The cheese of the month at Neal's Yard Dairy is Coolea.
Coolea is a delicious, slightly salty cheddar from Ireland, made with traditional animal rennet and the nectar of the gods. It is a beautiful cheese in a very traditional way. Its soft, yellowy glow, smooth texture and perfectly rounded shape make Coolea the Platonic form for all cheddars.
The 2007 Hot Pepper Winners have been announced.
The overall hot sauce winner was Sizzlin' Sauces 'Creepin' Quag' (which also took the Habanero category).
The barbeque winner was the W.O. Hesperus Company's 'Bar Harbor-Que' (the winner of the 'fruit' category - trumping the winners in 'hot' and 'extra hot'... intriguing!).
Hot Pepper also chose winners in salsa, condiments, dry rubs and... frighteningly... 'extreme' categories. (The latter went to 'Dragon's Blood' from Chili Pepper Pete).
Also worthy of note, Hot Pepper gives out awards for 'creative thinking' and label design. This is a great idea, not just for the deserving winners, but for the industry as a whole. Keep up the good work!
Lebowski, clearly angling for a Christmas present, sent me this article in the New York Times about the influx of high-end and 'super-premium' bourbons to the market.
The background on bourbon marketing is really interesting - the writer assumes (probably correctly) that the bourbon market has made a conscious and aggressive effort to court business. Although it'll 'never be vodka', they felt that people could be encouraged to sip a quality bourbon on a night out and not feel out of place.
The article also gives a nice summary on the difference between bourbon, whiskey and Jack Daniels (although he doesn't use super-heroes to help make the distinction).
Monkey Shoulder - the astoundingly smooth, triple blended 'whisky' that probably offends true Scotsmen by its very existence - is hosting a series of 'Appreciation' events.
Described (modestly) as 'witty, intelligent and insightful', the events are dedicated to the 'life pursuits of the modern man' (grunt, chest-butt).
The upcoming event - the second in the series - features Jason Lewis, who was the first person to circumnavigate the globe using only human power (it took 13 exhausting years).
The talk is on November 27th at the Hospital (24 Endell Street, WC2), from 6.30 to 9 pm. The event is free, with free Monkey-based cocktails, but there's extremely limited seating.
Looking ahead, January 25th will be 'The Art of Whisky and Cigar Appreciation', hosted by the editor of Whisky Magazine. More whisky, less pedal-based travel... that's something I can appreciate.
...less controversially, they also dislike historic barns.
The Hot Pepper Awards (for food of an exceedingly brutal nature) are about to begin. The final deadline for applications, November 15th, is approaching quickly.
You can't just drop a jalapeno in some gasoline and ship in it. For one, they require professionally-prepared foodstuffs only. For two, you'd still probably lose.
"The All Candy Expo - held at the massive McCormick Place from Sept. 17-19 -offers a wonderfully weird world of sweetness inside the strange confines of a convention center. Only industry folks and lucky members of the fourth estate can enter - signs strictly forbid anyone under 16, even babies. And behind those gray walls lies glory." (More from The Onion)
How great is this email from Krispy Kreme?
(Alas, the screenshot doesn't have the animated gifs in their full glory)
I love this - it feels like one of those irritatingly optimistic chain forwards from someone's aunt - rather than a typical piece of corporate spam.
Even the plea at the end *not* to reply - it actually makes me think this really was just randomly sent from "Mary" because she was THAT excited about the Watford branch's Christmas donut and just HAD to tell her friends.
My heart (and arteries) is with the Watford branch and their 'Snowy Snowball' donut. What about you?
Here are the options:
Shannon Corner entered a scrumptious Kristmas Kake, loaded with dried fruits and frosted with white glaze.
They also entered a Mint Choc Delight, a minty chocolatey doughnut with a light green glaze finished with a chocolate "fancy" on the top.
Watford 's entry was a Snowy Snowball Doughnut - white creamy centre with white icy glaze and white chocolate curls.And Enfield's Chocolate Orange Doughnut was filled with soft orange-flavoured chocolate, chocolate iced and decorated with a crystallised orange slice.
After a long delay, the first Starbucks opened in Russia this week.
The long-suffering Russian people can now join the rest of the civilised world in spending a week's wages on over-roasted Americanos.
A lovely illustrated guide to coffee has been posted here.
Is anyone else irritated by the idea of a 'flat white'?
I find the difference between a 'flat white' and a latte exists almost totally in the mind of the irritated Antipodean that's ordering it.
As always, I'm happy to be corrected... anyone?
"She sat bolt upright like a bright and obedient child and smiled at me with wide eyes and careful mouth, and told Santo she would have the regular, which turned out to be a straight shot of Wild Turkey with water, no ice, on the side. When she got it, she went at it with frequent little sippings, each of which must have been three or four drops by volume."
(John D. MacDonald, Pale Grey for Guilt. New York: Fawcett, 1958.)
Pale Grey for Guilt is one in the long-running Travis McGee series. Travis is a gin drinker. The Wild Turkey drinker (Mary Smith) has a crack at Travis, and is rejected. Those familiar with the series realise how rare that is - proving, again, the importance of proper bourbon consumption.
"Jack Daniels all right?"
"It's the only bourbon a real drinker will drink."
That's the way it went. She had my favorite whisky. She drank it on the rocks too, with no delicately reluctant sips and no ladylike oh-this-is-so-strong grimaces. But she didn't open up her throat and pour the Jack Daniels down either. She drank it as I did: she enjoyed it.
(Stephen Marlowe. Violence is My Business. Greenwich: Gold Medal, 1958)
I suddenly realized I only have one serving left of my delicious Salsa Piccante de Sophie hot sauce.
As the unfortunate regular readers of this blog know, I'm slightly obsessive about using Sophie's on everything - any flat starch or protein-based surface gets a hefty dollop. Just this week, I've used it as a marinade for tinned tuna, an additive to Domino's pizza and a key component in a grilled ham and cheese sandwich.
Given that no one I know will be going to Canada in the near future to buy me more, it looks like this is the tearful farewell to the best hot sauce I've ever had.
So, in a new low for Web 2.0, how should I use it? On a grilled cheese sandwich, an omelet, a steak or just mixed into a Tequila shot?
Badasshamster should really be a part of your daily Internet consumption.
[First published January 2006 on the previous incarnation of TCP]
This weekend was cold and blustery, so I did the right thing - stay inside. I hibernated luxuriantly - plumping myself down in front of an open fire, with Stevie Wonder on the stereo and a freshly-tapped bottle of Gates from my private reserve.
From an early publication (1950's) on 'Kenya Coffee and How to Make It':
Thanks to some hard work by the folks over at Bacon Unwrapped and Foodie on the Run, the world has now had its first glimpse of 'Bacon Infused Bourbon'.
The results, unfortunately, were mixed (try the links above for the full story). Although a good experiment - and clearly something that enhances our world in a moral sense - the result was only marginally palatable.
I must confess, I'd love to try this myself at some point. After the extreme joy I had after stumbling on the combined tastes of Maker's Mark and bacon (summary of link: yum), I'm fully behind any effort that brings the twin tasty pillars of Bacon and Bourbon closer together.
There's just not much better than good bourbon, unless it's good bacon - and now the twain shall meet? Glorious.
[Clearly, this is hyperbole. In the context of the Meat Bracket, nothing could be better than good ribs!]
Further adventures with Stubb's Beef Marinade
When I was doing the review last week, a tiny, fish-shaped lightbulb went off in my head. This marinade tastes like 'soy, ginger, lime and red pepper'... hmm... I bet I know what that'd go well with...
A tiny, fish-shaped lightbulb.
I like to make a big deal out of my Christmas steak. Once a year, I go out of my way to put together the elements to a fine holiday meal - a bottle of posh red wine, a fat ribeye steak (from organo-local-free-range cattle) and even the occasional side dish (e.g. a potato). It's a day of simple, if pernickity, pleasures.
Normally - being simple and pernickity - I don't risk my steak with a commericial marinade. Rather, I whip up something basic with the four food groups (salt, pepper, garlic and oil). This year, however, I came back from the Southwest with something special in tow: Stubb's Beef Marinade
From Anne (our US correspondent):
Wednesday's San Francisco Chronicle reported the result of a blind butter taste-off, desgined to determine once and for all that most vexing of questions: is "European style" butter superior to "every-day" butter?
The result was a resounding 'yes' - but not if prepared by Europeans. American and New Zealand versions of the European stylings received higher scores than their European counterparts.
Upon his return from Canada, Lebowski proudly presented me with this bottle of hot sauce, from a Vancouver cafe. "Hot sauce," I scoffed, "from Canada?!". He smirked and just suggested I try it.
I can't stop using this sauce.
Coffee, as my girlfriend told me (slightly wired at the time), goes with everything good - breakfast, dessert, red wine, cheese, chocolate or even on its own.
I wholeheartedly agree - there is something spectacular about a good cup of coffee, and I drink more than my fair share of them. But the more I ponder it, the more concerned I become - how exactly can I get coffee to relate to meat?
I can't imagine this tasting of anything but gross.
Coca-Cola does serve a role in culinary society - primarily in the preparation of ham and the accompaniment of rum - , but I fail to see the appeal of a 'syrup-topped, battered nugget'.
Fried Coke Latest Craze at State Fairs
Nicole King - All Headline News Staff WriterChicago, IL (AHN) - The latest craze at state fairs is fried Coca-Cola.
The Coke-batter nuggets are topped with cola syrup.
The treat won the "most creative" title at the Texas state fair in Dallas last month. Since then, it's spread to North Carolina and Arizona. Other fried treats at fairs include Twinkies, cookies, candy bars and pickles.
Fried Coke's creator is concessionaire Abel Gonzales Jr. He said last year he sold fried peanut butter, jelly and banana sandwiches. He sold 20,000 of those. Fried Coke though is an even bigger hit. Gonzales sold 16,000 cups of it in the first two weeks of the fair.
From the Insane Chicken blog:
Mad Dog 357 Hot Sauce Can Get You Suspended
Laura Martin loves hot sauce. So much so, the 16-year-old Concord High School senior brought Mad Dog 357 hot sauce with her to school.
The 16-year-old girl is back in school after school officials recanted their decision to suspend her for bringing hot sauce to school.School officials said Laura Martin's bottle of Mad Dog 357 hot sauce hurt two students on the same day.
In response to Picklin' Paul's request below, I actually remembered I had written a sauce-site recommendation email earlier this year. (The Carnivore Project is always available for private consultation on meaty matters)
The site I found was www.americasbestbbq.com, which has the additional credibility of being based out of Kansas City. Their list isn't exhaustive, but it is biased towards Midwestern sauces, so they've got the cream of the crop.
A machine-gun opinion of some of their sauces:
Earlier this year, the Times ran an elegaic article on the use of mustard. Although a patently one-sided story (yellow journalism?), it made for a very poetic read.
Three of the sweetest words in the English language are “pass the mustard”. By passing the mustard, you are handing on centuries of tradition and a noble and complex art; not to mention a pungent, appetising relish for your roast beef, sausages, pork pie or ham sandwich. (Times, 24 Feb, 2006)
Now, after boring you senseless with lengthy amounts of useless (except for pub quizzes in backwoods Kentucky) background, we get to the controversial bit - bourbon brands.
All of the brands I'm about to get into are really mid-range bourbons. None, I'm sorry to say, would ever show up as a house or a well bourbon, like Jim Beam - but nor do they have ridiculous flowered crests on top, and a £50 price tag. These won't embarass you if you order them at the Savoy, but you can still mix Coke into them without feeling too guilty.
On a particularly lazy Sunday afternoon, I was reading The Physiology of Taste, by Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (back in the days where hyphens were all the rage), and chortling contentedly at his delightful aphorisms.
One particularly poignant saying:
A dessert without cheese is like a pretty woman with only one eye.
I was exposed to a new hamburger recipe over the weekend.
Generally, this doesn't carry the sort of gravitas that I'm trying to imbue here, but this was something of a phase shift in my burger consumption.
First, trying someone else's marinade is always a shock - especially with home-cooked meals, I prefer to have complete dictatorial control over the meat. Alas, this explanation carries very little weight at home, and the kitchen is now more of a vaguely defined constitutional monarchy. I'm lucky to still have control over the grill.
Bourbon - at least, when not in Jack-n'-Coke form - is a relatively new proposition to the British Isles. However, judging by the number of swank London bars that are starting to carry the nicer labels, this situation is about to change.
For carnivores, however, bourbon has long been in the picture. Bourbon and BBQ go together well - as a flavorsome ingredient in a glaze, a daring addition to a marinade and as an much-appreciated ingredient in most classic Southern cocktails.
So, when the chance came to hear Chris Morris, the Master Distiller for Woodford Reserve, I took it.
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