Friday Afternoon

My propensity for wasting time in the WOLRD WIDE WEB towards the end of my work-day led me to this picture. I cannot determine if these guys are complete losers OR just totally awesome.

Your vote decides the outcome.

'Wrence

Summer Weather

Hey kids, 'Wrence here;

Not much of any terrible importance going on; except, that is, the gradual and inevitable increase in the kick-assitude of the weather here in Boston. It seems like summer has suddenly sprung right from the bowels of crap-laden mud & street garbage itself. Why, just last week was I treated to the miraculous sight, as RyToy & I waited for a bus at Harvard Square, of an adult HAWK, screeching down from the heavens, TALONS OUTSTRETCHED, who dove into a nearby bush and then came back up with a fucking RAT in its carnivorous clutches!! Yea, it was probably the most badass thing I've ever seen in the city. Period. Exclamation point.

So anyway, when the 2nd consecutive day of sunshine, 60 degree temps, and a smooth summer breeze (makes me feel niiiiiice) hit me, I decided that it was time for me to take out my trusted and true little charcoal grille. The wimpy, pathetic, 14-inch diameter job that anywhere outside of the city would probably result in me being laughed off of something in an humiliating fashion, is PERFECT for my 7 x 30 foot driveway.

On the menu was a nice fillet of steelhead trout, dressed with olive oil, lemon juice & some herbs. Also a melange of grilled vegetables was produced (and thoroughly enjoyed), along with some goat cheese crostini. All this was cooked and consumed pretty much completely in the driveway, making cleanup not really even necessary. Score. Add a bottle of really good, decently priced California Cab. Score again.

Also, I felt so good I planted some marigolds in this big planter on my sidewalk. Over the last 3 years I have found that people throw less garbage in it if there are flowers there. Here is what it looks like:


I am proud.

Don't forget to call your mother on Sunday.

'Wrence

Portsmouth Brewery

As previously mentioned, I was in New Hampshire this weekend. Saturday night found us going out for a much more low-key dinner than the Friday night. We decided to hit up Portsmouth Brewery a brewpub in downtown Portsmouth. The place was pretty jammed, we had to wait about 35 minutes at about 7 or so. We sidled up to the bar in the meantime. They offered a variety of their own brews as well as some from Smuttynose, which is also located in Portsmouth.

I started things off proper-like with a wheat wine, which tasted remarkably similar to what I know as the Smuttynose Wheat Wine. In fact, I would not be surprised if they are one and the same. Maybe I will do some digging later on to see if that is actually the case. Either way, the wheat wine was delishis. Nice full bodied flavor with a nice subtle hop bitterness that helped avoid a cloying sweetness. No super burny alcohol flavor despite the high booze by volume number (I didn't see it written anywhere but I would imagine this one clocks in at no less than a 10% bbv.) After passing that around for Angie and her parents to try with varying degrees of like-itude we were able to grab a table.

I followed up my high grav opening round with a still high, though less so, Belgian Dubbel. This one was real tasty, in fact I could have drank at least 80 or 100 of these things no joke. Great malt character, not too heavy on the palate, just the right profile of Belgian funk that I get down with in my brews of this type.

I made the mistake of ordering the Stout Beef Stew. Boooooooo. It was a pussy attempt at a dish I really like. First of all, it was more like a stupid watery brown broth and less like an awesome gravy-ish stewy sauce. Second, it was served over egg noodles...which is cool if it is Beef Bougnioun or however the hell you spell if. But this wasn't...I was expecting a nice Irish style beef stew and was sorely disappointed. I punched the waitress, but she didn't seem to get why. In anticipation of an awesome Irish beef stew I ordered a Black Cat Stout, which I have had at various Beer fest style events...not that I remember any details beyond actually having had one. It was awesome as well. Brewhahas - 3 Food - 0. It had a nice roasted coffee profile, smooth as hell, clean tasting and very poundable. This is the kind of stout I would drink every day if given the chance. Man!!! I am still mad the food wasn't better because that would have been the tits.

In defense of the place though, Angie and her parents all really enjoyed their dinners (fish & chips, cheeseburger, and something else I forget) and they are of more discerning tastes than myself. So I would still recommend the place...sit at the bar though. The dining room area is weak.


&RyToy

Ah New Hampshire!!!

Spent the weekend up in New Hampshire with Angie's family. Got picked up directly from work on Friday and didn't get home until after 10 Sunday night...so it was a long weekend, but it was good to get out of the city and mingle with some laid back country folk.

Bob the Liar
Friday night's dinner was at this place...which is totally awesome. By the time we got to the restaurant, Angie's mom, dad, grandfather, cousin, and aunt were already sitting but we were still waiting for her sister and her sister's man to show up...this is when the weird stuff happened. While we ordered drinks and shit this dude (Bob) came over to talk to Angie's dad, who was sitting next to me. He like got up behind him and put his hands kinda around him, resting both hands on either side of Angie's dad's chest and got all up in his ear. I heard him say "Thank you for what you did. I am very sorry about what happened, dinner's on me." Angie's dad politely declined, but this dude was having none of it...so he accepted however reluctantly. He proceeds to tell the table that he had helped out some people with some estate planning that this guy Bob had brought by his office. Bob had made it a point of making sure Angie's dad knew that Bob was paying the bill. After two or three unanswered bills were sent, Angie's dad sent a bill directly to the couple...who likewise did not pay. So Friday night at Bonta was the first time this guy had seen Angie's dad and I guess he was embarrassed and this was his way of making up for it.
We proceeded to order dinner like sailors on leave. I had a rib-eye, there were a couple of people who had rack of lamb...we had tons of appetizers and a few bottles of wine. There were 9 of us, mind you. The bill comes from the waitress who says "I'll take this whenever you are ready." Confusion abounded and someone eventually talked to the maitre'd. It turns out, Bob had somehow gotten cold feet and told the staff that he was no longer paying for dinner...he never bothered to tell us though. He would have won in the end if he had though...dinner was ten bucks less than what he owed. It was later that I found out that Bob had spent 7 years in the clink for securities fraud or some other white-collar offense. That was Friday's excitement.

&RyToy

Brew Sesh

This post will be short and sweet, as it is late and I am tired.

Brewed the aforementioned IPA tonight. Had a small boil-over, but otherwise things went well. Here are the deets:

5.5 gallons

6# American 2-row malt
3# British 2-row malt
3# Munich malt
.75# Cara-foam
.25# Crystal 60

1.5 oz Amarillo pellets - 60 min
.9 oz Simcoe flowers - 10 min
.5 Summit flowers - 10 min
2 oz Summit flowers - knockout
(1.5 oz more Summit flowers for dry hopping later)

hit 1.072 for gravity (surprisingly high, but right where I was hoping)
anticipate around 75 IBUs

Yeast was wy1056 (beast) - cropped & washed from my last batch (a pant-load of it)
60 seconds of 02 & off we go

Sweet dreams, brew children
-'Wrence

Trivia Night in Southie

Spent Wednesday night this week having dinner, beer-having, and playing barroom trivia at this place. It has a high propensity for douchebaggery, especially on the weekends, but the trivia crowd tends to be a bit more chill. I went with my girlfriend Angie, her sister and her sister's new/old boyfriend. The Sox were on so people were watching that and the Celtics were playing game 5 against the Hawks as well, so there were plenty of people there for that. We had to wait a bit for a table but once we did I was quite pleased when I realized that in my immediate field of vision were no less than 11 televisions, all tuned to the same thing. I felt kinda like a fly or something.

Anyway, while we were waiting for a table, a few Coors Light girls who were walking around gave us free beers...all we had to do was take a picture. I guess I felt a little self-conscious since they appeared to be in their underwear and I was fully dressed. I am not usually a fan of fermented corn syrup, but when in Rome I suppose. Particularly discomforting about Coors Light is its attempt to insult my intelligence with it's label that changes colors. The label itself specifically says "When the mountains turn blue, your beer is as cold as the Rockies."

I mean, I get what they're saying...when the label turns blue your beer is cold. I am not silly enough to think that the label knows exactly what the temperature in the Rockies is at any given time. I mean, the Rockies are huge, they could be a huge range of temperatures. Anyway, my REAL problem is this: if you put a piss warm bottle of beer in a bucket of ice, that label is gonna turn blue long before the piss inside is even close to being far enough away from 98.6 degrees to drink it. Am I being nitpicky here? Anyway, about 15 minutes later, the same girls walked around giving away t-shirts to anyone drinking Coors Lights....us included. I was having a hard time telling whether they knew they had already given us the beers for free and they just didn't care or if they were really that vapid. Either way you slice it, my laundry schedule just got extended one more day...but for the record I opt for vapid.

Luckily, the Beer Garden has a halfway decent selection of some more craft-y beers. I indulged in bottles of Lagunitas IPA as well as a Rogue Dead Guy as we racked up point after point in trivia, eventually coming away with a victory and a $35 gift cert. I have to say though, the doorman helped us out by telling us what movie Reginald VelJohnson (the dad from Family matters) played a cop in...it was Die Hard. It did take us at least four or five repetitions of him saying Die Haaaahd before I realized that he was actually speaking English, but we were grateful for the help nonetheless. All in all a good night that more or less paid for itself which is about as much as you can ask for from a place with that many TV screens.

&Ry

Artichoke Anxiety

So it's spring now and I know artichokes are in season; I find my face almost constantly having them shoved in front of......at least, I keep seeing the nice displays of them at Whole Foods, and they do look nice.

While I love a good marinated artichoke or a cheesy dip, I have not much experience with them in the kitchen. I think, maybe once, I dissected a few, pulled out their still-beating hearts, and blanched the crap out of them before pureeing & making some sort of spread from them (I can't quite remember what the hell I was making, but I remember all those hearts sitting in a bowl of cold water & lemons).

But I keep hearing about how good those LEAVES are. "Man, you got to steam them, and then strip the flesh off of them with your teeth." -for some reason I find that terrifying. Maybe it's a tooth sensitivity thing, I don't know. It just doesn't sound like it feels/tastes too good. But I'm sure I'm wrong here.

The thing is, I'll probably never know, unless I get someone over to my house to show me the ways of the choke. I need an artichoke Yoda to guide me through this difficult endeavour! I need the spirit of Alec Guinnes to appear to me and tell me on what swampy planet I may find this mythical little guy!

Anyway - it took me like 10 minutes to paint that artichoke. Which is 10 minutes of my life that I will never have back....

In other news: I'm hitting the brewstore tonight to pick up grain for my next batch. I haven't brewed since March so I am getting back on the horse with an IPA - more or less based on the same grist as my previous effort back in November (which came out super smoothalicious). This one will feature nearly 6 ounces of Summit flowers which have been sitting, vacuum-sealed, in my feezer since Harvest, patiently await their date with Mr boiling wort. I'll let you know how it goes.

-'Wrence