… is a good second beer?

I don’t know much about beer, except that the beer I like I tend to like a lot – I like it very much, and I like to drink much of it. I’d like to have a better sense of what I do and don’t like and a better vocabulary to talk about it. I really, really like Newcastle brown ale, and Goose Island’s brown ale. I bought two other brown ales recently, thinking that “brown ale” meant more than it does, apparently. One of the two was okay, not as good as either Newcastle or Goose Island. I can’t remember what it was called. The other, Bell’s Best Brown Ale, didn’t taste good to me. So much so that I gave the other 5 bottles in the 6 pack away. My friend Matt works in a brewery, he tells me that I probably don’t like hops much. Hoppy beers make me unhoppy… ! Ha!

After I gave the beers to my neighbor I started thinking, when would I drink that beer? I’d definitely would drink it if I had kept it around the house but I wouldn’t have liked it. It’d be a first beer that I’d endure, not enjoy. I think it might be an okay second beer, or third beer. Then I got to thinking, what makes for a good second beer? To be clear here, “second beer” doesn’t mean “the second drink you have”, it’s the second type of beer you drink while drinking. So, if you have a pint of Guiness then a pint of Stella, the Stella is both the second drink and the second beer. If you have three pints of Guiness then a pint of Stella, your second drink and third drinks are Guiness, the Stella is your fourth drink and your second beer. I know I have tastes about what I like better in a second beer, but I’m not sure what they are, because I don’t drink very often anymore. I’d say this brown ale that I didn’t like would be a lousy first beer for me (because I don’t like how it tastes). It’d be an okay second beer, because by the time the second beer rolls around I’m in a more charitable mood. I think it’d totally work for a third beer, because the third beer mostly just has to be wet and beer-ish in flavor. Ideally it should be lighter too. Hmm.

Inconclusive. Clearly further inquiry is needed.

… was wrong with that fortune cookie?

We got chinese take out the other night, first time at this place, trying out stuff in the new neighborhood. It was decent, not quite good. The fortune cookies really sucked. They were like both stale and soft. Ugh.

Here’s the cool part, my fortune. I think technically it wasn’t really a fortune, in the sense of a prediction or whatever, but it was still pretty cool:

“Others admire your caring qualities.”

snap!

… are we gonna do?

As we finish unpacking and prep for our baby’s upcoming arrival, my wife and I have been talking about changes that will happen and ways to treat our lives as parents as an opportunity. So rather than “we’ll go out less” instead “we’ll have a good time at home.” My recentish attempts to get fit and enjoy exercise in order to help get fit are sort of related.

… is my latest food experiment?

Friends, as I have said time and again: beets, fuck yes. Holy divers, beets! So good.

Here’s how I do ’em. Cut off bit of top and bottom, wrap in foil (if it’s more than one beet, all in a bundle). Bake 90 minutes at about 375 degrees. Remove. Carefully slice into 1 inch or so thick slices. Place in frying pan, stir around a tablespoon or half tablespoon of butter, the heat from the beets will melt it. Sprinkle cumin seeds on top. Add a splash of soy sauce or dash of salt, stir once. Shred a bit of mild cheese over the top, and viola! It’s a symphony of good taste.

Tonite I also did a marinated backed tofu (splash of soy sauce, splash of olive oil, splash of sesamee oil, healthy sprinkle of curry powder, bit of red pepper, teaspoon or tablespoon of maple syrup, splash of water, slice into cubes about 1 or 2 inches a side; bake at 375 for 40 or 45 minutes – the marinade will stick or even burn to the bottom of the pan, the tofu will be somewhat crispy).

And I fixed this other dish as an experiment:
A pear, cut in half, remove core. Splash of balsamic vinegar and splash of soy sauce in the pit of each half where the core was, a small pat of butter as well. Wrap each half in foil with the pit facing up (so the melted butter pools). Bake at 375 for 25 minutes. Take out of oven and leave wrapped – it’ll keep cooking in the wrapped foil. Careful you don’t spill the liquid on yourself cuz it’s hot as fuck.

Parsnips chopped into bite sized pieces (they’re a bit stringy if longer), wrap in aluminum foil, back at 375 for about 45 to 50 minutes. Remove from heat.

Unwrap and dump the pear halves into a mixing bow. Chop into smallish bits – it may be so cooked that it’s more of mush than anything else. Dump in a large handful of spinach and/or arugula. Drop in a small pat of butter. Add a pinch of salt or splash of soy sauce (salt brings out the sweetness of the ingredients.) Unwrap and drop parsnips into mixing bowl. Stir. Let sit a bit covered while the heat from the parnips and pears cooks the greens.

The way I did this tonite was to throw everything into the oven all at once. Next time I’m going to start with the beets, prepare the parsnips and pears and tofu, and set a timer for 45 minutes. When that goes off, put the parsnips and tofu into the oven, set time for 20 minutes. When that goes off, put in the pears. Set time for 25 minutes. When that goes off, take it all out the oven and do the last minute prep. The total work is maybe 20 minutes, despite all the waiting and stuff. The waiting is enough time that I could get a whole mess of dishes washed and play a fair bit of Rock Band 2.

I’m real happy with the parsnip/pear thing cuz I totally made that up out of my own imagination. Other folk may have cooked it before but I’d never heard of the idea, I just figured the color was similar so it’d be fun to eat – wouldn’t be immediately clear what was parsnip and what was pear. What I didn’t count on was the parsnips taking on a bit of a pear flavor, which is awesome.

I’m totally bragging here, but damn this was delicious. Seriously. And nutritionally pretty good too – the wrapping and baking preserves some of the nutrients w/ the cooking, and these are some real nutritious foods:

Beets

Spinach

Arugula

Tofu

Parsnips

Next time I’m going to do beets with sweet potatoes.