Corn and Black Bean Enchiladas with Chipotle Stout Red Sauce Let’s say you had someone coming over for dinner. This is a person you like, a person that happened to be vegan. But for you, that’s not a big deal. You’ve got this. Except you don’t. Because salad is boring, and pasta is predictable. You… Read More
Stout Brined Pan Seared Flank Steak with Sage Chimichurri I’m going to tell you why I’m not a good person, at least not at first. I was late a few days ago, trying to get to a place that had me stress-rushing but wasn’t important enough to remember now, three days later. The car in front… Read More
Oatmeal Stout Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars A few years ago I had to sell a house. One I’d bought when I was probably too young to do so, and the Los Angeles housing market was angry and hostile. It was only about a year before things started to go south and I knew I needed… Read More
It started with a phone call. A question. Would I be interested in teaming up with Fort George Brewery out of Astoria, Oregon to brew a beer for this years Willamette Week’s Beer Pro/Am in Portland, Oregon? Of course I would, what kind of questions is that? I’d love to, not-be-able-to-sleep thrilled to. First step: deciding what I… Read More
Stout Braised Pork and Black Bean Empanadas The first thing you notice about the owners of Bogota Beer Company is how much they care. About each other, about the people who work for them, about the brand and every detail of it. It conveys so strong, the minute they picked me up from an airport… Read More
Crispy Honey Porter Sticky Chicken Wings This was version 6 of this recipe. Usually, it doesn’t take me that long to get a recipe right. More often than not, I get it on the first try, maybe a few small tweeks, but this one took some trail and a lot of error. None of the… Read More
One Bowl Chocolate Stout Loaf Cake with Blackberry Frosting The first time I was paid to write a story it was about gang members. Gang members who are also bakers. It was a story I’d pitched to a start up emagazine that asked for submissions and received thousands. I wanted to talk about Homeboy Industries,… Read More
Slow Cooker Honey Chili Pulled Beer Chicken Sliders This is a sign. It’s fall. I realize that the calendar technically disagrees with me, but the calendar is wrong. Often. Calendars will frequently tell you that the week starts on Sunday, and that Summer starts the end of June. But according to our guts, the week begins on Monday,… Read More
Maybe it’s because I’m writing this from 30,000 feet above Houston, Texas, enroute to South America, that I feel compelled to tell you that American Barbecue has nothing to do with your backyard grill. Sure there are similarities, the flames, the metal grates, the brave souls with large metal cooking implements poking at the meat from… Read More
Grilled Stout Jamaican Jerk There is a magic in an old recipe. In a method of preparing food with an origin that’s hard to trace. Jerk meat has been a staple in Jamaica for centuries, but follow the history through a labyrinth of poorly kept records and unsettling invasions of outsiders, it’s hard to get a… Read More
Chocolate Stout Frapp-Brew-ccino There is a point in every day that the clock tips from coffee-drinking hour to beer-consumption o’clock. It’s a gradual transition, the coffee cravings are slowly pushed aside by your desire for a beer that’s beckoning you from the fridge. In the middle of these two worlds is a bit of a beverage… Read More
Chocolate Stout & Blackberry Shortcakes You and I, we have a very odd relationship. I tell you stories, like that time I almost died in Morocco, or about that time I was asked to do porn. I give you recipes that I hope you like, and answer your question about beer and how to get… Read More
The first time I made a cake I did everything wrong. I didn’t care what the directions said, I was going to do it my way, because that made way more sense. I was just going to add all the ingredients at once, because that saves time. And the greasing and flouring of the… Read More
Bourbon Stout Cherries We would love to pretend like barrel aged beer is something a trend setting, bearded, flannel wearing brewer invented just a handful of years ago, igniting a craft beer phenomenon that’s taken over the bottle shops. But that’s not the case. In the dawn of civilization, when beer and humanity where in their… Read More
Chocolate Stout S’Mores Icebox Pie: no bake, ten minutes prep. I had a conversation with a group of brewers the other day about water, a conversation that reminded me of what is at the heart of most brewers. They were concerned about how much water the beer industry uses in the midst of a drought.… Read More
Honey Balsamic Beer Glazed Shrimp Skewers “What’s your favorite beer?” It’s a question get asked all the time. The problem is, it’s a trap. There is no right answer. If I talk about well-distributed beers I love, “Black Butte Porter is a great beer,” or “Rogue Hazelnut Brown Nectar is one of my favorite brown… Read More
Stout Beef Barbacoa Tacos The way New Yorkers feel about hot dogs is the way people from LA feel about tacos. While Los Angeles is a very live and let live society, and while you are free to love and believe what you want as long as you aren’t hurting anyone, we do not… Read More
Blackberry Stout Mini Pies with Beer Whipped Cream You fall in love with beer the way you fall in love with music. Good music, the kind that gets into your bones and moves your soul, the kind you can’t explain to someone who frowns when they hear the same opening chord that makes you giddy.… Read More