Carne Adovada Repair?

So, Tuesday was Bill and I’s second wedding anniversary. The plan was for it to start with carne adovada breakfast burritos.

I dragged my father, who was visiting Sunday and Monday, to one of our two butcher shops to buy 5 lbs of meat. I carefully trimmed it down and cut it into chunks late Monday night after visiting with several of my beer friends at a beer launch. I placed it in the same slow-cooker I have always made carne adovada in, with the same amount of red chile (two cups) I have always used.

The house smelled amazing the next morning when we opened the slow-cooker. We were very excited. Only to have our hopes cruelly dashed once we tried a piece.

It… was bland.… Continue reading →

Resolutions v 2.0

I had a chance, on Monday, to try the Goose Island Clybourn Resolutions Stout on cask. As the beer was the subject of my last post, I thought I’d share my impressions with you. We’ll talk about something other than beer in my next post. I promise.

First though, if you’re curious about what “cask” beer means, Wikipedia has a nice article on it. So does All About Beer magazine. Both indicate there’s a possibility that a place advertising “cask-conditioned” beer is misrepresenting themselves. I don’t have the expertise to know for sure by looking at a beer, but I have no reason to doubt GIC or the brewers there.

For this post the most relevant information about cask beers is the fact that cask-conditioned are served warmer than draft beers and with substantially less carbonation.… Continue reading →

Resolutions: Coffee Beer and Coffee in the New Year

One of the best things about being a regular somewhere is getting to know the people at your local haunt. You learn that X bartender or barista is a bit of a nerd or Y server is an actor or Z cashier is also from your home state and would kill for some green chile1.

Yes, I’ve learned all of those things and more about various people who work at assorted places I am or have been a regular.

One of the other wonderful things about being a regular is that these same people get to know you a bit. They geek out with you over a Neil Gaiman book or swap recipes with you. Or, in the case of the junior brewers at Goose Island Clybourn (GIC), they slip you a sample of a then-soon-to-be-released coffee beer (Resolutions), and send you home with a bag of the coffee they made into that beer for your coffee-nerd husband.… Continue reading →