Stout BBQ Meat Ball Sliders “Do pigs…smell like bacon?’ I’m talking to a Hat Grabber at a party in Vegas. Hat Grabber is shorthand for a very young, very pretty, fairly vacant, girl who does things only she can do without getting punched in the face. This includes things like grabbing the hats of the heads… Read More
Porter Braised Beef Short Ribs Sandwiches with Jalapeño Beer Cheese Sauce #beer #recipe #tailgating On the way to making quick chicken tacos I decided to make a burger. One that takes a couple of hours, one that I decided to call a sandwich instead because I felt like it. One that I decided to… Read More
Stout Mushroom Gravy and Chicken with Beer Biscuits I was once friends with a man who was 100 years old. We had a bit of an unlikely friendship, since he had reached retirement age long before I was even born. He was smart, funny, and seems to have no concept of the age… Read More
I’ve never really been the girl with the sweet tooth. I’ve had a meat tooth. A salt tooth. A beer tooth. I could eat my weight in guacamole or tater tots and it takes a small act of God to get me to stop eating sushi. But sweets don’t give me the mad rabid cravings… Read More
Let’s say you and I get into it over pizza. We hash it out over the best pizza we’ve ever had. We talk about Naples, and LA, and both agree that New York beats Chicago, unless you want a casserole, then Chicago pizza will do. And then I tell you that the best Ray’s… Read More
I’m going to confess to you the least foodie thing I’ve ever done. A few years ago I was in Spain, I’d missed my flight out of Madrid because of an ill-timed visit to the Prado, some churros, and a bullfighting poster and I was stuck for an indefinite amount of time. I wanted some… Read More
I was once invited to leave The Viper Room when the guy I’d been chatting with escalated past douche bag right up into unignorably obnoxious territory and I was swept up in his wake. I not so subtly parted ways with him to cross the street towards The Roxy when he escalated further,”You’re leaving?!… Read More
If there was any doubt about how much I like self-torture, you can defer to this: I’m writing another cookbook. My first cookbook, The Craft Beer Cookbook took four months and most of my sanity to write. And here I am, doing it again. Maybe it’s the post publisher amnesia, maybe it’s that I… Read More
For what seems like decades brewers have been involved in a bit of an ABV arms race to see who can bring to the table the IPA with highest alcohol content. The Top That ABV Game seems to be waining in favor of the Full Flavor Session IPA game, to the relief of lightweights… Read More
Cowboys and brewers aren’t that different. I grew up on a farm, surrounded by cowboys and farms and it didn’t take long to notice how different their “job” was from those 9 to 5’s that other people had. There were no days off, and this had nothing to do with the fact that ranches and… Read More
You need to know about Saisons. One of my favorite summer beer styles, it’s crisp, fruity, nice carbonation and great spice. It’s prefect for those summer cookouts, it pairs well with everything from potato salad to ribs. Saisons is a style that was born out of a farm house in Belgium, and lets be honest… Read More
Let’s just say that you want to dive into the world of craft beer. Or even that you’re curious enough that you just want to know a bit more. Or maybe you’re just as much of a geek as I am and you just like to know stuff. Let’s also assume that you’re starting… Read More
I’m not crazy. There is an actually practical reason to soak your potatoes in a beer brine before they hit the grill. Potatoes are mostly water, held in by the starch. Using the water extracting powder of salt you can help remove the water and give your potatoes a crispier outside with a creamy middle… Read More
I’ve decided that the grill is officially open. Regardless of the weather, regardless of the time constraints, regardless of the lack of Meats on Sticks occasions in my near future. The grill needs to be open. Maybe it’s the catastrophic levels of stress in my life right now, maybe it’s my severe vitamin D… Read More
Everyone wants to feel like they have things figured out. That they have everything in it’s designated box. You’e made decisions, said decisions help you navigate the world. And every once in a while that comfortable social constructionists gets a bit rocked. You hate country music but you find yourself sinfully signing along to Devil… Read More
No matter how great beer is in meat recipes, bread will always be it’s culinary kindred spirit. Because the heart and soul of bread and beer is the same: yeast. The beast that gives us bread, also gives us beer. A few months ago I was interviewing a brewer at an LA brewery who told… Read More
When I was a kid I thought you grew up, picked a life and that’s were you sat. You stayed in this grown-up place, and that was it. You’d found your grown-up life and you were done. But my grown-up life seems to go through a comprehensive metamorphosis every few years. New city, new job, new… Read More
I was in a port town in Greece, waiting for a boat to take me back to Italy, when I decided to spend the last bit of money I had with me on Baklava. This was the moment I realized how important food had become to me. I had just spent my last year of… Read More