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
When you’re a kid, there are monsters in the closet. Monsters that terrify you, chill your blood and ice your bones. You don’t know they aren’t real, because to you they exist in a way that’s more real than death and taxes. When we grow up the monsters don’t leave our lives, they just change… 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
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
I’m still in shock. A few days ago I was given word that I’m a finalist for a Saveur award for BEST Original Recipes. Best on the entire internet and in the entire world. Out of the millions of food blogs out there and out of the 30,000 they considered, they chose The Beeroness as… Read More
There is one thing I can’t stop doing every time I travel. And not just when I get to leave the country, but even when I just leave the state. I just need to wander around a market. A locals only place, stocked with whatever people who live in the neighboring streets like to eat.… Read More
A few years ago I’d had this unfortunate idea that a red eye from LAX to JFK was a great plan. I boarded a plane around 10pm in Los Angeles, alongside a 747 full of business travelers headed for jittery East Coast morning meetings. It wasn’t so much that I irrationally figured that I could… Read More
When you write a cookbook, you fall in love with some of the recipe. You don’t love them all the same, you don’t even remember them all the same. Recipes aren’t like children, you’re completely allowed to have favorites. When I wrote The Craft Beer Cookbook (affiliate link), there were a few recipes I immediately feel… Read More
I told you last year that I wouldn’t further assault you with tales of my trip to Ireland for Saint Patrick’s day, until it was close to Saint Patrick’s Day. But here we are, just a week away. So I’ll force another story of Ireland down your throat. But I made you some beer marshmallows so I… Read More
No matter how often you move, there are things that you forget. Every time. You forget that you won’t know which drawer to put Sharpie markers and batteries in (they always end up in the same drawer), you’ll turn to grab the knife from where is “used to be,” you won’t know where the Target… Read More
Photos from my Instagram account I made it. From LA to Seattle, up Highway 1. Past fat lazy seals, miles of winding coastlines, epic Redwoods, and into an unusually sunny Seattle. Although the sun has now given way to the typical rain, it’s somehow comforting. Although figuring out how to wield a camera in low… Read More
I started this adventure masked as a blog just over two years ago. I decided when I first hit publish that this wasn’t a “let’s see how this goes” endeavor. This is was a full force, every piece of my life, both feet, all chips on the table undertaking. I was all in. My stack… Read More
Pancakes are my first food memory. I’m one of 8 kids (all girls, wrap your head around that) and one of about 27 cousins (I don’t even know the actual number) which made alone time with my grandparents really special. The spring after I turned 4, I spent a Saturday night in a My… Read More
I was a lifeguard for three years in college. Mostly at summer camps, poorly run water slide parks and a bad summer on floating dock in the middle of a dirty lake. Late one night at a summer camp in Western Canada the guys who ran the camp decided to let the pre-teen campers,… Read More
Let’s pretend for a second that you’ve never had biscuits and gravy. Like you’ve never sat in good company at a crappy diner in a small town eating sub par biscuits and gravy washing it down with shitty coffee like it’s the best breakfast you’ve ever had. Like you’ve never had someones grandma make them… Read More
Leave it to me to take a perfectly healthy and delicious side dish, like roasted broccoli, and pour a bunch of cheese and beer all over it, effectively negating most of the health benefits. But really, it’s for your own good. There’s a good chance you’re sitting there planning a menu, a Turkey centric, end… Read More