Red Baron, Reporting for Duty
Current temperature outside: 75 and climbing.
Current temperature in our tummies: Chilly, with a touch of watermelon.
Rock! Death! America!
Littering our noise on the EarthArchive for May, 2008
At the Precipice of Too Late
So after living in Portland for a year I finally worked up the courage to submit a painting for a show in town - you can see my work alongside 74 other artists at the IFCC Do North show (including the guy that makes the really cool lamps on Alberta! How cool is that?!).
I just saw on Metblog Portland that the mayor wants to cut funding to IFCC - a 25 year old program that is a cornerstone of multicultural and multidimensional arts in the city. In a city where I’ve seen a lot of art groups come and go, to cut IFCC’s funding now would be a shame.
Happy Beerthday, Dok!
D’s birthday is May 5th, and we had a beer bash-o-rama Saturday night to celebrate. I came up with a seven course meal that included beer in every recipe, and a beer to pair with each course. It was fun to look up beer and food pairings, and I wanted to stretch our beer drinking palate a little by doing so. Fortunately we live in a beer-centric town, so with the help of the interwebs, I could narrow things down pretty quickly.
Beer Advocate has a very extensive website, with reviews for nearly every brew imaginable. They also have a multitude of recipes, and I was able to find and adapt all that I needed for the meal from their site. I used the Belmont Station’s handy web list of bottled beer in stock, and the reviews from BA to find the perfect drink for each course.
Okay, enough with the PSA’s, on to the meal! Each dish was just a small serving, with 3-4 ounces of beer to go with each course. The birthday boy is fighting a nasty cold, so he was a trooper as he tried to actually decipher the flavors from his food and drink and attempted to stay awake (with no help from the beer). I should mention that the kids had their own drinks with each course as well, and they loved all but one course.
Beer Battered Vegetables (featuring Sierra Nevada Pale Ale)
Served with Weltenburger Kloster Pils
I figured if a dish was going to go pear shaped, it would be this one, and if it did, we could just pretend it was never part of the fun and move on to the next course. Fortunately, it turned out awesome…the batter was crisp and not greasy, and the pilsner was light and tasty and went well with the fried food. Off to a good start!
Beer con Queso Dip and Tortilla Chips (featuring Mendocino Red Tail Ale)
Served with Speakeasy Prohibition Ale
A delicious, delicious excuse to lick the cheese out of your bowl. The Speakeasy was a great compliment, and many of us thought it smelled like lavender. A beer I will be keeping my eye out for in the future.
Cajun Beer Pasta (featuring Full Sail Pale Ale)
Served with Rogue Half-E-Weizen
Mmmm, muy caliente! The pasta had fried peppers and tofu in it, and a creamy cajun sauce. The beer was very refreshing, a perfect match.
Beer Sorbet Fruit Cup
(featuring Lindeman’s Peche)
This mini-course was a little something to cleanse and refresh our palates. We had mango sorbet with blackberries and a splash of the Peche lambic. It was beyond divine, and I can’t imagine enjoying my sorbet in the future without it.
Herb Onion Beer Bread (featuring Lang Creek Brewing Mandarin Hefeweizen)
Wee Heavy Scotch Ale Marinated Seitan with Garlic Mashed Potato
(featuring McEwan’s Scotch Ale)
Served with Orkney Dark Island Scottish
The beer bread was so moist and tender, and was reminiscent of Thanksgiving stuffing thanks to a generous amount of fresh sage and thyme. The home-made seitan (a substitute for strip steak in the recipe) marinated in the beer for 18 hours before being fried and perched atop the potatoes. The Orkney Scottish really stood up to it - people that reviewed it either loved it or hated it, and we all thought it went superb with this food.
Belgian Ale Crepes with Spring Baby Salad (featuring Vichtenaar Flemish Ale)
Served with De Ranke XX Bitter
This is where people started to hit the wall, but we pushed through. The crepes were thin and delicate with a distinct flavor of the beer, and the salad was nice and light. I asked the guy at Belmont Station which Belgian he recommended and he said this De Ranke XX Bitter… and he was true to his word - nary a banana flavor in sight. It was light and drinkable and went well with the food.
Double Bock Truffles (featuring Aktien-Brauerei Buronator Dopplebock)
Served with Nogne Ø Imperial Stout
We had to take a break and unwrap presents before we found ourselves able to properly enjoy the last course. The recipe was actually Triple Bock Truffles, but I couldn’t find any, so I settled on a Doppelbock. Unfortunately they refused to set up well, so we formed them as best we could and rolled them in crushed pistachios and almonds and kept them in the freezer. The non-alcoholic truffles we made for the kiddies held up well, so I’m not sure what happened. At any rate, a bowl and spoon fixed any issues we had, and the stout (from Norway!) was thick and creamy and an absolute perfect accompaniment to the chocolate.
All in all, a great success. Everything was really delicious, and we got to try a whole bunch of beer we’d never had before. Win all around!
I Was Strolling Through the Park One Day
O’s class made May baskets today, with the final plan of leaving them on the doorstep of a neighbor or friend as a surprise. I used to do this when I was a kid. I’d take a sheet of construction paper and carefully fold the sides up about 2 inches or so and secure the corners so it would create a shallow little basket, then I’d attach a handle. I’d pick a few camellia’s from the front yard and sneak down the block to leave the basket on Mrs. Day’s porch (she was the requisite kind old lady that lived down the street). When I saw the note from O’s teacher asking the kids to bring in flowers, I had to go help.
We had a lot of fun - the kids basically made a giant origami basket/purse that the flowers could fit into. They also wrote a note that gave a clue as to their identity and said “Happy May Day!”
Here is Owen’s:
and then I had to rescue it from Sophie (who is currently perched on my shoulder, trying to eat my hair):
