A hearty snack

This is something I've made for us a couple of times, now, and 'tis easy and satisfying: lamburgers. There are plenty of ways to prepare ground lamb; I just had a really tasty sandwich at Fort Street Brewery that was topped with mint pesto and mild feta, mmm. I've been doing a more middle eastern take on it, mixing cumin, white pepper, and garlic into the meat before forming and grilling patties. (Direct fire strongly recommended.) The patties get topped with baba ghanouj and fresh tomato slices, maybe a bit of fresh spinach, and served on a bun. (A sesame bun would be particularly good.) Beer pairing is easy; we've enjoyed Vienna and dunkel, as well as the infamous pepper beer, and even a good American or English style pale ale makes a nice accompaniment.

Terse Thanksgiving Post-Mortem

Man, was that gooood. Mrs. C. knows how to put on a feast. My favorites were both stuffing/dressings, and the wild rice, all with dunkel. Also with pumpkin beer. Now, if you will excuse me, I have to get back to digesting....

Thanksgiving at the House of Cicerones

Thanksgiving Feast 2012


Kiss yo’ mama soup (corn & crawfish)

Winter greens and citrus salad with pomegranate & pistachio

Turkey, brined in Oktoberfest beer

Oyster & eggplant dressing

Panettone, sour cherry, lamb & fig sausage dressing

Bourbon and pineapple glazed ham

Mashed potato

Brown butter & bourbon mashed sweet potato

Green beans with caramelized onion

Canned creamed corn for old fat guys

Giblet gravy

Pomegranate and port reduction sauce

Cranberry & sour cherry sauce

Pumpkin pie (made by Chef Tara)

Chocolate almond tart

Caramel ice cream

Real! Whipped cream


Beers:

Pumpkin Ale ✦ Porter ✦ Munich Dunkel ✦ Session IPA ✦ Atmospherium Saison ✦ Weizen Bam ✦ Saison Sorachi ✦ Ginger Wheat Ale ✦ Scotch Ale ✦ Dynamomium Double IPA ✦ many more

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'.)

I was going to make pasta anyway.....

So, why not these?

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


...Full post

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?

Speaking of tomatoes.....

Our first Pink Caspian!! Picked yesterday!

Critter Update

Despite the baited cage,  motion detectors and video surveillance, we have seen, and caught NOTHING. Until this, a few days ago....

  

 

Another half-eaten tomato! In the same place! However.....it seems that the tomatoes are not from our yard. Good for us, I guess. Sorry tomato-robbed neighbour, whoever you are!

Here yesterday, gone today.

Our precious tomatoes, that is! Our friend has come back, and has successfully, over the past few days, managed to deprive us of our much-looked-forward-to fresh, succulent, umami-packed daily tomato treat.

Stolen tomato #3, half eaten on the ground.

Remnants of Lost Tomato # 4, on top of the fence.

Mother fucker! When we came down this morning, there were the remnants of Lost Tomato # 5!

Mr Cicerone, getting serious. (Nice shoes!)

Possum trap, well  baited, and relocated from our garage where it had been for a few days, to the current scene of the crime.

As I type, Mr Cicerone is setting up both a motion detector, and video surveillance camera. Stay tuned!!

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!

Lunchtime!

Brewing Kolsch can give a fella an appetite, so I took a break during the saccharification rest to make myself  a little snack.

Not even sure if this was legal. My lunch was grilled cheeses on croissants. Yes, I grilled pastries made of butter and flour, in butter. (Next up: deep fried stick o' butter!) The one on the right is the Amish truffle jack. Pretty tasty. The one on the left is 1/2 Tilsit, 1/2 horseradish cheddar, with Sierra Nevada Stout mustard and white onion. Wow. No one is going to want to kiss me for, like, a month, but it was WORTH IT! Ahem. Washed down with rauchbier, natch.

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.

Summer Love

Grilled octopus and Jolly Pumpkin's iO Saison......

Speaking of Rauchbier... An Educational Afternoon

Several weekends ago, our friends Jeff and Susan invited a few of us beer nerds over to their place on a Sunday afternoon. They had recently been on a trip to Bamberg and the surrounding area, and generously decided to share with us the treasures they'd brought home. Also their excellent homebrew and smoked pork loins, and other tasty goodies. After some tasty homemade dunkel and a couple variations on pils, we started with the Dusseldorfer Bonus Round:

Im Fuchschen, Zum Uerige, Hovels altbiers

Three way-fresher-than-you-can-get-here samples of real by golly altbier! The Hovels was the softest, with rich malt, well-integrated bitterness, and a dry finish. Fuchschen was a step up, but still very easy to drink. The Uerige was massively bitter, and then, like the others, vanished cleanly from the palate. The common attributes of all of them were a rich malt aroma and flavor up front, with a strong medium high to very high bitterness, and a disappearing finish. A huge burst of flavor, then little to no aftertaste. It would be very easy to drink these all day, as Jeff reported doing.

Then, the main course: rauchbier. Rauchbier and rauchfleisch. Jeff smoked a pork loin over river birch, and one over orange wood. Both were distinctly different, and both were delicious, particularly with the beers we had with them.

Fresh Schlenkerla Marzen, Spezial Lager, Spezial Marzen

These beers are available here in the states, but 't'would be rare to get any as fresh as these samples. The Spezial Lager came off a bit smokier than the Marzen, likely owing to having a less melanoidin-intense malt profile. The Schlenkerla was uber-smoky as usual, the smokiest by far, but also exhibited a huge, rich malt character. Eventually, we stopped stuffing ourselves on meat and potatoes. (We ate them all.) Just to cap things off, we enjoyed a couple half-pints of Jeff and Susan's Timothy Taylor's Landlord clone and soon to be famous cream ale. Yeah, we were drinking that stuff before it was cool....

O! How we love New Orleans!

 We just spent 5 glorious days enjoying The City That Is The Happiest Place On Earth. Yes, we did everything we set out to do, including eating fried chicken at Willie Mae's Scotch House, dancing in the sun to Hot Club of New Orleans, slurping oysters, drinking Guinni at Monagahan's (Erin Rose), drinking pilsner at Crescent City Brewery, eating crawfish in every way imaginable, discovering The Bulldog multi-tap in Uptown, throwing down to Bonerama and Evan Christopher, waving to Ignatius J Reilly, buying the weirdest thing we could find for Mr Cicerone's daughter's birthday, eating turtle soup at Court of Two Sisters and Beignets at Cafe Du Monde, drinking Sazeracs at The Roosevelt Hotel, and, in general, eating, drinking and laughing until we fell down. Uncle Dave, and our friend Nicole of Eat It Detroit, came along on our adventures, and I just know we would not have had quite as much fun if they had not been there with us.

Highlights- the food! Everything we ate!

Here's what Mr Cicerone had to say about Cochon.....

The Green Goddess can only be described as SUPERB, AND I WANT TO MOVE IN THERE. Jacques-Imo's was, as usual, fantastic. Platters of fresh oysters at Felix's were worthy of the king's proverbial ransom. The turtle soup at The Court Of Two Sisters was unrivaled. Jambalaya at Coops, the crawfish boils everywhere one looked, the cheese at St James Cheese Company, fried green tomatoes and etouffee at various places. Groan, groan, groan. And....the fried chicken at Wilie Mae's Scotch House made Mr Cicerone weep tears of joy.

The beer!
There's a really nice pilsner at Crescent City Brewery, good Guinness at Erin Rose, and a few really good beer bars if you know where to look. There's DBA in the Marigny, Cooter Brown's at the end of the St Charles street car line 30 minutes from The French Quarter, The Bulldog in Uptown (awesome!), and The Avenue in The Garden District, where I was stunned by the diversity of the draft beer list (Tilquin Gueuze on tap!), but a little dismayed at being served line cleaner in my glass instead of beer. (Note- I'm sure this was a "once-off". There are two Certified Cicerones on staff, and it was not they that did this.) Most of the bars and restaurants carry Abita, and beers from NOLA Brewing (Flambeau Red, Blonde & Hopitoulas were all good), as well as newcomers Bayou Teche   (LA-31 Bière Pâle & Biere Noire were excellent).
Note: The "International Beer House" (of which there are more than one) on Bourbon Street are sad, smelly watering holes that are to be avoided for the most part, though we did enjoy a pint of Paulaner Helles purchased there.

Pictures? Here's a bunch

I'll stop now, and just add that YOU JUST HAVE TO GO THERE. NOW.

Dinner at Chez Cicerone

Tonight's dinner made use of a GIANT (7.5pound!) chicken that Mr Cicerone smoked last weekend. We barely made a dint in it, and on the spur of the moment, this evening, as I was starting to chop the leftover chook for chicken salad, I decided to make quiche instead. So, thank goodness for food processors, because like magic, the pastry was made. As it rested in the fridge, I sauteed some shallots, smashed the garlic cloves that had been used for aromatics inside the chook's cavity, and made the custard for the quiche with 3 DUCK eggs that I'd been lucky enough to find at Eastern Market last Saturday. (Whip eggs, add 1/2 cup cream, one cup milk, salt & pepper.). The pastry then got rolled out and fitted into a pie dish, and blind-baked for 20 minutes, then brushed with egg yolk. A thin layer of grated Manchego covered the bottom of the shell, then the shallots & garlic, and handfuls of chopped smoked chicken, then the custard poured in. Baked at 375 deg F for 45 minutes. Served with a simple green salad, and Mr Cicerone's Rauchbier.

That's Mr Cicerone's Rauchbier in the Schlenkerla glass.

Lovely as the quiche was, next time I think I'll add some bacon!! And, there will be a next time. We still have about 2 pounds of leftover chicken, and 9 more duck eggs!

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.....)