The Cookthrough Begins October 28, 2008
Posted by pinchaque in 101 Things, Cooking, Food.Tags: 101things, Cooking, Food, redsage
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We’ve had a couple of favorite recipes in Red Sage over the years–Chicken Poblano Pesto Quesadillas and the chili recipe. But like many of our cookbooks we haven’t fully explored it’s wonderous depths. Plus, every time we open it we wonder aloud “why haven’t we made that recipe yet?” Thus it becomes my cookbook of choice for the fabled cookbook cookthrough of my 101 things list.
Little did I realize at the outset that it has 114 recipes therein, which means it needs to outpace my 101 things effort. Plus several of the ingredients are hard to find (huitlacoche) or downright strange (softshell crabs). Nevertheless I embrace the challenge and will put forth a good effort at reasonable interpretations of the recipes.
First up:
- Roasted Loin of Pork with Fig and Chipotle Stuffing
- Warm Maryland Spinach and Bacon Salad
- Pumpkin Pie with Cinnamon-Vanilla Crust
I cheated on the pumpkin pie–Amanda was the baker–but I offered moral support so that counts. Plus I was drunk on my American beer challenge so I cant remember too much. But I DO recall that the meal was very tasty. The pork roast was sweet and just mildly spicy. The fig seeds added just a bit of crunch. The salad had a fair amount of vinegar so it was sharp, but that was balanced well with the bacon and parmesan cheese.
For the pumpkin pie Amanda mercifully reduced the amount of butter by half and also used a fresh pumpkin. We’d never cooked pumpkin from scratch before, so that was fun and tasted great. Usually I’m not a pumpkin pie fan but this was excellent. So excellent that we bought another one and made pumpkin soup the next week.
Anyway, 3 out of 114 recipes means we’re 2.63% done. It’s going to be quite a journey!
The Great American Beer Challenge October 23, 2008
Posted by pinchaque in Adventures in Beer.Tags: beer, lager-showdown
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I was recently accused of being unamerican. It was not because I love foreign films or dislike baseball (although both of these are true). It was because I had never had a Coors. Here I am enjoying some of the best beers of the world in San Diego, planning a beer tour of Belgium, and yet I haven’t had some of the most prevalent beers in the US!
After years of saying disparaging things about the great American lager, I figured it was time to delve into their shadow-world and see what I was missing. Every since the cola taste tests of my youth I’ve had a predisposition towards lining up unknown glasses of labeled liquid and trying to discern the differences. So this was the obvious choice: gather together the big-name lagers and see which one is best. Amanda was so horrified by the idea that she volunteered to be the beer pourer.
I then set about my quest of gathering together the candidate beers, and found eight good candidates: Budweiser, Coors, Miller Genuine Draft, Busch, Mickey’s, Olde English 800, Rolling Rock, and Pabst Blue Ribbon.
It was at this point I realized that my beer challenge was going to bigger than just the US. What about the Stella Artois, Red Stripes, and Sapporos of this world? Clearly this was not a single taste test anymore, but a full-blown international bracket competition. I decided to do a few different regional tests–one for the US, another for Europe, Latin America, Asia, etc–and then have a final run-off. I’ll spend the next few weeks finding these beers and have the tests when I feel like I have enough for the region.
Anyway, on an auspicious Sunday afternoon (cheap beer being a football tradition) Amanda opened the cans of Great US Lager and poured me a tray of golden bubbly goodness.
And then I set about drinking. A couple seemed “smooth, creamy”. Others were “rich, bad flavor” or “bitter lemon aftertaste”. In the end there were only a couple I thought were decent enough to drink, and a couple that I really though were bad. So when all was said and done here was the final ranking:
- Mickey’s
- Olde English 800
- Coors
- Pabst Blue Ribbon
- Budweiser
- Miller Genuine Draft
- Busch
- Rolling Rock
Mickey’s and Olde English were decently malty and hoppy. They had more flavor, I think they were ales anyway, so I somewhat discount them. Coors and PBR, then, were the winners among the lagers and make it to the next round. Busch and Rolling Rock were truly bad. I had higher hopes for MGD, but in the end it just didn’t taste good. Budweiser was utterly unremarkable.
While I finished up the winners, I managed to do some voting. I also started my first recipe in my cookbook cookthrough, but that’s a subject for another post.
Kittens Kittens Everywhere! October 19, 2008
Posted by pinchaque in Cats.Tags: Cats
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After much planning and deliberation we have now successfully adopted two adorable kittens!
Athena is a white Siamese girl, and Zephyr is a black medium-haired boy. Both are shelter cats, adopted from the local pet store.
It was quite an ordeal getting these two. We definitely wanted to adopt shelter pets to support those great organizations that help unwanted animals. However, the first shelter we went to wanted to do a house visit to make sure our condo was suitable for kittens. They mentioned another couple who had to keep all their windows closed and vowed to never use their balcony! We eventually gave up on that and went with another organization that still required an extensive application, but at least we could get pre-approved over the phone. At any rate, on Thursday, October 9, 2008, Amanda visited the Pet Smart in UTC and chose two adorable specimens to take home.
Since then our lives have been filled with teaching the cats the word “No”, why they shouldn’t jump on the coffee table while we’re eating, why they shouldn’t fight in bed at 3am when we’re trying to sleep, and cleaning up a minor vomit incident. What surprised us? Athena’s small sneezes turned into a full-on cold that required a vet visit and 3 separate medicines to be given on a regular basis (bubble-gum white syringe squirter, vitamin gel, and eye gel); Zephyr has ear mites!; a pencil is Zephyr’s favorite toy; Athena likes to hide in the okapis.
At this point we’re still getting used to having some new critters in the house, and hoping they don’t harbor permanent hatred towards us for leaving them alone during the day. In spite of some initial trepidation, I think they have grown to like each other and can even be seen sleeping together at times. We’re proud to be new parents and look forward to the upcoming months of kittenhood!
