A Beer a Day

As I've mentioned in previous posts, I got the idea to take pictures of beer bottles from the folks who physically collect the things, because I wanted to admire the variety without having to deal with finding a way to clean and store hundred of fragile beer bottles.

In cleaning out the content of my camera's memory card and adding all the new beers I've dunk over the months, I've realized that I started collecting pictures on December 9th of last year. And with 371 pictures in my collection, that amounts to nearly a new beer a day!

We are in the middle of a microbrew revolution in the United States, and I encourage everyone to go out an explore the myriad types of beers available in your local beer purveyor.

Revenge of the Four Loko

Is it still cooly ironic to drink Four Loko a second time? Probably not, but given that the drink is soon to be devoid of its caffeinated properties, I thought it would be worth a revisit. Also, I'm a few beers in this time, so we'll see how the Loko does its thing now.

2010: The "Cranberry Lemonade" is my flavor of choice this time, if only because the flavor made me chuckle.

2013: I noticed that Four Loko is based out of Lacrosse, WI. Way to poison our youth, Wisconsin!

2014: Opening the can now.

2015: The flavoring isn't as intense as the watermelon flavor I originally tasted, and the liquor isn't as prominent. We'll see as the night progresses.

2021: Also just found out that the idiot that shot his TV with a shotgun because Bristol Palin kept advancing in Dancing With the Stars is also from Wisconsin. Bad week for Wisconsinites.

2023: The liquor aftertaste is becoming more prominent.

2027: I think I've made a huge mistake - there's at least 70% of this left.

2037: I'm not the only one doing this, as this link illustrates, though - to be fair - this guy is a pussy, and -according to him - "young, dumb, and full of cum." I don't know what that means.

2044: That guy is 5.5 hours into it, two cans in, and is rambling drunk. This guy is a f'n lightweight.

2046: DUDE FELL ASLEEP. STARTED THE FOURTH AT THE EIGHT-HOUR MARK

2105: ...and we're done. Sure, I'm drunker than when I started, but as we can see, it's not that much worse than a couple of strong microbrews. The caffeine is a plus, though.

0245: ...and I just woke up. Maybe I drank it a little too fast. Also, quite thirsty. That guy is still a pussy, though.

The Four Loko Experiment

With all the hubub around Four Loko, it's only a matter of time before they're banned nationwide. On a recent trip to the liquor store I noticed the variety of brightly-colored cans in the cooler and thought today was the day to try one for myself. I can only imagine what the dude working the register thought when I brought up my made-my-own sixpack of seasonal and regional craft beers, only to augment it with a Four F'n Loko.

Last year, I had a bad experience with a "malt beverage" called "Wild Blue" which I mistook as a microbrew, but turned out to be made by Anheuser Busch and tastes like blueberry-flavored ass. It's the only beer I've ever thrown out, in fact. While I'm not a stranger to terrible beers, I wasn't expecting the same thing from Four Loko. Rather, I was expecting something like those nasty wine coolers my mom used to drink on the rare occasions when she drank at all.

My favorite artificial flavor is watermelon. At least, as a kid it was. I don't know what it was - it didn't taste like watermelon at all (not that I'm particularly a fan of regular watermelon flavor to begin with), but whatever that super sweet flavor was patterned from, I literally ate it up, particularly in the form of Bubblicious. Ergo, I was super excited to see Four Loko offered a watermelon flavor, which I bought up with much haste.

As if the name, or the drink being found amongst the alcohol not being indication enough that this was an alcoholic drink, they are certain to spell it out for you along the top of the can. They also happily call this a "premium malt beverage with artificial flavors, guarana, taurine, caffeine, and FD&C Red #40." I have no idea what FD&C Red #40 is, nor why they would want to brag about this fact alongside the caffeine and taurine, but now we know it's there. Also of note is the can is 23.5 ounces, so not even Four Loko is immune to the damage of the grocery store shrink ray.

I poured the Loko into a glass to best enjoy its flavor. I also allowed the pleasurable pink drink to rest for several minutes to breathe. The picture doesn't fully convey just how unnaturally pink this substance really is.

As I mentioned, I was expecting the heavy liquor presence of a watermelon wine cooler, but I was surprised to find the sweetness of the sugar water coming through before followed by the harsh and sharp liquor presence. By the time I was making my way to the bottom of the can, the liquor was getting more cloying, taking me longer to swallow after my sips. The sugary watermelon flavor was making my teeth hurt, too, though I guess kids who drink those sugary sodas would be used to this. It doesn't taste good, is what I'm saying, though really, who is surprised?

Is there a buzz? Of course - the thing's 12% alcohol. Of course, there are good microbrews that are 10+% too, and they have the added benefit of not tasting like shit. Beers don't have the energy drink properties, though, so I guess you could call that a win for the Loko. The argument in support of Lokos, when faced by prohibition by governments, is that you can get the same alcoholic and caffeinated properties by downing the occasional Red Bull during your drinking session, and I would claim the same. So, in the end, my Four Loko experiment was foiled by the fact that this thing tastes disgusting, and as I would hope these kids would learn, you can still get a mighty good buzz without sacrificing flavor. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some nice beers to which I should attend.

Lean Cuisine Review #3: Pizza Margherita

Tomatoes, red onions, garlic, basil & reduced fat mozzerella [sic] cheese with an olive oil tomato sauce on a crispy thin crust.

Image courtesy thespicybananas.com

Behold. The pizza margherita is perhaps the truest and best form of the art of pizza-making that is or will ever be. If pizza was a band, and the toppings combinations were its songs, "pizza margherita" would be the one that's played as the second encore on the last concert of their farewell tour. The combination of the soft, salty cheese, sweet tomatoes, fresh, crisp basil atop a crust of the simplest ingredients toasted to a crusty perfection in a wood-fired oven - it's perfection in its simplicity.

Of course, there are some liberties that can be taken with the recipe: some artisans prefer to use tomato sauce instead of fresh tomatoes, some choose to finish the pizza with a splash of olive oil, and - if you're Lean Cuisine, ignore all tradition altogether and create a margherita in only the vaguest definition of the word. Continuing on the band analogy, if pizza is a hugely-successful rock band, this version of its classic ditty "margherita" would be the shitty cover your loser brother has been trying to master on his guitar in his room for the past three weeks.

Certainly if you're over the age of sixteen you've had at least one run-in with microwave pizzas, but, if not, here's how it works - the frozen item is placed atop a flat piece of cardboard, the top side of which has a metallic circle upon which the pizza sits. The metal helps reflect the microwaves, which toasts the bottom of the pie at a higher temperature than the rest of the pizza cooks. The back of the box said that it only took a scant two minutes and thirty seconds to cook the pie, though if I wanted crispy crusts, I could leave it in for another fifteen seconds. Not being a communist, I cooked the pizza for 2:45.

The first thing that hit me was a big scent of basil that came from the large amount of dried stuff that I could clearly see sitting on top of the pizza. I guess the intent was to use the herbs to cover up the tastelessness of the "mozzerella" cheese, which tasted like a combination of salt and bad dreams. Though I use canned tomatoes on a very frequent basis, they're can't replace those recipes that call for fresh varieties, imposing a curious staleness in texture and flavor. I don't know why LC even bothered using "fresh" tomatoes, because there was also a base of tomato sauce, which tasted better anyway, though it provided a slick surface for that terrible amateurish experience when you take a bite of pizza and half of the damn cheese comes sliding off into your mouth, leaving your next three bites of pizza being nothing but crust. The crust was like many other pizzas in its field - tough and chewy, though there's a little hint of olive oil and garlic powder that took some of the edge off. Crispy? What do you think?

Lean Cuisine and other diet frozen dinners have been getting a bad rap for years because they didn't just taste bad - they tasted really, really bad, and it made people sad at times in their lives when their body image was already plenty sad in itself. There are some (relatively) decent Lean Cuisines, but in a case like this where they take a dish renowned for its freshness and purity and make it out of crappy frozen ingredients and salt, it makes me :'(  . The only consolation is that I noshed on this as a slightly-inebriated late night snack, so I didn't have to rely on this as my only means of sustenance for eight hours.

Score: 3 1/2 forks out of a possible 79.

Lean Cuisine Review #2: Cheddar Potatoes With Broccoli

Roasted potato wedges with tender broccoli tossed in a rich and creamy cheddar cheese sauce.


I'm pretty sure Lean Cuisine makes standalone side dishes, but I don't think this was intended to be one. I mean, it has just as many calories as a typical LC meal (and an even higher amount of sodium thanks to the cheddar cheese sauce), but maybe I was just missing something. Perhaps there was something more than just broccoli and potatoes in this "meal."

The cheese just kinda sat on top in
a big puddle

Now, don't get me wrong, potatoes are my favorite vegetable by far, and they're the most versatile foodstuff this side of corn, and broccoli is perhaps my second-favorite vegetable, with me eating literally a head of it in a sitting. The thing is, only one of these vegetables freeze well, and it's not the tater. The starch prevents things from resurrecting very well, and the crisp, tender potato I envisioned in my head prior to my first bite was nothing like the mushy brown cubes waiting in my tray. Some green vegetables, like peas, are just as good frozen as they are fresh, and others are good enough, and I think broccoli falls into the latter category - it's not the same as fresh stalks, but when I'm intending to eat an entire bag of it, I don't mind all that much.

The cheddar cheese was the exact same rubbery, vaguely-nachoish cheese that are found in many dinners and vegetable packs showcasing the stuff, and served only as a means by which to cover up the failings of the vegetables. Honestly, though, I would have been much happier just eating the potatoes and broccoli with a little salt, knocking the calorie count down by 100 or so, and feeling free to open up another LC, treating this "meal" as the side dish it really is. Even worse is that this "meal" isn't even really difficult to make. It's, like, really easy. Why did I pay $2.50 for this "simple favorite"? Why do I keep using so many quotes? Who am I? How did I get here, and why am I still so hungry?

Lean Cuisine Review #1: Butternut Squash Ravioli

To offset my terrible, terrible diet when dining out in restaurants, I cop out a lot of the time at home and stick with the Lean Cuisines. I mean, if I'm going to eat something that's healthy, why bother cooking it myself? Over the course of exploring the wide and diverse offerings from the LC menu, I've found that some are better than others, so in an effort to expand my Lean Cuisine palette, I thought I would branch out from my comfortable revolving stable of flavors and try some of the many other varieties offered in my grocer's freezer.

Butternut Squash Ravioli? How could they take such a delectable gourmet treat and put it inside of a microwavable tray? For starters, it's part of their Spa Cuisine collection, which I guess implies this is the type of food that you would find at some sort of fancy fat camp. The ones the celebrities attend, no doubt. Rest assured, this one's sitting at a cool 4/5 stars on the LC website, so I'm certainly in for a treat.

I figured out how they were able to cram these ravioli into a healthy packaging - there's, like five f'n ravioli in this damn thing, and they try to hide it by covering it with a shitload of vegetables. In fact, there's nothing but vegetables in this meal - no meat.

The Italian cream sauces traditionally achieved their texture from the use of eggs, butter, and cheese, though the Italian found in the Olive Gardens of America usually weigh everything down by covering it with heavy cream. Obviously, neither of these options are particularly lean, so the cream sauce is created here through skim milk, chemicals, and a loose definition of "cream sauce." The box claims that walnuts are in this dish, though what they actually mean is that one lonely walnut has been broken into several pieces and scattered through the tray, perhaps as a game to distract you from how fat you've become. Obviously there was only one texture in this dish - mush - and the yellow butternut squash goop that filled my ravioli was a nice change from the other vegetables, which are constantly reused in most of these meals. Things could have used some salt, but at 590mg already, I didn't dare add anymore.

I think pasta dishes are tricky because they can't add too much without upping the calorie count, plus I'm sure that butternut gel isn't cheap to make since they can't use it in any other meal. If I was at a spa and someone tried to serve me this, I would punch them in the mouth. Still, the ravioli and sauce tasted somewhere in the ballpark of butternut squash ravioli, and the abundance of vegetables means I'm at least full for the time it takes my stomach before realizing it was gypped with regards to meat.

Final Score: 57 out a possible 133.

For Dinner: Chinese Short Ribs with Long Beans

Long Beans are in season, and I was surprised to see that my local Dillon's had some on sale (though not cheap, at $4.69 per pound), so I grabbed some while I had the chance, with an epicurious recipe in mind. I wanted to continue the Chinese theme, so I found a Tyler Florence recipe for short ribs to accompany them.

The peanuts worked well with the beans - though given Serious Eats' writeup, I was expecting a significantly different flavor than regular green beans. I don't really like ribs, though - they're typically hard to eat, and these were no different. I managed to cut a few ribs for myself, but there was still a lot of fat remaining that I was not interested in eating, and I dreaded trying to salvage the meat from the remaining half rack for my leftovers, so I ended up just throwing them away. The flavor was nicely complex from the five spice rub and the glaze, though a bit salty - something I take responsibility for, given that I only had full-salt soy sauce, not the low sodium the recipe required.

Android App Spotlight #14: Ratio

Price: $4.99
AppBrain
Website

Michael Ruhlman's book Ratio isn't so much a cookbook as it is a template from which basic foods can be made. Want to make cookie dough? You'll need 1 part sugar, 2 parts fat, and 3 parts flour. Looking for a brine? All you need is 20 parts water and 1 part salt. I'm of the inclination that cookbooks and their recipes are merely starting points from which consumers should expand upon now that they know the backbone of the recipe, and Ratio takes away the crutch of the recipe altogether. It's a more advanced cookbook - you're going to have to use your knowledge of cooking to get the flavors - but you'll at least have the elemental composition, provided you use the correct ratio. I've never read the book - though the Amazon page for it has a positive writeup from Alton Brown, which is good enough for me - but the app serves as a condensed form of all this information, providing the golden ratios for a couple dozen foods, from batters to fat-based sauces, provides a calculator to provide you with the exact amounts needed depending on how many people are being served, as well as a short narrative expanding upon the ratio and sometimes providing suggestions for flavoring.

There's an appeal to recipes - follow them to the letter, and your efforts will be rewarded - but at best, it serves only as a showcase for your manual skills and ability to follow directions. You shouldn't really consider yourself a cook unless you are able to expand or modify recipes, or even make up some of your own from scratch. This app will help you in the latter respect, though you'll have to work at it.

Mission: Spice Rack

Spices

I like collecting spices. My mother has a limited mishmash of spices and blends, and it's frustrating when you're working on a recipe, and you go to look for a particular spice only to find - darn it! - you didn't have it, leaving you to either go off the rails and try a substitution that may completely change the flavor of the dish, or omit it all together, which also may completely change the flavor of the dish. Once I got a place of my own, I decided to always be prepared, and maintain a spice collection that may seem large in comparison to others.

While I like spices, I really don't like spice racks. They trade functionality for flash, and take up valuable counter space, especially when you need a lot of them. You also have to think about future expansion - will I be able to find another one of these ornate racks when I run out of space in my current model. And lest we forget how fast a spice's potency can deteriorate when exposed to direct sunlight.


The Problem

This was my first spice rack, the KitchenArt Spice Carousel, which I chose because my mother had three of them lying around and it didn't cost me anything. It was neat to have the ability to stack more than one rack, and the bottoms rotated to give you an instant 1/4 tsp dose. They were a little hard to clean, though, the design was a bit bland, and every time I wanted a new one, I had to spend $25 on one on Amazon - which is still cheap in spice rack terms (though, in retrospect, not as more expensive than I originally thought). At my max, I had five carousels, and was procrastinating on buying the sixth. The KitchenArt got the jobs done well enough, so I couldn't really justify looking into other spice solutions until my recent move, when I was attempting to clean the containers by soaking them in soapy water. The container previously containing tumeric still had enough residue to dye the plastic of every other container a yellowish tint. Into the garbage they went, and I needed something new to do with my spices.

The Solution
As I typically do for kitchen advice, I turn to Alton Brown and the spice rack he uses on Good Eats, which is to say, not a rack at all but tin jars attached to Velcro strips on the inside of the cupboard doors. Certainly an elegant solution, but it seemed like the process would be a little more complicated than I was willing to get into. Even other people that have shared their experiences online often go with a different but similar solution:


Magnets, How Do They Work?
People seem more inclined to use magnetic-based solutions. It seems easier - get the tins, slap a magnet on the bottom, and attach. The only problem is the attaching surface, which either has to be the fridge or a piece of metal that's somehow attached to another surface, like that cupboard door. Looking for the easiest option, I initially went with a magnetic option, too.

Equipment
They already make magnetic spice tins. Problem is, they cost $3 f'n dollars apiece at Bed, Bath, and Beyond, and online resources weren't producing much better results. This was much too high for the 50-60 tins I required for my rack. I instead chose to buy my own tins online for $.75 per unit and put my own dang magnets on there.

I wasn't sure where to find adhesive magnets, so I ended up in the crafts section of Wal-Mart, where I found a roll of magnetic tape that was about an inch wide. It was easy enough to cut a piece the circumference of the tin, and it stuck to the fridge easily enough, but there was a problem: the magnetic tape raised the tin up about a quarter of an inch. If the tin was tilted in either of the directions that didn't have the tape on it, all magnetic connection to the fridge was lost and the tin would fall, bringing any other tins that may be perched beneath them along for the ride. I couldn't trust this approach, especially when cramming sixty tins onto the side of a fridge meant that I had to be careful when removing and replacing tins. This won't do.

Wal-Mart also had magnet sheets for pictures, with adhesive on one side and a magnet on the other. It was flatter, not raising the tins as high off the fridge, and I used an Exacto knife to cut the full surface area of the tin, so there's 100% coverage. Unfortunately, even the magnet wasn't strong enough, once again causing a tidal wave of tins to fall to my kitchen floor, and I still had the overcrowded fridge issue.

Velcro Again
Fine, I'll use the stupid Velcro and risk damage to the inside of my cupboards from the Velcro adhesive. I went to Home Depot and found a roll of Velcro Sticky Back - the one with the picture of the very thing I'm trying to do on the box. It was a simple thing then to measure out some strips and slap them on the cupboard.

The good thing about the Velcro is that placements can be more imprecise - as long as a reasonable amount of the Velcro connected, the thing will stick. Also, the inside of the cabinet allows me a little more room. A couple of weeks in, and it's working pretty well. The entire thing cost about $65, it doesn't use counter space, and by keeping the spices in the dark, it maintains the longevity of the spices. This Alton Brown guy knows a thing or two.

Dinner Tonight: Bacon Cheeseburger Soup

After an interesting but ultimately very disappointing hamburger soup at a recent dinner, I started thinking about the elements of a cheeseburger, and how they would be incorporated into soup form.

Hamburger - obviously ground beef would get the job done, but I didn't like how the meat separated into tiny meaty bits floating in the liquid. I want a big bite of meat with my soup. So, with the need for large pieces of meat comes with more consideration for the cooking method. The soups and stews of old would just throw everything into a pot and cook until overdone, but that really misses several opportunities to introduce flavor into the dish. Stew cooking is slow cooking, so we need a cut with a lot of connective tissue, giving the low heat time to break down and become unctuous. My mind went back to Alton Brown's beef stew recipe (which is really a goulash recipe), and I chose to braise boneless short ribs in a similar fashion. As to the braising liquid, I initially wanted to replace the tomato paste with mustard, but I was worried that three pounds of mustardy short rib pieces might be a little strong. I decided to do half with mustard, and the other half with ketchup, thereby keeping half safely similar to the original recipe, and the dual mustard-ketchup interplay was interesting. The meat is the most important part of the hamburger, so it should be the base of the soup, too. It was either chicken or beef stock, and beef had to be the way to go.

Cheese - I thought it would be nice to add some shredded cheese to the liquid, but I wasn't sure if it was possible to add only a limited amount such that it adds flavor, but not a whole hog cheese soup consistency. I was going to try it, and some Wisconsin cheddar seem like a good choice.

Onion - Though a mirepoix eventually found its way into the base, it wasn't planned initially, so I was thinking about adding the onion in a manner similar to French onion soup. Some butter-caramelized onions will provide some sweetness and add get the job done.

Tomato and Pickle - These elements are best enjoyed fresh and cold on a burger, so I chose to save them as a garnish rather than throw them into the pot.

Lettuce - Also best cold, but not very flavorful, so it would either be used very sparingly along with the tomato and pickle, or thrown in like corned beef and cabbage. I chose the latter.

Potatoes - Why not throw the fries into the pot, too? Frying seemed a little unnecessary, especially since any crispy texture would be lost after submersion. I chose a simple browning before adding them in.

Bacon - Everything's better with bacon, and I had some extra laying around, so it's going in.

I didn't use any bun representation. The best I could come up with was similar to - again - French onion soup, with a crouton on top, and the cheese could make its appearance there, but I decided against it.

So here's the final recipe:

• 3 pounds boneless short ribs, cut into 1-inch cubes
• 1 white onion, diced
• 1 yellow onion, Frenched
• 1 red onion, Frenched 
• 2 carrots, diced
• 2 stalks celery, diced
• 5 ounces sharp cheddar cheese, grated
• 2 large Russet potatoes, julienned
• 1 hothouse tomato, seeded and diced
• 4 dill pickle spears, seeded and diced
• 5 thick cut pieces of bacon, sliced into 1-inch pieces
• 1/2 head medium-sized head of lettuce, sliced thinly
• 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar (divided)
• 3 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce (divided)
• 2 teaspoons dried parsley (divided)
• 2 teaspoons granulated garlic (divided)
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano (divided)
• 1 bay leaf
• 3 sprigs fresh thyme
• 1/4 cup ketchup
• 1/4 cup whole-ground mustard
• 2 quarts beef stock
• 4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 tablespoons butter

In a medium-sized mixing bowl, combine half of the vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, parsley, oregano, garlic, all of the ketchup, and whisk to combine. In a separate bowl, combine the remaining amounts of each of the ingredients, along with all of the mustard, and whisk to combine.

Add 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil to a heavy-bottomed pan over medium heat until a drop of water dances when placed in the pan. Sear the pieces of meat on all sides. Toss half of the meat with the ketchup mixture, and half with the mustard mixture. Wrap the meat in heavy duty aluminum foil, and place inside a 250 degree oven for 4 hours.

In a fry pan, melt the butter over medium low heat. Add the red and yellow onions, a heavy pinch of salt, and sweat until golden brown, 30-45 minutes.

In a stockpot, heat 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil, add the diced carrots, onion, celery, a pinch of salt, and sweat until soft. Add the beef stock, bay leaf, and thyme, and simmer for thirty minutes. Remove the bay leaf and thyme from the pot and discard. Using an immersion blender, blend the stock and vegetables until smooth. Add the cheese in handfuls, making sure the previous handful has melted completely before adding the next. Blend again if desired. Add the sweated onions and stir to combine. Reduce the heat to low and cover, stirring occasionally.

Add 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil to a fry pan and brown the potatoes. You may have to work in batches depending on the size of the pan. Once browned, add to stock pot along with the lettuce.

Cook the bacon pieces in a fry pan over medium-low heat. Drain and set aside.

After the meat is finished, remove from oven, open the foil packages, and add meat to stockpot. Salt and pepper to taste.

Serve the soup garnished with the tomatoes, pickles, and bacon.

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My only regrets are not using the juices from the meat packages (though they may have provided too much of a mustardy and ketchupy flavor), and not using the bacon fat for anything (although I used it to make a vinaigrette and eat with the remaining lettuce). Also, while I know that a mealy red potato would have had an easier time staying together in the pot, I like the starchy ones better. Still, I may go back to a red potato next time, because it was hard browning the white potatoes without them falling apart a little bit. Otherwise, I thought it was a pretty solid soup, and only one of a handful of recipes that I've thought out from beginning to end (the only other that comes to mind is my should-be-award-winning chili). And I cannot stress enough how much better this soup was than the one I had at that restaurant. So much better.