Really clever stacking bowls
Geez, why didn’t we think of this amazing set of nesting mixing bowl, colander, sieve, and measuring cups. Absolutely perfect for a NYC apartment! Available from Momastore.org.
Open one for me please!
Design Sponge wrote up these super cool bottle openers today, and as though you don’t all look at her site anyhow I thought I’d share her great find with you. As my husband Riley always says, you can’t have too many bottle openers in your home, or on your person. He has bottle openers on his shoes, belt buckle and keychain and is a firm believer that if you leave the house with less than three ways to open a bottle on your person you may be underprepared in case of beer emergency. Words to live by.
Yum-o
It appears I am not the only one who hates the nasty pasty chocolate that easter bunnies are usually made of, but would feel terribly disappointed if I did not receive one in my easter basket. Well, here’s a nice alternative…the Forever Bunny. FBs are made from plaster and are painted up to look deliciously chocolatey. They are available from the Small Stump store on Etsy.
via seriouseats.com
Cheese and beer are good
Good lord, what a terrible photo to go with such a lovely evening! Did I learn nothing about pairing when I attended my Artisanal cheese and beer pairing class??? Actually, yes I did learn something…I love cheese and beer in any combination!
Let me tell you a few things that I did learn from my evening of higher gastric education…
First and foremost, the beers from Blue Point Brewing are really delicious. Apparently the brewery is accessible from Manhattan via train (it’s in Patchogue, Long Island after all) and get this, they have all you can drink sampling at the brewery and an outdoor patio for seating! Hello new summer weekend adventure!
We enjoyed their Toasted Lager, Fresh Hops Pale Ale, No Apologies Imperial IPA, Oatmeal Stout, and Sour Cherry Imperial Stout. My favorite had to be their Oatmeal Stout, but I am a big dark beer drinker. Their Sour Cherry Imperial Stout and No Apologies Imperial IPA (10% ABV) were also winners for me.
Ok, so we also had cheese…I mean we had some of the most awesome, stinky, blue, melty and delicious cheeses I have ever eaten! I have to tell you that I do believe after eating all these beauties that the Hoja Santa from the Mozzarella Company in Dallas Texas is perhaps the best cheese to pair with beer ever created. This cheese is a young goat’s milk cheese that is wrapped in leaves from the Hoja Santa plant. This gives the cheese a peculiar (but yummy) flavor that Jon Lundbom (the cheese expert teaching our class) said tasted like sassafras. Not having eaten much sassafras in my time, the closest I could describe it was similar to the flavor of epazote. Now this may not sound like a match made in heaven to pair with beer, but let me tell you it is so dreamy and creamy and just plain great…try it yourself!
Other cheeses we sampled were Comte Saint Antoine (superb), Gorwydd Caerphilly, Montgomery’s Cheddar (cheddary and yummy), Epoisses (stanky but delicious), Brillat Savarin (maybe even creamier than butter…to die for), Bayley Hazen Blue (I hate blue and liked this) and Valdeon (I don’t like blue cheese).
Most of these cheeses are available from the Artisanal website, and they have a bunch of other great classes to attend so please check out their class list.
If you are interested in the class I took, there are three more sessions scheduled:
Thursday, April 12th - with Ithaca $75.00
Thursday, May 3rd - with Kelso $75.00
Thursday, June 21st - The Spices of Summer $75.00
I hope you will take my advice and check out one of their many classes, but if you are unable I hope you will look for the Hoja Santa cheese and amaze your friends and family with your terrific beer and cheese pairing abilities. I won’t tell where you got this insider info…wink!
Seriously hungry
You must go read Serious Eats today. They’ve got a story on wine in juice boxes made by Bandit Winery, an impending worldwide chocolate shortage (gasp!), and notes on Willie Nelson’s new ice cream flavor for Ben & Jerry’s (and no, it’s not that flavor).
Darn these modern contraptions
Well, last night we went to our cheese class at Artisanal. For some reason my photos are not cooperating with me today, so I am going to wait to post fully about this until tomorrow. Believe me, it will be worth it. I think we tasted the best beer cheese ever created, so be sure to check back for all the cheesy details…how’s that for a teaser!
This one’s for my peeps
Last year was my first year of trying to make homemade marshmallow peeps from the recipe on Martha Stewart online. I have to say that it was terribly fun, although most of them turned out to be marshmallow worms due to my lack of piping skills. I thoroughly recommend trying out this recipe though, it’s a great Easter project!
Today is the day!
Oh hooray for today…it is finally the day of my class at Artisanal Cheese which will have me pairing artisanal cheeses and beers like a pro. I look forward to bringing you some hot beer and cheese related content tomorrow. Yippee!!!
Real sugar high
So here’s something I never knew before today…apparently during Passover Coca Cola makes a version of Coke that is sweetened with sugar, not high fructose corn syrup so that observant Jews can drink it. This exciting news comes to me via Serious Eats, and they even link to an article giving you the lowdown on where to purchase the good stuff. Mmmm…sugar.
Botulism is delicious
This sounds like a fun project for a wintry weekend…cakes baked in a jar. According to deliciousdays.com these cakes can be stored for quite a while as long as they are in a cool dark place. Does anyone have any experience with canned baked goods? Sounds scary to me!