Having once judged Iron Chef America, I thought this assignment was fun. And a lot of my favorite cooking is based on what’s interesting in the market today, or even what’s in my refrigerator at the moment.
I recently stirred some outrage among Facebook beer lovers by noting that Food and Wine executive wine editor Ray Isle had put the cause of beer and food pairing back 15 years with his comments on five beers picked by the “CBS Early Show.” BridgePort IPA was paired with fried foods, “anything from fried shrimp to French fries.” He typified Full Sail’s Session Lager as a “classic all-purpose beer: chicken, potato chips, pretzels, you name it.” Wow, what an all-rounder; chips and pretzels! But he really stepped in it with Deschutes’ Green Lakes Ale: “I’d drink this with a hamburger; for me, ales like this are ideal burger wines [sic].” He rounded out this full-spectrum menu (for Applebee’s, maybe) with ribs, sausage, and grilled seafood. Read More…
Beer is for dining, finally. Wine has long hogged the dining table, consigning beer to the realm of hot dogs and ballparks. And I suppose if we are being honest, much of the yellow fizzy stuff deserved to be there.
When Cindy West left a career in accounting, she and her husband Dorian spent a year in Paris, where she trained as a chef. Back in her home state of North Carolina, she worked in restaurants until the demanding schedule of a professional chef collided with the needs of young children. The couple bought a farm in Hillsborough, Cindy threw herself into a new self-taught craft, and in time they decided to take their dream and “go pro.” The Wests bought tanks and equipment and turned the old tobacco farm over to the production of… Read More…
Beer and cheese have a lot on common. As Brooklyn Brewing’s brewmaster, Garrett Oliver, is fond of pointing out, cheese is grass processed by microbes in the cow’s stomach, and beer is grass processed by the brewer and the action of a microbe, yeast.
The first problem with butchering pigs is transportation—that is, assuming you don’t live on an actual pig farm, which, admittedly, would be nice.
