Cookery Pokery

PULLED PORK Y’ALL!

PREFACE

I have a confession: I don’t know how to take high-resolution pictures of my food. I can barely use Instagram.  Where are all the buttons on those Apple iDoohickeys. I’m confused. Give me technology I know how to use. What the hell happened to carbon paper?

All this is to say, tumblr is not my medium of choice, and I am a loud and proud old-school food pornographer.  I don’t need a lens or a digiwhatsit to make you salivate. If you want to see my real work, give me a stack of carbon paper. I will deliver some vintage food erotica to you via passenger vulture.  You won’t know what hit you. 

BEGIN: ENTRY

These past two semesters have marked my entry into the world of beer brewing. For my birthday, the goons who live in my house and across the street magnanimously purchased me a beer kit.  Some of the goons, Chlever, Karrie, Jabberbobby McBackboob, Nikki, and Jenny (note to self: must come up with distasteful nicknames for all of them) joined me in the brewing process. Our first beer, brewed in November, was an American brown ale dubbed “The Blind Leading the Blind.” Admittedly, TBLB was a hit-or-miss brew, with some bottles tastier and fizzier than others. Our second brew was an India pale ale (IPA) based on a bootleg recipe of Dogfish Head’s 90 minute IPA. We have offhandedly dubbed this beer The “Don’t Need No” IPA*. The Don’t Need No was more consistently tasty and exceptionally hoppy and fizzy.  However, because it was unfiltered, it was brown instead of golden-orange like the IPAs of yore.

I am still very much a n00b at brewing, but even from where I stand, it’s a pretty simple process. I will try to summarize my new beer brewing knowledge. You need malt, yeast, water, and hops.  Malt refers to malted barley. Novices like myself often start off using dried malt extract (DME), which is simpler to handle but much less versatile in flavor than using all grain.  It comes in a sack as a powder and smells like a malted milkshake without the milkshake and doesn’t need to be strained out of the brew like real grains do. We used DME in our first beer, and we used a combination of grains and DME in our IPA, which is pictured above.

Yeast also comes in a wide variety. Currently, I can discern wet yeast from dry yeast, and my knowledge stops there.

Water is a transparent liquid. Sometimes fish swim in it.

Hops are little green flowers that provide the bitterness and the fruitiness/floral flavor in beer. You can brew with fresh hops or hop pellets. I used pellets, which are easier to handle because they don’t need to be strained. The pellets are shaped like rabbit food, but they smell like a combination of weed, citrus, and flowers.  I think I love them.

There are two main categories of hops:  bittering hops and finishing hops.  Bittering hops are used to sweeten the beer. Just kidding. Bittering hops are used to bitter the beer, and the bitterness is quantified by the percentage of alpha acids in the hops. The higher alpha acid content, the more bitter the hop. Finishing hops provide the floral, fruity aroma in beer and are often “dry-hopped,” which means that they are added to the brew after it has already started fermenting. Some hops fall under the category of “dual purpose” hops, which means they can be used as either bittering or finishing.

To make beer, you boil the water and combine all the ingredients at various points in time. The unfermented beer, called wort, is then rapidly cooled—we did this in our bathtub—and then poured into a bucket. Then you wait for about three weeks for it to ferment.  Then you bottle it and wait for a few more weeks. You’re also supposed to use this weird measuring tool periodically during the fermentation process to find some whoseywhatsit called “original gravity,” which is supposed to tell you what the alcohol content of your beer is. Chlever and I could not figure out how to use it, so we banished the tool from the premises.

I think I’m writing this like a C- lab report, oops.

Anyway, we don’t know how alcoholic our beer is, but I think it’s really alcoholic.  I once sat down to read a chapter of a book with a trusty Don’t Need No by my side, and found myself raving with the drunken willies by the fourth paragraph. 

Here are some tips that I have gleaned from brewing these two batches:

1) If you’re brewing 5 gallons of beer, you need to start out with probably 7 gallons of water, because that muthafucka is gonna boil off. This should have been obvious, but I was stupid.

2) If you have leftover caps, do not store them in a damp bag.  They will rust and you will be out $3 that you could have spent on a Trader Joe’s 6-pack.

3) Beginner’s mistake: I instinctively wanted to bottle every last drop of beer in the bottom of my beer bucket.  This is a terrible idea. All the hop/malt/yeast sludge settles in the bottom of the bucket and gets into the bottle, and the sludge tastes like chocolate Milano cookies.  Just kidding. The sludge tastes terrible.

4) Sanitize everything. EVERYTHING.

5) Do not try to start a siphon without an auto-siphon.  Jenny and I had a lot of trouble starting the siphon to bottle The Blind Leading The Blind. At one point, we had to stick our arms in the beer. This is not sanitary. 

Happy brewing!

Sophia

p.s. Special thanks to a Mr. Jabberbobby McBackboob (not pictured) for supplying the photos for this entry.

*We love beer, and we love the Punch Brothers.  It seemed only natural to link the two.

Last Friday my friends and I decided to forgo happy-happy hour at the Feve to make our own drinks, which we planned to sip on the veranda at the golden hour (read: our sinking porch in the evening fog-sun of April in Oberlin.)

This drink is of the “impress your friends and family” variety, but can also rack up points on the douchebag-o-meter. So, if someone offers you a black label and you’re like “oh no thanks I’ll have a Kiwi Lime Cocktail instead please,” you should be prepared to sit in the corner, muddling a single serving of kiwis, limes, and tears.

This one also takes a little planning since you need ripe kiwis. Trader Joes happened to have ripe kiwis for sale so we lucked out. Yeah TJS*!

Karrie and Khloe’s** Kiwi-Lime Kocktails!

 For 5ish drinks you will need:

-Approximately 12 kiwis. Save one kiwi for garnish!

-10 limes, or a cup and a half of lime juice. Save one lime peel!

-Tequila

-Triple Sec

-Bubbly water

-Sugar

-Fresh mint

Peel the kiwis and juice the limes. Add all to a blender or food processor and blend until smooth. Add sugar to taste—we don’t like our drinks too sweet, so we only added about 1/3 of a cup of sugar. Add alcohol to taste! The tequila to triple sec ratio should probably be 2 to 1, but you know, it’s whateva. For 5 drinks we probably put in 4 shots tequila, 2 shots triple sec.

Now here’s where it gets fancy, y’all. Pour some sugar on a plate, rim the glass with one of the juiced lime peels, and coat the rim in sugar. This requires a kind of circular twisty technique that I CONFESS I learned from Carrie as we were making these drinks. Sweet sweet edification.

Then throw some ice cubes into the puree and shake it all up! Add a few cubes to each glass, pour ½ full, and top off with bubbly water. Garnish with a slice of kiwi and a mint leaf! Delightful!

 And remember, when you’re planning your next day drinking get-together with your househusband friends, this recipe only takes a triple sec. Know what lime sayin’? Wah wah wah wahhhhh.

Until next time!

Chloe

*Not endorsed by Trader Joes.

**Not endorsed by Khloe Kardashian.

Hey CPers! Apologies for our long stint away from your blogosphere RSS feed lives. I’m happy to report that in our absence Sophia has finished her thesis (an inquiry into the fundamentals of toughatrons and stringuloids,) and I myself finished my thesis on facial acrobatics. Can’t make this stuff up. (#madeallofthatup)

To distract you from our lack of updatery I would like to call your attention to an excellent video filmed by our own faux-op friend Mary and her brother. Do you remember dreaming about the chocolate cake in Matilda as a child? Dream no more and start double-boiling that chocolate!

Chloe

B. L. O. W.

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Here’s a blast from the past that I took down from Cookery Pokery two years ago, in a moment of panic about my prospects of employment.  (Sausages must make a living too, after all.)  

DEBEERCHERY

It’s been too long, but I have nothing to say. I am trapped in the bowels of Mudd waiting for the world to shit me out.

In the meantime, I have discovered a new means for procrastination: beer puns. Here are a few for your amusement:

Lucibeer/Mephistophobeerles/Beerzebub = He who goads me to drink beer when I should be studying
Gerbeer Baby = a baby weaned on beer
beerbeerian = Chlever 
Beeroo! = what dogs say when they have had too much beer
Beeroo-urns = what Hans Moleman says when he’s had too much beer
Beertch = an asshole who drinks beer without me while I am studying, i.e. Chlever
Beertrayal = what aforementioned beertch does to earn the title of Beertch
Beerdz = worst smooth jazz acid reflux synth band ever 

I am so cool.

2012 Edit:  Some new ones:

Beeryonce = If you liked it then you should’ve put a beer in it.
Sasha Beerce = Beeryonce’s sassy alter ego.
Goldmembeer = He’s got the Midas Touch! But he touched it too much! Goldmembeeeeeeer! (I’ll quit it with the Beeryonce-related puns, sorry.) 
Beerbeera Manatee = The one for me.

Don’t forget this holiday season! 

Warning! Contents under extreme pressure! Expires in the year 2300!

Merry post-christmas, CP!

Clever here, reclining in Athens, Ohio, in preparation for a marathon of Christmas feasting and heavy sleeping.  It’s going to be an exhausting holiday.

I, too, am behind on my posts.  I apologize, dedicated fans!  Do not smother me in hordes! Love me like I love sausage!

Anyway, I would like to share some of my food experiences in the past month.  I had the pleasure of visiting The Land of Chlever (the Bay Area) on some Science Business (The American Geophysical Union Fall Conference) about two weeks ago.  Chlever had previously told me about the magic of her homeland—ripe fruits, fresh seafood, and of course, sun-kissed skin so hot they’ll melt your popsicle.  I can only attest to the first two because I only ever ate gelato there.

I ate this Vietnamese sandwich immediately after disembarking the BART.  Baguette with daikon and carrot pickles and roast pig, cilantro and a touch of lemongrass…yum. 

Mariko and I wait for food in Chinatown.

Prawns with candied walnuts!

Fancy mushy grains with blackberries, banana, pomegranate, dried cranberries, cinnamon, and brown sugar, and a complementary pomegranate orange juice!

Toronado:  amazing beer bar with 40 different types of beer on tap, including Pliny the Elder.

Rosamunde: sausage grill next to Toronado. See post below.

This pho came with a cluster of raw beef brisket arranged in a rose.  I did not realize that it was beef, and thought it was a large tomato, so I poked it and ruined the rose before I could take a picture.

Mariko took me to Kirala in Berkeley, where I got chirashizushi (assorted seafood with sushi rice) and she got futomaki! (I think that’s what it’s called, correct me if I’m wrong.)

I ate an oyster for breakfast at the Embarcadero.  I learned something:  I prefer thicker, smaller oysters, to thin, large oysters.  The thin ones just don’t have integrity.

In other news, in downtown San Francisco, Mariko and I saw a girl wearing fluffy purple leg warmers and just about nothing else.  She resembled a sexy purple llama. While we both resisted the urge to catcall, a middle-aged woman carrying grocery bags started screaming, “TAKE ME BACK TO HONOLULU! I’M TIRED OF ALL THESE SAN FRANCISCO SLUTS! GO DRESS LIKE THAT AT UC BERKELEY!”

California girls, they’re unforgettable.

December 8, 2011:  The Triumvirate Unites

Clever, Sausage, & Beer

Happy month-after-Thanksgiving, friends and followers!

Clever, Netteh, and I are just* back from a brief sojourn in the ancestral Clever household in the land of Athens, OH. We took some much-needed rest and relaxation after what has been a trying semester, but between our stints of sleeping in we had a number of adventures. As this is a food blog, I’ll start with our culinary events!

On Thursday night, we had a Chinese-style Thanksgiving feast, which featured the duck pancake dish that Clever C blogged about when Cookery Pokery was just a snot-nosed ankle-biter (to be clear, Cookery Pokery is now a disillusioned young adult.) It was a delicious affair, and Clever’s mother made one of several classic remarks that will go down in CP history regarding a piece of duckmeat: “Don’t look, just eat.”

The next evening, the entire household turned into a well-oiled dumpling-making operation. Even Netteh and I joined in and learned the ways of rolling out dumpling dough. Sadly, I learned that my former technique for folding dumplings is not only aesthetically distasteful but also limits the volume of filling that one can stuff into the dumpling. Thus chastened, I vowed to make fatter and more beautiful dumplings in the future.

Our last dinner feast was my personal favorite, hot pot with all the fixins. Hotpot fixins include cabbage, tofu, shrimps, fish, strips of pork loin, shrimp balls, fish balls, and greens, and a secret sauce that includes egg and fermented bean and meat something something. This meal rendered another zinger from Clever’s mom—“slow down so that you can eat more.”

I think I got a little bit of a sense of what Clever’s childhood must have been like—wandering into the kitchen every so often to receive a nibble of cured fatty ham, freshly roasted walnuts, steamed bun, or a sip of duck broth bubbling on the stove. It must have been a magical, savory land for the young Clever. It certainly was magical and savory to me.

I was also staying in Clever’s room, which meant that I had access to much of the detritus of her formative years. My favorite (though the picture of clever clutching a 3foot long cucumber is a close second,) has to be the school journal from 1997. It appears that Cookery Pokery has been around for a long-ass time, since Clever clearly starting writing posts during her childhood. She also appears to have been very bossy**

But don’t be fooled, dear readers. Even though Thanksgiving is a holiday that sanctions reckless eating and slothful arrested-development-marathon-watching, we did not simply gorge ourselves and cringe with second-hand embarrassment at the antics of the Bluth family. We set out for some first-hand embarrassment of our own! One night we went out to a local bar to meet up with Clever’s friends and enjoy a margarita or two, and little did we know that it was karaoke night. Thus the Clever Brothers had their Athens debut, to the surprise and delight of the other patrons of the bar. Netteh quickly assumed the role of tour manager, and informed us after the performance to “get back in the van.” We were not sure what she meant by this, so we did an encore. ***

The next day we took a ride down to the rink and did something else that I had assumed I would never do: ice skating. Correct me if I’m wrong here, but the Dalbys are not ice-folk. The thought of wheeling around on ice at high speeds is an “are you kidding me” on the “whatever” to “you couldn’t pay me to do it” scale. In other words, the wall is my friend and I got nervous when children created roadblocks on my clearly defined path around the rink. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Netteh, Clever, and Clever’s sister Athena were all masters of the ice. I was truly in awe of their fancy footwork while I concentrated on not falling on my ass.

However, with much encouragement (including “Chleverrrr, you’re regressing!” followed by the back-handed compliment, “…but you can’t regress without having first made progress!”) I ventured out from the wall and reached a whopping 3mph while holding hands with Clever and Netteh. It was a triumph, and we only fell down once.

All in all, this thanksgiving I learned that there is much more to this land-locked state than I have given it credit for. Ohio, I salute you! 好吃!

 *This post has been sitting on my desktop for a few weeks.

**I AM YOUR BOSS was a recurring theme in many of her journal entries.

***Since you’re dying to know, we sang Scott Stapp’s hit tune “One Last Breath.” Our encore was the “Humpty Dance,” which we did not request and which turned out to be rather offensive.