Porter Provolone Meatball Subs “I can’t believe you’re not here this weekend,” The bartender at Cowiche Canyon in Yakima, Washington is shaming me for arriving —and leaving—just days before the biggest celebration of beer that this part of the world has to offer. I don’t blame her, really. It doesn’t make a lot of sense… Read More
I just use it as an excuse. The truth is, I only use the cultural intrigue over Oktoberfest as an excuse to do things like this. Because in any reasonable persons mind, this is a bit too far. One too many. Coco Chanel is telling me to take something off before I leave the house… Read More
Loaded Beer and Bacon Corn Chowder Don’t give me that look. I fully aware that in most parts of the world, it’s still summer. There is still frolicking in flip-flops and water activities to be done in the two weeks before fall officially sets in. But where I live, the rain-soaked-90’s-music-mecca, I already have the… Read More
I had a camera in my face and a man four-inches shorter than me asking questions he should know the answers to. This is mid-day TV, I suppose. This is a cooking segment on a Los Angeles NBC station. This is a person unable to let a millisecond of silence creep across your screen. Your… Read More
Beer Battered Cod Po’ Boy Sliders Island beer feels different. The patio is always full of people who don’t just know the beer, they know the story. They know the owners, the jobs they held before the lure of the frustration of brewing on a tiny system in the middle of an ocean pulled them… Read More
Street Fair Grilled Beer Chicken There is a street fair in LA that I used to frequent, with chicken the smells so incredible it will haunt your dreams. I’d rush past the booths of produce, handmade ceramic mugs, the guy trying to get me to vote for his City Council pick, the face painting lady,… Read More
Beer Chili Party Dogs I had a brief 3-year stint as a vegetarian, a decision that made my cooking both better and impossible, but I ultimately wasn’t able to commit. Rules have never really been for me, and I’m an all-in, or all-out type of person. It started when my parents decided to move us all… Read More
20 minute dinner: Chili Beer Chicken Tacos with Pineapple Salsa Stocking a beer tub for a summer party is as important as planning the food. Beer sets a tone and fuels conversation. It’s as much about offering your friends their favorites as it is about introducing them to new ones. When planning the brew menu keep in… Read More
15 Minute Dinner: Beer Steamer Clam Linguini I’m on a layover in Salt Lake right now, in an airport bar resisting the urge to hair-of-the-dog my way out of sleep deprivation and a small sprinkling of a hangover. I’m going to tell you something that will make you think I’m crazy, but I already rolled… Read More
One pot, thirty minutes: Chicken in a Creamy Parmesan Bacon Beer Sauce “It’s because you’re entitled!” I heard the agent at customs yell through the window. She spits her words at an English woman in front of me, waking up the weary crowd in line to enter Stockholm. I was running on the fumes of… Read More
Mushroom Stuffed Hoisin Stout Glazed Chicken Thighs It can be suffocating, really. This urge that has had a hold of me for so many years to please the people. A strangling grip on my throat that kept any words of disappointment from slipping out. Why is this? Why is someone else happiness (especially strangers) prioritized… Read More
Stout French Onion Soup Beef Sandwiches I stick my finger in a hole in the side of the plane the size and shape of a bullet hole. The fact that it’s on the inside wall of the plane, from my seat somewhere in the middle of the tiny South American airliner, that causes the worry.… Read More
Grilled Beer and Brown Sugar Wings Food people mark the seasons in a different way. Sure, plant people mark it by what to plant when, and what to prune, what to seed. Fashion people pin the crap out of new wardrobes. The acting crowd doesn’t have weather seasons, they have “pilot season,” “award season,” “I… Read More
Beer Brined Rotisserie Spiced Chicken Legs I spent a few years resenting chicken. Not chicken in general, beer can chicken. Mostly because when people found out that I cooked with beer for a living, that was the first recipe they thought of. “Like….beer can chicken?” Um, yeah. Or Beer Brined Duck with Stout Pomegranate Sauce… Read More
Bacon Beer Shrimp with Beer Cheese Grits Every few months I find myself here. In a brewery, doing my best to learn how to turn what some see as an ugly industrial space with bad lighting into beautiful photos. Mostly, I’m self-taught photographer. I took classes, read books, watched a decades worth of YouTube videos, sat… Read More
This, in one form or another, is my go-to dinner. It’s a pantry recipe and one of the main reasons I always have coconut milk on hand. I’ve made it with every imaginable protein, and even mushrooms when I’m the mood to only consume plants. I’ve replaced the chard with spinach, arugula, basil and even… Read More
Coq au Ale: Drunk French Chicken I’m in a back room of a brewery a few minutes after delivering the keynote address at a beer conference and I settle in to listen to a presentation about glassware. I’m bracing for the typical arguments, still vaguely uncertain that a “proper” glass has anything more than… Read More
There is a nexus of food and beer that few people see. A commonality that’s shared in a small subset of people devoted to either one or the other, and in even fewer cases, both. At their pinnacles both worlds hold a labyrinth of information that any geek can’t help but get lost in. The… Read More