So many tomatoes, but no more time.

For them to ripen, that is.

Hmmm, fried green tomatoes maybe? Never made them, not even sure if you use unripe tomatoes or a specific variety. Well, there's only one way to find out.

Presto! Fried green tomatoes, topped with shredded crab and a sauce made from whole grain mustard, mayonnaise, Worcestershire sauce, heavy cream and cayenne. With two saisons- Weyerbacher 17, and New Glarus saison. Both delicious, and great with the tomatoes. The New Glarus was drier and more effervescent, and absolutely delicious. The Weyerbacher was maltier, a bit fruitier, and good too, though the New Glarus got my vote.

(Guess we'll give the rest to Skip for picklin'.)

Beer Brunch 2012

THE MENU......
PIZZICATO
A plethora of olives, pickled quail eggs with Jolly Pumpkin La Roja
Skip's pickled green tomatoes with Jolly Pumpkin Weizen Bam*
CHIAROSCURO
Kiss Yo' Mama Soup (corn & crab) with Mr Cicerone's Robust Porter
BLUDGEON
Garlic shrimp and grits with Mr Cicerone's (famous) Rye Peppercorn Pale Ale
CATERPILLAR
Bitter greens, tangerine, blood orange, walnuts, lemon-ginger vinaigrette, hop candy crunch with Mr Cicerone's Dynamomium IPA
ANIMALS
Duck, pork, veal & pistachio terrine, La Roja pickled cherries with Mr Cicerone's Buster 2010
INTERMEZZO
Spooky Trail Farm wildflower honey with Mr Cicerone's Atmospherium Saison


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A smarter person would have just bought a jar of pickled beets....

....and used the juice. (It's for a Beer Brunch dish). (We also boiled and peeled 36 quail eggs.)

Oh! But then we wouldn't have been able to make a meal of those delicious beet greens! A small glass of Mr Cicerone's awesome porter while I was squeezing made it all worthwhile. In my He'Brew glass of course, as it's Rosh Hashanah. Shana Tova!

Practising!

Corn caramelizing, fava beans steaming, corn & onions steaming & ranch dressing being made. All part of practise runs for our upcoming Beer Brunch. Oh, and Mr Cicerone's Kolsch was delicious. We nailed down 3 courses last night, and drank (too) many beers. (I'm hungover today.) See how hard we're working for all our friends?

It's starting.....

The practice runs for Beer Brunch, that is. Tonight? Wee Heavy, Buster 2009, Buster 2010 and Dynamomium. All contenders for the quiche-to-end-all quiches, caramelized onion. The winner? Now, that would be giving it away, for those that are attending....

 Three pounds of onions, cooked on loooow heat for 1 1/2 hours until caramelixed...

Become this! Onion quiche. With all the beers!

Summer, glorious summer!

Know what these are? FRESH sardines!! Rubbed with olive oil & garlic, and grilled. Along with grilled artichokes, and Greek cucumber salad.  And beer- saison I think! Mr Cicerone's Atmospherium.

Ceviche- snapper, shrimp, scallops & octopus. With Mr Cicerone's Ginger Wheat, and Hitachino Ginger brew.

Umami overload

Mmmmm. Linguine, coated with a mix of toasted walnuts and garlic, topped with Italian parsley, chives, chevre, and a soft-boiled egg. Umami overload. Sierra Nevada/Russian River's Brux was wonderful with this rich dish. The beer is a complex golden ale with malty notes, some hop flavour and bitterness, a hint of sourness and some wonderful Brett Brux character. Brett + Umami = excellent!

Summertime, And The Livin' is Eeeaaasyyy

Well, it is for me, at least, as Mrs. C. did all the work necessary to get this wonderful dinner of ceviche together. Ceviche is fresh (uncooked,) seafood that is tempered in a marinade of citrus and spices. Ours had tilapia, shrimp, scallops, and octopus. Served up with some avocado, pico de gallo, lettuce, tostadas, and salsa verde, it helps ease the heat-afflicted Cicerone's suffering. (I speak for myself regarding suffering; Mrs. C. would be happy if it was 100F.)

Mmmmmm....

That's a wonderful summertime snack, and it was complemented by the bottle of Anchorage Whiteout Mrs. C. scored on a recent visit to Chicago. Whiteout is a sort of high-gravity witbier, made with Sorachi Ace hops, lemon peel, black pepper, and coriander, and is fermented in part by Brettanomyces and aged in Chardonnay barrels.

I got okra, enough to choke ya....

Quick post about Dinner at Chez Cicerone this evening......

Giant (8 pound) chicken, lovingly sloooow-smoked by Mr Cicerone, accompanied by whole steamed okra  blanketed with a decadent mustard remoulade sauce. The sauce was made thus....

3 large egg yolks, 1 1/2 tablespoons Dijon, one tablespoon lemon juice, 1/4 teaspoon Tabasco, salt, pepper, one clove minced garlic, whisked together. Then, on low heat, 12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) chilled unsalted butter are whisked in gradually to produce a thick, velvety, buttery, mustardy sauce.....Oh My!

Beer? The only commercially available Steinbier, Hofstetten Granit Bock, went wonderfully with the smoky chicken. The beer is rich and uber-malty, with that deep, almost raisiny/pruney malt flavour reminiscent of Celebrator Doppelbock. It has a delightful burnt toffee flavour, too, and as it warmed this transitioned into a nice, mellow smoke....

(Mr Cicerone's Wee Heavy was also a fine accompaniment to our meal.)

(And now, as I'm writing this, I'm sipping on Buster 2010,which has oxidized a wee bit in the loveliest way, with the end result being a drier, hazelnutty version of the original beer which is hiding its 10% ABV content a little too well.....)

Thanks again, Sean.....

....for last night's meal, carefully prepared according to your recipe! The corned beef turned out superbly, as did the veggies. Though, we did have to tweak things a tiny bit. The cooking liquid (which contained both Mr Cicerone's Sunuva Buster 2011, and Matmos Ale) was unbearably, inedibly salty about half way into the cooking time, so I had to start over with an all new batch of cooking liquid complete with beer and spices. And, the beer in the cooking liquid created a lot of bitterness when cooked down, so I added 1/2 cup of buckwheat honey to the cooking liquid, with a delicious end result.

Result- perfectly cooked, unusually spicy corned beef, with the most delicious accompanying vegetables I think I've ever had!

Oh, try this mustard ale sauce, also Sean's recipe, with your next corned beef. It went superbly. I used Bell's Hopslam.

Oh, almost forgot the beers! Of course Sunuva Buster 2011 & Matmos Ale were superb with dinner, as was Mr Cicerone's Rauchbier!!

That's cabbage sprouts on the left- delicious!!

Christmas Eve, Cicerone Style

Aperitif: Bridgeport Hop Harvest Ale, a fresh hopped Imperial IPA. Massively bitter, fairly light bodied, and nary a whiff of grass clippings, cat byproducts, or any such unpleasantness. Awwright!

We enjoyed the IPA with some of our favorite cheeses, Manchego, Wensleydale, and Farm Country Truffle, while waiting for our porcini-crusted lamb shanks to sloooowly roast. When the bomber of IPA ran out, we dialed the throttle back a bit and enjoyed some special bitter from downstairs, which despite its diminutive OG, was actually a better partner with all of the cheeses. This keg was dry hopped with Northern Brewer, and is gulpably good, to use more of that fancy Ciceroney language.

Main course:  Lamb shanks slow roasted with a paste rub of garlic, shallot, thyme, and rosemary, and finished with dried porcini crumb crust. A sauce made with pan drippings, and a deglaze using Buster 2010 Uber-doppelbock. Plated up with some steamed spinach and mashed rutabaga, to catch all the tasty drippin's. Beer: Allagash Musette, a Belgian style Scotch ale aged (partially) in a bourbon cask. The Musette was deliciously malty; the booze character was minimal.

Dessert beer: 2010 Goose Island Bourbon County Stout. Woof. Veery boozy and a bit hot. Wish we'd let this one rest another, say, 5-10 years.

All of this occurred in front of a cheery fire. And to all, a good night....

Now bring us some figgy pudding.....

They're soaking in it.

Idea: Feed Mayonnaise to Tunafish

In a cheesy, mostly mediocre movie called "Night Shift," movie audiences were introduced to an actor named Michael Keaton, who played the character Bill "Billy Blaze" Blazejowski. A self-proclaimed "ideas man," he was always shouting his crackpot ideas (hence the title of this post) into a portable tape recorder he carried around everywhere.

Because I am not a movie character, I don't have an audible, visual, prop to show when I have Big Ideas. They just rattle around in my skull until I do something about them. So it was with the idea to Feed Barbecue Potato Chips To Chickens. Well, not exactly, but I had this idea for "Barbecue" Barbecue Chicken.

***DIGRESSION ALERT***




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A belated, and quick Thanksgiving post

Due to important things, oh like flying to California to see Mr Cicerone's first grandchild, we haven't posted anything about this year's Thanksgiving feast. So, it's brief, but here we go....

Mother O' Mr Cicerone offered to host, and though that means some compromising with the menu, we were only too happy this year to drive the 5 blocks there, rather than spend three days in preparation doing it at Chez Cicerone. (Let's just say that due to a combination of work, a grandchild and USPS we just didn't have the time this year.)  Turkey, gravy and mashed potato were made by our hosts. Oh, and this too, being the only vegetable that Dad O'Cicerone will eat.....

 That left us, and my sister-in-law, a creative and good cook, to bring the rest!
APPETIZERS  Hot crabby dip. Mmm. Cheese. Mmm. Cheese-stuffed dates with prosciutto. Mmm. Gougeres.
Beers with appetizers were Mr Cicerone's "Atmospherium" saison, Les Deux Brasseurs (sadly past its prime), Jolly Pumpkin Lupulo de Hielo, and a bottle of good Champagne to toast the latest addition to our family.
SOUP I made a delicious squash soup spiced with Garam Masala and other Indian spices. I'd used some of Mr Cicerone's Wee Heavy in the soup, and this went perfectly wth the soup. New Holland's Beerhive Tripel was also good, though a tad sweet for the soup.
SIDES WITH TURKEY  Yay! Oyster and shiitake dressing. Spectacular! Greek salad with lots of feta and some pomegranate seeds. My sister-in-law made a sausage and apple dressing, roasted brussel sprouts, peas with pancetta (yum), and a great cranberry and orange sauce. The turkey was pretty good, considering it was done at the most basic level (frozen turkey, not brined.) Uncle Dave fancied up the potatoes with bacon. Beers - it was a "let's just take all these beers that have been sitting in our fridge forever and drink them" occasion. So we did. Russian River Damnation 23 (nice, oakey, orangey notes) and Shipyard Smashed Pumpkin Imperial Pumpkin were drunk and enjoyed. Plus Mr Cicerone's Bitter & Goose Island's Winter Mild. 
DESSERT Pumpkin pies by my sister-in-law, which I'm sure were delicious, but I'm not much of a "pah" eater, so skipped it. We'd made caramel ice cream earlier that week, and that, with Mr Cicerone's Wee Heavy, ended the meal on a great note.

After dinner Mr Cicerone's Buster 2010 made us all drunk, though we wept tears of joy at the incredible deliciousness of this beer as we imbibed.....

How much can one person eat?

We found out last week when we went on a 4 day eating and drinking binge to Traverse City. Wow.
Highlights....
 *Incredible scenery! We climbed the big dune (Sleeping Bear), and walked o'er many a hill o'sand to (finally!) reach Lake Michigan. Driving from Bellaire to Traverse was gorgeous too, as were the turning trees everywhere!
 *Beer! Including stops at Walldorff brewery in Hastings, Michigan Beer Cellars in Sparta, Short's, Right Brain (yeh!!), North Peak, and Jolly Pumpkin. This deserves its own post, and I'll set Mr Cicerone onto that, I think.
* Cider! Tandem Ciders in Suttons Bay. If only we'd been able to ride OUR tandem there. The ciders are great, especially their dry Farmhouse and the Pommeau. And the pickled eggs!
*Food! Where to start. Okay- here we go...

9 Bean Rows bakery & coffee house in Traverse City. Good coffee, lovingly prepared fresh for each patron. They had an incredible pastry selection, but not being much for sweet things at lunch, we had their quiche, made from scratch including the puff pastry crust. Delectable- the crust was flaky perfect, and the filling (spinach and goat cheese for me, and classic Lorraine for Mr Cicerone) was light, creamy and just delectable. The best quiche I've ever had.


Mission Table on the Mission Peninsula. It also houses the Jolly Pumpkin pub and restaurant. We had a fantastic dinner there, enhanced by JP Bambiere in the JP pub beforehand, JP beers paired with our meal, and more JP after dinner back at the pub.Our meal was an exquisite selection of small plates, each made from locally sourced fresh ingredients. For starters- beet & parsnip salad in a buttery sauce, and exquisite rabbit ravioli, enjoyed with JP La Parcela pumpkin beer. Next up- wild mushroom risotto, fresh (local) whitefish on a bed of white beans (Oh! This was divine!), with Jolly Pumpkin's Oro De Calabaza. Then, Madrugada Obscura stout for dessert back at the JP pub.


Brasserie Amie in Traverse City.Another place with fantastic home-made pastries. But, we opted for a savoury lunch of fried green tomatoes on corn cakes, topped with fried eggs and tomato relish, and a truffled omelet rolled around liver pate. Groan.... They have an incredible selection of Benedicts there, too, but we didn't make it back, sadly. Too many dishes, too little time!

Red Ginger in Traverse City. We enjoyed a delicious appetizer of calamari cooked in a Korean spicy orangey sauce, which we paired with Rogue's Morimoto Soba ale. Mr Cicerone was extremely pleased with his entree of Vietnamese Shaking Beef, a striking dish comprising seared beef tenderloin on a bed of baby bok choy, sweet onions and mint, all nested on a "Shanghai noodle pillow". Umami, umami, umami. Paired with Rogue Morimoto Black Obi Soba ale. Me- huge shrimp and lots of sweet crab meat atop udon noodles dressed with mustard cream and cilantro. And, a wonderfully nuanced glass of good sake.


The Cook's House in Traverse City. Our final night saw us here, at this tiny restaurant in a house, sitting at "The Chef's Table", which is a counter top, with enough space for 2, at the back of the restaurant about one foot from where Chef Eric and his team cook and plate the food. The best seat in the house if you ask me! (You have to ask to be seated here.)  We spent 3 1/2 hours eating, 8 courses in all. We had chosen the 7 course tasting menu, and Chef had overheard our conversation about a particular dish that wasn't part of this menu, and he surprised us with it! The whole experience was superb. Every dish was perfect- ingredients, preparation, cooking, presentation. One of the most memorable dining experiences I've had. Watching the team work to get all the meals out was also something else. The attention to detail was extraordinary. And, every one of the kitchen staff had a smile on their face- it was truly art to them all. The restaurant is much more wine-focused than beer-focused- there was a wine pairing for every course in the tasting menu. The beer selection was small, but adequate, and we did okay with the small selection, though we did opt for wine with our steak course. Chef Eric managed to chat with us amidst his ongoing, never-ending cooking marathon, and he did say that he was just really starting to learn about craft beer and food, and announced to us that the first beer dinner there was happening soon. There's two scheduled- Right Brain and New Holland. Wish we could go!
So, I'll just post this link to all our pictures from the trip, including the meal from The Cook's House- every course pictured, including our pairings....(click on each picture to read the details.)

 *Hat Shop! (We're still on the "Highlights" list.)

Non-highlights?
*Staying in Cupid's Cove at one of B & B's, chosen 100% because of its proximity to the breweries. How many angels does it take to make a room cringeable?

* Counting the teddy bears in our room at another cutesy B & B (See reason above!)
* Being woken at 8AM while on vacation, by the guests in yet the third B & B, all clomping down to communal breakfast (location, location, location!).

 

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At last....

Possums notwithstanding, we finally sat down to one of our favourites- tomato and cheese pie! Lots of tomatoes, cheese (I use whatever I have in the fridge that needs using; this time it was smoked fresh mozzarella, manchego, a wee bit o'chevre and some pecorino), green onion & fresh herbs from the garden, binded with some mayo. And all wrapped in a buttery pate brisee crust. Mr Cicerone's Maibock (Boo hoo! It's gone!) was the perfect beery accompaniment.

The first guest has already arrived!!

.....and Uncle Dave's party  isn't until Saturday!

(Mr Cicerone has been working around the clock getting the 11 beers we'll be pouring ready, and I've been double-timing it in the kitchen making, um, let's see....cheese tortes, fig/garlic jam brie in filo, smoky baconey beans, mac & cheese, couscous, cheesecake, fancy mayo for the fish and ham, salad dressings, jerk rub for the lamb, and there's still the chicken and ribs....)

Should be a fine time!

A small blurb about Mexican food & beer.....

Behold these magnificent enchiladas made by Mr Cicerone recently. They are filled with his own smoky pulled pork, and the sauce is made from our own canned heirlooms from last summer. What a treat. Frontera Grill couldn't have done better. Our beer of choice was Mikkeller Chipotle Porter. I scored 6 bottles of this beer at the store, it's gone, and there is no more. (If anyone sees any out there, grab one! The chocolate and chili combination in this beer is outstanding. If you like that combination. Which I do. A lot.)

Talking about all things Mexican, we were mightily impressed by a couple of  beers from Cucapa brewery, of Mexico, that we tried over the weekend. We'd tried a few of their beers before and were not crazy about them, but these two were excellent. Low Rider Rye Pale Ale, at 7.2% (22oz bottle), had everything you might want to taste in a rye beer. Including RYE. Sure, there was some good hop flavour and bitterness in the finish, but not enough to stomp all over the rye. The beer is richly malty, spicy from the rye, and heavy'ish bodied. Wow. (The graphics on the label are hilarious too.) La Migra Imperial Stout was also a winner. Roasty, a wee bit of bitter chocolate, hoppy finish and warming.

Funny label too! Couldn't find a picture of the Low Rider, sadly. Mr Cicerone really loved that one.

Not from the grocery store.....

Or the candy shop. These are real eggs! I used a few to make a mustard hollandaise. To pour over steamed whole okra. Mm Mm.

(Thank Matt & Anka!)

Recipe Time! Part Two

The key to success in the kitchen....

A closer look:

We're sure it lost something in the translation....