent itself extremely well to calzone filling. I think it would have made a fine pizza as well. Even a pasta sauce. Next time I'll have to make five times as much so I can use the leftovers for all those applications. It will be like a sausage-themed Thanksgiving!

For beer I'd really been looking forward to having this Noel from Delirium. It was everything I could want in a beer: an opaque bottle, from Belgium, an elephant wearing a Santa Claus hat. There was only one problem . . .

There was a huge amount of chunky white sediment floating around in the beer, suspended like the snot-like globules in a bottle of the now extinct beverage Orbitz. Now, I'm not squeamish about sediment in my beer. In fact, I am usually very happy to find it there. Yet, somehow, this amount of sediment floating there in a state of neutral buoyancy just struck me as being too much. I Googled it quickly and didn't find too many people complaining about it so I was unsure if I was just some sort of lone weirdo.

Being an experienced home brewer myself I am familiar with the end of the bottling being a bit heavier on sediment than the beginning, however, this seemed like just too much and, sadly, I abandoned the bottle in favor of other beers.

The beer smelled like delicious dark fruit and molasses as I passed by it.

To replace it I stayed in the same country with this Tripel from St. Bernardus. It was fantastic, one of the best tripels I've ever had. Those folks at St. Bernardus know how to make a fine, fine beer.

That damn monk on the label has every right to look so cocky.

Eight Eggy Nights (a Memento-style Thriller)

2011-12-21T21:37:00.002-05:00

Tonight I made a Hanukkah dinner using a lot of eggs. Since a lot of it needed some time int he oven I'll tell the story in an artistic manner in the style of the new hit movie Memento!

Last night was the first night of Hanukkah. I had to work late so tonight became our late Hanukkah meal. after spending an hour and a half stuck in traffic I only had an hour and fifteen minutes to put it together. Luckily I had shopped in advance and I am practiced so I was able to just barely pull off tonight's dinner by the time Jen's train got in.

The game was on!

Salad was a breeze. A breezy cop out. I just recycled the salad from the other night using the rest of Jen's salad dressing, some mixed greens, satsumas, dried fig, and pistachios.

Before making the salad I made a batch of latkes with grated potato, red onion (for fun, I normally use sweet onion), horseradish, cider vinegar, flour, egg, green onion, salt, and pepper. I fried them up in a pan with a little butter and served them with sour cream and fresh applesauce which I simmered while preparing dinner.

Before making the latke mix I had to prepare this kugel by boiling some cauliflower, caramelizing some leeks, mashing them together, then adding some egg and parsley then baking it in the oven with some crushed, toasted hazelnuts on top.

This year Christmas and Hanukkah and Christmas overlap. This is the perfect excuse to alternate Hanukkah and Christmas beers! The problem is that there aren't really any Hanukkah beers that I know of. There is, however, a whole line of He'Brew beers from Shmaltz Brewing Company. Tonight I selected their Messiah Nut Brown Ale to accompany this Hanukkah meal. This was more nut black than nut brown but it was nut delicious so it didn't matter. I was a little sad that I'd only purchased one bottle. It also made me wonder if this is anything like Newcastle as I haven't had that since the '90s. I'll have to have it again soon to compare notes.

Yes, I take notes on the beers I drink. It is a source of great ridicule from some people, most notably Jen.

The first thing I did when I got home was slice up a loaf of bread, cut it up, and soak it in egg nog with brandy, Benedictine, dried currants, toasted pistachios, and eggs. While that soaked I sliced up some D'anjou pears and caramelized them in a pan with brown sugar and butter. I layered the caramelized pear slices in a pan, topped it with the eggnog and bread mixture, then baked it in the oven before cooling and serving.

Overall a lot of elements of this meal could have done with a little more time in preparation but the overall result was the best I could have hoped for.

Now, if only I can figure out what all these tattooed clues on my arms mean.

Eight Eggy Nights (a Memento-style Thriller)

2011-12-21T21:37:00.000-05:00

Tonight I made a Hanukkah dinner using a lot of eggs. Since a lot of it needed some time int he oven I'll tell the story in an artistic manner in the style of the new hit movie Memento!

Last night was the first night of Hanukkah. I had to work late so tonight became our late Hanukkah meal. after spending an hour and a half stuck in traffic I only had an hour and fifteen minutes to put it together. Luckily I had shopped in advance and I am practiced so I was able to just barely pull off tonight's dinner by the time Jen's train got in.

The game was on!

Salad was a breeze. A breezy cop out. I just recycled the salad from the other night using the rest of Jen's salad dressing, some mixed greens, satsumas, dried fig, and pistachios.

Before making the salad I made a batch of latkes with grated potato, red onion (for fun, I normally use sweet onion), horseradish, cider vinegar, flour, egg, green onion, salt, and pepper. I fried them up in a pan with a little butter and served them with sour cream and fresh applesauce which I simmered while preparing dinner.

Before making the latke mix I had to prepare this kugel by boiling some cauliflower, carmelizing some leeks, mashing them together, then adding some egg and parsley then baking it in the oven with some crushed, toasted hazelnuts on top.

This year Christmas and Hanukkah and Christmas overlap. This is the perfect excuse to alternate Hanukkah and Christmas beers! The problem is that there aren't really any Hanukkah beers that I know of. There is, however, a whole line of He'Brew beers from Shmaltz Brewing Company. Tonight I selected their Messiah Nut Brown Ale to accompany this Hanukkah meal. This was more nut black than nut brown but it was nut delicious so it didn't matter. I was a little sad that I'd only purchased one bottle. It also made me wonder if this is anything like Newcastle as I haven't had that since the '90s. I'll have to have it again soon to compare notes.

Yes, I take notes on the beers I drink. It is a source of great ridicule from some people, most notably Jen.

The first thing I did when I got home was slice up a loaf of bread, cut it up, and soak it in egg nog with brandy, Benedictine, dried currants, toasted pistachios, and eggs. While that soaked I sliced up some D'anjou pears and carmelized them in a pan with brown sugar and butter. I layered the carmelized pear slices in a pan, topped it with the eggnog and bread mixture, then baked it in the oven before cooling and serving.

Overall a lot of elements of this meal could have done with a little more time in preparation but the overall result was the best I could have hoped for.

Now, if only I can figure out what all these tattooed clues on my arms mean.

Stoned Me Just Like Cabbage Roll

2011-12-19T22:48:00.000-05:00

We got a beautiful giant head of cabbage at the farmer's market two Sundays ago and it's been sitting patiently in the fridge ever since. Since it had exhibited such model behavior I decided I would grant its wish.

I boiled some cabbage leaves and made a mixture out of olive oil, garlic, onion, beef, rice, quinoa, tomato paste, salt, and pepper. When the mixture had cooled slightly I folded in an egg and rolled the boiled leaves up with the mixture. I topped them with a generous amount of sauce I made out of olive oil, garlic, crushed tomato, cider vinegar, sugar, salt, and pepper then baked them in the oven for about 45 minutes.

There isn't much that goes with tomato in the beer world. Since this was a sweet and sour sauce I decided to pair it with a sour beer, this Flemish Sour Ale from Brouwerij Van Steenberge in Ertvelde, Belgium. This is not as sour as some sour beers but it's still shocking to me to have a beer that is sour. While tasty, my brain has a hard time dealing with the fact that there is nothing wrong with the drink.

For dessert I went for something simple and served up some delicious ripe persimmon wedges with toasted pistachios. This is probably what some European king had for a dessert one time after an explorer came back to his court to lavish him with tales of his journey to the east.

I kinda wish I lived in the days where a child got an orange for Christmas. Think about it: a single orange! You know how sometimes you buy some oranges at the grocery store and they're dry, mealy, and disappointing? It makes me wonder if that happened with Christmas oranges too.

That must have been the saddest thing that could happen to a child at Christmas. Even sadder than the year my cousin Jeff broke my model General Lee from The Dukes of Hazzard.

It still hurts to think about it.

8:15 PM Bedtime

2011-12-18T20:08:00.000-05:00

Okay, remember how I said I was recovered about a week ago? Scratch that. Now I'm recovered. Well, sort of. I still want to go to bed at 7:30 PM but I feel quite a bit better.

Jen has been craving crab and artichoke dip. This was amplified by the fact that we actually bought some a while ago and it was spoiled so she wasn't able to fulfill that craving. I really came through tonight with this dip that I served on slices of sourdough bread.

I deliver late but I deliver.

For a salad I tossed together some satsuma wedges, dried figs, pistachios, quinoa, and Jen's delicious salad dressing along with some mixed baby greens.

For the main dish I browned some garlic in a pan, tossed in some sliced sweet onion, butternut squash, and cooked it down with salt, pepper, sage, and thyme. After a bit I added some sweet Italian sausage and kale and stewed it down.

Originally I'd planned on making a kale dish with cranberries but the look of disgust on Jen's face when I brought this up was so intense that I opted to make some last minute menu adjustments.

I could tell I was feeling better because yesterday my taste for beer returned. However, I had a craving for lager so I knew I wasn't yet at 100%.

Since I'm backing up on Christmas and Winter beers with my recent illness I had to act fast. Tonight I had this Holiday Ale form Lagunitas Brewing Company. This ale is also called "Brown Shugga' Subsitute" because, apparently, they were unable to brew their traditional holiday ale: Brown Shugga'. The brewery is expanding and the brewing for Brown Shugga' takes too many resources away from their normal brewing.

I guess I'll have to hope to try some of the Brown Shugga' next year after their expansion is complete. Let's just pray that next year I'm in slightly better shape.

Okay, it's 8:15 PM. Now it's time for bed!

The Return of the Dairy

2011-12-12T19:49:00.000-05:00

I've been on a stictly vegan diet for the past three-and-a-half days. This followed on the heels of a horrible reaction to whatever I ate on Thursday. Perhaps it was the abundance of pickled herring. Maybe it was my body rejecting the celebration of excess in Jen's absence.

Serves me right for having a single beer. I need to know my limits.

Speaking of beer, I decided to start the night off with my first beer since the ugly ordeal. I selected this Big Moose Ale from Saranac Brewery. The label states: "We don't call it Big Moose for nothing!" I'm not really sure what that is supposed to mean but the beer is pretty good. It's an American Pale ale with a nice hoppy flavor from being dry hopped.

It's similar to other winter seasonals, most notably, Sierra Nevada's annual Celebration brew. This one, however, features a festive moose tearing across the tundra.

+1 for Big Moose Ale.

At the farmer's market yesterday Jen spotted some cauliflower and had a sudden craving for a cauliflower soup. I obliged this evening by making this cream of cauliflower soup with rendered bacon, butter, garlic, onion, cauliflower, turkey stock, salt, and pepper. I pulsed it in the food processor and served it up with some Gruyere cheese toasts made on slices of fresh baguette.

This soup marked a very nice return to the world of dairy. Jen's idea was a good one and, so far, I haven't become supremely ill.

If I do have a reaction to this then clearly I'm just not cut out to eat meat or dairy anymore and I will return to a diet of thrice-a-day miso soup.

That won't get old.

Things Jen Hates

2011-12-08T19:42:00.001-05:00

Jen is out of town and you know what that means. That's right, it's time for me to show, once again, that I haven't lost my bachelor skills. Like any self-respecting husband I take advantage of these opportunities to do all those things that I'm not normally able to do when the ol' ball and chain is around.

C'mon guys, you know what I'm saying, right? Right?

Thing #1: Pickled Herring

I started off by toasting some old bread, smearing the slices with butter, and topping them with pickled herring. I was starving when I got home from work so I just made this to use up some old herring and bread and keep me conscious while I made dinner.

Mmmmmm, old herring.

Thing #2: Leftover Turkey

Jen hates leftover turkey. Come to think of it, Jen hates just about anything that is leftover. Turkey is the worst offender though. Turkey to her is something that must never be reused.

I found half a butternut squash in the back of the refrigerator from Thanksgiving that was surprisingly still good. I chopped it up and used it to make this turkey curry with onion, garlic, ginger, garbanzo bean, turkey stock, curry powder, salt, and pepper. I thickened the stew with a little cornstarch and served it over white rice.

Thing #3: Strong Belgian Ales

Well, I guess Jen likes these a little more now than she used to. At any rate this Steenbrugge Tripel from Browerij Palm was pretty great. All over the label they talk about how this is made with "gruut" which is a collection of spices and herbs that was used during medieval times. I just like saying, "Gruut!"

This beer had me at the stained glass look on the bottle and won me over with their Belgian yeast flavor (and, of course, their gruut).

I'm both predictable and easy.

Thing #4: Unidentifiable Things from the Freezer

While rummaging around I found a mystery container with some sort of ice cream in it. I had no idea what kind of ice cream it was or when it was from. Like cooks in medieval times I decided quickly that I would try to mask any off flavors with a sauce so I made some chocolate sauce and applied it generously. It actually wasn't that bad. After further investigation it looks like it was probably a cherry ice cream I made back in July.

Probably.

Thing #5: Some Movies from the 80s

I concluded the evening with The Last Starfighter. For some odd reason I have never seen the complete movie from start to finish so I figured now was as good a time as any. My movie watching habits are usually pretty bad. I procrastinate a lot and usually get around to watching movies well after their sell by date.

Maybe next year I'll get around to seeing The Goonies for the first time!

Sweet Chili Sauce is Coming to Town

2011-12-07T20:51:00.001-05:00

Tonight was a rainy and dark drive home. I think I might be turning into an old lady because I don't really like driving in the dark and rain anymore. It makes me nervous.

I'm thinking that it'll only be about ten more years until I'm complaining about the kids these days with their loud music and jazz cigarettes.

As I prepared dinner I enjoyed this Double Ale from Grimbergen. Founded in 1128 they've been brewing beer for 883 years. That's 883 years longer than I've been brewing beer!

I can't recall if I had this one in France this summer but I did have their Blonde and enjoyed it quite a bit. This bottle looked and tasted like it's probably been hanging around in the liquor store for a little while. Still it was quite enjoyable.

Plus, it was a good way to settle my nerves after that drive home!

For dinner I threw together a quick salad with these beautiful tender salad greens from the Finger Lakes. I simply tossed them with lime, sesame oil, sesame seeds, a dash of soy sauce, and shredded carrots.

For the main course I fried up some ginger and garlic in sesame oil then browned some chicken breast and tossed in the baby bok choi and cooked it down with a little sweet chili sauce. I served it all over white rice. Not exactly revolutionary but good enough.

Tonight was also time for Santa Claus is Coming to Town.

I'm a man now, Tanta!

Milk Not Jails

2011-12-05T20:53:00.002-05:00

Yesterday a knock came at the door. It was a representative from Milk Not Jails to deliver a bundle of goodies to us. I had almost forgotten that we'd made a contribution to their efforts back in August through their Kickstarter campaign.

Milk for Jails is a great organization. I'll try to explain without getting too political. Basically they have the radical idea that maybe rural New York is better served through supporting local agriculture than through continuing to support the largest prison system on planet Earth. Maybe a dairy farm is a better idea than another prison so that America can continue to have more of its own citizens imprisoned than any other country on the planet.

What a concept!

The great thing about having paid for this in August is that it was like getting a special early Christmas gift!

We got butternut squash from African Zion Organic Roots Farm; lemongrass tea from Evolutionary Organics in New Paltz, NY; a dozen eggs from pasture raised hens from Tellos Green Farm in Red Hook, NY; Chocolate raspberry truffle ice cream and mango drinkable yogurt from Ronnybrook Farm Dairy; garlic from Streetlight Gardens in Albany, NY; Adirondack Red Potatoes from Conuco Farm in New Paltz, NY; Sauerkraut from Greyrock Farm CSA out of Cazenovia, NY; braising greens from 5 lbs. of Dirt Farm in Montgomery, NY; baby bok choi from an unspecified location; lettuce from Finger Lakes Fresh in Ithaca, NY; apple butter made by Bed-Stuy Farm Share in Brooklyn, NY; Pea Shoots from Evolutionary Organics in New Paltz, NY; and honey almond granola from Hawthorne Valley Farm.

Wow. That's a pretty good haul. We actually just donated because we supported the cause. I wonder how much they're making from our donation after they gave us back all this stuff? Did we donate to their cause or did we just shop with them?

As I looked at all these ingredients to try to figure out something to make I had some of this Imperial Pale Ale from Captain Lawrence Brewing Company. I figured this was the right way to go in keeping with the local New York theme of the meal.

I have to say, I'm warming up to IPAs. I was never much of a fan but now I actually find myself looking forward to them. Perhaps my tastes are being refined. Maybe I've reached a new level in my appreciation for the ancient beverage of beer.

Maybe I'm just getting old.

For a first course I sauteed up some shrimp with garlic, olive oil, red pepper flakes, and fresh basil. When they were just about done I sliced up some freshly boiled Adirondack Red Potatoes and fresh sliced basil from our window box.

I also tossed the pea shoots with some lemon, shallots, honey, toasted poppy seeds, olive oil, salt, and pepper. I worked in a restaurant where we used pea shoots (or pea tendrils as we called them) all the time for garnish. I've never actually eaten them before tonight.

For a side dish I cooked the braising greens with some olive oil, butter, bacon, onion, garlic, molasses, the remaining beer, water, salt, pepper, and cayenne.

For dessert we were quite well taken care of by the chocolate raspberry truffle ice cream from Ronnybrook.

On this day, in 1933, we saw an end to prohibition in America with the ratification of the 21st amendment to the Constitution. Even though I wasn't really in the mood for it I figured there was no better way to celebrate than by having some gin. And what better way than with a gin and tonic made with the finest ingredients?

To cap off the night we celebrated with a screening of A Christmas Story/. Well, we watched it. It just makes us seem like asshole film buffs if we call it a screening.

We also like to listen to things on vinyl. We're that kind of jerk.

A Very Belgian Christmas

2011-12-04T20:00:00.001-05:00

Yesterday, in the midst of my annoying sickness, we traveled out to get our Christmas tree. My initial plan had been to get the tree on Saturday so we didn't have to go out at all on Sunday. The idea was that my normal disinterest in decorating the tree could be avoided if I didn't have to go out, cut it down, and lug it home all in the same day.

For the third year in a row we went to Maple Row Tree Farm. Jen and Fred were able to mend their broken relationship after last year's falling out.

I tied my side of the tree to the roof pretty well. Just look at how tight that twine is!

Not to pass judgment but Jen's side left a little to be desired. The guy at the farm felt so bad for us that he help us by re-tying her end.

For lunch today I used up a remaining baguette with another of Mark Bittman's Thanksgiving leftover recipes this year. It was simply a grilled cheese with Gruyere and cranberry sauce and it was quite delicious.

After lunch I discovered that the flood had damaged more strands of our Christmas lights than I'd thought. I had previously tested them but apparently they were waiting until I had the tree up to blow out completely. This lead to an I-told-you-so-filled trip to the nearby hardware store to get the last three remaining strands they had for sale.

After stringing up the lights I settled in to make carbonade flamande, a Belgian stew. I based this off of the recipe in Culinaria and made it by browning the beef stew meat in a little butter then removing it and cooking down some onions, then adding the beef back with salt, pepper, bay leaf, thyme, sage, cider vinegar, Dijon mustard, and beer.

For beer I chose to use this Leffe for added authenticity.

I served the carbonade with stoemp aux carottes which is simply boiled potatoes and carrots mashed together. I added some salt, pepper, butter and freshly ground nutmeg.

To match the theme of tonight's dinner I chose this Bush De Noël from Brasserie Dubuisson in Belgium. I've had their regular Bush beer before and it was one of the best beers I've ever had. When a friend gave me this Christmas version I was excited to give it a try.

The beer is not labeled as Bush in the United States because there is a flavorless American beer called "Busch" and they don't want to confuse the general public. Apparently there is a huge problem with people walking into the tiny import wall of fine beer stores and picking up a single 8 ounce bottle of this beer for $7.00 and thinking that they're getting a can of Busch Light.

Surely we can understand that confusion. Good on the American legal system!

I mean, look at the packaging. You can barely tell the difference between the two.

It's like one of those "Spot the Difference" puzzles where you have to figure out what's different between the two pictures. Can you spot the differences between the two beers or the two Christmas scenes?

Hint: one of the Christmas scenes is flavorless.

After decorating the tree we settled down for a nice little seasonal celebratory drink. Jen's drink of choice: hot apple cider. At the Christmas tree farm yesterday there was a woman marveling at the hot cider available. She was chasing after her children telling them: "This is amazing. You've got to check this out. It's from apples but it's hot! It's like apple juice but they serve it hot!"

The kids seemed as shocked as we were that she had never heard of this before.

I went with this egg nog from Ronnybrook Farm Dairy, a splash of brandy, and some fresh nutmeg.

With that we settled in to watch some of our growing Christmas movie collection. Tonight was the perfect night to watch the short ones: Charlie Brown Christmas, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas and The Muppet Family Christmas.

All this while fumbling with ornaments around the tree and swearing.

True meaning of Christmas = discovered.

Cold Remedies & Leftovers

2011-12-02T20:31:00.001-05:00

We returned home to New York only to find that I was stricken with a terrible cold, the kind of cold that makes me even more cranky than normal. I had most of the early part of the day to kick around, grumble, and drink ginger, lemon, and honey tea so by the time Jen got home I was only mostly insufferable.

As I've mentioned many times it is nearly impossible to pair beer or wine with soup. Since I'd planned to make soup I decided to have a beer about two hours before the soup to make things easier.

Tonight I selected this Hibernator from Long Trail Brewing Co. As we roll into the near winter months it will be all about Christmas and winter beers. There are probably 400 different varieties that I will see this year so I'll need to be extra selective about what I choose to pair with dinner and what I don't get around to sampling at all.

Given my love for Long Trail I thought this was a good way to kick off the winter season. And by winter season I mean winter beer season, not actual winter.

With my cold lingering I decided soup would be a good move. I took some of the remaining turkey from Thanksgiving and spent most of the day making turkey stock. With some of the stock I made this turkey soup with garlic, ginger, onion, carrot, celery, egg noodles, parsley, and lots of black pepper.

I also put in a dash of Worchestershire sauce at Jen's recommendation and I'm pretty sure all of that added up to clearing out my sinuses nicely.

Jen's not a huge fan of soup as a main course so I also took the remaining stuffing and added an egg, some Gruyere, parsley, and a little milk before baking it in the oven to make a savory bread pudding.

I was going to go straight back to tea and add a little brandy but then I decided that leaving the tea out may be a better idea. I did cut the brandy with a little Bénédictine for the herbal and medicinal qualities of the drink. Then I sipped it over the course of about two hours. Bénédictine is made by monks so it has a long tradition and closely guarded recipe.

Besides, I just like anything made by monks.

Just Like Grandma Used To Make

2011-11-29T21:56:00.001-05:00

My grandmother didn't cook all that much. She was not really known for her cooking. I should correct that. She was known for her cooking, just not in the way one would hope. It's strange, actually. Directly descended from my grandmother are a a number of really good cooks.

As a child I heard stories of her cooking. She was fond of any vegetable as long as it came in a can. Like most cooks in the 1950's she took an overly cautious approach to cooking pork, charring it to a burnt cinder. I don't think she was alone in this approach. It makes me wonder why anyone even bothered with pork if they were so terrified of trichinosis in the first place.

About ten or fifteen years ago she started to take a real interest in cooking which shocked everyone. She would cook large quantities of food then give it away just for fun. She's ask me for pointers when I saw her and was always trying new things.

She got really good.

I remember going to visit her at what was one of the lower parts of my extremely lucky and privileged life. I struggled with running a business, was dirt poor, and lived in a beat up old apartment that was cheaper than just about anywhere else in America but I could still barely afford it. Gram was really excited about a turkey chili she'd made and, to my delight, she gave me a giant container to take home.

I ate the hell out of that turkey chili.

If you've ever been truly broke, truly in financial hardship then you know how amazing it is to get free food. Even someone giving you a loaf of Wonderbread makes you think, Thank God I can use this to eat and that is $1.99 less I have to put on my credit card.

Gram's turkey chili was really good. For some reason I always remembered that moment, that time where Gram was interested in cooking and she made this turkey chili that was really good. The fact that it was made my my grandmother (and in no small measure that it was free) made it all that more special.

Tonight I decided to make turkey chili. I don't really think I've ever made it before. I had a ton of leftover turkey but I didn't really have a lot of the other ingredients. I wasn't about to go out on this rainy late night so I simply browned some garlic and onion then finely chopped the cooked turkey, and added black beans, tomato paste, part of a leftover Triple Bag beer, oregano, thyme, smoked paprika, chili powder, salt, pepper, and a few dashes of hot sauce.

I served it over white rice with a dollop of sour cream and some shredded cheddar.

To go with the chili I had this St. Bernardus Prior 8. My grandmother didn't serve beer with her chili. In fact, I don't know if she ever had a beer to my knowledge. However, she was quite religious so I figured she'd approve of the good saint.

Gram passed away last weekend. Jen and I went to see her the previous weekend. She hadn't been doing well for a while but she was happy to see us. My beard was quite a surprise to her even though I've had it for the majority of my life. She also took particular note of Jen's scarf, pointing at it. When Jen handed her the scarf she threw it onto the floor. Jen was very happy about this. Her greatest wish in life is that when she's an old lady like grandma she'll be able to do anything she wants and no one will be able to say anything to her.

My grandma was always a very sweet natured and kind woman. I don't really think she shared Jen's philosophy on what license an old lady has. I don't think that's the reason my grandma threw her scarf on the ground but I'd sure like to think it was.

Stirrup Sunday and Milieu Monday

2011-11-28T22:11:00.001-05:00

We were a week late. Last Sunday we should have stirred up all our ingredients for the overly-elaborate preparation of the fruit cake. Every three or four years we need to make a new batch as we've finally powered through the ten pounds in our freezer. Yesterday was our day to finally complete a batch of fruitcake that will likely get us through until the year portrayed in Back to the Future II -- otherwise known as the thing I've been looking forward to in life more than anything.

By "our" time I, of course, mean Jen's time. Jen worked on all of this while I was work, stirring, measuring, and baking after a day of soaking up copious amounts of dried fruit and nuts in brandy. A few more weeks of brandy applications and the fruit cake will be almost ready for consumption.

After another year it will be perfect for consumption.

The setting for the following courses is in an average American home after accumulating a large quantity of Thanksgiving leftovers.

After reading Mark Bittman's annual guide on how to use Thanksgiving leftovers I had a few ideas of what to do. I like his idea of using the stuffing with roasted peppers so I grilled these orange Bell peppers over an open flame, stuffed them with the leftover chestnut, leek, and apple stuffing, and topped them with shredded Gruyere. I browned them up under the broiler.

This is a winner. I'd highly recommend this if you have any leftover stuffing. It's dead easy and tasty too.

To go with these Thanksgiving flavors I cracked open a bottle of Triple Bag by Long Trail Brewing Company. I've had the Double Bag. In fact, it's one of my favorites. When I saw the Triple Bag I passed it by subconsciously dismissing it as the Double Bag. That's when Jen asked me about it and I noticed that the label was different. It looked like Bessie the Riveter was calling me to enjoy Double Bag's older, less sophisticated sister.

It was a very good beer. It was malty, roasty, and pretty high in alcohol at 9.2%. That ass-kicking cow on the label is not to be messed with.

For dessert I made this parfait with yogurt, leftover cranberry sauce, Manuka honey, and chopped toasted pistachios. It was a nice finish to the evening and a great way to use up some leftover cranberry sauce.

And that, my friends, is how we rock this milieu.

Thanksgiving Left Over Right Under Your Nose

2011-11-27T13:15:00.001-05:00

The thing about making Thanksgiving dinner for three people is that you have leftovers. A lot of leftovers. So many leftovers, in fact, that it's just a race against time before you find yourself throwing the last bits away. Each year for Thanksgiving I make it my goal to have 0% waste as I try to think of inventive (read: edible) ways to utilize our leftovers.

This kind of goes against all of the tradition of excess tied into this holiday but I've always been something of a rogue.

I started last night by serving these toasts I made with Jen's sweet rolls, Brie Rouzaire Nangis, and cranberry sauce under the broiler. Jen was suspicious then surprised like with most of my cooking.

For a salad Jen just had some greens but I dressed mine with mustard pickles, pickled herring, and a little of the mustard pickle juice.

Since Jen's father had left early in the morning it was time to whip out the Thanksgiving/Fall themed beer that I knew it would be best not to serve in his presence: the Grateful Harvest Cranberry Ale from Harpoon Brewery. The cranberry flavor was very subtle but still there in some noticeable amount. It was good but not something that I would want to have more than 1 or 2 bottles of in a season.

The proceeds from selling the beer goes to food banks so if you purchase this beer you at least will not be 100% filled with regret.

For dessert: more pumpkin pie and whipped cream. Jen had pondered making a second pie for dinner. I objected on the grounds that one pie for three people was probably enough. After Thursday, Friday, and Saturday there are about three servings left.

As we move into next week I'm going to be soliciting ideas to use up the rest of these leftovers before they hit the freezer and then get thrown away six months from now.

Happy holidays!

Hot Turkey Sandwiches (Round 8)

2011-11-26T09:27:00.002-05:00

We like to have hot turkey sandwiches. I'm starting to get it down to a science at this point. Each year we have hot turkey sandwiches the day after Canadian Thanksgiving and the day after American Thanksgiving. This marks the eighth blog post about the same dish, something I normally try to avoid. However, each year there is a slight spin on the hot turkey sandwich. Last year there was a Belgian theme, Two years ago Jen's father introduced naan into the mix.

This year was not that innovative.

We started off with this cheese plate which featured Fourme D'Ambert, Cranberry Wensleydale, and Brie Rouzaire Nangis. I have now managed to convince one more person that Fourme D'Ambert is the most delicious cheese of all time.

To accompany our sandwiches I made a mixture of regular oven fries and also some additional fries out of the aborted sweet potatoes Jen was going to make for Thanksgiving. Like an episode of Iron Chef she had run out of time to do all the courses she had intended to do and settled with a mere ten items.

Side-by-side you have here, juxtaposed, Jen's closed faced turkey sandwich with my open faced turkey sandwich. Jen also believes that certain things are intended for the side while I have no problem jamming a bunch of Brussels sprouts and roasted parsnips onto the top of my monstrous sandwich.

For beer I had this Phoenix Pale Ale from Sly Fox Brewing Company in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. I picked it up because I'd guessed that my father-in-law would like it. It turns out I was right! Also, it turns out that this was a great accompaniment to turkey dinner leftovers.

I'm always amazed when my random beer selections actually complement the meal. I assure you this is not intentional, I'm still sticking to my theory that any beer goes with any food. The same principle I have always upheld with wine pairing.

I will, however, admit that there is a small chance that some beers or wines may just happen to pair better with certain foods.

More research is needed.

Never Make Granola with Chestnuts

2011-11-25T14:32:00.001-05:00

Thanksgiving is usually a time of year that I don't give very much thanks. It's not that I'm not thankful but I just don't have the time. I'm so busy with work I barely have time to eat. In fact, yesterday, All I had for twelve hours before dinner was a single croissant. While it was good I was ready for dinner when I arrived at home.

As is a Thanksgiving tradition I did nothing but get home, slump down, and wait for dinner to be ready. It's the one meal a I have absolutely nothing to do with. Jen's father had arrived a few hours earlier and was a little grumpy about the fact that Jen had set him up to watch a Harry Potter movie. I guess he was not feeling the magic of J.K. Rowling.

Since Jen's father was here (a now bi-annual tradition) he helped keep me company and polish off a jar of pickled herring before the main course while Jen slaved away in the kitchen. I think we would both feel more guilty about supporting gender stereotypes this way if it weren't for the fact that both of us cook dinner just about every night between the two of us.

One of the items on this year's menu was the stuffing that Jen made with roasted chestnuts and leeks. The one part I had in this meal was in helping Jen decide between getting whole chestnuts and roasting them or getting them already prepared. Against my advice she decided to get them whole. She has been a bit suspicious of chestnuts ever since she made a granola with them and we both learned a valuable lesson: never make granola with chestnuts.

It starts off quite nice but since they are not actually nuts they slowly dry out over time until you end up with a granola that basically has small granola-colored rocks in it which will break all of your teeth.

If you learn nothing else from reading this blog, learn this: never make granola with chestnuts.

Never make granola with chestnuts.

Jen's complete meal featured: roast turkey, gravy, mashed carrots and turnips, domino potatoes, mashed potatoes, cranberry jelly, cranberry sauce, scalloped butternut, chestnut leek stuffing, roasted Brussels sprouts and parsnips, and Jen's sweet rolls. Like most years there were three or four additional dishes that Jen had planned but just didn't end up getting around to. Most people would probably agree that ten items for three people is plenty.

And what beer did we have with this meal? Sweet Action from Sixpoint in Brooklyn, New York. I wanted to introduce Jen's father to a new beer local to our area. I also picked this because they come in sixteen ounce cans which is something that I figured would be a comfort to my father-in-law.

After some of Jen's best pumpkin pie to date we lounged around and foolishly had some coffee. Then I slept about two hours because I never have coffee later than 1:00 PM. Not my finest hour.

Oh, yeah! I almost forgot! Never make granola with chestnuts!

The Theory of Belgian Beer Websites

2011-11-19T22:02:00.000-05:00

On our way back from Rhode Island this evening we decided to stop by the store and pick up some groceries. I've been in a Norwegian state of mind lately so I picked up a nice piece of Norwegian salmon, though I wasn't really sure what to do with it.

When I'm not really sure what to do with something I tend to lean towards pasta. It must be my Italian heritage.

I cut up some pasta sheets into pappardelle noodles and boileld them then added them to a sauce I made with olive oil, butter, shallots, salmon, dill, cream, milk, salt, and pepper. Over the top I sprinkled a little Old Bay.

For beer I had this Pater 6 by St. Bernadus. It was not the natural accompaniment to a salmon cream sauce but it was delicious.

Over the years I've found that the quality of a Belgian beer is inversely proportionate to the quality of its website. If that is true then you can determine how good this beer is by clicking here.

Oh, yeah. That's some good beer.

In the Manner of Proper Gentlemen

2011-11-18T19:47:00.000-05:00

After a mere three hours of sleep I spent most of today lounging about on the couch, attempting to nap, and just generally feeling miserable. It was a cold day so I put up the hoodie and grimaced like some sort of foul grumpy troll. By dinner time I was ready to snap out of this funk and get to work making something that would be delicious and hopefully not put me to sleep by 7:30 PM. I walked to the local butcher shop and picked up one of the largest duck breasts I've ever seen and a couple of Italian sausages.

I was a little leary of buying this duck because it bore a striking resemblance to the worst duck I ever had. The worst duck I ever had was in Paris, of all places, and it was enormous and tasted like beef. It wasn't disgusting. In fact it was perfectly edible. It just didn't taste anything like duck.

Also it was served with "five pippers." I'm still not sure what that meant.

I sliced the duck skin all the way to the meat and seared it, skin side down, in a pan for a good 20-30 minutes to brown it up before tossing it into the oven with the sausages to cook. I seasoned it only with salt, pepper, and thyme. I had wanted a whole duck and some fresh herbs but since this duck breast was about the size of a normal whole duck I figured this would be enough.

Since there was so much duck fat that rendered from the skin I tossed in some assorted carrots and onions that were in the crisper because what is better than vegetables roasted in duck fat?

After throwing the crisped duck breast into the oven with the vegetables and sausages I made a quick creamy polenta with corn meal, turkey stock, cream, salt, pepper, and grated Parmigiano-Reggiano.

I poured the polenta onto a wooden cutting board and put the sliced roasted duck and sausage on top with some of the vegetables, juices, and a salad I tossed together with Jen's amazing salad dressing.

It turns out that this duck tasted a lot like the duck from France. My suspicions were confirmed: large duck breasts just taste like beef. Next time I think I'll save myself the aggravation (and money) and just make a beef roast.

To accompany this lovely little meal I popped open this bottle of Victor from Allagash that I picked up in Maine last month.

Victor is a Belgian strong ale brewed with red grapes and, in the manner of proper gentlemen, wears a top hat. I'd be lying if I said I bought this beer for any reason other than the fact that there was a top hat on the label. When looking at a whole wall of Allagash beers this was one of the clear winners. That being said, it turned out to be quite tasty too! It actually tasted a lot like a sparkling white wine, fruity and delicious, but not sweet.

And now, given that it's almost 8:00 PM, I can fall asleep with little regret.

Little regret other than the kicks I'll receive from the other side of the couch.

Aborted Gravlax

2011-11-16T22:40:00.001-05:00

The other day I started to make gravlax. I had a shabby idea for a Nordic-themed dinner. Unfortunately I was following a traditional recipe that requires 4-5 days planning and after starting the process my work schedule changed and would no longer allow me to stay on course for this dinner.

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold

On Monday I had seasoned up a nice piece of Norwegian salmon with salt, dill, and sugar, and placed it in the refrigerator to cure.

Then the unthinkable happened: I didn't want to make gravlax anymore!

Thinking quick I wrapped the partially cured gravlax in some puff pastry with whole grain mustard and baked it in the oven. I made some boiled potatoes with sour cream and dill and some green beans with garlic to accompany the dish for a makeshift dinner.

For a drink I served up this Namaste from Dogfish Head. I figured since it's actually been in the 60's it would be nice to have a refreshing summer-type beer to accompany this dinner. Well, eventually it was refreshing.

You see, I poured about a tablespoon of the beer into each glass and they exploded with foam. At first I thought that maybe the bottle had been sabotaged by some wiseacre. After drinking the beer, I did at least live long enough to write this. So, at the very least, the beer was not poisoned.

Sadly there aren't any videos on the Dogfish Head website about how the founder watched a dinosaur movie but even that withstanding it was still a very enjoyable beer.

There is this video, though, which is about 9 minutes long but, sadly, features very little in the way of talking about dinosaurs.

For dessert I cooked up some rice and made this pudding with leftover coconut milk, sweetened condensed milk, vanilla, and chopped pistachios.

I was inspired to make this pudding because I was reading about all the depressing wars going on so I decided to watch a dinosaur movie. In the movie I saw a palm tree that dinosaurs knocked coconuts out of to eat. I thought that would be a great basis for a rice pudding.

True story.

Beer and Ravioli

2011-11-15T21:15:00.001-05:00

I had a pretty good idea for dinner tonight. Then this happened instead.

I got home just in time to throw a pot of water on the stove to boil, and start cooking some sausages. While that was happening I made a salad using Jen's leftover dressing from the other night, feta cheese, sliced pear, and toasted pistachios.

For the main course I took a number of elements from the fridge, freezer, and pantry, and turned them into pumpkin ravioli with sweet Italian sausage, ricotta, and fried sage leaves. I also added a little grated nutmeg to the top. The result was far better than I'd anticipated given the cobble-together nature of the meal and the fact that I'd only had about twenty minutes to put it together.

I didn't really have anything that I thought would go well with this meal so I put the perfect beer in the fridge. After five minutes everything was ready and I took an educated guess that that beer was probably not quite chilled enough to serve. So I went with my second choice, this BPA (Belgian Pale Ale) from Ommegang.

It turns out that this ended up being an excellent accompaniment to pumpkin ravioli in cream sauce. It had a fizzy citrus taste that seemed to pair well with the cream sauce. The carbonation and acidity lifted the fat right off the tongue.

Sorry, I've been ready a lot of overwritten books about beer lately.

And I'm a ponce.

Just Like Some Shepherds

2011-11-13T19:28:00.002-05:00

Tonight we defied all odds and started dinner at the earliest time we've had it all year: 6:00 PM. By all calculations this is the earliest a dinner has ever been consumed in the United States of America.

We started off with some leftover ricotta from last night's dinner out and baguette. I drizzled a little olive oil over the ricotta, cracked some black pepper on top, and served with Manuka honey.

Jen made a great vinaigrette with Dijob mustard, balsamic, garlic, and olive oil to go with mixed baby greens. One of the telltale signs of Jen making dinner is her love for putting salad dressing in a jar with a lid. It may be one of her favorite things in the world to do.

Jen also made a fantastic shepherd's pie. We both grew up eating shepherd's pies in different ways. Mine was a French Canadian/Italian amalgamation which my father called pâté chinois and my mother called shepherd's pie. Both thought the other was crazy when they talked about the dish until they found out it was the same thing. There were a number of problems with either nomentlature. In Rhode Island, apparently, lamb did not exist until the late 1990's therefore this dish was made with 100% beef. This doesn't make any sense as far as being called shepherd's pie.

Pâté chinois doesn't make any more sense. This literally translates as Chinese pie. I won't bore you with going into the details of why this makes even less sense.

Jen made her family's version of the dish which is made with 50% lamb and 50% beef. Apparently in Canada they had only discovered lamb half way.

We're getting a little predictable with our Dogfish Head beers lately but I figured that the Indian Brown Ale would be one of the better accompaniments to this dish. It turns out I was right! Even though Jen doesn't normally go for this type of beer she enjoyed it quite a bit.

We topped off the evening by watching Beauty and the Beast on Jen's request. I figured that she's endured enough episodes of The Wonder Years in the last week to make this only fair. The movie wasn't bad but it could have been helped by some classic rock tunes and pithy voice overs.

Recreating What We're Used To

2011-11-11T20:05:00.000-05:00

Our go-to place to eat is a seafood restaurant right around the corner. Since we've been there so often we almost always order the special and almost always have the same drink. We've pretty much had everything on the menu so we've fallen into a nice routine.

I decided, today, that instead of going to the restaurant for dinner we'd recreate a typical experience here at home and we'd by having linguine with clam sauce. I purchased everything I needed yesterday but I forgot to buy linguine and clams. Apparently I've never been shopping before so this morning I went out to buy the missing ingredients.

When I came home I found that I'd gotten clams but forgotten to buy linguine. How, you ask, could I forget to buy one item from a two item list? Well, I'm really very dumb.

After going out, again, I was able to get some linguine and get to work. Not that it's much work to make linguine with clam sauce. Jen is always delighted to have pasta with clam sauce. Since my mom is Italian we used to have this about once a week growing up. It was one of my favorites. Jen thinks that is crazy because she never had this until she left home.

It couldn't be easier to make. I made a slight variation to the traditional recipe by using beer (Hoegaarden) instead of white wine. I simply used garlic, butter, olive oil, clam juice, clams, red pepper flakes, and a little beer. I cooked it down then added the cooked linguine at the end.

Well, I actually used ciriole instead of linguine because they didn't have any linguine at the store. That's right. You heard me correctly. They had ciriole (a pasta I'd previously not heard of) but not not linquine at the store.

For beer we had the same beer we always have at the restaurant: Dogfish Head's 90 Minute IPA. We've had this beer a lot in the last few months. I've actually come to think of it as the natural accompaniment to any seafood dish.

I only had the 60 Minute IPA recently but the 90 Minute is a very interesting beer indeed. Even as someone who's not all that crazy about IPAs I am a huge fan of the 90 Minute.

Halfway through the meal Jen said, "This tastes better at the restaurant." I admitted that the clam sauce was not my finest but then she revealed that she was talking about the beer.

I guess the charm of the restaurant must lend a lot to her enjoyment of the beer. Our living room is, admittedly, a little less charming.

It is, however, approximately $50.00 cheaper.

Meat and Potatoes and Old Engine Oil

2011-11-09T09:09:00.002-05:00

On my way to meet Jen last night I had an unfortunate incident with a pothole which ended up blowing out my tire and causing me to take a slow detour to a garage and getting it removed so I could put on my donut. There isn't a lot of space on the roads of Manhattan for changing a tire. Let me rephrase that: there's not a lot of space on the roads of Manhattan for changing a tire and not getting your legs run over.

Dinner plans, therefore, had to be slightly altered.

I took a nice piece of skirt steak, pan seared it, and served it with some mashed potatoes. I figured this was about as basic as you could get. Since there was some ricotta in the fridge I added that to the potatoes. I'm not sure that was necessary but it did use up some leftover ricotta. Also, I made a salad of Boston lettuce, red onion, and tomato with olive oil, salt, and pepper.

For a drink I had this unique beer called Old Engine Oil from Harviestoun Brewery in Scotland. I figured this was very fitting considering my car troubles. It was nice that it also happened to be a delicious chocolatey beer that was quite unique in taste and appearance. I'm glad that it tasted better than actual engine oil.

Unfortunately, at a mere 6.0% ABV, it was not nearly enough to make me forget the pain of having to take our new car to the garage already.

Perhaps a whiskey chaser is in order.

The Wonder Years and the Power of Dreams

2011-11-07T20:12:00.000-05:00

I was always taught two things about dreams: 1.) If you die in your dream you die in real life, and 2.) Your dreams are just your mind trying to make sense of the things that happened to you over the course of the day. Or something like that.

I think that both of these things are bunk.

If the second statement is true then how do you explain the fact that I had a dream about the final episode of The Wonder Years last night after not having seen it since 1993? I haven't even thought about it at all since then. I've thought about the show in general, sure, but the final episode has been out of my mind for a while.

The dream moved me so much that I spent much of today thinking about that episode, and the show in general. In fact, I woke up at 5:00 AM and couldn't get back to sleep. Did it just take 18 years for the gravity of that episode to sink in? I was tempted to watch the episode all day but I thought that would be cheating. The right thing to do would be to start watching the show again from episode one and allow the episodes to sink in one-by-one until I reach the final episode.

After about eleven hours I started to shake the Wonder Years haze I was in and went to pick up the bi-weekly fruit share. This week we got Golden Delicious Apples, Fuji Apples, Bosc Pears, Cameo Apples, and a jug of cider.

There was one problem . . .

. . . this is how much apples we still had left from two weeks ago.

I quickly got to work making a giant pot of apple sauce. Now there was another problem . . .

. . . there was still this many apples left.

Perhaps, along with the pears, Jen can make some huge array of apple and pear desserts over the weekend to use them up. I'm running out of ideas.

The other day we were bored so we drove to the local farmer's market just to see what they had where we picked up these cool-looking Jiló (Brazilian Eggplant). At first Jen selected some that were green which I quickly rejected and replaced with red ones after lecturing her about how the red ones were the best ones.

I got into a bit of trouble for that.

We also picked up some little pumpkins so I roasted them in the oven along with the eggplant and filled them both with a farro risotto I made with butter, garlic, onion, bacon, and roasted brussel sprouts.

I call it a "risotto" just to drive purists crazy with rage.

For beer I cracked open this Bière Du Boucanier Dark Brouwerij Van Steenberge in East Flanders, Belgium. I figured the pirate went well with the theme of this meal since pirates love pumpkins so much.

Oh, and Winnie Cooper loved pirates! I just love it when a theme comes together!

As dessert I served up some of the warm apple sauce with a scoop of leftover Greek yogurt, some melted down caramel sauce from the apples, and a drizzle of chocolate sauce.

I also managed to convince Jen to watch the first episode of The Wonder Years which was quite a feat considering her hatred for watching pilot episodes. Jen's payment in return was that I review both our companies' medical plans for 2012 so we could make an informed decision for our future.

I challenge you to watch that opening credits sequence and tell me you aren't moved more than the last time you are when you compared deductibles.

Italian Sandwich

2011-11-06T20:51:00.001-05:00

Tonight we both arrived home at the same exact time. As we were both starving we didn't have time to make anything too elaborate so that's why we turned to my old standby: the Italian Sandwich.

We started off with this Cacio de Roma from Italy. This is a sheep's milk cheese that is bathed in salt water for 24 hours. The cheese that is. Or maybe it's the sheep that bathes in the salt water. I'm just not sure what that does to the wool.

I'll need to do a little more research.

For the main course I took all of last night's leftovers and made them into these pitas stuffed with some of the venison kebabs, quinoa, arugula, red onion, tomato, and yogurt. I was going to serve them cold but since Jen had spent all day in the cold watching marathoners do their marathoning I agreed to heat it up which worked surprisingly well.

For a drink I poured this Estrella Damm Inedit. This beer is from Italy and claims to be the perfect beer for pairing with food. Unlike last night I missed the opportunity to serve this in wine glasses. That's really not like me. I'm generally very good at taking every opportunity to be a jerk when it comes to unnecessarily elaborate ways of serving beer.

This beer features a little booklet that hangs around the neck and goes on for pages and pages about how great it is, what the tasting notes are, etc. It doesn't, however, list its ABV percentage or IBUs. If beer comes with a book that book should at least have the decency to give you the vital stats of the beer.

There you have it. Tonight was like an Italian Sandwich. That is if you like to name your sandwiches after the bread they're in. For example: a rye sandwich is a sandwich with corned beef, sauerkraut, Swiss cheese, and Russian dressing.

I'm turning the sandwiching world on its ear.

Around the World in 80 Ingredients

2011-11-05T20:41:00.001-04:00

When I learned to cook, from thick-headed Frenchmen in culinary school, the focus was on all manner of exotic ingredients. In fact, there was a class where they just laid out a bunch of different ingredients on a table and you had to write down what everything was. I did poorly. Mostly because the only bean I could remember was a calypso bean because it kind of looks like a killer whale and Jacques Cousteau's ship was called The Calypso.

All other beans looked the same to me.

Nowadays local is the theme. I would imagine that most of those thick-headed Frenchman would be recoiling at this new trend if I thought any of them were still alive. They were chain-smoking elderly men with not a shred of humor and I imagine that if the smoking hasn't killed them by now the stress from being so uptight surely must have.

For tonight's dinner I wanted to return to those days of unnecessary excess and see if I could use as many ingredients from as many different countries and continents as possible.

For the first course I made this new world salad. This features roasted New Jersey sweet potatoes (North America) with quinoa from Peru (South America) and some sliced grape tomatoes. I imagine this is what explorers brought back to Europe to serve to their kings and queens. They too would have used exotic tropical lemon juice and olive oil from Italy. Then their kings and queens told them not to bring back any of this "hippie food" any more and had them executed.

For the second course I cooked up some shrimp from Thailand (Asia). I tossed in some coconut milk from Thailand along with some roasted red chili paste, and tamari and cooked it down. I served the curried shrimp with some grilled slices of baguette.

This dish was reminiscent of something we had on one of our first dates in Providence, RI back in 2002. The restaurant, Neath's, is now closed but the coconut crostini came back to life (sort of) with this attempted recreation.

For the main course I made these venison kebabs with ground venison from New Zealand (Oceana), with chili powder, cumin, lemon zest, thyme, and crushed pistachios.

After grilling them I served them on some grilled naan with salad greens, sliced red onion, and a little yogurt from Greece (Europe). On the naan I smeared a little harissa from Tunisia (Africa) to make sure all old world continents were covered.

And what drink would I pair with this?

Well, Pangaea, of course, from Dogfish Head. Pangaea is beer made with ingredients from all seven continents including crystallized ginger from Australia, water from Antarctica, basmati rice from Asia, muscavado sugar from Africa, South American quinoa, European yeast, and North American maize.

Here's my favorite bro-master talking about this beer. When I'm bummed I also like to watch movies about dinosaurs so I know how he feels.

For dessert we had a return to basics. Jen made these caramel apples with apples from our fruit share. It all returned back home to New York.

This was a noble experiment. My only regret is that I could not get any reverse-osmosis glacier water from Antarctica to boil some pasta in or something. At any rate, it's nice to know that my meal featured ingredients from every continent in some small degree.

The French chefs who instructed me would be proud. While this dinner didn't feature any traditional French recipes or unnecessarily precise vegetable cuts it did, at least, exhibit excess in its sourcing of ingredients.

I did my part.

Name! That! Leftover!

2011-11-02T21:41:00.001-04:00

That's right, Everybody, it's time for everyone's favorite home-freezer-based gameshow: Name! That! Leftover!

Tonight's contestant is Nate. Nate lives in New York and was recently challenged by his wife, Jen, by saying that they both needed to do a better job of going through their leftovers. Well, folks, can Nate take up Jen's challenge? Let's find out!

Tonight Nate rummaged through the freezer where he found two unmakred plastic bags with some sort of frozen ingredient in each. After carefully weighing his options he took a bold move by opening both bags and heating them up in the pot! What will he do with this? Will the two mystery ingredients be compatible? Will Jen be regretting her challenge to Nate on the previous evening?

Let's find out!

It was a bold choice to combine both bags but once they began defrost in the pan Nate found out that they both appeared to be sausage dishes of some sort. One appeared to be some sort of sausage and pepper dish while the other looked like a sausage and sauerkraut concoction!

How would they go together?

Daring use of two mystery ingredients together: 25 points!

Not so bad, it turns out! Nate heated them both up in the same pot with a little leftover braising liquid from the osso bucco the other night. He toasted some challah rolls and served the sausage mixture along with some tarragon mustard, melted cheddar cheese and pickles!

Sneaking ingredient Jen does not like (challah) without her noticing: 50 points!

As an accompaniment Nate elected to served this 60 minute IPA from Dogfish Head.

Rare IPA that both Jen and Nate like despite an overall dislike for IPAs: 15 points!

For dessert Nate returned to the freezer to get a slice of an ice cream cake that he and Jen had slowly been eating for the past month.

Return tot he freezer: 10 points!

Nate's total for this evening comes to 105 points! That's a solid showing and makes Nate eligible for our Week's End Showdown! Tune in on Friday night to see Nate battle against his fellow contestants to battle for the using-all-the-parts-of-the buffalo trophy!

Another Day, Another Fall Stew

2011-10-31T19:42:00.000-04:00

With temperatures in the 30s tonight I wanted to take full advantage of the chilly temperatures and make another fall stew.

I rendered some pancetta then cooked up some garlic in the fat with a little extra olive oil, toasted some red pepper flakes, and added in some butternut squash and carrot. When all the vegetables were tender I tossed in some cubed chicken breast, leftover broccoli rabe, and fresh chopped sage leaves.

For beer I decided to go the trappist route (as I often like to do) and have this dubbel from Abdij der Trappisten van Westmalle.

Last night we had carved this pumpkin. My attempt was to make it look like he was sticking out his tongue. I'm not sure if that comes across but one thing is for sure: he is terrifying.

The leaves are still on the trees and there's snow on the ground but even with this confusing set of factors we tried to stay on topic and watched The Nightmare Before Christmas, a movie I hadn't seen since I saw it in the theater in 1993. Jen generally does not like watching movies so I was surprised she'd made this suggestion.

I think it might just be that she wanted to distract me for as long as possible to avoid my normal Halloween routine of talking like the crypt keeper all day.

Make no bones about it! We had a great fright!

Heeeeee-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!

It's Rodenbach Time!

2011-10-31T12:25:00.002-04:00

Yesterday my parents came up on their annual birthday/Halloween visit. Since we'd gotten an unusually early snowstorm on Friday I decided to cancel our dinner reservations and do the cooking myself. A lot of the snow had melted by dinner time but ingredients had been purchased and it was time to get to work.

I made Osso Bucco. I normally stick to a pretty basic formula when I'm making this but I tend to get bored easily so I changed it up. I crushed garlic, cooked it with onion, celery, and butternut squash. I also added in some carrot. Normally this is where I'd add tomato and red wine. Instead I used this Punkin Ale from Dogfish Head. After adding some concentrated turkey stock from Canadian Thanksgiving I threw it in the oven for two-and-a-half hours.

While it cooked I popped open this bottle of Rodenbach Grand Cru. I had purchased this a while back based on a video review by Michael Jackson

However, over time, I forgot about the review and was pretty surprised to be reminded that it was a sour beer. While this was alarming at first it actually turned out to be the perfect pre-dinner beer. Michael Jackson said it was similar to wine. I think it's more like a framboise. After all, what does Michael Jackson know about beer, anyway?

We were so impressed with the beer that my father and I posed with our glasses like a couple of guys in the 1880s who were still amazed at the technology of still photography.

While the Osso Bucco cooked we enjoyed this Gabietou cheese with some sourdough bread.

The end result of the Osso Bucco cooked with beer was fantastic. I think I'm going this route with all future Osso Bucco (Osso Buccos? -- what is the plural of Osso Bucco?) that I make. I only selected the pumpkin beer because it was around and it was seasonally appropriate. I think, however, the spices in the beer happened to lend themselves nicely to the veal and the butternut squash.

As a side dish I made this stew with garlic, onion, potato, and kale.

Along with the Osso Bucco I stuck with tradition and served this 2008 Plungerhead Zinfandel from The Other Guys. It was, of course, selected based on the name and the label. I think most winemakers these days have gotten the message that unless you have a humorous or interesting name and label for your wine it's going to get lost in the mix. Unless, you know, it's from some super famous vineyard.

Château Mouton Rothschild doesn't really need to get anyone's attention with a picture of a dog riding a bicycle or a nun playing pool.

Jen managed to use up all of our leftover pears from the farm share to make this pear tart with a fig glaze. While it looks like a huge amount of tart it was actually quite small. It cooked up nicely although we had to balance out Jen's tendency to think baked items are burned before they are with my tendency to think they are not burned after they are. This was our compromise position.

With a little vanilla ice cream, hot out of the oven, the tart was fantastic.

After dinner we continued our tradition by watching Ghostbusters and added a new tradition by watching Ghostbusters II. Truly two of the scariest movies ever. Perfect for a spook-tacular Halloween!

My parents got me some books by Garrett Oliver and I was able to read about how poorly I'd matched beer with dinner.

There is no better present than reading about one's own personal failure.

Beer: The Cure for the Common Stomach Ache

2011-10-28T21:38:00.000-04:00

Today we got a giant new couch delivered and I spent much of the day organizing and rearranging the apartment to accommodate its bulk.

Okay, it doesn't look that big in the picture. Let me assure you that you could easily sleep two people on this couch. I'm sure most people reading this own a large house where they have one of those massive L-shaped couches that wrap the entire outside of their living room and have to communicate with others on the couch via walkie-talkie. If you are one of those people then just go easy on us. Allow us to think that this humble couch is excessively large and that we are living a decadent life similar to that of Roman nobility before the fall.

Since I was so busy, and feeling kind of queasy all day, I turned to the pantry where I found this quinoa blend from Wholesome Kitchen in Flushing, NY. It consisted of quinoa, dried potatoes, dried onion, dried Persian lemon, dried dill, dried parsley, dried cilantro, dried garlic, red chili flakes, and nigella seeds.

I don't know what nigella seeds are but I do know that this looked like a quick and tasty way to make a dinner that Jen would like and would also soothe my stomach. Jen enjoys any dinner made with small globe-shaped grains. It's a fact. Couscous, quinoa, you name it and she's all in.

For drink I felt like having a beer. Sometimes, when my stomach is upset, I often crave a small amount of beer to help settle it. I'm not sure if this is just my normal craving for beer telling me to stop my complaining or if it actually does have some sort of restorative property to it. At any rate something in the beer tends to settle my stomach. Maybe it's the bubbles, maybe it's the alcohol, maybe it's my general desire to have some beer for any reason whatsoever.

I picked this Amber from Abita only to find out that they're having a Boudin & Beer celebration on November 11, 2011. I'm wondering if it's too late for me and my dad to get tickets to go check it out. Odds are it's not.

Also, I should probably wait until I'm done with my stomach ache to partake in boudin.

Just a hunch.

The Gnomes Hate Us For Our Freedom

2011-10-26T10:56:00.001-04:00

In preparation for my first batch of home brew beer to be ready to drink I started off last night with another Belgian ale which will certainly be far better than mine.

For starters it's brewed in Belgium. That gave it a leg up on any Belgian style ale I could cobble together. Secondly it was another beer in a series of gnome-themed beers. This beer was the Dobbelen IPA Tripel from La Chouffe, purveyors of fine gnome-themed beers. Their website is also features the second best flash animation of gnomes after Gnomesong!, the classic song and video from Lance & Eskimo.

I got out of work late enough that I only had time to drive straight to the train to pick up Jen so I had to act fast. Luckily this dinner was made basically in the time it took to boil some water. I browned a little garlic in olive oil and butter, threw in some sweet Italian sausage removed from the casing, added some blanched broccoli rabe, sliced grape tomatoes, a little turkey stock, and some cooked cheese raviolis. Over the top I grated some Reggiano-Parmigiano.

Jen was very suspicious of doing this recipe with a ravioli instead of regular pasta. However, as she admits, she is often suspicious of just about anything I make. It turns out it was quite delicious and her fears were allayed -- just like they are every night.

With dinner we enjoyed a bottle of wine we'd picked up in Bordeaux this summer. Well, not the exact bottle we picked up. That one was kindly disposed of by the terrible American section of the Zurich airport. Since there have been planes falling out of the sky left and right from wine bottle bombs it only made sense that they discarded this bottle which was hermetically sealed in plastic encasing marked, "Zurich Airport Duty Free."

The wine was quite nice but it left a bitter taste in my mouth. I don't think it was so much the wine or the tannins but rather that taste of eroding personal freedom.

It's better to be safe than sorry! Right, kids?

Commonwealth Cooking

2011-10-24T20:13:00.001-04:00

Tally ho, pip pip, and Bob's your uncle! Tonight we're going to have a tenuously themed dinner in celebration of Lady England and all the nations she has previously ensnared in her imperial tentacles! This may be one of our more loose themes as this pretty much covers cuisine from 90% of the Earth's countries.

First up I made this salad with baby lettuce, golden beets, goat cheese, crushed almonds, and avocado. I drizzled a little olive oil over the top and served it with salt and pepper.

Wow, did I already lose the theme on the first dish?

Next up, Jen made her style of chicken pot pie which is really kind of like chicken and dumplings. This is what she grew up on in Canada which still puts the queen all over there money and celebrates a culinary tradition that is like a fiendish hybrid of British and American cooking, thankfully borrowing some of the less terrible elements from both nations.

For beer I cracked open this Hen's Tooth from Greene King / Morland Brewery, who seem to specialize in making hen-themed beers. I enjoyed this one more than the last hen-themed beer and, apparently, more than all the reviewers on beeradvocate. It was very, very tasty and interesting. It had a fizzy carbonation and a characteristic that I like to refer to as "imaginary chewiness."

Yeah, I'm pretty much an expert at describing beer.

Today I rushed over to pick up our bi-weekly fruit share after work where I was given another enormous amount of apples in pears, this time including Bosc Pears, Empire Apples, Jona Gold Apples, and Mutsu Apples (also known as Crispin).

With all these apples I crossed back over to this side of the Atlantic to make an apple crisp. I happened to have some leftover crisp topping in the fridge from the last crisp I made and I cut up two apples (they were huge) to make this enormous pie plate full of apple crisp.

We let the crisp cool slightly before diving into it after dinner. Along with some fresh new episodes of Psych this pretty much capped off the perfect evening.

By the way, Psych is based on the Victorian era crime novels by Sir Francis Crumblesmith.

I love it when a theme remains strong.

Bottling Day

2011-10-23T20:40:00.004-04:00

After careful planning, and lots of mild panic, today was finally the day to bottle my first batch of home brew beer. There were quite a few debacles including one where I accidentally used a bleach that, somehow, does not sanitize and disinfect to prepare everything for my batch. Thanks go out to all the dedicated home brewers who came out of the woodwork to offer advice and keep me sane.

I woke up plenty early and got to work cleaning, sanitizing, cleaning again, and spending about 10% of my time doing things that related to the beer itself. After a few hours I'd bottled and capped 36 regular bottles (both 250ml and 12 ounce) and 5 larger bottles (both 500ml and 16 ounce). At the end I had a motley assembly of different sizes and shapes all filled with a beer that I hope does not turn out to be disgusting.

By 1:00 PM all bottles were cleaned, washed, and dripping dry. Afterwards I tossed them all back into the closet where they will ferment over the next 3-4 weeks.

After the kitchen and apartment had been thrown into turmoil we had to clean our ways back into the kitchen and from there I started putting together a dinner of leftovers. I started with this salad of baby greens, golden beets, tomato, and crispy chickpeas (which after several days had reverted back to regular chickpeas). I served it up with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper.

I took the leftover pumpkin and crimini mushrooms from the other night, threw them in a pan, added a little milk and cream, and added some fresh fettuccine. After tossing it together I added a dollop of ricotta and some freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano.

After a long day of brewing that I would celebrate by having a beer that would be much better than the one I spent all day toiling over. After having the 6 and the 8 it was finally time to have the 10 from Trappistes Rochefort. This was a delicious dessert treat after my long day of cleaning, bumbling, and sanitizing. I cherished every drop of this beer and I'm going to try to keep it in perspective that I am only one man and not a collection of Trappist monks.

Jen's reward was to watch half a dozen episodes of Murder, She Wrote, her new obsession. Her reward was a bit cheaper than mine but it was okay because we both feel we got the better end of the deal. Jen hopes to someday be as stylish as Jessica Fletcher.

I hope to someday be a collection of Trappist monks.

It's a Fluke

2011-10-19T22:00:00.001-04:00

The other day I bought a giant bag of crimini mushrooms to go with the giant bag of green beans we'd purchased for an aborted Canadian Thanksgiving dish. Unfortunately the green beans didn't really survive so I was stuck with a tremendous amount of mushrooms and no green beans. What was I to do? Everyone knows there is no other food item that pairs with green beans other than mushrooms.

One thing was for sure, I was truly in a pickle!

I started off by making a salad with olive oil, feta cheese, and chickpeas which I roasted in the oven until crispy. I squeezed a little fresh lemon over the top.

For the main course I got this beautiful whole fluke this afternoon. I seared it in a pan with a little olive oil, salt, and Pepper. Before I did this I put together a risotto with garlic, onion, crimini mushroom, pumpkin, sherry, turkey stock, and butter. I put this on the base of the plate and served the fluke on top with some shrimp which I lightly cooked in butter.

The only problem was that I had so many mushrooms and so much pumpkin that if I'd turned it all into risotto we would be dealing with a Canadian Thanksgiving level amount of leftovers.

I decided to divide everything up before pressing on with the risotto which, truth be told, was still far too much risotto. However, it would be nice that we could both enjoy it for a few days as lunch before finally disposing of the excess when it inevitably spoils in our fridge.

After this seafood dinner I cracked open this Nostradamus from Brasserie Caracole. At the time of writing this their website is non-existant, which is fine. If it's going to take any time away from them making a beer this good their website can remain dormant for the rest of human history as far as I'm concerned.

The predominant taste of the beer was of molasses. I thought molasses to be an entirely American flavor and not something the Belgians were fond of as well. This beer is perfect for after dinner with a nice sweetness. If you are going to pair it with food I would recommend that you do not but you tend to do what you want to do.

You've always been headstrong that way.

Brew Day

2011-10-17T20:10:00.001-04:00

Today was a day I've been waiting for for a long, long time: brew day. In my normal lazy manner of pursuing my goals I finally got around to beginning my own home brew beer. After well over a decade of wanting to do it, and two months after purchasing all of the gear, I finally started on my own batch of home brew.

The day started by unpacking, washing, and sanitizing all of the beer making equipment I'd purchased back in August. This proved to be extremely difficult. Trying to hold a giant, slippery, glass carboy on the edge of a sink while washing it with the extremely short hose sprayer was more difficult than I'd imagined. I took extra care to soak everything in a bleach solution as to hopefully avoid any bacterial infections. Unlike our home canning and jarring experiments I was less on edge knowing that the worst outcome of bad brewing would be a bad-tasting beer. That beats death by botulism any day.

After putting the 1.5 gallons of water into my largest stock pot it became quite obvious that there really wasn't going to be any chance I could fit anything else into the pot. I put everything on hold, ran out to the local beer shop, and picked up an incredibly poor quality pot that seemed to just one gauge thicker than standard kitchen aluminum foil.

It was, however, big enough for everything and fairly cheap. Soon the smell of breakfast porridge (or cream of wheat) filled the kitchen.

I watched the pot like a hawk, expecting it to foam up and boil over. This was about as bad as it got. Everything I read, everything I've seen, lead me to believe that this boil up would be the worst thing I'd ever encountered. It was nothing compared to scorching milk or making caramel sauce. I was disappointed. I feel like I was cheated out of an overflowing pot and smoke-filled kitchen as part of the brewing process. Either my culinary skills came in handy or I was doing something wrong. It's probably the latter.

After a lot more boiling, adding hops, boiling, adding sugar, funneling, adding cold water, chilling, adding yeast, waiting, mixing, waiting, and finally sealing the carboy up my brew day had come to a close. I had to chill it in front of a fan by the window for a while until it was at a low enough temperature to throw the yeast in.

I set the carboy full of wort into a dark closet where I would allow it to ferment for the next few days.

After doing all of this I have a new found appreciation for people who don't know how to cook. It must feel a lot like this. Having never done this before it was a scary and confusing process. I didn't understand some of the directions and wasn't sure if I was doing it properly. I was reading and re-reading steps in the instructions a half dozen times. There were times where I was just looking at all the ingredients and equipment unsure of where to start. I'm sure I took far too many precautions and I had to search message boards for really dumb questions I kept having. I look forward to a few batches from now where I'm just winging it like I do when I made dinner every night. That will be a glorious day.

After adding the yeast it was almost 7:00 PM so I had to put something together quickly for dinner. I cooked a little crushed garlic in olive oil with onion, red chilies (I was feeling brave), celery root, red potato, and pumpkin. I added salt, pepper, sage, thyme, and a ladle full of the turkey stock I'd made the other day. When that had cooked down I put in some ground lamb from Pineland Farms in New Gloucester, Maine.

I don't know why but this felt very Iron Chef inspired to me. It's probably because it was such a small amount of lamb that it felt very Chen Kenichi to use ground lamb as an ingredient in a pumpkin-centric dish rather than as the main ingredient.

After dinner, to celebrate my first brew day, I cracked open this bottle of Chateau Jihau from Dogfish Head. This beer is part of Dogfish Head's "Ancient Ales" series and is based on a recipe developed in conjunction with Molecular Archaeologist Dr. Patrick McGovern. The recipe was discovered by examining preserved pottery jars found in the Neolithic village of Jiahu. The recipe called or fermentation of rice along with honey and fruit.

I chose this beer for a few reasons. One: we'd been watching some episodes of Brew Masters (or as I like to call it, Bro Masters) over the last few nights. Two: this claims to be the oldest beer recipe in the world (over 9,000 years old) so I thought it fitting to drink Earth's first beer recipe with my first attempt at brewing. Hopefully mine is half as palatable.

To conclude the evening we enjoyed the Chateau Jiahu while watching the thematically appropriate Prohibition, a documentary by Ken Burns. There's nothing better than watching a documentary about one of our nation's most embarrassing episodes. This particular beer enhanced the embarrassment knowing that a Neolithic village in Northern China had more sense than the most advanced civilization in the world 9,000 years later.

Oh, America, do you ever stop coming up with really bad ideas?

Just Like Dad Used to Make

2011-10-15T20:57:00.001-04:00

My dad would probably not mind if I brought up the fact that he doesn't really know how to cook. That being said there are a few items he knows how to make. He is quite adept at making grilled cheese sandwiches though I'm not sure he's made one in the past ten years. One culinary invention that my father did introduce me to was the proper way to eat canned sardines.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "There's a proper way to eat canned sardines?" No? You're not thinking that? Oh, you must be thinking, "Ew, canned sardines, gross!"

Well, to hell with you. I think they're delicious.

My father showed me that you spread a little butter on a saltine cracker, top it with a sardine, and put it away. It's quite delicious. I only made four of these because I wanted four and Jen wanted zero.

After the sardines I made some salads with baby greens, Marcona almonds, and this Bayley Hazen Blue cheese from Jasper Hill.

Jen cringed at the thought of turkey soup last night but I was ale to convince her that tonight was the night. I cooked down some garlic, onion, and celery root then I tossed in some of the roasted butternut squash, carrot, sweet potato, delicata squash, pumpkin, acorn squash, turnip, and rutabaga. I also threw in some of the green beans that we never ended up using for Canadian Thanksgiving, then threw in some chopped turkey and leftover pasta.

Since I generally am against the idea of having beer with soup I saved this Three Philosophers from Brewery Ommegang and enjoyed it as a dessert beverage. At 9.8% ABV one was enough. More than enough actually. It's that time of year where it's quite cold out but our building hasn't actually turned the heat on yet so a strong Belgian-style ale was just what I needed to stay warm.

All Jen needed was one sip and a little Northern Exposure. That episode where Walt thinks he saw a caribou really warms you up.

Heavy Spending and the Split Personality Beer Tasting

2011-10-14T20:32:00.001-04:00

I spent a good deal of today making turkey stock with the leftover Canadian Thanksgiving turkey bones. It was a little too warm out to spend the day with the stove going full blast but making stock is one of my favorite things to do so I let it go. Besides I was feeling a little under the weather and after buying a new car, a new couch, and new kitchen shelves (yes, all in one day), it was therapeutic to smell the broth being made.

Repurposing food in a frugal and sensible way, almost balanced out the huge outlay of money.

If it wasn't for our completely senseless take out order! After getting home on a fairly miserable night it was decided that we'd order delivery. We were going to get take out but were shocked to discover that the restaurant by us now offered delivery as an option. What a novel idea! This doesn't generally happen in a city where everyone besides us can afford servants to go and get their take out for them. It must be the economy that made this option suddenly available. Pretty soon people around here will have to start selling their secondary beach houses!

The To go with this Four In Hand IPA from World Brews in Novato, CA. For $6.99 a six pack this was considerably better than I'd expected. As someone who is not crazy about IPA I was also very impressed. Both my IPA-hating personality and my spending-too-much-on-beer personality were surprised by this beer.

I guess today was full of surprises. Heavy spending and surprises.

Mama Mia! That's A-Canadian Risotto!

2011-10-13T21:35:00.001-04:00

We only have about seventeen or eighteen pounds of leftover Canadian Thanksgiving food so we're really in the winding down phase of the holiday. Jen, who generally cannot stand repeat meals, has finally reached her limit for Thanksgiving leftovers.

I started off by rendering some bacon, thinking that would be a good start to warding off the Thanksgiving flavor. I tossed in some butter, a selection of the roasted root vegetables, some whiskey, chicken stock, salt, pepper, sage, and arborio rice. After the rice had fully cooked I added a pat of butter and served the risotto with a dollop of ricotta and some Parmigiano-Reggiano.

For beer I had a Tumbler Autumn Brown Ale form Sierra Nevada. I figured it was time for a little break from pumpkin ales. I'd had this beer on tap the other night and really liked it so I decided to break open the one in my beer ~~cupboard~~ cellar.

It was tasty but I enjoyed the one on tap a bit more. This was partially because they served it in a nonic glass and that's just cool. Some day I hope to be able to have a nonic glass of my own.

As a final course I scooped some vanilla ice cream and crumbled up some week-old whoopie pies on top with some melted chocolate to make these little sundaes.

It's going interesting seeing if I can continue to carry these leftovers through a full eight days. The real challenge will be in trying to remove enough of the Thanksgiving taste for it to be palatable.

Oh, the holidays!

Excelsior!

2011-10-10T19:52:00.002-04:00

A strange role reversal has taken place. Generally I am content eating the same meal again and again for lunch and dinner for multiple days. It is Jen that has little to no tolerance for repeating meals. She can have something for dinner then leftovers for lunch but never in the same day and never back-to-back dinners.

However, with our bounty of leftovers, Jen is somehow still going strong with wanting to have leftover Canadian Thanksgiving tonight for the fifth consecutive meal! I, on the other hand, am looking to begin branching out with something a little different.

I started by making this root vegetable bisque with the leftover roasted root vegetables. I browned up a little crushed garlic, added the shallots, rutabaga, carrot, sweet potato, butternut squash, acorn squash, and turnips. After adding some vegetable stock and a little cream I pureed the mixture. I served it up with some of Jen's delicious rolls. Unfortunately there were only two left which was wholy inadequate.

After the soup I made a large leftover plate for us to share.

After moving through all of Jen's chunky cranberry sauce we moved on to her cranberry jelly. Jen is no longer satisfied with making only one type of cranberry sauce. She asked beforehand if she should make just one type of cranberry sauce this year and I said that was probably a good idea. After a pause she said, "Yeah, I'm going to make two anyway."

To accompany the turkey dinner Jen had this Cabernet Sauvignon from Excelsior in South Africa. This was good and bad. The good was that it was a tasty Cabernet. The bad was the Jen had to deal with me occasionally interrupting dinner to yell "Excelsior!"

While periodically exclaiming the name of Jen's wine I enjoyed this Dubbel I got while at Allagash in Portland last week. This beer should be readily available as I've had their White and Tripel on multiple occasions each. For some reason I've never run into the Dubbel so I figured I'd pick some up and give it a go.

The Dubbel was pretty good. It was a little more bitter than the Tripel but still very tasty. I recommend it as a nice accompaniment to Thanksgiving leftovers.

Jen tried to combat my cries of "Excelsior!" with cries of "Allagash!" but gave up after a few tries. It's just not as much fun as yelling "Excelsior!"

Over lunch this afternoon I made a shopping list for next year's Canadian Thanksgiving. I'm hoping that next year, as opposed to this year, I actually consult these notes.

For dessert I heated up some of the leftover apple pie, mashed it up, and served it hot with some vanilla ice cream. Coincidentally this is Professor X's favorite dessert!

Excelsior!

Canadian Thanksgiving (as told through its leftovers)

2011-10-09T20:26:00.002-04:00

I'm kind of an idiot.

Last year, during Canadian Thanksgiving, I took detailed notes about what we purchased, how much we made, and how many people attended. I thought this would be invaluable when calculating how much to purchase and make this year. It would have been, had I actually listened to my notes.

For example: in my notes it said to only make two loaf's worth of stuffing for approximately 30 people. Last year I made four loaf's worth and ended up having twice as much as we needed. This year, against my better judgment, I made three loaves and ended up with fifty percent more than needed.

On the one hand this proves that my notes from last year were spot on. Unfortunately it also proves that I'm an idiot.

This year a lot of people asked us about what the meaning of Canadian Thanksgiving is. Well, I'll try to explain by showing you the dinner we prepared as used in leftover form.

We started with a cheese plate of Jasper Hill blue, Marcona almonds, and Seaside and Darigold cheddars.

For salad I served some mixed baby greens with grape tomatoes, and cornichons. I toasted up some leftover cubed pretzel bread and made a vinaigrette with Dijon, cider vinegar, and olive oil.

Jen and I made our two variations of hot turkey sandwiches, Jen's with two slices of bread, me with my open-faced approach. Both sandwiches contained mashed potato, mashed carrot and turnip, stuffing, roasted root vegetables, turkey, and cranberry sauce.

I always feel guilty about cooking a new food to accompany the hot turkey sandwiches. However, this guilt is nothing compared to the look of disgust Jen would give me if the sandwiches were not accompanied by fries, in this case: oven fries.

Jen had some of this shiraz from Red Dust. On the back of the label the wine talks about how "the ubiquitous red dust of the Australian outback has been adopted for Australia's most popular red wine variety, Shiraz."

I'm not quite sure what that is supposed to mean.

To pari with this bonanza of Canadian Thanksgiving leftovers I figured it would be a perfect time to have a pumpkin beer. Pumpkin beers have pretty much exploded in the last 5-10 years and now every brewery under the sun is offering one version or another. They range from "tastes like regular beer" to "just tastes like pumpkin pie spice in my regular beer" to "actually quite interesting with a subtle pumpkin flavor."

I chose to have the Pumpkinhead from Shipyard Brewing Company. I had this on tap when I was in Portland this week but, since I didn't blog about it, it didn't really happen.

The bottled version of the beer was quite good, every bit as nice as the draught version. Unlike most pumpkin beers, surprisingly, the pumpkin flavor actually came through nicely with very little spice.

I couldn't shake that this label reminded me of something . . .

. . . Ghostrider! I can't wait until they make a movie about Shipyard Pumpkinhead and cast Nicholas Cage as Pumpkinhead. It's going to be totally boss.

For dessert we had a medley of desserts including whoopie pies, pumpkin pie, chocolate coconut bars, pecan pie, and apple pie.

To counteract the 80+ degree weather we decided to watch some Northern Exposure to watch some cooler temperatures as a way of ushering in the fall. Then we watched The Colour of Magic as a way of ushering in a mythical world balanced aback four elephants standing on the back of a giant turtle.

And that, my friends, it the true meaning of Canadian Thanksgiving.

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving, Everyone!

Prelude to Giving Canadian Thanks

2011-10-07T22:12:00.002-04:00

I spent the last few days traipsing through Maine, visiting farms, and sampling some local treats. Strangely, I had a minimal amount of lobster in my time there. I did, however, sample the following beers:

Allagash Hugh Malone, Allagash Mattina Rossa, Allagash Black, Geary's Autumn Ale, Atlantic Brewing Porter, Sea Dog Blueberry, Maine Mead Works HoneyMaker, Shipyard Pumpkinhead, Shipyard Blue Fin Stout, Shipyard Old Thumper E.S.B., and Shipyard XXXX IPA (Pugsley's Signature Series).

I also had a Stella Artois just for a little retro fun.

Today, however, I got home and I put on my cooking shoes. Jen's always trying to get me to wear these silly shoes and I found them to really get me back into the cooking game.

Mostly all I did today was spend the day peeling, chopping, and roasting vegetables in preparation for tomorrow's Canadian Thanksgiving celebration. I took advantage of this idle time sitting on the couch to watch a double feature of Animalympics and The Matrix, two Canadian Thanksgiving themed movies.

I took a quick break to make a Maine-inspired seafood dinner based on some awesome mussels I had in Portland. I rendered a little bacon with olive oil then tossed in some crushed garlic and sliced shallots. After they'd cooked down a bit I seared a piece of cod, some sea scallops, and tossed int some littlenecks. I seasoned them with only salt and pepper but sprinkled some Old Bay over the top when it was all done.

I also baked a potato, sliced it, and tossed it into the pan. Then I grilled some slices of bread and rubbed them with a garlic clove.

I would have liked to add a little white wine and some seafood broth to this but we didn't have either ingredient handy. This dish is super easy to make (took about ten minutes from start to finish) and I would highly recommend doing this with the two missing ingredients mentioned above. It couldn't hurt to also add some fresh herbs.

To pair with this I poured an Arabier from Brouwerij De Dolle Brouwers. This was the headiest beer I've ever had and I really wasn't able to start drinking it until after dinner. It was much more hoppy than the parrot on the label would have lead me to believe.

After dinner we heard a knocking at the door. My favorite UPS driver was there holding a box. He said, "I think this is grape juice." Then he looked at the label and nodded. "Yup. Grape juice."

It turned out to be the wine we'd ordered on our expensive stop in Beaune, France this summer. As expected it was like someone had delivered a present! After all, we'd paid for this months ago and now it was like it was being delivered for free, as if we hadn't foolishly squandered hundreds of Euros on it.

I'm not quite sure why the UPS driver was so coy about the contents of the box. Is it illegal to ship wine via UPS? Is my favorite UPS driver in cahoots with the fast-talking wine salespeople in Beaune, France? Will we be able to fit 30 people in our tiny apartment for Canadian Thanksgiving?

Answers to these questions and more on the next exciting installment of Jen and Nate Buy the Farm . . . Share!

Shrimp and Red Wine

2011-10-03T08:59:00.000-04:00

Saturday night Jen and I rushed home and made a shrimp casserole for some friends. We only had thirty minutes to do it so the heat was on!

I worked on my new patented technique for defrosting which involves sitting food in a chair under a high-powered fan. It works surprisingly well and I had the shrimp defrosted in about 10 minutes. While they defrosted I chopped garlic, onion, bell pepper, and zucchini then Jen cooked them in the pan with some tomato, salt, and pepper, all while the basmati rice cooked.

Ladies, get ready,
To have some shrimp with some boys!

We put a layer of rice in the bottom of the dish, added the shrimp to the vegetable mixture, then topped the rice with that and threw it in the oven and ran out the door.

Rachael Ray has a lot to learn from us.

We actually skipped beer tonight and poured this Cupcake Shiraz that my parents brought over a long time ago. They brought two bottle and some beer and this is the last of their generous gift. I can't remember exactly when it was but it was a while ago. Probably not in 2008 as the label states but a while ago anyway.

To continue our barely noticeable celebration of Rosh Hashanah we had this Matzoh Crunch ice cream from Chozen. Since I hadn't had the opportunity to make any actual matzoh crunch this year (one of my favorite dessert items in the entire world) we went with this ice cream version instead.

The ice cream is fantastic and I'd highly recommend it to you if you're looking for a nice way to round out a shellfish-based dinner for the Rosh Hashanah holiday.

Shrimp and red wine!
Shrimp and red wine!
Shrimp and red wine!
Take your clothes off!

Hot Pork, Cold Night

2011-10-01T22:15:00.003-04:00

This morning we woke up at the crack of 9:00 because we had to head to Stone Barns for their annual Harvest Fest. It was good because we needed the energy to circle around the grounds multiple times looking for Jen's lost scarf to no avail.

However, we did see two guys turning roast pigs on spits. This made me hopeful that we could somehow convince our landlord to allow us to dig a pit in the front yard and do this for Canadian Thanksgiving this year.

Don't expect to see this on the blog in a week's time.

After having some Montreal style smoked meat sandwiches at Harvest Fest I decided to make something similar with the leftover Sauerbraten. I grilled some slices of rye bread with butter, slathered them with SchoolHouse Kitchen mustard, and served them with some oven fries, and pickle.

Jen was highly skeptical of this idea. This was nothing new to me. She was also proven to be wrong in her skepticism after tasting dinner. This was also nothing new.

For dessert I sliced up some of the farm Bartlett pears with some Cambozola and cracked black pepper.

This was the first truly cold night of the season so I cracked open this 't Smisje Dubbel Brouwerij Smisje that Jen got me as a gift. It is a beer brewed with honey and dates and it was fantastic.

It had one of the most stubborn heads of any beer I've ever had. I had it after dinner partially because of its flavor and partially because I poured it out twenty minutes in advance and that's how long it took the head to subside. The beer even stood atop the head after pouring a little more in the glass. It was like making a cappuccino. I wanted to make a little picture of a leaf.

However, I did not. Instead I slowly enjoyed the beer while being badgered by Jen to look up facts about the age of Aragorn around the time of the Lord of the Rings saga.

By the way, he was 88.

Roshhashanahtoberfest

2011-09-30T20:58:00.002-04:00

This year, unlike years in the past, I didn't do my version of a traditional Rosh Hashanah meal. This is mostly because I don't actually know anything about how to cook Rosh Hashanah foods and after getting angry letters about how insulting my attempts were to Jews around the world I opted to lay off this year.

But that doesn't mean I didn't still make some latkes! Latkes are, of course, a traditional German food and I decided that these were traditional German latkes and not traditional Rosh Hashanah latkes regardless of the fact that I just made them the same way I always make them.

I grated some potato into a bowl and tossed with salt, pepper, a dash of cider vinegar, an egg, and some flour then I fried them in a pan. Normally I'd grate onion as well but I was surprised to find that we had no onion. The learning experience from this event was that the onion doesn't actually make that much difference. Go figure!

I also made a giant pot of applesauce since we got a metric ton of apples from the farm this week. This was convenient because applesauce was also a traditional pairing for our main course.

I haven't made Sauerbraten since I was in culinary school so I figured I was about due to make it again. This was the perfect item to make for this strange Rosh Hashanah/Oktoberfest hybrid holiday. Brisket, in the German style, with potato latkes, and German beer. It's like fusion cuisine, weak fusion cuisine.

One thing I like to do when cooking European cuisine is to consult Culinaria European Specialties, the two volume set of cookbooks I got in 1995. The set contains fantastic traditional recipes from all the countries of Europe. The effect of this is lost slightly when I come in and bastardize it with my missing ingredients and laziness.

I took a piece of brisket on Monday and marinated it in red wine, water, cider vinegar, salt, peppercorns, juniper berries, cloves, mustard seed, onion, carrot, bay leaves, and dried rosemary.

Today I removed it from the marinade, seared it in butter, olive oil, and canola oil, then added some more onion, the marinade, and simmered it for 2-3 hours.

When it was fork tender I drained all the liquid through a strainer and added some soaked raisins. You're supposed to add gingerbread to this sauce. Since we don't have any I used some of Jen's pumpkin bread as an alternative. You're also supposed to add red wine and red currant jelly. I figured there was enough red wine involved already. When the sauce had simmered for about ten minutes before finishing with some jam, salt, and pepper. Since we have a cupboard full of jellies and jams I decided to use this cerise noir au thym from Corsican company Corsica Gastronomia.

I cooked the sauce down, pureed it, and sliced the brisket on top of the sauce.

To accompany this meal/amalgamation I had this Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier from Schlenkerla in Bamberg. I'd been wanting to try this ever since I saw the episode of The Beer Hunter with Michael Jackson entitled "The Fifth Element." In it he shows how they make this beer by burning beechwood with the malt.

Michael Jackson says that the locals claim you need to have six or seven liters of the beer before you acquire a taste for it. I can see why, it's very strange. It kind of reminds me of yerba mate only a little less disgusting. Michael Jackson claims he loved it the first time he had it. I think he did this just to show off how much of a beer expert he is.

Michael Jackson recommends having this beer with smoked Bavarian ham. Since we didn't have any smoked Bavarian ham I decided to substitute the next best thing: 1986 Eddie Murphy vehicle The Golden Child. This was an adequate substitution. When you can't have a nice smoked ham sometimes you have to watch Eddie Murphy yell at a bunch of Tibetans instead.

After Midnight, It's Gonna Be All Tomatoes and Soup

2011-09-29T22:53:00.006-04:00

Tonight started with yet another dinner after 10:00 PM. Basically, we're like honorary Spaniards.

Since it was so late I had to cook something up quickly so that we didn't die. So it was that I repurposed Jen's macaroni and cheese from last night by adding a splash of milk and the leftover smoked salmon. It turns out that smoked salmon is pretty delicious with macaroni and cheese.

Jen had recently seen a tasty-looking tomato soup with cheddar on Smitten Kitchen. This looked pretty tasty so I ordered some soup crocks and got to work.

I roasted some Roma tomatoes in the oven while I caramelized onion and garlic in a pan. When the tomatoes were fully roasted I took them out of the oven, removed the skin, and added them to the onions with a splash of red wine. I also added some dried thyme then put the ingredients into the food processor.

When they were pureed I topped with some wheat bread and shredded Grafton cheddar before broiling in the oven.

Since I'd done such a poor job of keeping with our Oktoberfest theme so far with this meal I turned, once again, to the world's oldest brewery: Weihenstephaner. This time I went with their Vitus Weizenbock, a beer I expected to be something Jen would hate ended up being right up her street.

Tomorrow I may have moreo than 15 minutes to make dinner so you'd better look out! If I have this much to ramble on about with a 15 minute dinner imagine what I could waste your time with if I had 30 minutes!

The Snacking Sweet Spot

2011-09-27T22:41:00.000-04:00

Tonight was another time for a post 10:00 PM dinner. We're getting pretty good at this. Because of this I've become a very skilled snacker. It takes a great deal of careful planning and discipline to snack to a degree where I don't overeat and ruin my appetite yet still prevent myself from passing out.

I think I've found the snacking sweet spot.

Often times, like tonight, I'm not entirely sure when Jen is going to be home so it takes a little more planning. Last night I took some risks by cooking a pasta and medium rare lamb tenderloins ahead of time so we could eat right when she got home. Tonight I played it a little safer.

For salad I used up some of the (one of the) MacIntosh apples along with some beets, heirloom tomato, and Cambazola cheese to make a nice little salad with olive oil, salt, and pepper.

For the main course you may recognize some (or all) of the ingredients from two nights ago. I made this couscous with a little white wine and leftover celeriac, shallot, carrot, garlic, chicken, and kale.

For beer I decided to continue my highlight Oktoberfest some more despite my complete lack of culinary compliance. This time I cracked open the Oktoberfest from Hofbräu München. I just hoped it was a little better than the sad, skunky experience I'd had with their lager the other night.

Was it better? Yes. Though it probably has more to do with freshness than anything else.

Hofbräu München is a made in accordance with the German Purity Law of 1516 and is made from water, hops, and malted barley. It is brewed to a strength of 5.0% alcohol by weight (6.3% by volume) and a specific gravity of 11.5 to 13.2-3 Plato (1053). It has a nutty character with a distinct chalky finish.

I have enjoyed Hofbräu München Oktoberfest in the fall on Munich's Am Platzl at the Hofbräuhaus. There I made note of its malted barley notes and clean, crisp edge.

Sorry about that. Apparently I've been reading a little too much Michael Jackson lately.

Off-Centered Dinner

2011-09-26T23:14:00.002-04:00

Jen is very good. She had the opportunity to have a delicious meal tonight for free. Even though she had to go to the dinner she opted to only have a tiny salad so that we could have dinner together. Isn't it enough to just make you sick?

I had to rush home from work (no free dinner for me) because today was our bi-weekly farm pickup. This delivery saw MacIntosh Apples, Clapp Pears, Gala Apples, Cortland Apples, and Concord Grapes.

For a first course tonight, instead of salad, I went with the red onion pasta I'd purchased at yesterday's farmer's market from Flour City Pasta. I wanted to enjoy it as is so I just boiled it, tossed it in a little butter, garlic, and olive oil, then added the beet greens from last night with a little salt, pepper, and Parmigano-Reggiano.

For the main course I picked up some grass fed New Zealand lamb tenderloins, mostly because I'd never seen them sold individually like this before, and seared them in a pan. I wanted to grill them but the outside was too dark and mosquito-filled so I let laziness and fear make that decision for me. That's the best way to live one's life.

I served them with a Sambar yogurt sauce using Sambar powder, a touch of cider vinegar, salt, and yogurt.

Last year I wanted to try the Punkin Ale from Dogfish Head. Unforutnately it happened to sell out almost immediately everywhere that carried it, partly in due to the popularity of the show Brew Masters.

Jen and I recently got very interested in this show, only to be saddened after we learned there were only a total of 5 episodes. This is one of the greatest shows about beer ever made, mostly due to the strange bro-charm of Sam Calagione, Dogfish Head's founder and CEO. Try as you might, you can't dislike this man. He is like a more intelligent version of Ted "Theodore" Logan with a strong passion for flying across the world to buy exotic ingredients to throw in his beer.

This year I was delicighted to find it so I picked up two bottles for us. Jen usually sticks to the beers she knows but she's often willing to partake in something adventurous. This is also due to the charm of Sam "Theodore" Calagione.

I was fully prepared to enjoy the bottle until I stumbled upona beer store selling it on tap this afternoon. The keg had just been tapped and I was allowed to purchase the first bottle. How could I turn this down?

This was actually one of the only pumpkin beers I've tasted that actually tasted like pumpkin and not just of some mild pumpkin pie spice. Like most Dogfish Head beers it was of extremely high quality and very interesting. I guess you could say that it was an off-centered ale for an off-centered person.

Party on, Dudes!

How Wet American Fall

2011-09-25T20:41:00.002-04:00

The ideal first cooking event of the fall would feature a visit to a pumpkin patch picking our some fresh produce while wearing a cable knit sweaters, the rustling brown and orange leaves tumbling past our feet and the nearby hay bales.

Instead, today featured a sweaty walk to the farmer's market and selecting some items while wearing shorts and sandals to combat the 80 degree temperature and estimated 4,000% humidity.

Life is usually a lot less like a Norman Rockwell painting than expected.

Still, I did go to the farmer's market in town and it was a pretty nice spread they had. I got celery root, French fingerlings, assorted heirloom tomatoes, and nice beets from Fishkill Farms; a piece of "Tewksbury" cheese (resembles a Beaufort) from Valley Shepherd Creamery; cider and donuts from Migliorelli Farm; red onion linguine from Flour City Pasta; a loaf of cheesy garlic bread from Our Daily Bread, and a small chicken from Feather Ridge Farm.

When I got back I made myself a lovely lunch of bagels from Jen's recent trip to Montreal, cream cheese, smoked salmon, sliced shallots, and cornichons. This is my ideal lunch. Given the choice I think I would have this every day until there were no more salmon left in the sea.

We started off with the cheesy garlic bread. Since Jen was cheated out of a delicious cheesy bread the other night, I felt this was only right to make it up to her.

Before continuing with the Belgian beers bought for me by kind friends, or the other assorted beers in the much conflicted lower cupboards region of the kitchen, or brewing my own beer, it's time to continue with the Oktoberfest beers for this season. Tonight I started with the Oktoberfest from Brooklyn Brewery.

I'm not good enough to be able to tell the difference between the 2011 batch and the 2010 bath but I can spot the difference in the labels. My eagle eye caught a few minor differences in the label. It was like one of those puzzles in Highlights magazine. If you look closely you can even see a rhinocerous hiding in the circular "B" logo.

I started off by making this salad with sliced beets, heirloom tomtoes, and some of the leftover Fourme d'Ambert along with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper.

As a second course I boiled the fingerlings and topped them with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper. I then crumbled a little leftover Cambozola on them while they were hot. It was a good night for blue cheeses.

For the next course I chopped up some shallot, carrot, and celeriac, seasoned it, and stuffed the chicken cavity with it before roasting it whole in the oven. I'm normally leery of purchasing meat out of a cooler from a relative stranger but that's only because I was raised in America.

I also stuffed the fronds from the celery root into the chicken for two reasons. Firstly, I thought it would lend an added celeriac flavor and, second, I like to say, "Fronds."

"Fronds."

For the fifth course I served up the cider donuts with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, sliced Seckel pears, and a caramel sauce I made with the cider from Migliorelli Farm. The sauce was made from cider, brown sugar, a dash of vanilla, and a touch of butter.

Sixth, and finally, I put out the Tewksbury cheese. Sadly the cheese is from New Jersey and not the gritty northern Massachusetts town with which I am familiar. This is a delicious cheese which is similar in style to Beaufort. If that means anything to you then you know more about cheese than I do. All I know is that it was very good.

To accompany the cheese and dessert I opened the first pumpkin-themed beer of the season, this Post Road Pumpkin Ale, also by Brooklyn Brewery. This, as expected, had a bit more of a caramel flavor and paired nicely, particularly with the cheese. It's hard to find an appropriate beer that pairs both with donuts and cheese but if you are looking for one, I'd recommend the Post Road Pumpkin Ale.

We don't usually have another course after dessert but since Jen loves this more than anything else I figured it was a suitable welcome home treat. Generally she ends up raiding the pickle jars in the fridge after dinner so this also serves a dual purpose of saving her the trouble. It also helps that I don't have to put away pickles that have been left on the counter.

Coming this fall: everyone wins.

Bavarian Salmon Recipe*

2011-09-24T20:11:00.001-04:00

Ah, German cooking. It's kind of a specialty of mine. If you're going to cook German you need to go with the most classic of German ingredients: salmon. I recall my days in Munich as a youngster. You can't even walk down the street without passing a dozen salmon restaurants and having street vendors passing you salmon on a stick. Plain and simple: salmon is synonymous with German cooking, even amongst those who use the word synonymous properly.

So it was that I set off to recreate the classic Bavarian specialty: pretzel-crusted salmon.

I took the leftover pretzel from last week (that I'd stashed in the freezer), broke it into chunks, and lightly toasted it in the oven. After it came out I crumbled it, tossed it with some SchoolHouse Kitchen SweetSmoothHot mustard and placed it on top of a King Salmon fillet and threw it in the oven.

After it came out I served it with some sliced raw onion and cornichons.

And what Bavarian dinner would be complete without an appropriate beer? For tonight's dinner I decided to pair it with a bottle of Orval that Jen had kindly purchased for me the other night as a present.

My only regret is that Jen wasn't here tonight to experience this authentic Bavarian meal. It's as if our apartment had been transformed into a real Bavarian Biergarten!

For dessert I opted to heat up some of the leftover strudel from the other night. This dessert had two more popular things from Bavaria: Mascarpone and vanilla ice cream!

And that, my friends, is how you make an authentic Bavarian Oktoberfest dinner.

^* Warning: 90% of the information in this blog entry is false. Happy Oktoberfest!

Oktoberfest, nay, Picklefest!

2011-09-22T11:08:00.003-04:00

Last night I tried to keep with the Oktoberfest theme of the previous five days. Admittedly this theme has been very loose and has even included a linguine dish, however, I've been very loosely trying to hold it all together. Mostly with beer.

I had a few leftover sausages so I cooked up some garlic, onion, and potato with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper. After they'd cooked for 15-20 minutes I removed the sausage meat from the casing and cooked it down, finishing this stew off with some rainbow chard. This was kind of like German version of beef and potato stew I made from my favorite episode of Iron Chef.

To accompany the stew I had this Oktoberfest Marzen from Paulaner, one of my favorite German breweries. I really liked this beer but -- and this might sound weird -- it sort of had a scent of wet dog toward the end. I know this is not a good characteristic in a beer, and I know it's odd that I'm saying this even though I liked it but there you have it. I've encountered this characteristic in beer before but I'm not sure if I'm just an oddball or if this is somehow normal with certain brews.

Jen was really excited when she got home and saw this. She imagined it to be some sort of "cheesy bread" and couldn't wait to eat it. I asked her if she thought I'd make a giant cheesy bread as well as sausage stew. She confirmed that this was her belief. Unfortunately, for her, she was in for the world's greatest disappointment.

What this actually was was a strudel I'd made with some of the Bartlett and Seckel pears as well as plums. I tossed them all together with the leftover Mascarpone and hazelnut stuffing from last week's poached pears, wrapped it in puff pastry, gave it a quick egg was, and baked it in the oven until you get what looks like (to Jen, anyway) a "cheesy bread."

The resulting dessert, served warm, was pretty tasty. More importantly it used up a healthy amount of the fruit which has been hiding out in our fridge for the last week to escape the wrath of the post-flood fruit flies.

Jen had intended to use last night to make pickles in anticipation of our upcoming annual Canadian Thanksgiving celebration. She had also intended to get home earlier than 9:30 PM. The result: a late night pickling extravaganza!

Highlight: When I saved a nearly ruined mustard mixture from lumpization, a word I'm trying to get into the Oxford English Dictionary.

Lowlight: I fell asleep around 1:00 AM and Jen stayed up until 2:00 AM to finish everything up.

The end result was waking up this morning to an apartment full of pickles. Unfortunately this also comes with the stench of vinegar.

Come Canadian Thanksgiving we'll be glad we did this. Well, we'll be glad Jen did this. I wasn't much help sleeping in the other room.

Happy Oktoberfest, Everyone!

How to Make Traditional Oktoberfest Linguine

2011-09-18T20:59:00.004-04:00

Some people have mentioned recently how I never give any recipes or, really, any technique behind what I make. Well, readers, you will sleep easy tonight when you see a shoddily crafted explanation of exactly how I made tonight's dinner!

This dinner was inspired by a friend of mine who said she saw it in a recipe book. I didnt't actually get a recipe but from how she explained it this is how I assumed it should be put together.

It started with cutting up some brie and leaving it at room temperature. Then I peeled, seeded, and rough chopped some tomatoes. (Click here to learn how to concasse a tomato). I threw those in with the brie, added some chopped basil, garlic, olive oil, salt, and pepper.

I mixed this together and let it sit for an hour.

Well, actually it was only about 20 minutes because we were a bit hungry. After twenty minutes I cooked some fresh linguine and then added it to the marinated tomatoes and cheese while it was hot. The heat melted the brie and I served it straight away.

This was extremely easy to make and very tasty.

Before I made the pasta I threw together a salad with all of the leftovers we had in the fridge including kale, the corn and sweet potato salad, and some of the king salmon.

See how I went out of order like that? This blog entry is exactly like Momento.

Since it's the second day of Oktoberfest I cracked open one of many Oktoberfest beers that I am trying for the first time this year. Tonight it was the offering from Saranac. For a lager it was pretty tasty. I'm not sure linguine with brie and tomatoes is the most traditional Oktoberfest food but readers of the blog should be familiar with my sloppily followed themes by now.

For dessert Jen made some pumpkin bread which we enjoyed with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top.

Ah, Oktoberfest. There's nothing better than observing the the traditions of a particular ethnic custom with the utmost authenticity.

Tomorrow: Traditional Oktoberfest Falafel!

Fall Into Oktoberfest

2011-09-17T21:27:00.002-04:00

Today was a lousy day. One of the worst ever. There were some highlights. For example, we participated in a cupcake tasting contest. However, we also had to drive to Rhode Island to pick up a borrowed car from a friend. This took up much of the day. We also had to go to Target which was terrible. Worst of all, our laundromat had been evicted which meant we had to find a new laundromat to drop off our clothes to since our laundry room was still recovering from flood damage.

This took us until about 8:00 PM where, beaten and defeated, we came to terms with the fact that we'd have to do something about dinner.

After a brief debate about whether or not to eat some sketchy Japanese or Mexican food across the street form the laundromat we returned home. After all, I'd had plans to do something semi-German today as it was the first day of Oktoberfest.

Jen put together a plate of pretzel baguette, mustard, cornichons, and Cambozola, a German blue cheese.

While Jen put this together I caramelized some onion and threw some pork bratwurst into the pan to sear it. And that's pretty much all I did for that course. It was very taxing.

I wanted to kick off Oktoberfest with a German beer so I picked this Oktober Fest-Marzen form Ayinger. I figured there wouldn't be a better beer to kick off the holiday -- or whatever the hell Oktoberfest is.

For dessert I made vanilla ice cream with chopped up Bartlett pears and I drizzled some of the leftover pear poaching liquid I'd made. I didn't really have time to make anything real so I figured this would be the most appropriate Oktoberfest dessert seeing as how it contained beer.

Perhaps I'll have time to actually draw some real inspiration and make something vaguely authentic later on in this event. Event? Celebration?

Well, I guess I have until October 3rd to figure this all out.

King of Pears

2011-09-16T21:25:00.000-04:00

It's only been a few days but the fruit flies have already taken a great deal of interest in the immense amount of fruit we have. Having to act fast I jammed most of them into the fridge and decided to begin utilizing them as quickly as possible.

I sliced up a Red Clapp pear and a Bartlett pear and threw them on top of some kale with Fourme d'Ambert cheese and toasted hazelnuts. Fourme d'Ambert has quickly gone from an unknown cheese to my favorite cheese ever.

To pair with the salad I poured this tiny bottle of Red Imperial Ale from Rogue Ales. I wasn't quite sure what to make of this beer. The bottle had loads of information on it:

12 Ingredients:
Malts: Great Western Harrington, Klages, Hugh Baird Crystal, Black, Munich, Chocolate and rolled oats.
Hops: Willamette, Cascade and Chinook.
Yeast & Water: Rogue's Pacman Yeast & Free Range Coastal Water.

19.4º PLATO
58 IBU
76 AA
47º Lovibond

Most of that makes little or no sense to me. I actually know what PLATO and IBU are. I've heard of some of the hops varietals and yeast strains, but most of that is a bunch of nonsensical gibberish that they could be making up completely and I'd be none the wiser. This bottle was loaded with information that I didn't really need to know but it was missing one vital piece of information that I did need to know: alcohol content!

How does a beer like this not let you know that? It doesn't even say on their website what the ABV is for this beer. I am guessing it's around 9% only by reading through user reviews on Beer Advocate. I am also guessing this based on how I feel after drinking a mere seven ounces of this beverage.

For tonight's dinner I got a killer deal on King Alaskan Salmon. I seasoned up a piece of salmon with salt and pepper then seared it a pan and threw it in the oven for a few minutes. I also made a salad out of grilled corn, boiled sweet potato, black beans, roasted red peppers, cider vinegar, cayenne pepper, salt, and olive oil.

King Salmon, it turns out, is pretty good. I'm not sure if it's called 'King' because it's really large or because it's really good and, apparently, I'm too lazy to Google it. Maybe it's because it's really expensive.

Whatever the case, I'm looking forward to the next time I find it on sale.

Because I'm really cheap.

Precariously Poached Pears

2011-09-15T22:25:00.000-04:00

When temperatures suddenly drop into the forties for the first time in months I get excited. This means it's oven time, baby!

That's right, I called you baby!

Jen had mentioned deep dish pizza as a dinner idea the other night so I figured that was a fantastic idea. Last time I made deep dish pizza I wasn't pleased with my pan. Tonight was the time for vindication. Victory would be mine!

I think I'd prefer to call this pizza pie since I did it in a pie dish. I used some pizza dough, cooked sweet Italian sausage, pizza sauce, and fresh mozzarella and baked it all in the oven until it was nicely browned.

I remembered my last deep dish pizza being just a little too bready so I went heavy on the sause and cheese and this one was a much better version.

For beer last night I paired a Belgian Trapist beer with a heavily seasoned stew. This goes against all the beer pairing advice I've ever learned. I couldn't really outdo that tonight so I paired this German original lager from Hofbräu München. I guess I should have paired it with a Chicago area (or Polish) beer but there aren't a ton of those available in this part of the country. Therefore I went with the next best thing: German and sausages.

This beer was a huge disappointment. While I recently had a Heineken and was impressed with how it did not taste like the skunky Heineken I was used to, I was disappointed to find out that this beer did taste expactly like a skunky Heineken.

If you grew up in the Chicago area you know that there's only one acceptable dessert to follow up such a meal. Yes, that's right, poached pears!

Every since I saw this episode of "The Beer Hunter" where Michael Jackson has a beer pairing meal I was intrigued by the pears he had which were poached in beer. I couldn't remember which beer he used but after watching the video above I saw that the chef used Hoegaarden.

I wanted to use something a little darker like a Tripel. Wanting to keep the dish within some sort of budget I opted to use this Allagash Tripel in lieu of a Belgian Tripel. Allagash makes a fantastic Tripel at a third the price and I figured after being cooked not many would be able to pick up on the difference. Certainly not me or Jen anyway.

In addition to the beer I also added about the same volume of water and maybe a half cup of sugar.

Since the smallest pot I had didn't submerge the pears completely I had to get creative. I don't recommend trying this method. I watched the pot the whole time to make sure my savings in buying an American Tripel did not result in setting fire to our kitchen.

I hollowed out the pears prior to poaching them and after they cooled I stuffed them with a mixture of Mascarpone, Lyle's Golden Syrup, and chopped toasted hazelnuts as well as a small amount of cream cheese to stiffen up the body a bit. I also reduced down the cooking liquid and lused it as a syrup for the base of the plate. This is standard practice in traditional red wine poached pears so I figured I'd give it a go with this beer version. After reducing it down enough to make it a syrup it was quite flavorful and melded nicely with the marscapone and pears.

The combination of the toasted hazelnuts, Lyle's Golden Syrup, and Mascarpone had an unusual effect: it tasted just like kettle corn. I'd never really considered Belgian ale, fall fruit, and kettle corn as a natural pairing but tonight's experiment has really got the wheels turning.

Stay tuned for my kettle corn and beer pie, coming soon to an over-written food blog near you!

A Pearfect Plan

2011-09-14T21:03:00.001-04:00

In an attempt to begin moving through plentiful pears I came up with a game plan as to how to use them up. I started by coring, segmenting, and grilling a Red Clapp pear then serving it on this salad with some toasted walnuts, kale, olive oil, salt, pepper, and Sambar powder. Sambar powder is a south Indian spice blend consisting of coriander, cumin, mustard, fenugreek, red pepper, amchoor powder, and Asafoetido (hing) powder. I don't actually know what those last two are, I just read them off the packet.

I topped the salad with some Fourme d'Ambert blue cheese which I'd never had before. It has the appearance that it is going to be extremely harsh but it's actually creamy and delicious. I think it might be my new favorite cheese. I'm probably right. Generally my favorite cheese is the one I'm eating at the moment.

For the main course I cooked up a little garlic, onion, Jen's rainbow carrots from the farmer's market, potato, kale, garbanzo bean, leftover grilled chicken breast, vegetable stock, coconut milk, salt, and Sambar Powder. I'd intended to have this be a completely vegan dish but I found the old chicken when I was going through the fridge and decided I needed to use it up.

I served it up like a hearty stew with big chunks of bread.

For beer one would assume that we should have had lager. After all, experts agree that you should pair up flavorful meals with mild (and arguably flavorless beer). Bollocks! That's what I say about that!

I opted for what was likely one of the least flavorful beers in the fridge, this Trappistes Rochefort 8 from Brasserie de Rochefort. I had the Trappistes Rochefort 6 earlier this year and I was even more impressed with this version of the beer. The Trappistes Rochefort 10 is waiting in the fridge so I look forward to this beer with great eagerness.

The only thing that this beer lacks is a proper website. The website linked above is a telnet site. Do you remember telnet? Maybe not. If you're younger than 30 you may not have ever heard of such a thing.

This site is a fan site because the beer doesn't have its own website. Apparently monks get around and brew beer and make cheese but there aren't any Trappist Monks who are able to program HTML.

For dessert I bought a candy apple at the store. It's way too early for caramel apples but I wanted to get in on the ground floor of this. Caramel apples are one of Jen's biggest joys in life. Last year I failed to acquire any such apples and it was the source of much sadness for Jen. Occasionally we'd be sitting there and she would sigh deeply and say, "I didn't get any caramel apples this year. Not even one!"

This year, if nothing else, I can say I did not fail her as badly as last year.

It's all about incremental improvement, right?

Balsamic Glazed

2011-09-12T21:42:00.003-04:00

This week the farm share was back on, just in a hobbled form. Hurricane Irene with her 12 mile per hour winds managed to destroy most of our lives. The last casualty being our weekly farm share.

Last week they announced that we'd be getting a bi-weekly share of just fruit. Evidently the tree fruit had been high enough to withstand the flood waters and we'd be getting a share of fruit every other week.

An immense share of fruit!

This week we got: Bartlett pears, Seckle pears, and Red Clapp pears. We aso got a bag of nectarines and peaches as well as some Fortune plums.

Thankfully Jen had gone to the greenmarket over the weekend to get some vegetables or else this week's dinners would more closely resemble Carmen Miranda's headgear than an actual dinner.

As I prepared dinner I enjoyed this American Pale Ale from Thomas Hooker Brewing Company. I wasn't really looking forward to it after reading the reviews on BeerAdvocate. Most people seemed to think it had an unappealing taste and postulated that the beer had maybe gone bad. I actually happened to like it even though I don't generally care for pale ales.

This may be more proof that I know nothing about beer. And you know what? I love it.

I started off by boiling these tiny beets Jen picked up at the market. I only knew they were beets because Jen told me they were beets. I would have just assumed they were radishes. After boiling them they got even a little more pale and didn't color the water at all.

I served the peeled beats with some feta, homemade balsamic glaze, chopped walnuts, and yellow heirloom tomato slices over a bed of mixed baby greens.

We're bringing salad back. (Ye-ah!)

For the main dish I grilled up some bone in chicken breast along with some peaches and mini Fairy Tale eggplant that Jen got at the farmer's market. I grilled the peaches along with the chicken mostly because I thought I'd better get a jump on all this fruit before it conquers us.

I also roasted some of the purple, yellow, and orange carrots that Jen got at the farmer's market. Apparently Jen went into a store with them (the greens still attached) and the cashier eyed them as if Jen were transporting a baby alien around with her in a canvas bag. When Jen removed the carrots to show her and the cashier saw that they were yellow this blew her mind! Oddly, when Jen showed her the purple carrots she was not moved at all.

The unfortunate part about the purple carrots is that once peeled they are just some orange carrots. Delicious orange carrots, but orange carrots nonetheless.

For dessert I grilled up some peaches and served them over Longford's Tahitian Vanilla ice cream. The balsamic glaze I made earlier was very simple. It was one part balsamic vinegar, one part water, and one part cane sugar reduced over a low heat by one third. When it had cooled slightly I drizzled a little of this glaze over the top with the grilled peaches.

This was the best dessert we've had in a while. I get the feeling we're going to have to go a little heavy ont he fruit desserts if we want to work our way through this week's share before fruit flies take over our home.

Ah, it's nice to feel opressed by produce once again. The farm share is not dead after all!

A Tale of Two Hot Dogs (Each)

2011-09-11T19:36:00.002-04:00

Most food bloggers limit themselves by only writing about meals that are interesting or challenging in some way. That is where other food bloggers fail. They spend time writing out recipes, taking good pictures, and waiting until something interesting with food happens. I don't waste my time waiting on details like interesting subject matter or unique recipes.

That, my friends, is the key to being prolific -- boring and prolific.

Making the most of the summer coming to an end we made a salad of heirloom tomato, onion, Danish blue cheese, baby greens, balsamic, olive oil, salt, and pepper.

Hot dogs, folks. Hot dogs. I don't mean to brag but I am a master of grilling hot dogs. They just come our perfectly. I don't rank myself highly in too many areas but in the art of hot dog grilling I may be one of the greatest in the world.

For toppings we went with ketchup, mustard, chopped onion, relish, and celery salt. This is, in my opinion, the best way to serve up hot dogs. Not the only way, just the best.

For beer I had the final of the four beers Jen brought home from L'Alchimiste in Quebec. This was an India Pale Ale but, like a lot of IPAs I've had recently it wasn't particularly hoppy. It was actually very good but I'm surprised that all of these pale ales aren't really that pale anymore.

When I was a youngster our pale ales were pale. Period. You could see clearly through them. Now, apparently, any copper-colored ale can be called pale. It's a disgrace I tell you. A disgrace!

What is the world coming to anyway? What's next? A light-colored porter?

Ai-yi-yi!

Nate's Fish Camp

2011-09-10T19:53:00.002-04:00

I've never been a fan of summer. Generally I prefer fall and winter. Colder temperatures mean less humidity which means me being far less cranky, and our home being much more suitable towards cooking the things I like to cook. This means running the stovetop and oven for hours on end. Today, after a long bout of rain, clouds, and flood water, the sun came out and a strange thing happened.

I was happy about it.

Jen went down to the Union Square farmer's market and picked up these black and watermelon radishes that she sliced up with salt, pepper, and olive oil. We enjoyed them with some sliced baguette and butter.

Since we won't be getting any more vegetables from the farm we took a drive down to Tarry Market and picked up some heirloom tomatoes to make this salad. With a little lemon, olive oil, salt, and pepper it was maybe one of our only truly summery salads this year.

For the main dish I picked up a couple of branzinos (branzinis?), stuffed them with lemon and parsley, seasoned them with salt, pepper and olive oil, and grilled them until they were crispy.

We took a break from Jen's Quebecois beers to focus on this summery weizen from Kiuchi Brewery's Hitachino Nest line of beers. This beer is pretty pricey at about $4.99 a bottle most places but I can't really figure out why. It's very good but I am just not sure what commands such a hefty price tag.

That being said, it's about $3.00 less than what you'd pay for a Coors Lite at a baseball game so on that scale it's an amazing bargain. Plus it's got a cartoon owl on the label.

I'd pay $4.99 just for a picture of a cartoon owl.

Bock and Blue and Chowder Too!

2011-09-08T22:56:00.002-04:00

We woke up this morning to another flood alert which, thankfully, never materialized. It did result in a stressful morning watching the water slowly creep up the street and threaten to make our lives difficult. Thanks to flood alerts I've been waking up at 5:00 AM every morning, mostly just to go to the window and make sure we're not floating somewhere in the Long Island Sound.

So far, so good!

With Jen working late tonight I was in need of a snack after work. I put some nice Danish blue cheese on some fresh bread and enjoyed it with this Bock from L'Alchimiste. The two worked together phenomenally well. It could have just been that I was starving when I got home but this was a delicious pairing.

The Danish and Quebecois should pair up more often.

As Jen was working late and I'd had a pretty long day as well I decided to make a variation on one of Jen's favorite dishes: New England Clam Chowder.

I started by grilling New York corn and Biscayne peppers from the farm. After letting them sit for a bit I rendered some bacon in a pan, added the farm leeks, a little butter, some celery, and chopped red bliss potatoes and let this cook for a bit. After the potatoes had become a little tender I added some clam juice, cream, milk, salt, pepper, and cooked it down for a while. At the end I finished it with some roux. I was going to add some chopped parsley to the soup as well until I discovered a nasty little worm living amongst the slightly rotten leaves. I could have sworn I bought that parsley recently.

After making the soup I fell asleep on the couch for a while, woke up in a panic that I was late and just made it to pick Jen up from the train station before returning home for dinner.

With no forecast of rain for the next twelve hours or so that will mean I might get a full night's sleep without having to wake up and check out the window to make sure the rental car has not floated away.

I guess I don't deal with moderate trauma very well.

Beer, Grilling, and Alchemy

2011-09-07T21:19:00.002-04:00

We got some good news today, the fruit portion of the farm share is back on! Unfortunately that probably just means we'll get a few bags of fall fruit each week. I suppose it's better than nothing. So now you can look forward to a lot of blog entries about how we ate some apples for dinner. Should make for some good reading!

There's still a good amount of vegetables in the fridge left over from last week's farm share. Natural Disaster and its old friends Major Apathy and General Defeat got together to make sure there was very little in the way of culinary creating coming out of our kitchen.

Peppers are now taking the place of summer squash as the vegetable I feel most burdened with. This week's goal: get rid of as much stuff out of the fridge as possible without buying any groceries.

For tonight's main dish I started by slicing the large eggplant into thick slices and marinating it in lemon, olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper, and fresh basil. After grilling them slowly along with one of the Biscayne peppers from the farm I served them on top of some buttered noodles with garlic, basil, lemon, and fresh basil.

For beer we had this L'Ecossaise from L'Alchimiste. This is a Scottish style ale, one of the beers Jen brought back from Montreal.

This beer didn't necessarily go with dinner but the it's always the latest and newest beer that interests me the most. Who can argue about the merits of pairing beer with food when this beer was made by alchemists?

Here's a picture of their brewmaster, Greybeard Featherwand, working on developing their next microbrew.

We still had some Samoa mixture leftover the fridge from our home made Girl Scout Cookie experiment. I don't know how good an idea it was but I decided to press the mixture into the bottom of a bowl then top it with blueberries and melted chocolate for a makeshift dessert.

It was a little strange but not as strange as Jen thought. She thought that I'd made this tart on top of one of the Montreal bagels she brought home. She's normally suspicious of any weird things I throw together but she was so glad it wasn't a bagel that she was delighted at the idea of this dessert.

However, it does give me an idea for tomorrow's dessert.

Nate's Fish House

2011-09-06T20:52:00.003-04:00

Last night I had no desire to cook. This is probably evident from the incredibly uninspired meal I threw together with leftovers. What I wanted to do was go to our local watering hole: Morgans Fish House. This is one of our favorite places to go for dinner. They have a menu that is right up our alley and usually very good service.

Unfortunately after the events of last week our local watering hole had become . . .

. . . a local watering hole in the very literal sense. I found out today that after their catastrophic flood they had actually opened for business the next day.

The last time we went there we, for some reason, had a tremendous amount of lobster. I had a lobster roll, Jen had a lobster dinner, and I had a Lobster Ale from Belfast Bay Brewing Company. We had so much lobster that we actually took a bunch home and I froze it right beside a lobster tail which had been in the freezer for a short time.

On the menu that night was a crab corn risotto which sounded fantastic but regretfully neither of us ordered as it would have interferred with our lobster-having experience.

I started off by grilling some corn on the stovetop since it's raining so hard today I'm expecting another flood. Then I sauteed up some onion, garlic, and Diabolo peppers from the farm.

I normally use white wine or sherry when I make a risotto but I had an idea to use ale instead this time. I was back and forth about this idea, not sure if it would turn out okay. Then I thought of the Michael Jackson's amazing beer-themed meal in Belgium and thought about what he would do. I also thought of Jamie Oliver always talking about being brave. Finally, I thought of The Beer Cook who never misses an opportunity to cook with the beer.

So it was, with outstanding courage, that I poured ale into the risotto while I was making it. Instincts be damned!

The final result was quite nice. The ale worked better than I'd thought. The final risotto had butter, sauteed onions, Diabolo peppers from the farm, grilled corn, garlic, arborio rice, ale, water, salt, pepper, cayenne, chili powder, and a dash of cream.

Jen is pretty much the best wife. She's also the smartest. No, I'm not laying the groundwork for an expensive electronics purchase. Instead, I'm simply recognizing her genius. She just went to Montreal for the weekend. She knows that the best way to make me happy after a road trip is not to spend vast sums of money on clothing, tchotchkes, or other paraphernalia. No, all she need do is bring back an assortment of beers I've never tried before. They don't even really have to be from the place she was visiting. Any kind of beers will do.

So it was that I got this party mix from L'Alchimiste in Joliette, Quebec. A microbrew so small and relatively new (founded about a decade ago) that they haven't even put up an English website.

I decided to pair this meal with L'Alchimiste Claire Blonde Ale which I also used in the risotto itself. This was a very nice beer. Similar to many blondes I've had before but a little creamier which matched the risotto quite well. Of course, that's only if you buy into that beer-pairing baloney. This dinner would have probably gone just as well with an IPA, porter, or lambic. If those are beers you like.

So, next time you're making a risotto don't reach for the white wine, grab a difficult to find beer that's not imported to the United States.

Seriously. Don't try another ale. Only the one I mentioned in this blog entry will work. Anything else will ruin your dinner. And your life.

Welcome Home, Burgundians!

2011-09-05T20:40:00.005-04:00

We got some bad news the other day. Our farm share is done for the season. It was supposed to last until late November but, unfortunately, last week's hurricane destroyed all remaining crops. This adds yet another item to our loss sheet and means we need to return to pre-farm share programming.

After getting no farm share delivery today I had every intention of continuing my classic beer weekend tonight. A few factors played into this not happening. Firstly, I am kind of sick of having mediocre beers that I haven't had in a decade. Secondly, I didn't want to buy an entire six pack of something like Newcastle. Thirdly, Jen returned early and it was time to return to normal!

I roasted some of last week's tomatoes, and charred one of the red peppers over the burner on the stove. I also heated up some leftover grilled chicken and threw it all on a tortilla with sour cream and cotija. It's not much to look at but it was actually far tastier than it looks or than was expected.

For beer I had this Abbey Ale from Ommegang. I'm a sucker for any beer that has the word "abbey" on the label. I'm also a sucker for any beer that has the word "burgundian" on the label. The only difference with that is that I know what the word abbey means. I don't know what burgundian means. I know there were Burgundian kingdoms in Europe at some point in history. But should that be capitalized?

At any rate, these letftovers were lovely. The beer was lovely. And it was nice to have Jen back in the country to share them with.

Tomorrow we regroup, begin moving through the remaining farm share items, and start to get back to normal. Except for the lack of farm share.

And cars.

Classic Beer Weekend (Part 3)

2011-09-04T12:54:00.001-04:00

This is it, folks. This is the blog entry that everyone has been waiting for. As part three of my "Classic Beer Weekend" series I will be having a beer that may be the beer in the world that needs the least discussion: Heineken.

That's right, Heineken. The green-bottled, Dutch beer that needs a review by me about as badly as the Eiffel Tower needs another picture taken of it and posted on Flickr. Oh, I've done that too in case you're interested.

Heineken is one of those beers that I never want to drink. Every so often I'll order it in a restaurant when my only other options are Budweiser and Coors Light. Generally I find the taste overall very displeasing and usually skunky. Some say the skunkiness is light damage from the green bottle. Others say it's intentional. All I know is this is one of the beers I would be least likely to drink on regular ocassion.

But a funny thing happened this week. In the wake of the flood I found myself drinking an awful lot of this. I had been buying this beer by the case for our super, who is maybe the best human being I've ever met. With plenty of problems of his own he was quick to help us with whatever we needed. Cases of Heineken were a welcome payment to him and I enjoy sharing a drink with just about anyone, even if I don't particularly like it.

Michael Jackson didn't spend very much time talking about Heineken when he went to Holland. Heineken is the world's most widely distributed beer but instead he focused much more on some of the Trappist beers of that region, beer I would probably enjoy much more than Heineken.

That being said, this Heineken (meaning the Heineken of the past week) has tasted somewhat different to me. Firstly it didn't have any skunky taste at all. Part of that, I'm guessing, is that I bought a full case. Being sealed in cardboard meant no exposure to light. This beer was actually far more refreshing, crisp, and flavorful that the Heineken I remember. Generally I have Heineken at some sketchy bar where it's been exposed to light, temperature fluctuations, and no small amount of mysterious sludge. Seriously. One time I ordered it and it arrived with a slimy mud all over the bottle. The waiter was annoyed when I sent it back.

When handled properly, poured into a glass, and enjoyed with others I was surprised at how tolerable this classic was.

Last night, after dinner and my Pilsner Urquell, I settled down and drank this beer. I reflected on the events of the past seven days. It was not the week I had expected. Sometimes that is a good thing.

The summer is effectively over. Soon I will be trying my hand at brewing my own beer when it cools down a bit. That way I can spend a lot of time and money to brew a beer that is probably worse tasting than any of the many lagers I've scoffed at in the past.

So what's next for tomorrow night? Budweiser? Coors Light? I don't know, actually. I'm going to see what classic strikes me. To put a cap on this Labor Day weekend I need to do this right.

And I need to hope that liquor stores are open. Connecticut will not be getting my tax dollars, that's for sure.

Classic Beer Weekend (Part 2)

2011-09-03T18:15:00.005-04:00

For part two of my poorly researched series on classic beers I explore another beer I haven't had since the late 90s. This time it is a Czech beer which is the original pilsner brewed: Pilsner Urquell

This beer is better than I remember it. Whenever I can help it I always avoid having a beer that I've already had before. This weekend's experiment, re-exploring beers from the past, has proven to be an eye opener. I'm not a huge fan of pilsners but it turns out the original pilsner is quite good. I would never really think of buying this beer with so many beers I haven't tried yet but it was quite enjoyable.

Here is a video of Michael Jackson talking about how this is the prime example of the pilsner style. He always mentions how any beer he particularly likes has a great deal of "complexity." To me this beer is not too complex but I think that's more of a reflection on my pallet's sophistication than on the beer itself. That being said, I thoroughly enjoyed this beer. Drinking a beer and watching Michael Jackson talk about it is second only to drinking a beer and watching Oz & James talk about it.

As a warm up for dinner I had a pretzel with SchoolHouse Kitchen mustard, Jen's homemade pickle, and some Seaside cheddar cheese.

For a main course I cooked some garlic, onion, two heads of cabbage, and two sausages with a little cider vinegar, salt, and pepper.

If it seems odd to you that I used two entire heads of cabbage keep in mind that these were the cabbage we got in this week's farm share. They were the tiniest heads of cabbage I've ever seen. They were probably so small because the farm was madly harvesting everythign it could in anticipation of last week's hurricane ruining their crop.

More on that later.