Beer geek

Here's a link to a post on the New York Time City Room blog about the Sixpoint Craft Ales Hop Obama beer Jesse had at Jimmy's No. 43 in November.

We both really liked the Hop Obama a lot so I'm excited to hear that they're bringing it back under a different name.

I liked this quote best from Paul Kermizian, the co-owner of Barcade, in the City Room post:

“We get beer geeks and we get video game geeks. Surprisingly, there’s a lot of crossover.”

Cheesy stuff to do in the news

There are two interesting tidbits in the New York Times's Food Calendar:

1.Hudson Valley Sampler

Cheeses, wines and other products from the Hudson Valley will be served at a tasting to benefit Columbia County Bounty, an organization that supports farmers, on Feb. 15 from 2 to 5 p.m. at Deffebach Gallery, 125 Warren Street, Hudson, N.Y., $40 from www.hudsonvalleycheesefestival.com.

2.Cheese and Beer

A class in pairing cheeses with Belgian beers will be held on Feb. 16 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at Artisanal Cheese Center, 500 West 37th Street. The fee is $85: www.artisanalcheese.com.

I was particularly interested in the former because work is beginning to pick up on my graduate thesis project, which is related to the locavore movement and supporting farmers directly.

As for the latter, I've been to Artisanal twice (I even organized a client event there!) and had the cheese flights, which are amazing! It's a wonderful restaurant and a classy bar, so it's a great place to stop for an after work nibble of cheese and sip of wine even if you can't commit to an entire flight of cheese.

Alas, Jesse and I are hoping to be in Boston the weekend of these events so we probably won't be able to attend. But we are aiming to be at:

3. Single Malts, Free

A free tasting of single-malt Scotches will be offered on Feb. 16 at 6 p.m. at D.B.A. Brooklyn, 113 North Seventh Street (Berry Street), Williamsburg, Brooklyn. (718) 218-6006.

Of course there are lots other things on the calendar listed so you should check it out, especially the free chocolate tastings at La Maison du Chocolat, and the champagne tasting led by expert from Chrisities! New York Magazine also has a good guide to Valentines Day weekend if you're looking for some ideas.

Cheese in the news

There are a number of reasons I never liked our former president, G.W. Bush. But the story "U.S. In Long-Running Trade Dispute With EU in yesterday's" All Things Considered program on NPR has given me yet another to add to the list. Just before leaving office, Bush increased tariffs by 300% on Roquefort cheese from France in retaliation against the E.U. ban on hormone-treated beef.

I'm not a big fan of hormone-treated anything, and I have nothing against cheese-eating surrender monkeys. So naturally I'm not a big fan of the tariff, never mind the fact that I prefer Stilton.

It's been a busy first week for President Obama as he has taken on foreign policy and diplomacy, economic recovery and stimulus, torture and Guantanamo Bay. But I have to admit that for my sake, and for cheese-eaters everywhere, I hope blue cheese rates some space on his to-do list so he can overturn Bush's war on French cheese soon.

Käsesalat

To get in the proper spirit for the snow storm that was forecast for last weekend, Jesse and I went ice skating at the Wollman Rink in Central Park.


Although we did not partake of the chili-cheese fries and hot chocolate as recommended, we did head over to Fig & Olive afterward for dinner.

We were anticipating a carb-heavy weekend (Jill requested Frito pies and I had already bought the ingredients to make pizzoccheri) so we both ordered salads. I considered the Fig & Olive Salad, but even I--who blog about cheese--was intimidated by five kinds of cheese in one salad. Jesse once ordered wurstsalat while he was in Germany, expecting a salad that came with wurst. Instead, it was a salad made of different kinds of wurst. I suspect that the Fig & Olive Salad may be a käsesalat. Maybe next time, when my tummy is feeling more intrepid.

We did indulge in their crostini and olives, and wine. My favorite crostini was the manchego with fig spread and almonds, and the rosé was excellent.

Fig & Olive
Hours
Monday - Saturday: 12:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m.
Sunday: 12:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.

808 Lexington Avenue
Between 62nd & 63rd St.
New York, NY 10021
(212) 207-4555
Map

Making much of muffins

When Jill was younger (around  elementary-school age) she used to bake muffins, which my Dad would take to work in basket. He would put them in the kitchen at work with a sign, "Jill's Muffins - $1) and a cup for collecting money. She made a tidy profit ( for a 9 year-old) and my Mom bought her a Williams-Sonoma Kitchen Library Muffins & Quick Breads cookbook so she could expand her repretoire.

Three years ago when Jill and I moved into together into our very first grown-up New York apartment, my mother sent us assorted hand-me down kitchen wares (like the crockpot and electric skillet), including the William-Sonoma Muffins cookbook. Jesse is a big fan of muffins (as am I), and so I try to whip up a batch every once in while as a treat. Last week I made Chili-Corn Muffins using a jar of Santa Fe Ole Green Chile Sauce that Jesse's mom had sent us earlier this fall in a care package.

Chili-Corn Muffins

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 cup cornmeal

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp sale

1 1/2 tsp chili powder

3/4 cup sour cream (I used plain greek yogurt)

2 eggs

1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted

1/4 cup diced, peeled green chilies

1/2 cup grated Cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Farenheit. Butter standard muffin tins (I use a silicone muffin pan, which I swear by).

In a large bowl stir and toss together the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda, salt and chili powder. Set aside. In a medium bowl whisk together the sour cream, eggs and melted butter until smooth. Stir in the chilies and cheese. Add to the dry ingredients and stir just until blended.

Spoon into the prepared muffin tins, filling each cup about two-thirds full. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean, about 15 minutes. Cool in the tins for 3 minutes, then remove.

Makes about 12 standard muffins.

We ate them with a yummy Squash and White Bean Soup recipe from Real Simple for a homey Sunday night supper.

Panacea

Well, today was an absolutely terrible day at work, which is really saying something since work is usually kind of awful on a regular basis. To recap:

Of my total workload about 90% consists of mostly successful retail and travel campaigns with a sales executive that I love working with.

But as of today, due to company-wide reorganization, I am now no longer working with that sales executive or on any of those campaigns and have to transition them to another account manager.

Instead I am keeping (and getting more of) those other 10% campaigns in other categories that aren't performing very well, one of which canceled their budget with us just in time for our meeting with them this afternoon.

But everything is all better now, for the moment, as my sister has shared her red wine and stinky cheese with me to help take the edge off the day. Nothing like stinky cheese to make a bad day better.

According to the cliche, I know that when life gives you lemons you're supposed to make lemonade. But that's tomorrow's work. For right now, I'm going to lick my wounds and take advantage of the lemonade that my sister has used her time and talents to make today.

After all, that's what sisters are for, right?

More Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade!

Jill and Jesse were big fans of launching kamikaze paper airplanes out the window during the parade. (You can't see it because of the glare, but Jesse is in the middle of folding one in the photo.) I was in charge of checking off floats and balloons as the parade progressed (which is what my coffee mug-full of mimosa's is anchoring down in the photo).

Thanks to my coworker, Priscilla, who took the photo and provided the bagels- and mimosa- makings!

Butter baby

Just in the nick of time, they turned our gas back on this week!

I have never been so excited to boil water on a stove (It's a miracle!) as I was Tuesday night. Jill, Jesse, and I had been on tenterhooks for the last couple weeks because we really wanted to cook Thanksgiving dinner together at home, but we weren't sure whether or not we'd have gas.

We had already hedged our bets: Jill had ordered a turkey from a farmer at the Union Square Green Market, and Jesse and I had already gone out and bought all our Thanksgiving groceries last Sunday at Whole Foods. (Perfect timing: the next day The New York Times blog, Well, posted this article about getting ripped off on organic Thanksgiving groceries. Oh well.) My friend Matt graciously offered to let us use his kitchen to cook while he was out of town for the holiday, but I was reluctant to commit because it just wouldn't be the same as cooking at home. (Not to mention that the kitchen in his fabulous Soho apartment is about the size of a postage stamp.)

But we lucked out, and I came home Wednesday night after work to the happy sight of Jill rolling out pie dough for the pecan pie.

Thursday morning the three of us braved midtown to watch the Thanksgiving Day Macy's Parade from my office (our windows look out over Broadway). I had seen the parade once before (from another office window on Broadway), but it was Jill's and Jesse's first time. So we toasted the occasion with mimosas and gorged ourselves on bagels and smear.

After the parade, we headed home to make the meal. Jill is in charge of the pie and the turkey. I'm in charge of the stuffing and mashed potatoes. Jesse is in charge of the green beans. (And the cranberry sauce in the can pretty much takes care of itself.) This year we used a cheese cloth stuffing bag to stuff the turkey. It made for interesting, but quick'n'easy, removal.


Once we'd eaten, and slept off the tryptophan, it was time for pie and coffee. Jesse put the kettle on to boil (Hallelujah!) for the french press while I started whipping heavy cream. My mom has yet to hand-me-down on a mixer from the 1970's (unlike the crock pot and electric skillet), so all I have is an old fashioned egg beater that a former roommate (who was a student at the Culinary Institute of America) left behind when she moved out. Jesse had never used an egg beater before, and wanted a turn at the crank. But he was a little vigorous, and almost turned our whipped cream into butter. Luckily, like the gas, we caught it in the nick of team. Our whipped cream is still whipped cream, but it is remarkably spreadable.

Gimme Jimmy

Blue cheese: Ranson Blue, aged cow's milk with streaks of blue
Frozen yogurt: Creme Caramel

More Jimmy's No. 43! (I swear to you, I'm not obsessed; just a creature of habit who likes really good food.) Natalia and I had a girl's night out last night as both of our boyfriends were out of town. We split the cheese plate of Ranson Blue from Cato Corner Farm, the tang of which nicely balanced my delightfully unexpectedly spicy goulash (which I really ordered just for the buttered spaeztle).

While we nibbled cheese and sipped our beers, we also blew off some steam about our boyfriends (naturally).

No 1. gripe: our skinny boyfriends won't eat ice cream.

Jesse and I have actually had a minor tiff about this (if you can image fighting over ice cream). I eat fairly healthy, but I love ice cream. And I also don't believe in denying yourself the good things in life, like ice cream. Jesse, on the other hand, is obsessively healthy. Goes to the gym. Does martial arts. Vegetarian. And most nights, when I'm raiding the freezer for a dish of the good stuff, he begs off because he'd rather eat cottage cheese.

Non-fat cottage cheese.

With protein powder.

Which, of course, makes me feel like a great, big, fat pig.

So I was relieved to hear that Natalia has the same problem with her boyfriend. Clearly, we're not crazy, but obviously our boyfriends are. Equally obvious, is that they should man up when we open the freezer and eat the damn ice cream with us, and thereby spare us the guilt.

Anyway, I was feeling righteously absolved after dinner with Natalia, so I went home and finished off the pint of Stonyfield Low Fat Creme Caramel Frozen Yogurt.

So there.

Gelato postscript

Gelato: Fresh Mint, Cinnamon, Rum Raisin, and Buttermilk

I forgot to mention in my last post that we ended Erin's visit on a high note with gelato at Il Laboratorio del Gelato. I had talked a big game about their basil gelato, but they didn't have it on hand that day. So instead Erin had the Fresh Mint, Jesse had the Cinnamon and Rum Raisin, and I had two scoops of the Buttermilk.

I've also had their Guiness and their Black Mission Fig flavors (I think the latter is my favorite).

If you can't make it down the Lower East Side to visit the lab, you can also find their gelato:

Manhattan

• Dean and Deluca (SoHo and Uptown stores)
• Murray's Cheese
• Whole Foods (Union Square)

Brooklyn: Bierkraft

They also ship.

P.S. Not far away from Il Laboratorio del Gelato, you can find the best green tea ice cream at Chinatown Ice Cream Factory.

Il Laboratorio del Gelato

95 Orchard St.
(between Broome & Delancey Sts)
New York, NY 10002

(212) 343-9922
Map

Kaffeeklatsch

Espresso: Cappuccino
Espresso: Cortado
Espresso: Caffe Tinto

An old friend, Erin, came to visit me in New York this past weekend. Erin and I have many shared loves, not the least of which are shoes, opera, reading, wine, cheese, chocolate, and coffee. Not only do we love each other--and love coffee--but we also love girl talk with each other over coffee. So it was important to me to give Erin a little taste of the east coast coffee scene to take home with her to the left coast, and get in lots of girl talk while we were at it.

When I moved to New York, I quickly discovered that the coffee culture was severely lacking in comparison to Seattle and the Pacific Northwest, where Erin and I met and went to college together. In New York, more often that not, your espresso beverage is burned, too sweet, and with too much milk.

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't so much as drink milk with my coffee, as I drink coffee with my milk. When Jesse and I go to brunch and get drip coffee with our breakfast, he has to cream his coffee first because he knows that I will dump all of the remaining cream in my coffee. The waitstaff at our favorite brunch spot knows me as the girl who asks for extra cream two or three times in one meal. But even with that said, I still want my latte to taste like espresso, and not like something that Nestle might bottle and sell next to the chocolate and strawberry milk in the dairy case.

Lucky for me, and other coffee and espresso aficionados in New York, there is a small but growing community of coffee shops taking root around the city and I wanted to show Erin a few of my favorites.

First stop, was Red Horse, where we warmed up after a walk in Prospect Park to see the fall foliage on Friday. Hands down, Red Horse is my favorite coffee shop in New York. It has fabulous coffee and a terrific atmosphere. I don't know how they do it, but the foamed milk in the cappuccinos seems as if it's on the verge on caramelizing into dulce de leche.

The next stop on our New York coffee tour, Abraco, is the complete opposite of Red Horse. Located in the East Village, it's more of a coffee stall than a coffee shop. In the Italian tradition of espresso, people stop by the tiny store front, order their espresso, drink it standing up at the bar, and then, zoom, they're on the way. When we stopped by after a matinee show of Avenue Q on gray Saturday afternoon we were feeling a little sleeply and in need of a little zoom. We ordered cortados, which are kind of like machiato-sized lattes. A latte has a lot more steamed milk than espresso, and a machiato has only a little bit of steamed milk with espresso, but a cortado has 1:1 ratio of steamed milk to espresso. It's a lot like a cafe au lait, but a cortado is made with espresso and steamed milk, where a cafe au lait is made with drip coffe and steamed milk. Whatever the semantics, the cortados at Abraco are amazing.

On Sunday, Erin's last morning in New York, we met up at Mercury Dime before heading out for brunch at Back Forty and browsing at The Strand. Mercury Dime is quiet spot with a beautiful picture window; every time I stop by I fantasize about spending an afternoon sitting in front of the window people watching and drinking bottomless mugs of excellent coffee. But we didn't have too much time that Sunday morning, so I needed my caffiene quick in the form of a cafe tinto. A cafe tinto is in the Cuban tradition of espresso, where espresso is sweetened with sugar while it is brewing, usually called a cafe cubano. However, a cafe cubano is made by adding sugar to the espresso grounds in the basket before brewing. Whereas a cafe tinto is made by whipping sugar into a small amount of brewed espresso, and then adding it to the rest of the espresso shot. Brewing the sugar with the espresso brings out a fruitiness in the coffee that makes a straight espresso shot palatable even for milk-lover like me.

Red Horse
Open Mon-Fri, 7 am - 10 pm
Open Sat-Sun, 8 am - 10 pm

497 6th Ave
(between 11th St & 12th St)
Brooklyn, NY 11215
(718) 499-4973
Map

Abraco
Open Tues-Sat, 8 am - 6 pm
Open Sunday, 9 am - 6 pm
Closed Monday

86 E. 7th st.
(Near 1st Avenue)
(212) 388-9731
Map

Mercury Dime
Open Mon-Fri, 8 am-12 am
Open Saturday, 10 am-12 am
Open Sunday, 10 am-10 pm

246 E. 5th St.
New York, NY 10003
(212) 533-3295
Map

Jimmy's No. 44

This week, Nov. 12 -15, is Fancy Dutch Beer Week at Jimmy's No. 43! Proost and Gezondheid!

Jimmy's No. 43 No. 1 fan

Sheep milk cheese: Frere Fumont, smoked firm cheese
Sixpoint Craft Ale: Hop Obama and Brownstone

Disclaimer: Despite the fact that I cried all the way through dinner there last Saturday (don't ask; it's a long, hormonal story), I am a big fan of Jimmy's No. 43.

So just in case you were also at Jimmy's No. 43 last Saturday night around 11 p.m., I would like to set the record straight: I wasn't crying about the food. And even though I was crying into my beer, I definitely wasn't crying about the beer.

In fact, Jesse and I headed out to Jimmy's No. 43 on Saturday because of a New York Times article on Brooklyn beers we read earlier in the week. We're both big fans of Sixpoint Craft Ales and the article whetted our appetite.

Jesse likes hoppy beers, so he ordered the Hop Obama. But we both like cask ales, so I took one for the team and had the Brownstone. The Hop Obama was very smooth; so smooth that I even liked it, which is impressive because I don't usually like beers with a lot of hops. The Brownstone was also really good and lacked the bitterness that's common to American brown ales.

For dinner, we both had the seared salmon with carrots and cider braised cabbage, which is the perfect autumnal comfort food. So often "comfort food" means "big and heavy," like meatloaf or macaroni and cheese. The salmon was unlike either, but it was comforting in that it seemed like the perfect meal to curl up with in front of a fire on a stormy afternoon or evening.

While we were waiting for our food we shared a cheese plate of Frere Fumont. The sheep's milk cheese was mellow and creamy, with the rind providing a rich, smoky flavor. Perfect for snacking on between sobbing and reassuring your boyfriend that you haven't lost your everlovin' mind.

Jimmy's No. 43
Open 7 days, 12 noon - 2am (till 4am on weekends)
Kitchen 5:30pm - 12 midnight

Downstairs at 43 East 7th Street (between 2nd and 3rd Avenue)
(212) 982-3006
Map

Happy Halloween

Rock around the crockpot

Chevre: Sunlight, Semi-hard raw goat's milk cheese
Wine: Vale dos Vinhedos Pinot Noir (Brazil)

One of my coworkers likes to tell the story about when ConEdison (the public utility company in New York) called him to ask if his stove still worked. "Yeah, why?" Pete (my coworker) said. To which the ConEd person on the other end of the line replied, "Okay, we just wanted to check because you haven't used any gas in the last four months." Whether it's Pete--the serial take-out artist--or the fictional Sex and the City charactor Carrie Bradshaw--who kept her sweaters in her oven--the stereotype is that New Yorkers don't cook.

Which makes me, Jill, and Jesse anomalies as New Yorkers because we do cook, and we have been suffering mightily ever since the building management turned off the gas to our building three weeks ago in order to fix a gas leak. But thank god for my Mom and for hand-me down kitchen appliances, as they have saved our bacon (so to speak) over the last three weeks. A few years ago my Mom shipped us an old electric skillet and a crockpot she had received as a wedding gift in late 1970's. At the time, I questioned the logic of cleaning out her garage by shipping me stuff to keep in my tiny New York apartment kitchen, but I now question no more.

Jill has made good use of the electric skillet (she's partial to fried eggs), while Jesse and I have monopolized the crockpot. The one good thing that's come out of the last three weeks is that I've discovered making squash in the crockpot. Two weeks ago we made spaghetti squash with jarred sauce. It turned okay, but not great, because we had to heat the sauce in the crockpot with the squash once it was done cooking, so the squash was actually a little overcooked by the time the sauce had warmed up. But the squash cooked beautifully on its own, pre-saucing. I was so pleased with how easy it was--and how nice it was to come home to cooked squash after work (no waiting for it to cook in the oven!)--that I tried a stuffed acorn squash recipe next.

The recipe recommends topping the squash and rice with chevre; normally I'd get the prepackaged goat cheese crumbles. But now that I have this blog, I thought I should probably take the cheese acquisition up a notch. So Jesse and I headed off to the creamery at Whole Foods to see what kinds of interesting goat cheeses were available.


I'm pretty sure that the author of the stuffed squash recipe intended for a fresh chevre to be used, but after tasting a couple of different kinds I asked the dairy attendant at Whole Foods if he had unusual goat cheeses. Which is when he got out the Sunlight goat cheese from Haystack Mountain Dairy in Longmont, Co. With a hint of Roquefort, the Sunlight goat cheese was unlike anything else we had tasted. So we took it right home and fired up the crockpot.


The recipe turned out well, but I think next time I will use a fresh chevre. The best pairing actually turned out to be the Sunlight cheese with a bottle of the Vale dos Vinhedos Pinot Noir (Brazil) Jesse had picked up at Astor Place Wines. Jim Schott, the founding cheesemaker at Haystack Mountain Dairy, reccomends pairing Sunlight with dried fruit like cherries. A similar effect also worked with the red berry notes of the Pinot Noir.

We've been told that we might have gas by this weekend, and I'm already planning which recipes to make first. Since I have goat cheese on the brain, and I might make Warm Potato Salad with Goat Cheese for my cooking comeback.

Dubbel word score

Cheddar: Cahill's Porter, Irish cheddar marbled with Cahill's farm-made Irish Porter
Istara: French semi-firm sheep's milk
Belgian beer: Affligem Dubbel & Affligem Tripel

Jesse (my boyfriend) and I headed out to Nate and Natalia's (friends of ours) place in Park Slope on Saturday for some adult board games. Nothing kinky, just Scrabble with beer instead of Kool-Aid. Jesse had actually never played Scrabble before and (in my opinion) was suffering from a small bout of vocabulary inadequacy beforehand. Thankfully we had picked up two bottles of Belgian beer, which quickly made us all feel very relaxed.

Jesse and I had spent the day hanging out at Red Horse Cafe (soon to be the subject of another post about the alchemy of espresso and foam) working on a case study about Google China (me) and studying for the LEED Accreditation (Jesse), so it was just a short walk over to Bierkraft. We fell in love with Bierkraft last year when Jesse was living in Park Slope. They're known mostly for their beer selection (900 kinds), but they also have an excellent selection of cheeses (250 kinds), chocolates, ice cream (particularly Shameless Ice Cream Sandwiches), and gourmet acctrouements. Browsing can be overwhelming (in a good way), so we often just flag down the nearest helpful employee and put ourselves into her capable hands. On Saturday, a helpful woman behind the cheese counter reccomened two excellent cheeses for snacking: a Cahill's Porter (photo above) and an Istara. I've been on a Belgian beer kick for the last year, so we also picked up a bottle of Affligem Dubbel and a bottle of Affligem Tripel - and a baguette - to go with the cheeses.

Natalia had also picked up a Port-Salut cheese, Manchego cheese, Serrano ham, and Carr's Crackers (the best), so we had quite the feast. The Cahill's Porter was the hit all around with a close-second tie between the Port-Salut and the Istara; my preference was for the Port-Salut.

We also drank two bottles of wine, so the by time Jesse and I left to catch the subway back to Manhattan we were full of cheese and booze.

And Jesse kicked ass at Scrabble, so a good time was had by all.

Bierkraft
Hours: Open 7 Days a Week
Mon - Thurs 11:30 am - 8:30 pm
Fri 11:30 am - 9 pm
Sun 11 am - 8 pm

191 Fifth Avenue
(718) 230-7600
Map