Booze of the Month! – October

October 29, 2010 • Booze of the Month • by
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all baby. State fair, kickball championship, leaves falling, and pumpkins in my beer. Dogfish Head, an experimental and sadly overpriced brewer from Delaware, has cooked up this falls top Pumpkin Beer. I’ve been around the pumpkin brew block. I’ve tasted the weak, the bitter, the strong, the poor, and the ugly. After my extensive research I could probably hail 6 or 7 worthy PB’s, but Dogfish’s Punkin take’s the cake (or should I say pie).Here we go:

Dogfish Head Punkin Ale

Product Details: Brewed in Milton, DE. Established 1995. 7.0% Alcohol.

Appearance: Bright amber orange with a light orange, frothy head.

Aroma: Not as pungent as a slice of pumpkin pie, but it’s easy to detect cinnamon, cloves, malt, and caramel. Similar to a warm mug of cider.

Taste: Oooo, the good part. The first sip is brash, but after the second and third you start to realize just how complex butyet balanced this beer is. The first sip is just your tastebuds waking up to the sensation of roasted malts, cookie spices, and sweet brown sugar. That may make this beer sound more like dessert than a craft brew, but it’s incredibly light and crisp like biting into an ice-cold apple. Again, it really reminds me of a great cup of cider more than a beer (and that’s not a bad thing at all). Another note of craftsmanship is the lack of a bitter or clawing aftertaste often found in rich, spiced ales. This brewmaster knows his stuff.

Food Pairings: I’m going to have to side with nothing on this one. Dessert seems like the obvious choice, and I hope someone can prove me wrong, but it’s sweet on sweet and that’s too much of a good thing. Have this solo dolo at the end of a long day while you work away in the kitchen, on the computer, watching the Rangers get manhandled by SF or just lounging in the 90 degree NC fall. Maybe a pretzel, actually.

Price: Here’s the sad part: $9 for 4! That’s just mean. The disappointment is like someone giving you an entire pillow case full of candy only to find out it’s full of Necco Wafers. Nooo! I have trouble bringing myself to purchase a 6 pack over $8 let alone a 4 pack, c’mon!

Overall: I’ve said my peace, this ish is good and you should really try it while it’s still in season. All you have to do is rent out your room, sell a kidney, maybe toss out a few of your moral principles and you’ll be swimming in punkins. Happy Halloween!

p.s. If you happen to observe a sailor cursing like he’s on shore leave being followed by an obviously embarrassed penguin make sure you say hi.

BOTM Sneak Peak

October 28, 2010 • Booze of the Month, Product • by
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alloween is only a couple days away, so I thought I’d give you a sneak peak of Octobers Booze of the Month. It should be posted Friday morning, just in time for you all to run to the store and grab a cool dozen or more to guzzle down in spooky splendor. Meet you back here on Friday dudes.

Peperonata

October 26, 2010 • Locations, Product, Recipes • by
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iao tutti. Remember the kaleidoscope of peppers I found at the Farmers Market last week? The selection was inspiring: big, small, hot, sweet, green, yellow, red, purple, transluscent!? Spread across the butchers block, the peppers resembled a new set of oil paints: bright, glossy, unhindered yet awaiting transformation. After trying my damndest to capture each peppers specific character like Edward Weston, I gave up my photographic ambitions for my culinary. Back to my roots.

Southern Italians are crafty folk. While the rich aristocrats of the North dined on Tortellini pies, braised veal shanks, and lactic desserts the people of il Mizzogiorno were foraging the earth for any morsel they could scratch up. Leaving their prized livestock for special occasions, Southern Italians developed a rich vegetarian diet based on all the sun-drenched earth had to offer. Not because it was kitsch, not to prove a point, because it was there. It’s all they had.

When the earth handed them Peppers, they made Peperonata. This seemingly simple dish can stand alone as an antipasto, a light lunch, a contorni served along meat and fish, or lengthen with eggs, dough, or batters into a dozen other options. The recipe below is similar to one my family’s been making for years, possibly the original inspiration for Vesta:

Peperonata

6-7 Various Peppers (anything will work, be creative)

1 Large Red Onion, Sliced Thin

1 Garlic Clove

1 tsp Dried Oregano

Salt, Pepper, Olive Oil

To prep your peppers, cut the tops off, rip out the seeds (save if you want to plant them for next year) and cut them into any shape you prefer. Long spears or rings work best I think.

Thinly slice your garlic and add to a hot pan with 3-4 tbs of good Olive Oil. Lightly brown the garlic and add your thinly sliced Onion. Do not salt the onions yet or they will exude their liquid and turn into a soupy mess. As the onions begin to caramelize add your oregano (I’ve got this summers harvest drying above the stove which makes for easy sprinkling) along with salt and pepper to taste.

Finally, once the onions have turned translucent and lightly golden, add all of your peppers and toss once. WALK AWAY. What’s most important now is allowing the peppers to develop a crust before tossing again, otherwise (like the onions) they’ll begin to fall apart and go too limp.

When you can no longer hear the hiss of the peppers sizzling, toss once more and allow to caramelize until just crispy on the sides but still holding the slightest crunch in the middle. The peppers should be in the pan a total of 4-5 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste and remove.

What’s beautiful about this dish is the way the ingredients sing. It’s an aria, a harmonic arrangement of textures and aromas perfectly in tune with one another. The onions bring out the sweetness of the peppers, the garlic and oregano adding the bass and backbone, and the olive oil playing the role of il maestro holding the whole ensemble together. It may sound a bit over dramatic, but when years of heritage and tradition unfold into a dish so instinctual and “right” you cannot help but wax poetic. Buonappetito.

Pumpkins and Nuts

October 21, 2010 • Locations, Product • by
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f you grow vegetables often or ever pay attention at the grocery store, you may notice that the growing season yields more than just one type of fruit
per plant.

In the early summer thru July plants are still young and vibrant, shooting off new growth and young fruits. These small, delicate whatevertheymaybe’s are usually small, tender, and very sweet. As the plants continue to mature and their limbs stiffen they start to produce larger, richer fruit of a new consistancy and flavor. Sometimes good, sometimes bad.

Take the bitter melon above for instance. The farmers market has a few asian produce tables now sporting a wide variety of greens, fruits, flowers, and veggies like the bitter melon. In the beginning of summer thru June or July these intimidating little fellas are thin, tender, and lacking almost any seeds at all. The ones pictured above, however, are from the end of the season: much larger, thick skinned, and have fully developed seed pockets.

What the hell am I rambling on about this for? BECAUSE (in a whiny kid voice) the Farmers Market is jam-packed with the seasons last ginormous summer fruits, but more importantly it’s full of Fall’s young newcomers. Long story short: get to the farmers market because the peppers and apples are surreal. Here’s a look at some other banging products being served up:

Said peppers, with colors so vibrant Monet would eat his fancy French beret in disbelief.

The last of the peaches. They’re incredibly over ripe but would make for killer pies or jam.

More apples than Japanese tourists in Florence. The Honeycrisps are my go to, humungous and extra crunchy.

Raw NC Peanuts just waiting to be fried, roasted, boiled, or steamed.

Put your hands together and you’ve got King Apples dipped in Peanut Butter. Kaploosh.

And you know I’m crazy for some Chestnuts. You could even say I’m…crazy-go-nuts…(bad-dum ching). Smaller and fuzzier than their Italian cousins, these NC chestnuts rivaled any I’ve ever had and cooked faster too.

And last but not least, PUMPKINS! I kid you not when I exclaim we humans were outnumbered 3-1 by pumpkins at the market. If they had managed to hyper-evolve, grow legs, and learn karate we would have been shit out of luck. Some of them were large enough to fit both of my nephews in at once, hell, Megs probably could have fit into some of those in the back.

Happy grazing Raleighites. Stay tuned next week for a couple recipes featuring Fall’s newest gifts.

NC State Fair

October 18, 2010 • Locations • by
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am just the worst. 2 weeks without a single post, what a dick! You’re too good for that and our relationship is too strong, too intimate to let some silly “job” get in the way. So please, take the thousands of calories I consumed to complete this post as my solemn apology.

The NC State Fair is a mysterious beast. In the past (and by past I mean high school) the fair was nothing more than an excuse to score some grab-ass on a spinning ride or two and fill our young, high-metabolism bodies with the oiliest of fried goodies. That’s not a bad thing, but with age comes a sense of respect (so I hear) and a few of us “grown ups” stormed the fairgrounds in hopes of good eats, good rides, and a victorious last hurrah with one of Raleighwoods most charming individuals: Mr. Andy Hamilton. It was the drummer of famed rock band Rockamole’s last night out in our humble city of oaks before moving to Boston and we had to make it something to remember. Cue the State Fair:

The shear scale of the fair this year was astounding.

I always thought of the rides as the Fair’s real highlights, but the food was the obvious star this time around. There was atleast one fried dough or funnel cake station posted next to each ride. What’s a roller coaster ride without a 1lb elephant ear trying to inch it’s way back up?

Meat in tube form is always a hot seller at public events.

We found an assortment of Polish sausages, Italian, German, and most terrifying: the dreaded footlong Carolina Red Hot smothered in chilli and cheese. Andy still sports his high school physique so he dived in head first. (look at Bash staring his dog down in the back, creeper).

An interesting find and an apparent staple: Ostrich Burgers and Ostrich Cheese Steak Sandwiches. Next time my proto-feathery friend.

I came to the fair with one thing in mind: Smoked Turkey Leg. I hate turkey, especially uber dry turkey breast, but there’s nothing quite like a smoked turkey leg at the fair. It’s rich, crunchy, moist, and big enough to reignite 10,000 years of carnivorous instinct. A+.

As if we weren’t fat enough, why not fry a candy bar or Reeses? I’m not knocking it, I’m just gonna say if your foot falls off after a couple rounds of deep fried twinkies don’t be surprised.

Jonathan tried a fried snickers and left the fair with a limp. Fact.

The Ring of Fire had some folks holding their mouths and running to the closest stall upon exiting. I hear ya dude.

Speaking of things coming back up, the largest food attraction this year goes to the Krispy Kreme Burger. To assemble: take one KK glazed doughnut, top with a luke warm cafeteria style burger patty, a rubbery slice of processed cheese, and finally one more doughnut to hold things together. Dead yet? Jonathan had one of these too…that limps starting to look worse dude?!

My turkey leg was holding the fort down, but Megs and I couldn’t resist the NC classic country ham biscuit. So salty and buttery, they need to serve it with a strong IPA.

Another A+ was the kettle corn. Megs is obsessed with the stuff. Salty, Sweet, and hot right out of the kettle our team killed this giant bag off in about 30 minutes.

The livestock auctions are a huge part of the State Fair and give great testimony to the skill and time our state’s farmers devote to raising honorable livestock. What’s not honorable is the stench of a steel airplane hanger full of steaming cattle after a 90 degree day. I know shit stinks, but figure something out, there’s got to be a red neck engineer around here somewhere.

The last food purchase was the most disappointing: fried mac n cheese. What we hoped would be golden nuggets of stringy, molten mac n cheese were sad, pre-frozen triangles of bright-orange goo. Bash said it best stating “I don’t want to eat anymore, but they’re a $1 a piece…damn it.”

As if Raleigh knew how much it would miss Andy, we were met with a tremendous firework show as we walked to our car. Andy, smiling back in a glass-cage of emotion, led us on to a night of fine brews, righteous 80′s covers, and a heart-string pulling goodbye.

We’ll miss you Sandyman, You and Emily both, and I hope Boston makes you look and feel as jolly as the guy above. That’s how I’ll look when Megs and I come to visit early next year, and then I’ll look like the other guy behind him on the flight home, ha!

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