El Segundo Brewing Co. Tasting

Once a month in Downtown LA, Golden Gopher Beer Society hosts a beer tasting in which local Professional Brewers share and talk about their beer with guests.  It's a whole lot of fun.  This past Monday, Thomas Kelley from El Segundo Brewing Co. brought 3 excellent beers for an eager crowd to taste.

Blue House Pale Ale 5.5% ABV, IBU-34
The perfect "lawnmower" beer.  Refreshing carbonation, nice aroma, with a bitterness that finishes clean.

Hyperion's Double Stout 7.5% ABV, IBU-35
Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate!  Your girlfriend will love this beer.  Creamy with a sweet chocolate base, and a balance of bitter roasted coffee to balance.  (It smelled like coffee liqueur to me!) An experimentation in style that lies between the traditional or average stout, and your higher ABV Imperial Stouts. 

White Dog I.P.A. 6.7% ABV, IBU-53
Another successful experiment brewed for both hopheads and neophytes alike!  A fairly bitter but lighter-bodied IPA with some serious fruity notes.  This beer is made with 50% wheat in the mash to lighten the body and bring out the citrus character of the hops.  (Made with Sauvin hops from New Zealand, which amazingly taste like White Wine and Grapefruit!)

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This was the first time I had ever tasted anything from El Segundo Brewing, and I was pleased as punch.  It was intriguing to hear Thomas Kelley speak about a wide range of topics on opening a brewery.  Did you know that hops are a huge commodity?  There is basically a Gold Rush, with growers raising prices based on availability of popular strains, so much so that brewers will often have to scratch an entire recipe because the hop is no longer available.  The Beer Chicks were in attendance, asking questions, drinking beers and cracking jokes along with the rest of us. 

El Segundo strives to become THE hop-centric brewery in Los Angeles.  They only opened production in May of 2011, and have found great success in the burgeoning LA Craft Beer Scene.   Look out for bottles in stores this summer.

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El Segundo's Reserve Citra Pale Ale is on tap along with the 3 tasting beers this month at the Golden Gopher, located at 417 W. 8th Street. Downtown Los Angeles, 90014.  El Segundo brews can be found all over the Southland, including Beer Belly in Koreatown, Mohawk Bend in Echo Park, City Tavern in Culver City, and of course at the Tap Room at the brewery in El Segundo. http://elsegundobrewing.com/index.htm


For more information on Golden Gopher Beer Society, come down to the bar and ask a bartender to hook you up, and stop by the 8th Street Bottle Shop on your way out!


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Trial by Curds: Making Cheese

Before I finish eating all of it, I'm going to write about it.  Inspired by the last blog post about things I want to make from scratch, today I spent about an hour making Mozzarella Cheese in my friend Angie's kitchen.  I first saw this kit in the little town of Ashfield, MA when I was doing an internship with Double Edge Theatre.  Little known to me there is a cheese genius in this town of dairy farms: Ricki Carroll, who has been running the business with her husband Robert since 1978.

http://www.cheesemaking.com/

You can order kits to make Cheddar, Feta, Gouda, Parmesan, and more.  You can buy wax,molds, sign up for cheesemaking classes, or by some awesome books on Cheesemaking.  The website has an in-depth overview of cheesemaking, including different animal milks to use, pasteurization, raw milk, and an explanation of what the hell rennet is.

"Rennet is an enzyme derived from the stomachs of calves, lambs or goats before they consume anything but milk. It is about 90% pure chymosin." (a chemical coming from the 4th chamber of the cow's stomach)

Good to know I can thank the cow's 4th stomach, because it was certainly magical to watch curds form as we stirred in the rennet.  The 30-Minute Mozzarella and Ricotta Kit includes enough for 30 batches, including the rennet tablets, citric acid, cheese salt, a dairy thermometer, and cheesecloth.  All you need to supply is a gallon of milk!

(We used Straus Family Creamery Cream-Top Whole Milk.  I ate the cream out of the bottle with a knife! YUM!)


Whey, the byproduct of the boiling and curdling, is a very interesting substance.  It is milk-ish:  a white cloud that tastes quite tangy and is packed with protein, enzymes, and the all-important lactose.  What to do with it?  Dry it out to put in my morning smoothie?  Drink it straight up? You can also feed it to your tomatoes or your dog.  Either way, it's good to keep around.  It will surely enrich the soul.  

What is most interesting is that one gallon of milk does not yield very much cheese.   Cow's milk is 88% water, 3-5% protein and 3-5% fat.  The rest is minerals and enzymes.   My blob of Mozz turned out to be a little smaller than my fist, about 4 inches across.   No wonder cheese costs so much. (The more you know!)


We had a few technical issues: forgot to add salt, and neither of us achieved the 'custard-like' curd that is supposed to form in the pot before moving on to the forming&stretching stage, but in the end it tasted like the full-fat organic cheesy goodness.  We had to consult a website for troubleshooting.  The directions in the booklet were not as in depth as I would have liked.  Our hiccups were from overheating & overstirring.  Heat it too quickly or too much then the structure breaks down and you end of with something that is less elastic & shiny.  Ah, well.  That's what's practice is for.  I suppose it is the first pancake rule: this one's going to the dog.  Maybe by the 10th time we make it, it will take 30 minutes start to finish. Either way, it was a real thrill to learn to make something from scratch! 

Next up, ricotta!  (and more pictures)

Cheers to Cheese,
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Make it From Scratch: A List

Cooking from scratch: Making food with fresh, raw ingredients and eating it tout de suite as it was intended!  For me it's a chance to say, "Hey! I know how hard it is to make this loaf of bread, this bottle of beer, or this pancake."  At one point all real, packaged food was handmade and homemade before it hit an assembly line to be wrapped in cellophane.  Cooking from scratch reminds me always of the effort and love behind really good cooking.

(Some of these aren't necessarily artisanal, but I'm including because they're complicated and intimidating and would be awesome to learn how to cook!)

Pretzels

Bagels

Pasta

Crackers

Cheeses-

Mozzarella, Parmesan, Blue, Cheddar

Sausage

Bacon

Gumbo

Tortilla Soup

Potatoes Anna

Chocolate

Chocolate Truffles

Apricot Jam

Dried Mangoes or Apples

Buche de Noel

Pork Rillette

Pate

Hot Sauce

Mole Sauce 

Dill Pickles

Honey Wine

Cider

Mulled Wine

To be continued,

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I'll admit it: I'm eating Kale

Kale, Kale, Kale.  In light of extolling its nutritional virtues, here is the recipe for my kale salad I had for dinner.  Easy and impromptu.

1 bunch kale
1 small lemon
1 avocado
1 roma tomato
olive oil
balsamic vinegar
salt&pepper
Italian seasoning


Rinse and dry kale leaves.  Chop into thin strips and throw in your bowl, discarding stalks.  Squeeze juice of 1 lemon onto kale.  Grabbing small handfuls, massage kale between palms until it begins to soften.  Drizzle olive oil, add salt, and pepper to taste then toss.  Cube avocado meat, then toss.  Slice tomato into chunks.  Add dash of Italian Seasoning and dash of balsamic.  Yum!


For Christmas I made a version with shaved Parmesan and Fennel.  Anyway you do it, lemon and kale make for best friends in a salad.


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P.S. For the love of Kale, at about 0:30.

Hot and Salty

Hot and Salty what?

Sriracha. The Rooster. Cock Sauce. The good stuff I pour over my pizza and pho. I'm a big fan of their sister sauce, Sambal Oelek. Good to stir in soups.

I read an enthusiastic blog post by Joshua Bosel at Serious Eats about Sriracha from Scratch. I mean, really, just look at those pretty red jalapenos.
All it takes is the marvel of fermenting pureed chilies, garlic, sugar, salt, vinegar. That's right, this funky hotness is so easily forgettable as a fermented product that we consume. For me, it's a strange thought. It sends shudders of the taste of kimchi down my spine, the rotting cabbage emerging from clay pots buried in the earth.

Articles upon articles do this sauce justice as to its versatility and flavor, and of course, awesomeness. (Even a cookbook, The Sriracha Cookbook.)

It made me think about one of my favorite recent nonfiction reads, Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky.

It was first recommended to me years ago on a cross country train ride from Chicago to San Francisco. It reads like a series of historical anecdotes, and sometimes very textbooky without preaching themes and summaries. It goes around the world, chronicling the evolution of salt mines and salt works in China, Italy and the like, and how those societies lived and died by their longevity. It covers curing, pickling, and fermented fish pastes and delicacies like kimchi. There's also a short section on the American-made Tabasco Pepper sauce for the patriots in us. It's an interesting read if you'd ever want to get a better idea of what it takes to get Morton's Table Salt or that fancy Pink Himalayan Salt to your kitchen counter.

Fun Fact: You know why French Gray Sea Salt tastes so good? Because there's dirt in it. True story.

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Think like Wine: an essay

Awake at 4am, plagued with a fit of existential jitters, I was suddenly reminded of one of my favorite speeches from Alexander Payne's Sideways.

Miles, (the would-be sommelier played by Paul Giamatti), responds to the question "Why are you so into Pinot?" with one of the best speeches of the movie.

Miles Raymond: Uh, I don't know, I don't know. Um, it's a hard grape to grow, as you know. Right? It's uh, it's thin-skinned, temperamental, ripens early. It's, you know, it's not a survivor like Cabernet, which can just grow anywhere and uh, thrive even when it's neglected. No, Pinot needs constant care and attention. You know? And in fact it can only grow in these really specific, little, tucked away corners of the world. And, and only the most patient and nurturing of growers can do it, really. Only somebody who really takes the time to understand Pinot's potential can then coax it into its fullest expression. Then, I mean, oh its flavors, they're just the most haunting and brilliant and thrilling and subtle and... ancient on the planet.

Any wine lover I know adores this movie, and has put "Have dinner at the Hitching Post" on their bucket list. For me at 4am, I flattered myself to think that I was exactly like a Pinot grape, brilliant but temperamental, and I went on to make perhaps the less than original conclusion that people are complex as wine. Cabernet Sauvignon. Tempranillo. Even a cheap Vin de Table.

Miles here is delving into his true inner romantic, and by extension describing himself. He says, "Only somebody who really takes the time to understand Pinot's potential can then coax it into its fullest expression." In this seduction scene, he's telling his love interest Maya (Virgina Madsen) the exact same things about himself. "I'm stubborn baby, but I'm worth it."

In the question, "Why Wine?" Maya has this to say:

Maya: I like to think about the life of wine...How it's a living thing. I like to think about what was going on the year the grapes were growing; how the sun was shining; if it rained. I like to think about all the people who tended and picked the grapes. And if it's an old wine, how many of them must be dead by now. I like how wine continues to evolve, like if I opened a bottle of wine today it would taste different than if I'd opened it on any other day, because a bottle of wine is actually alive. And it's constantly evolving and gaining complexity. That is, until it peaks, like your '61. And then it begins its steady, inevitable decline. "

Here as Maya speaks she delves into her passion for the creation and story of wine. (And I can't help but agree with her historical romanticism.) She says, "it's constantly evolving and gaining complexity" speaking on not only wine, but on what it is to experience life as a human. She's demonstrating to Miles her desire for him. Unfortunately, as intelligent and emotionally fragmented as he is, can't quite complete the seduction in the moment. This scene is so full of the potential passion that their union could have. It is gut-wrenching, eliciting loads of empathy for Miles from our hearts.

The idea that human characteristics can be applied to wine is crucial to understanding our relationship with food. As much energy it takes to grow, cultivate and manufacture wine, there is a reciprocal effect on those who consume it. This movie makes clear that the the tradition of consuming and manipulating raw ingredients from the ground is at the heart of survival and evolution on our little Earth.

I could get hyperbolic about this movie. Perhaps I already have. Great cast. Great script. It's one of those films that you've just gotta see.

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P.S. Haven't seen The Descendants yet. Looking forward to it, Mr. Payne.

My First Cup of Coffee

After a fantastic dinner at Akasha in Culver City, I am pleasantly full and feeling equally in a romantic mood to make a post. I am a Foursquare addict, and I got a free latte with my meal after checking in tonight. As I was staring into the swirling designs of the crema and milk, I thought back to my strongest memory of drinking coffee.

(Like my beer entry, this was certainly NOT my first cup of coffee in my life. Sure I'd had coffee at home, at shitty diners and my school cafeteria, but this is the ideal memory.)

I'm 16 years old, and it's the summer after my sophomore year of high school. I go on a 3-week trip to France, starting and finishing in Paris. My parents booked a penthouse to rent in the 5th arrondissement near the Sorbonne. Fabulous. Fabulous. It's 6:30 in the morning and I shoot out of bed. Jetlag? My brother and I connect in whispers and decide to go out for a very early breakfast. We take a stroll through the just-washed streets, not yet filled with busy Parisians. My teenage eyes soak in the majesty of the mythical city, so eager and hungry to see what all the fuss is about. We come to a corner, and walk into a cafe as the waitress was busy setting up. We were the first customers.

All I order is a pain au chocolat and a cafe au lait. The croissant? It was that angelic combination of flaky butter and semi-sweet chocolate. The coffee arrives in a large white bowl, which warms your hands as you drink. Who knows where this coffee was roasted, or what method they used to prepare it, but coffee was not coffee before this morning. It was the atmosphere, the hunger and anticipation. After we paid the tab and were on our merry way for a day of kitschy tourism, I knew I was hooked.

And I sure am. Sometimes on my days off from working at a cafe, I forget to get coffee until after dark. I get the classic headache, and become a moaning, aching addict. In those most desperate of situations, even Coffee Bean will do.

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photo: the Wandering Eater