Eater is like Gawker.. but for food! And there’s an endless supply of material because chefs tend to be profane and get drunk when surrounded by sharp objects. While restaurateurs are bet-the-house gamblers with outsize egos who tend to attract celebrity partners with even bigger egos.
It all makes for juicy stuff… like the dustup between David Chang and Chipotle founder Steve Ells this week on Eater. Check it out!
Purty no, tasty yes: chili beans
Not trying to be Snow’s, just be in the ballpark. These chili beans are very easy and mighty good with most any grilled or barbecued meat. Makes a whole mess of beans, enough to serve 16-20. If you like, divide in half and freeze one portion for later.
Ingredients:
1 lb dried pinto beans
Water
¼ c or more bacon drippings, bacon ends, bits of last week’s brisket etc.
2 T mild chili powder (I used Tone brand*)
1 ½ t Kosher salt
Is this your chili powder, Kerry?
Method: Dump beans in a very large pot, wash, check for impurities. (In the old days they used to tell you to look for rocks but I don’t think I’ve ever seen one in a bag of supermarket beans.) Drain, add more water to cover beans by 1 inch. Heat to boiling, covered, then turn off. Allow to sit for 1 hour. Turn on the heat, low, and add bacon fat, chili powder and salt. Cook over very low heat 4-5 hours or until tender all the way through but not quite falling apart. These definitely taste better the next day.
*Kerry at Snow’s told me he gets his beans at Sam’s Club so recipe forensics told me to look for his chili powder there too; I don’t picture him hopping from market to market like a French housewife. Sam’s sells two chili powders by Tone which, according to their website, are only available through Sam’s. There is a dark chili and a mild and, since Kerry is a pleasant and mild-mannered guy, I guessed the latter. In any case, the main factor in his great beans is the fat which he probably gets for very a good price from his meat supplier.
Daniel Berman, proprietor of the FUSSYlittleBLOG, is a fellow former San Franciscan and former ad guy who loves good food in all his forms. In a twist of fate, he found himself in Albany, NY some years ago and discovered just as I did that good food is not all that easy to come by in these parts. Inevitably, we found each other and started comparing notes.
While I’ve pretty much thrown up my hands at getting acceptable local BBQ or an ethnic meal that isn’t Italian, Daniel continues to tilt at windmills in his always entertaining blog. The mission statement: “It occurred to me, there may be a way to change people’s perception about food. If I can show people what good food is, in all of its forms. If I can point out why some fancier things are overrated. If I can demonstrate that great food doesn’t need to be expensive. Maybe, just maybe, I can get more people to care about really good food.” Check it out.
Andrea Nguyen of Viet World Kitchen is a great writer as well as cook, and she has the curiosity to dig deep into the traditions and byways of Vietnamese cuisine. I don’t agree her on everything–her do chua is too sweet, and a bahn mi roll definitely needs rice flour in it–but this is a great starting point for your own Viet food explorations.
The blog is getting a little promotional these days with cookbook giveaways and what-not, so I recommend you bookmark the recipe index. Actually, start with this article–a great recipe and a history lesson rolled into one.
4 oz. tasters at Green Flash Brewery
Mike Hinkley, founder and CEO of Green Flash Brewery in San Diego, is a genial guy. But when I asked him how someone might make an easy transition from drinking Coors or Bud to his brews, given that there are other far more approachable “craft” beers around, I think I got his dander up just a bit.
Green Flash CEO/founder Mike Hinkley
“It never dawned on us to make something already being made,” he responded emphatically. “This brewery exists to make our beer.” By which he means not only the foundation West Coast—on which he holds the trademark, so “West Coast style IPA” and “West Coast IPA” are one and the same—but a variety of quirky brews ranging from pale ales to double stouts, devised through his collaboration with brewmaster Mike Silva.
As proof Mike places in front of me two glasses. Into one he pours West Coast IPA and into the other Rayon Vert—“Green Flash” in French. Rayon Vert, he explains, is “a time travel beer. Imagine you are drinking in a Belgian Village pre-World War II. Those breweries made one beer at a time that was suitable for the occasion and fit the people and their spirit.” Rayon Vert is, to Mike’s perspective, what West Coast IPA would taste like if it were made by that prewar brewer, down to the period-correct wild yeast with its distinctive “barnyard taste”.
Tasting Room at Green Flash looks out into the brewery
Belgians are always a bit forward to me with their yeast and their alcohol but this was spectacular. And after a few comparative sips the flavor of the malt become more apparent and you can see how similar the formulas are. I don’t see Anheuser Busch, or even Sierra Nevada or Samuel Adams, taking on a project like this. (By the way, this is a taste experience you can enjoy yourself because both Rayon Vert and West Coast IPA are distributed nationally in the bottle. Just be sure to pour both beers into glasses and give them a few minutes to open up before tasting.)
“We want you to wonder about the beer, not feel comfortable with it,” Mike continues. “It’s an adventure and discovery into what craft beer can be—not a perfect example of a beer that already exists. Green Flash is an intellectual, interactive experience. We want you to think about the beer.”
To this end the tasting room is organized with tables facing the brewery so customers can see “our passion, our commitment, our investment and how hard we are working.” Every detail is carefully monitored—from the rotating selection of food trucks that provide sustenance on the patio to the massive overstaffing of the bar so even on a busy night “you can have a five minute conversation about beer with the bartender.”
“Clean in Place” system at Green Flash
We tour the brewery, and my attention is quickly drawn to a network of hoses at the keg filling station. This is part of an intricate CIP (or Clean inPlace) setup which is photographed by virtually every competitive brewer who visits. (Unlike software or pharmaceutical companies, brewers love to reveal their trade secrets with the idea the market is plenty big for everyone.) CIP is a system of pipes and hoses and nozzles running throughout the plant which will deliver exactly the right chemical and rinse to easily clean kegs and other equipment with a minimum of supplies and water and time out of production. It’s one of many well-engineered processes in a facility that was custom-designed by Mueller for Green Flash.
This Hops Elevator will lift 500 lbs. of dried hops to the top of the tank… exactly the quantity required for Green Flash’s 9.5% ABV Palate Wrecker.
Green Flash has a 50 barrel brew house which is capable of 400 barrels a day, but is limited by the sixteen 250 barrel fermenters. Once a few more conditioning tanks are installed, the brewery will be at full capacity of 100,000 barrels per year assuming a 5 day a week, 24 hour a day schedule. They moved to their new location in June 2010 from another brewery where they’d operated since 2002 producing 50 barrels per day. A picture of that old brewery hangs on the wall—“the Ford pickup that paid for the Ferrari”.
Green Flash has also acquired a 9-acre Virginia Beach, VA location where he basically plans to replicate the San Diego Facility. It will save on freight, reduce environmental impact, and get beer to market faster in the east coast market where Mike already sells 35-40% of his product. He emphasizes that “this will be a San Diego brewery in Virginia beach, not an east coast style beer.”
These whiskey barrels are aging what will one day become 2-year-old Silva Stout.
I came to Green Flash on a personal voyage of discovery which began when I relocated to upstate New York and found myself with virtually unlimited access to fine IPAs in the keg. West Coast IPA distinguished itself and became my preference for its perfect balance of a citrus nose and the bitterness of aggressive hopping offset by the brassy sweetness of well-conditioned malts.
I was pleased to learn the personality of West Coast is no accident but is part of a relentless quest for beer individuality. I used the word “balance” above and that’s really what it’s all about. Green Flash takes it out on a limb in an extreme direction, like a surfer on a huge wave or a jazz musician with an outrageous riff, then somehow finds a way to bring it home in a way that leaves you feeling exhilarated.
The amazing Candela, a beer that tastes like a good cigar.
Another example I tasted on this trip was Imperial Red Rye, part of the Hop Odyssey series in which “we take hops in a bunch of different directions”. And I finished with Candela, a collaboration with Cigar City in Tampa Bay, FL. Candela means “green cigar” so the wordsmiths are at it again. This complex dark ale, accented with cedar spirals, really does taste like a fine cigar smokes. A very small run was made for the Great American Beer Festival and is only available in the tasting room (no growler fills at any price). There’s still about half the run left, so I guess I will have to schedule a return trip.
Apa. Faine. Sare. means “Water. Flour. Salt” in Romanian and one of the pleasures of this blog is accessing it in Chrome and watching Google’s charmingly awkward attempts at translation. Codutra, the proprietress of the Romanian bread blog, is also a regular contributor on The Fresh Loaf.
Trained as an architect, she discovered artisanal baking and wild yeast and fell in love; last I heard she was about to begin an apprenticeship in the U.K. Great bread photography and great writing about bread. Check it out.
Bing is King… from Frog Hollow Farm
These organic beauties showed up Friday night and were promptly devoured. Each one perfectly sweet and as big as your head (assuming you’re a woodcock that is). Get your own Bing Cherries here.
Caesar Salad
You really can’t make an authentic Caesar Salad without breaking (raw) eggs. Use a sous vide setup to heat through to 140 degrees if you have any health concerns. 8 side salad servings.
Ingredients:
2 heads romaine, washed and torn into bite-size pieces
3 salted anchovy fillets (the kind that come packed in oil in a can or jar)*
1/2 t Kosher salt
1/4 t ground pepper
1/4 t powdered dry mustard
1 large egg, raw or coddled, approx. 1/4 c
1/4 c grated parmesan plus a couple spoonfuls for finishing
1/4 c good olive oil
2 T fresh lemon juice
Garlic croutons
Method: mash the anchovies in the bottom of a wooden salad bowl that has been rubbed with garlic. (If using a glass or metal bowl, add a bit of chopped garlic.) Add the egg and beat with a fork. Add other dressing ingredients and beat until thoroughly combined; taste and add a bit more oil or lemon juice as required. Mix thoroughly with romaine. Add 1/2 c garlic croutons and sprinkle on some more parm before serving.
*If you hate anchovies or don’t have any, substitute a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce.
Very Good Recipes is an aggregator that gathers recipes from food blogs all over the world. The international focus is what makes it great… an example being the okra recipes. (Burnt My Fingers is on page 2.)
To quote the proprietor, Stephane Gigandet, “There’s nothing as bland as a huge database of recipes without soul and personality: it’s missing salt and spices! On Very Good Recipes, all the listed recipes are original recipes imagined and cooked by passionate bloggers, photographed like top models, written with passion and humor, and proudly shared online.” Check it out.
