Pictures at an Exhibition: Smorgasburg Comes to Prospect Park

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lumpiaIt was a rough and windy day for anyone trying to peddle lemonade, but somehow or other, it came just the same. Smorgasburg, the movable feast and Brooklyn Flea spinoff that has been charming Williamsburg for five years had its grand opening this Sunday in Prospect Park. It’s there every Sunday of the spring and summer from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m, so head over if you want to see any of these things: dogs in the throes of ecstasy at finding the dropped food and trash-robbing jackpot, discerning infants who can tell the difference between a ramp and a leek at fifty paces, bearded men who will tutor you in the restorative powers of mushroom tea, tiny fried eggs on a stick and lots of people picking roasted corn out of their teeth.

bulgogi sliderjianbing in progressTruly, though, Smorgasburg exceeded my expectations. Amid the more expected fare like French fries and pulled pork sandwiches was a lot of stuff that I’d never tasted before. Here are a few of the treasures we found on our sampling round: crispy Filipino-style spring rolls stuffed with adobo-marinated mushrooms from the Lumpia Shack; a saucy seitan bulgogi sandwich on a heavenly roll from Monk’s Vegan Smoke Shack; a wacky Shanghai street food crepe/omelet/rice cracker mash-up from Jianbing Co. The last one suffered from long lines, though to be fair, it also had some of the best entertainment in the form of passersby trying to figure out how to describe it. (“It’s like a giant taco thing.” Um. Not really.)

Plus we ate some French fries, because food doesn’t have to be novel to be delicious. Continue reading →

Women’s Herstory Month: Sexism in Craft Beer

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In the waning days of Women’s Herstory Month, let’s talk about why we even need to have a special month all for ourselves. Because women’s magazines. Because wage discrepancies and tube tops. Because being pressured into motherhood without women’s health care coverage and then the public shame of breastfeeding. Because the hyper-sexuality of commercials for anything and “abstinence only” teaching in schools. Because high heels and glass ceilings. Because the way I get touched by men all the time, and it’s supposed to be okay.

old-dominion-double-d-ipaAnd lastly, because craft beer labels! I don’t feel the need to list all the beers with questionable labels. Just Google “sexist beer labels” and be prepared to be embarrassed. So much improbable, gravitationally-challenged cleavage! So many cringingly gross sexual acts alluded to!

Come on, guys! Brewers: the majority of you are youngish white males with creative facial hair who give the distinct impression of being both fairly liberal and just awkward enough to want any chance with a woman you can get. In the same way talking about an ex-girlfriend on a date is a serious faux pas, recommending to me a bottle with a busty blond pin-up is really a turn-off. All that does is remind me of those lecherous old men at truck stops picking up magazines in black plastic. Men who prefer their women plastic, as well. Continue reading →

Take Time to Eat the Roses Quiz

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Image courtesy of Fine Dining Lovers

Image courtesy of Fine Dining Lovers

We’re a couple weeks shy of the true start of spring, but the weather is fooling me and a few brave crocus shoots into thinking otherwise. The flowers are on their way, dear readers, and they can be a feast for your taste buds in addition to your eyes. Below are the descriptions of eight delectably edible flowers, some of which you might eat on the regular without stopping to consider their flowery origins. Can you identify each one by its common name? If you can get six or more, consider yourself ready to spring into the season.

  1. It’s likely that you’ve seen these stuffed with cheese and fried, though they also make frequent appearances in other dishes, from the soups of Mexico to the risottos of Italy.
  2. Though these might look like berries, they’re actually the buds of a plant, usually pickled and often used in Mediterranean cuisine.
  3. These bright tropical blossoms make a tart and refreshing pink tea, but they can also be used in jams and sorbets.
  4. Ray Bradbury knew that you can make wine from the blossoms of this plant, and the French have a special soup made from the yellow flowers called creme de pissenlits.
  5. Kids on summer vacation learn that you can sample the sweet nectar of this climbing plant, but the entire bloom can also be enjoyed in salads and desserts. (The leaves and berries are mildly poisonous, though, so be careful!)
  6. These flowers are loved by gardeners for their bright color and insect repelling qualities, but they also have a peppery flavor and can even be used as a substitute for saffron.
  7. These flowers are most often dried and made into a tea known for its relaxing qualities, sometimes even prescribed as a gentle antidote to insomnia.
  8. Bakers have been candying these small, purple flowers since the 1800s, but they can also be eaten in salads or even used for infusing fancy cocktails and salad dressings.

Don’t scroll down or click continue until you’re ready for the answers! Continue reading →

Trips Both Educational & Relaxing: The Beercation

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bikinis

Please pass the discount chocolate hearts.

A few days before Valentine’s Day I went to Target to stock up on heart-shaped chocolate edibles that are my reason for the season, plus some stretchy, comfy pants to wear while eating. Much to my surprise, all the heart-shaped everythings were half-off and, instead of comfy pants, a jungle of bikinis greeted me in the lady’s department. I had forgotten that department stores operate on a retail version of “bar time,” and it was closing hour for winter.

While I try to spend as little of my existence on earth thinking about, purchasing, or wearing bikinis, the tiny, brightly colored scraps of fabric did remind me of summer, vacations, and then drinking good beer while on vacation. It’s one of my most favorite things to do.

There are two widely agreed upon types of vacations: the one in which you schedule every minute of your allotted time to fit in as much sightseeing as humanly possible; and the one in which you relax for every minute of your allotted time or until your brain attains the consistency of flan. There is no such complexity in beer-focused vacations. Continue reading →

Roasted Pears with Wine

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roasted pears

Yes, this photo is slightly out of focus, but I maintain that it is because of the delectable pear steam wafting off these babies.

I almost named these Presidential Pears, in honor of today’s holiday. (Jefferson was a big fan of wine, after all, and since that stuff about Washington and the cherry tree is probably apocryphal, anyway, why couldn’t it be a pear tree?) The truth is that these were more like Valentine Pears for us, but you definitely aren’t going to want to wait a whole year to try this delicious dessert.

The origin of this recipe lies, unfortunately, with the disappointment of my friend and co-worker Dominic, who accidentally ordered a nice bottle of what turned out to be dessert wine from Astor Wines, a lovely store with high standards and a tough return policy. Dessert wine, alas, is really not his thing, and after tiring of my helpful culinary suggestions about how he should use it, he decided to shut me up by just giving me the wine. Score! This recipe is super easy because the pears can roast while you’re eating your main course, and, served alongside a nice glass of the dessert wine itself, it’s seriously decadent. Go ahead and make up your very own holiday so you can celebrate by roasting these tonight; they’re worth it.

Roasted Wassail Pears Continue reading →

Cure for the Common Valentine’s Day

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Morethanbeer

Whoa, let’s not get carried away here…

Few holidays are loathed with the same venom as Valentine’s Day. I say, save all the energy you expend complaining about not getting a date and put it into not celebrating the day white man did not discover our land mass. No? Would it be different if you got Monday off? Maybe you just want to binge-watch John Hughes movies and aggressively eat obscene amounts of chocolate. You can do better than that! Let’s do it up right and drink the whole damn day away. Here are a few beers to pair with your own particular brand of self-hatred.

Say you intend to spend a reclusive evening alone on Valentine’s Day, as you’ve spent the entire beginning of the 14th spiraling down into a dark and inescapable funk after Facebook-stalking your ex and obsessing over the syntax and contextual hints of their most recent posts involving someone named Jamie. It is clear you need a stout, a Heart of Darkness from Magic Hat, to be specific. If you’re going to lose it, really go for it. Continue reading →

A Rose by Any Other Name: Valentine Quiz

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Great balls of chocolate! It’s nearly Valentine’s Day! Are you ready? Take the quiz below to find out if you’ve got the right stuff to select the perfect gift for your paramour. For each listed name, decide if it’s a rose variety, a type of dessert or a brand of wine. These are tricky, but if your results are better than chance (33%), consider yourself Cupid-ready.

  1. roseVelvet Devil
  2. Lady’s Navel
  3. Honky Tonk Blues
  4. Etoile de Hollande
  5. Purple Cowboy
  6. Floating Island
  7. Croquembouche
  8. The Poet’s Wife
  9. Mad Housewife
  10. Poire Belle Hélène
  11. Golden Wings
  12. The Wolf Trap

Don’t scroll down or click continue until you’re ready for the answers. Continue reading →

Singing the Brews: Racism and Craft Beer

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Garrett-Oliver-Fermenter

Garrett Oliver, Brewer, Black Dude

It’s almost February, Black History Month, which means as a beer person it’s time to start saying, Hey, where are all the black people? I went through my internal roster of Beer Folk and found one black dude, who is the same black dude everyone finds: Garrett Oliver. Oliver is the brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewery and known for his prize-worthy beers and drool-worthy pairings of beer with food. He is also known for being the Black Dude in beer.

I could throw statistics and charts at you if I was industrious enough to find them, but we all know what’s up: there aren’t many black people in the craft beer industry. The enthusiasts are also few and far between, which is what I am primarily concerned with. Just out of personal experience I can say that in my small Ohio town, where almost a quarter of the residents are black, I can remember seeing groups of black people in my local brewery twice. And I’m there a lot. At the closest bodega to my old apartment in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, on the other hand, I was lucky to find some of Oliver’s own Brooklyn brews. Continue reading →

Sweet Potato Pie Oatmeal in the Slow Cooker

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sweet potato pie oatmealWhen I was in high school, my neighbor Mr. Androw used to save his dessert to eat the next morning for breakfast. “I don’t see any real difference between coffee cake and regular cake,” he insisted. I always admired him for this stance, and if I haven’t followed suit, it’s probably only due to social convention. I hope he’s still out there fighting the breakfast powers that be.

If you’re not ready to embrace a slice of pie as part of a healthy breakfast, this oatmeal will provide an excellent compromise. It is stick-to-your-ribs hearty, plus it allowed me to use my crockpot which had somehow gone unused for an entire blizzard, plus it helped me plow through our generous supply of CSA sweet potatoes. Did I mention it was delicious?

I used almond milk, and I liked the way the flavor worked with the oats, but you can also use regular milk or soy milk or whatever your favorite milky substance happens to be. It’s your call.

Sweet Potato Pie Oatmeal Continue reading →

Wasabi-Soy Sweet Potato with Ginger-Kale Chowder

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IMG_2531Soup, soup, soup, soup, SOOOOOP. I’ve been waiting for seasonally-appropriate weather for at least six weeks, largely to take the edge off the panic induced by a 70-degree Christmas Day in Ohio, but also to fully sink into winter grub. Winter grub includes soup. And thus we have here a tale of two soups.

The first is a variation on the carrot soup Shannon shared a month or two back. In this version, she braised the carrots in soy sauce before putting them in the food processor, replaced the onions with garlic, and added ginger and sesame oil. Boom. I have nothing against carrots, but I do get tired of the aggression of their sheer profusion these months. I could not get enough of this soup, though. I mean, some kind of lovely chemical in my brain drained away when Shannon told me there was no more. I didn’t care what Slippin’ Jimmy was dealing with in Better Call Saul. I sat there and secretly wished Shannon would give me some of hers.

Which she did on her own volition! “No, no,” I said, “you finish your soup; I’m okay.”

“I sampled a lot while making it; I’m full,” she said.

And so I destroyed the few tablespoons left.

And thus inspired, I decided to do my part to work our way through our stockpile of root vegetables by inventing another soup that would satisfy a craving that I realized was significantly a craving for sesame oil.

So I worked up what I’ll call Wasabi-Soy Sweet Potato with Ginger-Kale Chowder. Continue reading →