Some 'cut and pasted' ramblings about food.

For our Labor Day weekend shindig, we had double smoked jalapeno poppers:artisan bacon wrapped around cleaned fresh jalos stuffed with cream cheese, sprinkled with a montreal steak seasoning, then smoked with hickory until the bacon was crispy. Mmmmmmm. We also smoked chicken breasts (on the bone of course) and some eggplants and banana peppers (for a tba baba ganouj). We also had some mojo pork and then fried some fresh potato chips and corn tortillas, along with some cornmeal battered okra along with a cayenne spiked coleslaw brought over by Brad. Plenty of homebrew:Rye Pale Ale, Cascade Pale Ale, India Brown and Ginger Wheat, along with bottled Sierra Nevadas and Granny Smith Hard Cider. We also made the tipsy Arnold Palmers as apparently that is de riguer at my house.

In the 2nd pic there, we have the beginnings of a Peperonata, which usually has tomatoes, but I was feeling more peppery-Red Bell, Green Bell, Hot Banana, a Jalapeno for good measure, with some garlic and onion. Tossed in a lime/mint 'vinaigrette' and served with the aforementioned chicken breasts over couscous or a corn tortilla if you are under 18. Served with a nice salad, this was pretty fantastic. Not bad for a Monday 'speed challenge'.

And in the 1st pic we have the best (and only) phở to be found in Acworth, GA, which is at my house. You want it done right, you gotta do it yerself. Roasted some beef bones, onions and ginger, then added water(duh), star anise, cloves, sugar, fish sauce and thai basil for the stock. Rice noodles, bean sprouts, thinly sliced onion and steak, cilantro and thai basil, along with lime wedges and sriracha. I miss having Vietnamese restaurants around, but at least I've honed my phở. Chào tạm biệt!

In beer news, we just cleared out all my taps, (Ginger Wheat, Rye Pale Ale and a Cascade Pale Ale) on Sunday, but not to worry! I have a Rye porter kegged, ready to go, a Belgian Abbey Ale ready to be kegged and an Anson Pale Ale bubbling away, along with an India Brown bottled. I used this rare occurrence to defrost my old refridge/keggerator, disseble all the taps and lines and give everything a good cleaning. I'll be brewing a farmhouse ale (in the Belgian/French style) soon, along with a Saison, also in the Flemish style. Then maybe a Weizenbock in the Aventinus style. Mmmmmmmm.

I think I need to find a way to link facebook, blogger and the rest of this to one input! I'll try to at least keep up with food and beer news when I'm inputting them elsewhere, it's only fair ;)

Ciao, mia famiglia estesa. I really didn't want to get pulled into this blog spot thang, but my "voice" is a bit different than Lori's and since I do the cooking, picking and brewing around here, I guess I'll throw my two cents in occasionally, even if it's not worth that much. What's new? Summer has been busy so far-we ran to FLA twice in June, once to drop Mykhaila off at her grandma's and then back to pick her up 3 weeks later and celebrate my friends JP and Angel's marriage. They ran off and got married in Jamaica and then had a very fun shindig at their home. We drank some great Eastern European beer (there's a great market 2 blocks from their house, Gigi and Bubba have been there- real pierogies!), talked politics and music under the huge oak tree in their backyard, and pushed the kids in the skychairs hanging from said oak tree. I sure miss a lot of things about St. Petersburg, especially all the great friends that we were able to see while we were down there. The newly formed Kiesels (JP and Angel) came up for the weekend of the 4th and were here for our Inaugural Independence Day Patriotic Pig Pit Party, also known by IIdPPPP. Maybe we can come up with a more clever title for next year. It was pretty amazing. My friend John came up with the idea-"you mind if I bring a whole pig over?" and we went running with it. Brad and I built a cinder block pit in the backyard, with a big ol' iron grate his daddy and granddad cooked pigs on. Now there's some tradition for ya. I got some advice from my boss, who is Cuban ('nuff said), and came up with a plan for the pig. John brought it over on the 4th, we brined it with apple juice, cider vinegar, shallots, onion, garlic, fresh cracked pepper and kosher salt (ironic, huh?) for a day and started getting ready at 7a on the 5th. The pig went on just before 9a, and was ready by 3 or so-we had a full appreciative crew. We also had a deep fried turkey breast, a couple of pork roasts and tons of sides. The guys pretty much just ate pig. Brad manned up and not only ate one of the eyeballs ("tastes like smoked pig") but some brain as well. Yes, I did too. Texturally, it lacked something, in the kind of way that makes you want to lose the contents of your stomach just trying to swallow it. BUT we're MEN, so we did it. Brad also wore the snout as a disguise, which was extremely, and disturbingly, funny. We had about 20 people in the pool and 4 generations of Flemings there-Brad's Grandparents, his parents, his wife and his child. Pretty amazing. In beer news, I tapped my Groundskeeper Willie's Wee Heavy Smoked Scottish Ale-It's pretty delicious, I also have a keg of cider on tap and one in the wings. I just brewed a Rye Pale Ale on Friday, which is happily fermenting away in the garage. I'll be brewing a Golden Gingered Ale shortly. Should be delicious. Y'all stop by sometime, ya hear?