Jarrett House North: Cucina

Ham and mushrooms, butter and garlic

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 03:32:39 GMT

It’s been a while since I wrote a food-oriented post—and of course a holiday weekend is just the thing to trigger one. Lisa’s parents were here this weekend, so our relatively freewheeling Easter dinner that we have honed over the past few years got expanded a little stylistically while reining in a few of the more eccentric ingredients.

The menu: deviled eggs for hors d’oeuvres; glazed ham; mashed potatoes; asparagus; and mushrooms. The deviled eggs were the most restrained compared to past years, where I used wasabi in place of the horseradish my parents always used to perk things up. Instead of wasabi, I just used hot sauce, slightly increased the salt for flavor, and diced up some shallot very fine to mix into the filling. The eggs were superb: eminently edible but leaving one still hungry—and thirsty. As is also traditional at Easter, I accompanied mine with a small amount of bourbon over ice as I was cooking. This year it was Blanton’s, a serendipitous find that I was delighted to have in my liquor cabinet. No juleps this year, though; for one thing, at 30-something degrees, it was too damned cold out to have them or want them.

The potatoes were simple too—half and half and butter in the place of the chicken broth and buttermilk that I’ve used in the past to give them flavor, and I thought the potatoes were bland as a result. But! They were a perfect foil to the mushrooms (sliced, cooked in olive oil and butter with more diced shallot and two cloves of garlic, and then finished covered in the pan), which were a hit. The garlic was definitely the thing. Alas the asparagus! cooked much too long.

The ham was tasty, but—and here regional prejudices rear their head—I do wish I could have found a proper ham. And by proper, I mean country ham, dry-aged, the kind that comes in a burlap bag and tastes a little like a salt lick and a little like a smoky prosciutto. That’s the ham I had a lot of growing up, both at home and at church, where ham biscuits were the order of the day after a sunrise service. But this ham—a spiral sliced ham with a brown sugar and orange juice glaze, was pretty good in its own way—just not quite the way my mouth remembered it.

After dinner, of course, the requisite ham biscuits. Mine reflected my inner culinary struggle, with mustard on top and butter on the bottom. Yes! Butter with ham. And if you think it’s insane, ask the street vendors in Provence selling jambon cru sandwiches with thick local butter about it, and then come back and tell me I was right. Of course it‘s not the Provençal coming out in me so much as the Pennsylvania Dutch grandmother, but oh well.

Others had clam chowder with dinner—Legal’s, sold prepackaged, and it occurred to me how much easy access to the greatest ambrosia breeds contempt. Watching the others eat it made me think about the Bull Island clam chowder I grew up with, cooked with a clear broth, not milk, and certainly not with tomato.

Hopfest

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 05:37:28 GMT

I’ve been drinking some pretty high hop content beers lately. A few days ago, I brought home (finally) the new Sam Adams Hallertau Imperial Pilsner, which bears approximately the same relation to regular Sam Adams as regular Sam bears to a Budweiser (American version). Floral, elegant, bright with hops (Hallertau, of course) without being overly bitter, and pleasantly complex. The beer raised Lisa’s eyebrows, and that’s hard to do.

Her eyebrows were raised a bit higher when she tasted tonight’s beer, the Unearthly Imperial India Pale Ale from Southern Tier Brewing Company. Imperial, connoting a higher-alcohol variety of a standard beer variety, is getting a workout here, taking a standard IPA to unheard of heights. 11% ABV and high but well-balanced IBUs are the start of the story, as is the unearthly orange glow and the aroma, reminiscent of standing over an opened bag of fresh hops. Little to no head, lacing the side of the glass very slightly. Initial sharpness from the hops gives way to a lightly malty back of the tongue with good strong floral character throughout. I wasn’t familiar with this brewery before tonight but I’ll be seeking it out in the future.

Update: Nice article from the NY Times Food section tasting a variety of “extreme” beers, in which the Unearthly is namechecked (though not actually tasted).

Everyone is agog over … absinthe?

Tim Jarrett — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 05:04:04 GMT

The title of this post is a reference to an old Bloom County strip in which Opus, promoted to the “Lifestyles” section (then a new concept) of the local newspaper, does an article on eggnog (“Everyone’s agog over eggnog!”), inadvertently starts a trend, and picks up a check for a couple thou from the U.S. Eggnog Association. He closes in the last panel with an aside to the audience: “I knew this was a racket!”

The thought crossed my mind after seeing articles about absinthe in the Boston Globe and the New York Times today (the latter owns the former). Hmm. If one were to follow the money, would one find a big absinthe concern behind the apparent coincidence?

I’m encouraged by the honest discussion in the latter article about the quality of modern absinthe prior to this latest revival. I tasted the stuff in the late 1990s—a former Cheeselord brought back a bottle from Europe. I thought it was interesting, but ultimately not something I would want to drink much of, thanks to the overwhelming licorice-like flavors. But I knew the drink’s reputation and was curious about how it might have been better in its heyday. Looks like I won’t have to wait long to find out.

(Oh: and regarding “agog over eggnog”: if you are a lifestyles editor yourself, don’t use this phrase in a headline. It’s been done.)

Westvleteren the Unobtainable

Tim Jarrett — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 17:05:48 GMT

WSJ: Trappist Command: Thou Shalt Not Buy Too Much of Our Beer. The article makes me want to hunt down some Westvleteren 12 for my birthday, as do the comments on BeerAdvocate.

Beverage news: Ardbeg, Dixie Beer

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 20:43:40 GMT

Two unrelated beverage news items in my browser this morning. I was just thinking the other day about how you never see Dixie Blackened Voodoo anymore, when I saw this article about the devastation at the original Dixie plant as a result of Katrina. The brand is being brewed in Wisconsin on a contract basis, but I hope they can bring the original brewery back around. Blackened Voodoo and the original Dixie are too good with Cajun food to continue to be brewed that far north.

And Ardbeg, which I enjoy as a fallback when I am drinking Scotch away from home if Laphroaig is unavailable, has been crowned the World Whiskey of the Year and the best Scotch Single Malt. I like Ardbeg for combining the peatiness of Laphroaig and other Islay malts with the smoothness of a blend.

Flavia: about misuse of coffee and the English language

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 22:31:46 GMT

I keep meaning to write this post about the vile branding job that the Mars Company did with Flavia, their single serving coffee offering, and deciding that the names of the product suite really kind of tell the whole terrible story. First of all, there’s “Flavia, the Café of Choice,” which is the oddest tagline ever. I know it’s supposed to make me think that I have options, but I think it just makes it sound like a third tier Roman household god. Is a Café the household god that watches over coffee related items? Flavia, Café of Choice! Lavia, Café of Coffee-Related Metabolic Disorders! Starbuck, Café of Ubiquity! Tremora, Café of Caffeine Withdrawal!

Then there are the product packets, of which the worst offenders are:

Creamy Topping: OK, not supposed to be a flavor by itself. But just picking up something that says “Creamy Topping” feels wrong. I don’t care how many “recipes” you can make with it.
Milky Way Swirl: it’s caramel and ... something, OK? I don’t need to envision a candy bar in my coffee. I’ve made that perfectly clear before.
Exotic Chai: After you make the flavor packet, you can go and watch Exotic Chai do a little dance for you! (Oh, wait, not that kind of exotic.)
Green Tea with Jasmine: nothing wrong with this one. Oh, except that brewed into your average paper cup, it tastes like drinking the water that I soak cedar chips in for the grill. Woody, astringent, nasty. Much like Flavia’s Ethiopia Sidamo... or most of the product, actually.
Choco (grand prize winner): Based on the name of this drink, I always assumed that Flavia was from a Middle European country where people didn’t speak English as their first language. Choco sounds weird because the word it comes from doesn’t actually get pronounced that way. It’s pronounced chock-lit, not choc-o-late. Choco sounds like a character in The Sopranos, not like a drink. Finding out that Flavia is a British company makes me even more ashamed to be in marketing. Someone who is conversant in the language of Shakespeare shouldn’t come up with a name like this.

Saying Choco makes my flesh crawl. And that’s even before you taste it. It’s reminiscent of the Peanuts cartoon in which Lucy tells Linus that the hot chocolate he has made her is terrible; “it’s too weak! It tastes like someone dipped a brown crayon into hot water!”

Linus replies, “You’re right... I’ll go and add another crayon!”

So here we are with our little single serving machine, adding another crayon to hot water and washing it down with ... shudder... creamy topping. Er, ™.

The inexplicable thing is that people get attached to these machines. Take this guy. Please. At least he provides a useful service for those that are incapable of reading directions that tell you how to use the coffeemaker... the directions that appear right on the screen as you make the coffee. And people really do make their own beverages, like the unspeakable Creamy Topping®/Choco/Espresso combination that this guy dubs “Flavia Mother of All Beverages.” I think the mother of all beverages is actually some kind of vodka.

No mention of Flavia would be complete without a reference to the Urban Dictionary article, which is pretty much complete actually.

Starbucks: Turf invasion by McDonalds

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 20:02:01 GMT

The Boston Globe writes about the newest competitive threat to Starbucks: the McCafe. The problem with shifting your product mix from premium coffees to candy milk drinks isn’t just that you lose your soul in the process. It’s that it is so much easier for other players to imitate you and horn in on your turf.

Because, really, could you imagine Dunkin and McDonalds imitating really good high quality coffee? But it’s really easy for them to steam some milk, dump in some flavored corn syrup, and call it a latté.

Howard Schultz is right: once you take that first step, it’s a long slippery slope down to slinging fast food with everyone else.

On beer snobbery and the omnipresence of Fat Tire

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 03:06:15 GMT

Lew Bryson: Flat Tire. A well written piece about how beer aficionados tend to dump on beers that have broken out of the enthusiast ghetto—beers that once defined craft brewing, like Sierra Nevada, Sam Adams, and of course Fat Tire. Lew is right that part of this is the indie obscurist habit of not liking anything that has more than three fans (”I was listening to Jet Engines before they were cool!! What? What did you say? What? What?”).

I also wonder if part of it, for beer drinkers, isn’t just palate fatigue. After you’ve been tasting 9% ABV and 150 IBU beers for a long time, maybe the beers that started you up the taste path just don’t tickle your taste buds any more.

One thing I find is that beers that I obsessed over when I was younger, like Samuel Smith and Newcastle Brown, just don’t taste as good to me now. Part of it is the difficulty in getting bottles that aren’t skunked—have people forgotten how to handle beer in clear glass bottles? (And why after all these years does Merchant du Vin continue to insist on using them?)

And the other thing, of course, is that omnipresence is relative. There is no Fat Tire in Massachusetts, for instance. Much to my everlasting chagrin.

Zucchini

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 04:19:24 GMT

We’re babysitting our neighbors’ vegetable patch while they are visiting family this week. Which is a wonderful responsibility, because it requires us to pick the vegetables as they ripen, and eat them.

Right now what’s in season is the beginning of their tomatoes and the end of their zucchini. While I’m very happy about the former, I’m unexpectedly pleased about the latter as well. I always remember drowning in zucchini as a kid, but now that we only get it occasionally—even though then it comes in large doses—I’m excited about getting it now and figuring out how to cook it.

I grill it a lot. And my mom, growing up, cooked it a number of ways, including cooking it covered in a pot with onions. Tonight I tried a simple Italian variation of that technique, in which a cup of thin-sliced onions is cooked in butter until golden brown over medium heat, then a pound and a half of thin-sliced zucchini are added with salt and cooked over high heat until the zucchini gets tender and golden at the edges. Never covered, so there’s no steaming or moisture involved. The flavor turns out to be sublime and the texture is pretty darned good too. I’m looking forward to trying some more things I’ve never tried before with zucchini.

RIP to the Beer Hunter

Tim Jarrett — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 20:32:01 GMT

RIP Beer Hunter Michael Jackson, whose writing taught me everything about beer that I never learned at college. The front page of All About Beer has a tribute and his final column, ironically about surviving a near-death experience earlier this year (sorry, no permalink). They also have a guestbook, which currently features signatures and stories (some quite lengthy) from various beer luminaries including homebrew club members, Finnish brewers, and Sam Calaglione of Dogfish Head.

Beer drinker's blog

Tim Jarrett — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 21:48:27 GMT

No, I’m not planning another project. I’m referring to Pete Brown’s Blog, one of the funnier and more observant blogs I’ve read about beer, pub culture, and other related matters. Pete is the author of several books on beer, none of which I’ve read; sounds like a trip to the library is in order.

I’m particularly taken with this little piece of whimsey: he plans to take a pin (4.5 gallons) of IPA from the brewery in Burton-on-Trent to Calcutta ... via boat. The purpose is to find out whether the sea journey really does “condition” the India Pale Ale style as we were always told. Should be an interesting story to follow.

Say it ain’t so, Diageo

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 04:05:20 GMT

Ireland.com: Diageo mulls options for Guinness brewery. As consumption of Guinness falls, multinational conglomerate Diageno contemplates shuttering the St. James Gate Brewery in Dublin. I think I speak for every Guinness drinker when I say, No way.

QTN™: Dogfish Head Fort

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 04:21:06 GMT

When a beer is made with crushed raspberries, it can be either very good or very bad. I’ve had some fruit “lambics” (you know the ones) that tasted like Koolaid. True to form, Dogfish Head’s Fort is not among these. I’ll be lucky to articulate what it is among, given its fairly high alcohol content: 18% (higher than some Zinfandels).

The name could stem from the Latin for strong (most likely) or from its resemblance to the word port, which the beer somewhat resembles. The intense raspberry aroma of the beer gives way to an incredibly well balanced sweet/malty/yeasty/alcohol flavor combination that makes it very easy to forget that you are drinking the equivalent of three normal beers by volume.

The beer was an outstanding balance for grilled pork tenderloin that was covered with a sweet, gingery spice rub.

Hell freezes over, part n^n: strong beer in South Carolina

Tim Jarrett — Tue, 22 May 2007 04:13:46 GMT

The State: These ain’t no chuggin’ beers. I missed the report earlier this month (on BeerAdvocate, naturally) that the state finally repealed its misguided ban on beers stronger than 5%.

The question of course is how long it will take for Alabama, Mississippi, and West Virginia (the remaining states that have such a ban) to finally lift it. Well, these may be the “hell freezing over” states, given how legislators in Alabama responded to a similar proposal this year: “I don’t know what you said, but you’re wrong,” and “I don’t have to read the legislation to know how I am going to vote.” Oy.

Sad, really, considering that at least in Alabama’s case the legislators who are so concerned about underage drinking aren’t doing anything to restrict wine or hard liquor, and don’t recognize that a Belgian Trappist ale hardly constitutes a gateway to perdition. (To mussels in Brussels, yes, but that’s another story.)

The ironic part? South Carolinians were driving over the border to smuggle high-alcohol craft beer back… from Asheville, NC. Yes indeedy, my dad’s home burg has come a long way. I still remember how blown away I was when I visited for the first time after he retired back there and found a Newcastle truck in the streets; not to mention the Asheville Wine Market, where I found Old Engine Oil Stout, Radgie Gadgie, Workie Ticket, and Bluebird Bitter for the first time.

QTN™: Rogue Imperial India Pale Ale

Tim Jarrett — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 03:49:08 GMT

Tonight’s Quick Tasting Note regards the Imperial India Pale Ale from Rogue Ales Brewery. A beer in a big 750 ml ceramic bottle with a flip-top stopper, it’s a 9.5% ABV hoppy monster. Hoppy monster in that the hops are so monstrous that the malt almost can’t catch up. The trick with a beer like this is in the balance between hops, malt, and alcohol, and this one clearly seeks to balance out the hops and the alcohol with some neglect for the malt. That said, it’s a really interesting beer: bracing, citrusy, floral, strong. Good match for a plate of bratwurst with mustard.

This, like the Drie Fontainen Oude Gueuze, came from Warehouse Wine and Spirits in Framingham. Their beer selection may not be as wide as Downtown Wine and Spirits in Somerville, but they have the advantage of being near my office and the exceptional things they have are pretty darned exceptional.

Easter feaster

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 16:47:04 GMT

Relatively light Easter meals yesterday. It was just the family at home, so we took it easy. We went to the early service at Old South, came back, and had fried eggs with prosciutto and hot cross buns for a late breakfast. Then I made my wasabi deviled eggs (recipe below) and White Lily biscuits, Lisa prepared some asparagus, and together Lisa and I baked a ham. But really: that, plus a chocolate cake that was lying around, plus Easter marshmallows (not Peeps) and some pretty spectacular sauvignon blanc: who needed anything else?

The wasabi deviled eggs, by the way, are dead easy. I use the recipe for deviled eggs from the late 1990s edition of The Joy of Cooking, scaling it up for a dozen eggs, then add two tablespoons of dry wasabi powder that have been mixed with two tablespoons water. That, plus adjusting the other spices to taste, is really it. Sometimes I get aggressive and add more wasabi, but at the proportions above it’s just about right. I got the idea one year when I was trying to replicate my dad’s eggs, which use horseradish, but the only thing I could find at the store was wasabi.

QTN™: Drie Fonteinen Oude Gueuze

Tim Jarrett — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 03:39:49 GMT

It’s been a while since I posted a Quick Tasting Note, but the Drie Fonteinen Oude Gueuze merited a note. Blended, as all gueuzes are, from multiple lambics—spontaneously fermented beers—the style is usually a little sour, a little acetic, and wild. This one is no exception, except that it’s a lot sour, a lot acetic, a lot wild: as a taster on BeerAdvocate notes, the beer has a “raw yeastiness that allows me to finally comprehend…the term ‘barnyard’ to describe a beer’s nose…” And it’s barnyard in a good way. The most amazing thing is that it’s appetizing. It makes me hungry. This one was a 2004 bottle that turned up in Warehouse Wine and Spirits in Framingham. I might have to go back and pick up a few more.

Cooking Korean

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 03:57:11 GMT

Lisa and I are trying to branch out a bit and eat healthier, and for me that means trying some more Asian recipes. Tonight we cheated, buying some pre-marinated boolkogi from Trader Joe's and trying a recipe for generic Korean greens. The recipe wasn't bad, but in retrospect I would have used a stronger vinegar and some hot sauce. The bookogi, on the other hand, was excellent.

Which brings me to my question: is there a good Korean cookbook out there for beginners? I haven't found one I like. If you have a favorite, contact me with the link below this post.

Props for Double Bag

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 17:43:59 GMT

Eric Asimov in the New York Times writes Quiet Cover for a Vital Brew, another in his series of beer tasting adventures. Reading these is almost as much fun as reading the great Michael Jackson’s beer writing; one gets the sense that if Asimov were not constrained for space by the newspaper, he would be fair competition for Jackson when writing about New World beers.

One of his Top 10 brown ales this week is the Double Bag Ale from Long Trail, a Vermont brewer whose stuff shows up in my local package store—interesting, since according to a 2001 interview with the president of the company they had pulled out of Massachusetts. Perhaps things turned around. I have enjoyed both the Double Bag (an appropriate name for a Vermont beer) and the Harvest Ale in the past; I think I’ll have to check out their other offerings…

T2006: The Rise of the Turkey

Tim Jarrett — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 16:40:39 GMT

Last year it was a mild and easy meal, the year before an epic battle, the year before that a show-off feast, and in 2002 and 2001 we helped out in other people’s kitchens. For this, the fourth Thanksgiving in a row we’ve hosted and the sixth since I started blogging in 2001, we’re playing it cautiously. I am getting over a cold and Lisa isn’t moving around too spryly either. So the menu is a little more conservative this year:

Turkey a la Alton with pan gravy plus random stuff
Apple and sausage stuffing—this year using a bulk pork sausage that we found at Wilson Farms
Baby Brussels sprouts with buttered pecans
Green beans with ginger butter
Buttermilk biscuits
Lemon chess pie
Pumpkin gelato

I stayed up late last night working on prep. I cooked two quarts of chicken stock, pre-boiled the Brussels sprouts and toasted and buttered the pecans, brined the turkey, and Lisa and her mother made the gelato filling and the pie. And this morning we’re not too far off: there’s bread to be cubed and bulk sausage to be thawed for the stuffing, more biscuits to be made, a turkey to be roasted, and the green beans and the final assembly on the Brussels sprouts. I’m not as far ahead of the game as Isis, but we’re not doing too badly.

And I’ve even influenced some others; one of my coworkers is evaluating the pros and cons of duck a la hairdryer. I’m looking forward to hearing that story.

Kitchen shakedown

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 20:13:31 GMT

We had an opportunity to give the kitchen a trial run before Thanksgiving. On Saturday night we made a polpettone—big meatball, essentially an Italian meatloaf—along with two pots of bolognese sauce and a cake. Last night we had our neighbors over to help us eat the bolognese sauce and the cake. It was an entertaining visit: they have a nine-month-old who was consistently the center of attention and in turn distracted by Joy and Jefferson, who decided they adored her.

The kitchen is functioning pretty well now, though it may be a while before I finish the missing toe kick since that involves traveling to Ikea. The odds of my doing that before the holidays are slim and the odds of my doing it on Friday are nonexistent. I may be crazy, but Ikea on Black Friday? I’m not stupid.

God bless the tellers of truth

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 16:26:25 GMT

I thought his book Kitchen Confidential was nasty, brutish, and not short enough, but at least Anthony Bourdain has the cojones to tell it like it is:

[Emeril] looks like [legendary chef Georges Auguste] Escoffier now compared to some of the bobble-heads who are on that network... [For example,] Rachael Ray. She’s paid more and is more popular [than Emeril], and I see a day when the executives say, we don’t need Emeril anymore, even though he built their network. They'll replace him with some industry-created freakozoid who’s been grown from a seedling into a recognized brand. When you look at Sandra Lee or Rachael Ray or some of the new shows like "Calorie Commando" that are just vomit-inducing — at least Emeril worked his way up and has a real restaurant empire.

Heck yeah. Apologies to her fans, but we really need to have a Beat Up on Rachael Ray week. It’s still not clear to me why she’s become such a Persona when her main talent appears to be talking endlessly and purveying mediocre food.

QTN™: Harpoon Saison (100 Barrel Series)

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 03:40:48 GMT

I’ve written about Harpoon’s limited 100 Barrel series before—including the Oatmeal Stout, the most phenomenal offering in the whole series. But I need to amend that last statement. The new Harpoon Saison is the finest beer yet to come from this particular brewery… and I say that not just as an aficionado of the Saison style in particular and most Belgo-French styles in general, but as a fan of fine beer in all its forms.

The nose is a good start—bready with banana undertones promising good complex esters in the taste. The taste doesn’t disappoint either—up front hoppy brightness, opening into a bready but bright (lemon? spices?) body, with a pleasantly lemony aftertaste.

The more impressive part, though, is the nature of the middle part. If you close your eyes, the Saison could be a French Saison or even a Belgian—Lisa’s comment was “It tastes like LaChouffe.” This is high praise indeed for an American beer in general and a New England beer in particular, this region not noted for its Belgophile beer styles.

This last may be the biggest obstacle to the Saison joining Harpoon’s regular lineup. It’s so different from Harpoon’s regular styles that I can’t get my mind around it. It’s like Sam Adams suddenly brewing a Duvel. But the disjoint in styles may ultimately be a good thing. Harpoon’s regular lineup has been stuck for a long time. But suddenly a raspberry-flavored Hefe has joined the family, and maybe some more will come. I vote for the Saison sticking around for a long long long time.

Colorado expansion team

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 04:07:24 GMT

Might a Fat Tire be in the cards for the East Coast? I’m hoping that this note about New Belgium’s building expansion means a distribution expansion is to follow.

If I might suggest, the New England market is ripe for a little Biere de Mars. Maybe the Abbey? If just the Fat Tire makes it out this way I’ll be mighty happy.

Alcohol free at Erdinger

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 18:11:21 GMT

One thing I forgot to highlight in my discussion of our visit to the Erdinger brewery was their product line, which is a lot more diverse than I had previously realized. In addition to the fact that they are currently the leading producer of wheat beer in the world, they also have a number of other products, including a slightly lower alcohol, low-CO2 version of their wheat beer designed for consumption in nightclubs, and an alkoholfrei version (see picture to right).

When I was a snotnosed punk, new to good beer and full of sneers for all things bad beer, I didn’t understand the point of alcohol-free beer. Why not just drink a Coke? I thought. Now I think I get it better, thanks to the experiences of some friends and family members who can no longer drink the full-alcohol variety. If one of the big points of beer is the taste, why should NA beer drinkers be limited to just a few different flavors? In fact it seems that a number of German breweries produce at least one NA flavor, including Erdinger, Paulaner, Clausthaler, and others. I didn’t get a chance to taste Paulaner’s version so no detailed tasting notes this time. But the picture is fun at least.

BeerAdvocate advocacy

Tim Jarrett — Thu, 25 May 2006 16:42:11 GMT

It’s good to see BeerAdvocate, the site that has consistently had the best and broadest selection of beer reviews and information about pubs, getting some recognition. On the heels of last week’s Top 100 Beers, this week they’re getting linkage from CNET for their list of the Top 50 Places to Have a Beer In America. (Sounds like a candidate for Lists of Bests, doesn’t it?)

The funny part is I’ve visited two of the places in the Top Five: Toronado in San Francisco (though my last visit was over a year ago) and our own Publick House. I was interested to see the large number of places in Massachusetts I haven’t visited, and astonished to see that there were so many in Virginia. Esta, you’ll have to check out the Capital Ale House and let us know how it is. But but but... no places in Seattle? I would have thought the Hilltop Ale House would rate at least a mention, but it doesn’t look like it’s even been reviewed.

Oysters, anyone?

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 14:16:03 GMT

NYT: The Oyster Is His World. What is it about oysters that inspire great food writing? The article about tireless oyster promoter Jon Rowley (who happens to be the same guy who first shipped Copper River king salmon fresh rather than canned or frozen, so pay attention) is a great read.

Particularly interesting from my historical perspective: the description of Totten Inlet Virginicas, oysters native to the Chesapeake Bay where I grew up and which are now farmed in a bay off Puget Sound, as “the best oyster on the planet… uncommonly plump and sweet, with a memorably pronounced mineral finish.” Interestingly, Rowley credits micro-algæ for much of the character and flavor of the oysters, meaning that they might not taste so sublime coming from the Chesapeake. Still, I don’t know: oyster shells are the preferred paving material for driveways in the part of the world I grew up in, primarily because people insatiably ate so many of the things (at least prior to the James River kepone pollution problems and the Dermo and MSX epidemics) that they were about the cheapest building material around.

Mutton headed

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 15:07:21 GMT

NY Times: Much Ado About Mutton, but Not in These Parts - New York Times. It’s rare that I read about a meat that I’ve never either cooked or eaten, but this article on mutton in the Times made me want to go rent a cooler to hang some mutton in for a few weeks.

Especially love the quotation from that modest monarch Louis XVIII, who wrote, “Sacrifice, if you please, three mutton cutlets for every one required. Tie them together, with the choicest and tenderest one in the middle. Grill them, turning them over often so that the juice of the two outer cutlets pervades the one between. When the outer ones are more than cooked, take all three off the fire with infinite precaution and serve only the middle one.” Now that’s something you’ll never see on the Food Network.

Poor Robert Parker

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 17:14:14 GMT

NYT: Decanting Robert Parker. The premise of the article is that Robert Parker, whose 100 point wine rating system and apparent love of big wines has revolutionized the industry, feels that he’s being made a scapegoat for everything that is wrong with the wine industry today.

Oh well. The price of fame.

Still, among the self pity, there are some interesting notes: that it would be a full time job for one wine reviewer to cover the wines of Italy (I think it would require at least two FTEs myself); that the variety available in the wine market today is greater than it has ever been in modern memory, and “we see evidence in southern Italy with the reclamation and resurrection of all these indigenous varietals that had long been sold off to co-ops”; that the apparent sameness of taste that many critics argue is a negative result of Parker’s influence is because “most wines are being tasted when they are too young”; that he wants to do a book on value wines, “Just a little pocket book. I think it would establish the fact that I'm not just a guy who is used by speculators to drive up prices.”

Sounds good. Let’s see it. I for one would welcome the reversal of one modern wine trend: that value wines nearly double in price within three years of their discovery (see southern Italy, Spain, and Chile for three recent examples).

QTN™: Harpoon Oatmeal Stout (100 Barrel Series)

Tim Jarrett — Fri, 17 Mar 2006 03:02:39 GMT

The Harpoon 100 Barrel series has been one of the bright lights on the local beer horizon here, with new experimental offerings every few months—a pretty bold step for a local micro-becoming-mini-brewer whose offerings used to be as predictable as the seasons (IPA and the UFO hefeweizen, mostly, with Munich Dark and Ale generally only available in multipacks, plus the Winter Warmer, Hibernian, Summer, and Oktoberfest available seasonally). In the past I’ve only reviewed the Scotch Ale (Wee Heavy) and the Alt, so it’s high time I added to the list. Fortunately Harpoon is helping out by reissuing their very first 100 Barrel offering, the Oatmeal Stout.

If Harpoon doesn’t add this to their standard line-up, they’re dumb. Not only is it a good beer, it’s a good oatmeal stout, a style that’s pretty damned hard to pull off. It’s malty with a touch of sweetness in the nose (even through my cold-stuffed sinuses). The mouthfeel is appropriately weighty without being overwhelming, and the overall impression is very very pleasing. Even Lisa, who feels about stout the same way that society matrons feel about someone passing gas in public, feels it’s an astoundingly good beer. If you are in the distribution area, snap it up before it goes away again.

Duck a la hairdryer

Tim Jarrett — Thu, 29 Dec 2005 01:26:38 GMT

It’s been a nice long holiday so far. We saw Lisa’s parents off this morning, mine came yesterday. We took Esta skiing and have generally been having a good time. It’s been nice getting away from everything, including the blog, for a while, just to think and be with family. I highly recommend it.

Oh, the title? Just a quick note: if you want to cook a duck with good flavor and a crispy skin without drowning in fat, pack your hairdryer and your Marcella Hazan. I wish I had thought to get pictures of my wife and my mother-in-law bending over our two ducks for Christmas dinner, fresh out of their boil in the pot, waving a hairdryer over them with intense concentration. It was worthwhile. The skin was thin and crispy, the meat flavorful without being greasy.

Happy Thanksgiving

Tim Jarrett — Thu, 24 Nov 2005 21:24:03 GMT

On this Thanksgiving day, a year after my last epic cooking adventures, things are oddly quiet here. We’re much better prepared than I was last year; we’ll be eating an hour later but just about everything is done or pre-cooked so I’m able to relax and write this blog post.

For the record, our menu this year:

Roasted brined turkey a la Alton
Cider sage gravy
Mashed potatoes with fried sage leaves
Sausage and apple dressing
Roasted harvest root vegetables
Swiss chard with garlic and anchovies a la Two Fat Ladies
Homemade cranberry sauce
Pumpkin gelato
Apple pie

(You may detect a few repeats from last year. I must confess: my spirit, and my crowded calendar, quailed a bit at the thought of doing another menu entirely from scratch this year.)

Lastly, my thanks for the past year and a great job, two great choral groups, a wonderful wife, two working showers and air conditioning (and no oil heat or radiators) in our house, our supportive families, and the most ridiculously cute Bichons ever.

No turkey no brine?

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 16 Nov 2005 22:56:59 GMT

The New York Times has an unusual food article today—unusual for the run-up to Thanksgiving, anyway: The Pilgrims Didn’t Brine, in which their writer canvasses a number of chefs to find the simplest possible turkey preparation that still turns out well.

Given my adventures last year, their findings—start with a fresh, locally raised turkey; roast at 425, and tent the breast with foil to keep it from cooking too fast; then let rest for a half hour—sound pretty good. I’m still probably going to brine, though this year I think I’ll make the brine on Tuesday so it will have enough time to cool.

Drinking candy

Tim Jarrett — Fri, 30 Sep 2005 16:07:16 GMT

I had an unspeakably foul beverage this morning at Starbucks that made me think, hard, about food, about what we choose to eat and drink and what it says about us. And it called to mind some uncomfortable thoughts that have been rattling around in my mind since reading the excerpts from Cory Doctorow’s latest novel on Salon.

I have long maintained that Starbucks is fundamentally a milk company rather than a coffee company. It was around the time that coffee took one of its periodic jumps in price that Starbucks introduced Frappuchinos, after all. Even at the time it struck me as a canny way to react to a coffee supply disruption: create demand for a product that is mostly not coffee. By volume, certainly, Starbucks sells far more milk than coffee.

None of this has ever bothered me, primarily because I stick to drip coffee, Americanos, and “poisonously strong” double espressos. But this week I got a mailer from Starbucks informing me that they had loaded my card with an extra $5, and, since the weather is getting colder, would I like to try a Pumpkin Spice Latte? This morning it was colder—44 degrees when I walked the dogs—so I thought, why not.

Why not is that Pumpkin Spice Latte tastes like ass. Worse, it tastes like sweet ass, and not in a good way. As Cory Doctorow wrote in the second installment of Themepunks about another ubiquitous American institution, IHOP:

Caramel pancakes with whipped cream, maple syrup and canned strawberries. When I was a kid, we called that candy. These people will sell you an eight dollar, 18-ounce plate of candy ...

Or a $4, 16 ounce cup of it.

Despite my need for coffee, I tossed the latte after a few sips. It was vile and I’m back to espressos.

But it made me think: what is it that makes us crave this stuff? People, to all appearances, eat lots of candy. (You can certainly tell if you fly with Americans, particularly in the Midwest, particularly when you’re in a middle seat and a couple of 350 pound guys are on either side of you.) Is it that we never grew up? Were we denied candy as kids? Or did we never find out that there was something better?

A note on Bavarian food

Tim Jarrett — Tue, 27 Sep 2005 16:34:02 GMT

I regret making a crack about Bavarian food last night without putting it in context. One of the most spectacular things about Oktoberfest was the smell of the food—primarily the spit-roasted chickens for sheer olfactory pleasure, but with contributions from sausages, potatoes and other delights. In fact, I ate well all week.

Too well. I gained five pounds in the seven days I spent on the ground, and would have kept going had it not been for a mounting sense of bloat. Which is only natural, really. I don’t think that even the locals eat Bavarian cuisine all the time. It’s not possible. To see what I mean, here’s a rundown of some of the meals I had:

Schweinshaxe (crackled pig’s leg): The first joint of a pig’s leg, grilled until the skin crackles; served with kraut and potatoes. The meat was exquisitely flavorful and unbelievably greasy.
A dish of rahmschwammerl (meatballs) and button mushrooms with spätzle. The meatballs were airy but huge, and the sauce on the spätzle was deceptively deadly. I couldn’t finish the plate.
Chunks of deer meat in a brown sauce with potatoes and a salad. This was one of the lighter meals.
On Saturday the four of us went to the Nuernberger Bratwurst Gloeckl am Dom (an Augustiner restaurant, naturally) and ate a platter of 25 grilled bratwursts (which mercifully are small, about the size of a breakfast link), along with a few Münchner Stadwürste, on a bed of sauerkraut with horseradish and the most sublime warm potato salad I’ve ever eaten.

Add to that a beer or two—generally hefeweizen, dunkel, or the Oktoberfest wies’n beer—and the effect is total gastric paralysis. Not to be too graphic here, but when I got home it took a week of intensive fiber before I felt even close to normal.

But God, it was worth it. Oh those bratwurst! Oh that beer!

Bonus links: Beyond brez’n and bratwurst; Oktoberfest at Epicurious; and threads about relocating to Munich, eating in the city, and general tips for Bavarian food from eGullet.

The Publick House: great beer in Brookline

Tim Jarrett — Thu, 08 Sep 2005 17:40:22 GMT

After months of cajoling, I finally convinced Lisa to try the Publick House, which I got excited about a year ago after reading the recommendation in the Globe. The reality: the beer is every bit as good as they say; the food is good, but not quite up to my elevated expectations; and the crowd is much much younger than I would have guessed.

Lisa and I arrived on Sunday night and hit the first hard reality: the place was packed and there was no host to give us an idea about wait times. Fortunately as I hovered I spotted a couple leaving the back room and we pounced on the table. Beers, in the meantime, were quite good: we started with an Ommegang Hennepin and a Whale’s Tail Pale Ale, both on draft, both excellent.

Perhaps it was just a “back to class” night, but we were just about the oldest people in the room, which isn’t a normal experience for me at beer-related venues. We shrugged and ordered, sticking on the “pub grub” side of things. Lisa’s andouille sandwich was excellent as were the fries; my upscale mac and cheese, topped with some undistinguished sausage or other, was good but not the “great 8” wonder that I was expecting from the menu. I wonder what the food experience would have been if we had tried some of the other menu items — sadly, the mussels promise in the Boston.com article were not on the menu.

Good fun. I think I’ll have to find someone else to go back with me next time, though. Niall, you interested?

Very, very hungry

Tim Jarrett — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 16:58:11 GMT

NY Times: In Virginia Beach, Restaurants Where the Food Moves Sideways. Probably the first time that a New York Times reviewer has darkened the door of a Chick’s Oyster Bar. Props to Mimi Sheraton (is that a real name??) for finding the restaurants in the list, referencing Beautiful Swimmers, and calling out Hatteras clam chowder, on which I was raised. Boos for missing the Duck-In, which has a lousy buffet but the finest bucket of boiled shrimp, and one of the finest views, money can buy.

Friends for dinner

Tim Jarrett — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 16:29:47 GMT

Lisa and I were lucky enough to get an old friend, Daria, to join us for dinner last night. I knew Daria from my undergrad years at UVA, where she was the roommate of Caroline, a good friend in the physics program. Then I bumped into her at Sloan. In about three weeks we’ll lose Daria to the vast midwest, where she’ll be relocating to join her fiancé. So we were thrilled that we finally got her to join us for dinner, and we pulled out all the stops with three experimental dishes.

Lisa made a version of a broth-based minestrone with cabbage, zucchini, carrots, onions, garlic, celery, tomato, white beans, and herbs. We jointly produced a pollo diavolo — a broiling chicken flattened, covered with crushed black peppercorns and a little salt, marinated with olive oil and lemon juice, and grilled. And the meal ended with a black cherry granita: tasty but not quite right (perhaps a little too sweet—we’ll definitely make it again and play with the proportions).

Now that Lisa is regularly traveling for business, it was nice to have the chance to collaborate in the kitchen with her on a weeknight. My only regret is there wasn’t much chicken left over. Maybe next time I’ll make two.

QTN™: Oud Beersel, Oude Geueze Vielle

Tim Jarrett — Sun, 14 Aug 2005 02:23:31 GMT

I’ve been holding onto this one since my first pilgrimage to Downtown Wine and Spirits. My favorite kind of beer on the planet (very broadly speaking) is Belgian, and my favorite Belgian beer style is geueze, the amazingly complex melding of young and old lambics in one wild-yeast-fermented mouth bomb. And, as of this writing, my favorite geueze might be the Oude Geueze Vielle from the Brouwerij Oud Beersel.

What to say about such a complex beer? The nose is peppery with citrus overtones, with deeper notes of earth. The flavor is a little sweet immediately followed by a yeasty sour depth, with the lingering carbonation picking up the flavor and brightening it again. It’s all in perfect balance, and spectacularly tasty. Almost as refreshing as a Flemish red, but with a bready aftertaste that inevitably recalls Champagne—fitting, as Michael Jackson calls beers in this style “the Champagnes of the beer world.”

Lisa tried a little of this and said, “Wow. That’s different. Save me some.” I regretfully complied, though not without severe temptation.

I tasted this with a non-traditional food accompaniment—a platter of burnt ends and pulled pork from Blue Ribbon Bar-B-Q. Somewhat to my surprise, it was a great combination, the sweetness and smokiness of the meat playing perfectly against the breadiness of the beer, and the vinegar in the greens joustling happily against the tartness of the geueze. Belgian beers may not replace sweet tea at Southern roadhouses anytime soon, but they may well at my table from now on.

Mmmm, bacon

Tim Jarrett — Fri, 12 Aug 2005 04:02:03 GMT

The Bacon Show. “ONE BACON RECIPE PER DAY, EVERY DAY, FOREVER.” Um, subscribed.

Via Metafilter, where there are some really alarming links in response, including the Baconoff, a competitive bacon-eating contest party. Surely they can’t mean “each round is one package of bacon” each, can they?

100 Barrels of fun

Tim Jarrett — Fri, 05 Aug 2005 15:29:51 GMT

Boston.com: For Harpoon brewers, it’s all a barrel of fun. An article on Harpoon’s series of limited duration beers reveals that they are all made at the former Catamount brewery in Vermont (which increasingly sounds like a good place to visit). Seems like an odd

Interesting point that Harpoon has taken such care to separate these experiments from its brand, from the different bottle sizes to the new label artwork. (I seem to recall that, except for the maple-syrupy super-premium Triple Bock in the blue glass bottle, their major local competition hasn’t always been so careful.) Harpoon also hasn’t been doing any publicity for these beers at all, as evidenced by the fact that this is the first mainstream press coverage the beers have received in the two years that they’ve been on the market. Apparently they have been working on building word of mouth prior to going wider.

The Sanity Pills blog has a slightly more acerbic take on why we’re just now hearing about these beers from the Globe: “The Boston Globe is quickly becoming the saddest major daily in the nation.”

Finding beer bliss

Tim Jarrett — Sat, 30 Jul 2005 03:16:20 GMT

After almost a year back in the Boston suburbs, I finally made the pilgrimage today to Downtown Wine & Spirits in Somerville. And I’m not going to tell you how much I spent, but I bought nearly a dozen different kinds of beer there.

To back up: it’s been a really nice vacation day. Lisa and I drove up to Devereaux Beach at Marblehead on the North Shore and enjoyed a quiet day on the beach and in and out of the water—mostly out, since the water was about 62°F. While there, we popped in at Flynnie’s at the Beach, and had an OK lunch—I suppose it would have been better if we had more than $10 cash to spend. We had a reasonable lunch for that price, though it is worth remembering that a “seafood salad roll” is likely to fail on two of those three descriptions at $4.95 for the roll. (In this case, the “seafood” was mock crab, and the “roll,” like all New England seafood rolls, was made in a piece of white bread (AKA New England style hot dog buns) rather than any sort of roll.)

After we came home, I decided to check out the beer store at Davis Square that I had heard so much about. I was really glad I did. In addition to the expected Northeast beers (Magic Hat twelve-packs, Dogfish, even the most recent Harpoon 100 Barrel Series beer, Triticus), I found a bunch of Belgians, including a whole shelf-full of different guezes, a number of different French bieres de garde, some unusual British beers (the familiar Entire Butt Porter), and some spectacular American beers (Stone’s Vertical Epic Ale, 2005 issue). I think we’ll be busy for a bit.

Ladies and gentlemen, start your cooktops

Tim Jarrett — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 16:45:32 GMT

Following a link from Blogorelli, I was delighted to see that Julie Powell’s book, Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen, is available for pre-order from Amazon. Go Julie! As a longtime reader of the great Julie/Julia Project, I’m, well, salivating in anticipation of having the chance to go through the experiment again with our fearless guide.

QTN™: Dogfish Head Midas Touch

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 27 Jun 2005 01:04:25 GMT

It’s been far too long since I’ve posted beer tasting notes; a reflection, I think, on the limited availability of off-the-wall beers in this little corner of the Boston suburbs, if not on my actual consumption. So it’s with pleasure that I renew the series with notes on the Dogfish Head Midas Touch Golden Elixir.

The backstory of this beer is almost reward enough: analyzing the residues found in drinking vessels in a Minoan grave site, archaeologists found they comprised a mix of grape wine, barley beer and honey mead. Dogfish Head took the finding and ran with it, creating a barley-based beer in which the yeast was fed with honey and Muscat grapes, with a little saffron added for color and bitterness. But the taste of the beer is almost as complex as its origin. Starting with a nose a bit like a Duvel (or other golden Belgian ale), the taste is sweet without a hint of the complex esters (banana or bread flavors) normally found in more complex ales. But a second after the first swallow, you get the part that balances the sweetness: the 9% ABV that provides the counterpoint to the up-front sweetness. There is a little bit of dry-cracker taste, as with more expensive wines made with méthode champenoise, providing the other counterpoint to the honey flavor.

This is one sophisticated beer. And as the alcohol content suggests, it should be drunk accordingly: in small quantities, preferably with friends about with whom you can share your reactions.

Potboiler

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 14 Mar 2005 18:13:15 GMT

To paraphrase something that Fury wrote this weekend: if there is anything more exciting than boiled dinner, it’s making boiled dinner; and if there is anything more exciting than making boiled dinner, it’s blogging about making boiled dinner. “Lucky you!”

Ah, but the line between New England boiled dinner and a celebratory corned beef and cabbage is very fine—mostly it depends on the presence or absence of horseradish and turnips, apparently. And on the weekend before St. Patrick’s Day, we decided to cheerily conflate the two. So, having packed Lisa and her mom off to the New England Flower Show, I started getting things ready.

I had a few other things I wanted to cook at the same time. We had roasted a chicken the previous night, and I wanted to get rid of its carcass (plus the other two carcasses in the freezer) by making stock. Also, Lisa’s dad had put in a request for Boston brown bread, which turns out to be made by steam-cooking a can filled with batter consisting of graham flour, cornmeal, and rye flour (mixed with buttermilk, molasses and baking soda) for several hours. So that turned out to be three large stockpots atop a stove that could really only comfortably fit two.

I started the stock first (dead easy, incidentally: tie a carrot, several parsley stems, a celery stalk, and bay leaf together with cooking twine; add an onion in large chunks; throw in whatever chicken bones and odd scraps you have handy; cover with water; simmer for several hours, skimming as you go; remove the solids and simmer a little longer to concentrate the stock and skim off any remaining fat) and then got the bread steaming. Somewhat to my surprise, the bread came out beautifully, sliding out of its can (I used a butttered pannetone mold covered with foil) with no resistance, and just needing a few minutes in a 350º oven to firm up the sticky top.

So that was one big boiling pot off the stove, leaving enough room to start the boiled dinner. Which was good, since the recipe I consulted suggested simmering the corned beef for five hours and it was almost 1 pm. I plopped two corned beef briskets (thank you, Costco, for cheap meat) and their spice packets in a big stockpot, covered with water, and brought the thing to a boil, then backed it down to a simmer. And that’s all I really did, except for pouring a can of Guinness into the pot an hour in.

The beautiful things about the meal were: 1) the boiling. On a wetly snowy winter day, as many things should be boiled as possible; 2) the lack of interference needed. I was able (with Lisa’s dad’s assistance) to remove a door that normally goes sticky in summertime when it swells with humidity and get the bare wood top and bottom of the door painted, hopefully mitigating the problem, while the corned beef (and my stock) simmered; 3) the flavor. The vegetables, added in the last hour or so, were good, but the corned beef was spectacular—falling-apart moist and flavorful without being overly salty. And Lisa declared the Boston brown bread her new favorite.

Baconblog

Tim Jarrett — Tue, 22 Feb 2005 19:44:55 GMT

Joho the Blog: Bacon rulz (not). Thanks to the irascible and vegetarian Doc Weinberger for pointing to the fabulous Bacontarian blog. Latest posting is about the dilemma of referring to bacon as a “side dish”; one of the commenters says, “I think we should start a movement to have a ‘side of bacon’ ordered at a restaurant refer to an entire side of bacon, or half a pork belly minus the ribs.” Right on.

Road trip

Tim Jarrett — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 19:33:32 GMT

Boston.com: This brewer's sounds and suds are sweet. McNeill’s Brewery in Brattleboro sounds like a good post-skiing destination, assuming you can keep your muscles loose in the car long enough to get there.

Valentine’s Day = Duck

Tim Jarrett — Tue, 15 Feb 2005 05:49:34 GMT

Or at least it has for us for the past eight years. I proposed to Lisa eight years ago after a meal of duck and angel-food cake. This year the variation was in the sauce, and the source of the duck. The duck breasts were from Wilson Farm (I think technically from Maple Leaf Farms), and the sauce was a blood orange sauce courtesy of the Boston Globe. I think the blackberry and maple sauce was better, but Lisa really liked the blood orange sauce. So now we have options. And, once again, we learned that angel food cake from scratch, while romantic, loses something compared to the kind out of the box.

Winter foodathon

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 24 Jan 2005 05:48:09 GMT

I hinted in the last post that I would be cooking today. In fact, the winter foodathon actually started earlier this week. The first salvo was a butternut squash soup. We haven’t done a lot of squash stuff generally—but this was fabulous. Roast a squash split in half, cook onions and ginger in butter, add squash and broth and cook, puree, add more butter, serve. Wow.

I actually made bread on Friday, albeit in a microwave. Whaa…? you cry. Yep. My working recipe was from James Beard, but most of the ones that Google finds are pretty close.

Saturday was a no-cooking day. We did go to the Beer Summit—despite the impending snowstorm—and made a couple of discoveries. To wit: Never complain to a brewfest volunteer that a keg is skunked (they can’t do anything about it); always seek out the tables manned by people from the brewery; and when you’re tired of high-octane American brews, their cousins from the continent will provide some well needed balance. For instance, this jewel—Kriek de Ranke, which includes yeast strains that came from Rodenbach; the Jopen Koyt Gruit Beer, hopless but spectacular; the Paulaner Salvador doppelbock, always a favorite; the Moretti La Rossa, an unexpected Italian delight; North Coast’s Old Stock Ale, just about a dead ringer for Thomas Hardy’s Ale; and the various offerings of the Konigshaven brewery, including a winter-ale spiced Quadrupel which became a favorite of our crowd. Never fear: the samples were all small, and the long blizzardly walk back to the T plus the ride back to Alewife were sufficient to strike sobriety into anyone’s heart prior to the short drive back home.

Today: snow—as discussed in the previous post—and food. Pancakes and bacon in the morning. Pancakes reminded me that I need to level our stove—instead of round pancakes, I got oblongs because of the slight front to back tilt—and change our baking powder, which we’ve had for six years and appears to have gone stale, accounting for our flat rubbery pancakes. Ah well, the coffee and bacon were good. Lunch was skipped in favor of dinner—homemade pappardelle with a Renaissance inspired ragú made with beef, onion, cinnamon, black pepper, and broth. And we haven’t seen the last of the snow yet. Tomorrow: broccoli risotto, probably, and a roast chicken, and… and maybe a thaw before I gain twenty pounds.

Ah well. It beats the blizzard of 1996, when my housemates and I found that the foods that lingered were year-old horrible brews from departed friends (the “cider” in particular was pure nasty) and a massive bowl of handmade whipped cream.

To drive the cold winter away

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 19 Jan 2005 18:36:15 GMT

There’s something about cold winter days that makes me yearn for a good, strong, flavorful beer. (Of course, I feel that way on cool spring and autumn days, too, but work with me on this for a second.) The fine folks at BeerSummit.com are catering to that with a beery Winter Jubilee at which I will be tasting from a range of beers from over 30 brewers, including some famous and less famous Belgian, English and American producers. The producers wisely recommend not driving to the event, as none of the beers served will be less than 7% ABV.

Tip o’ the hat to Niall for finding this gem. I’ll report my observations sometime this coming weekend, after we find our way home.