Being that it is my twenty-sixth birthday, I felt like a more personal post was in order. When I’m in the kitchen, I find myself thinking a lot about what got me standing in front of my Iowa shaped cutting board. Most people my age seem to stay out of the kitchen. My husband can barely make a good pasta (I love you baby). How did I get here? Why did I start cooking in the first place? It wasn’t fond memories in the kitchen with my family, really. It was just one thing, an autonomous decision that I made early in life, perhaps my first ever.
It was December. I was twelve years old. My family had been in a car accident involving a deer, and even though nothing had really changed from before the accident, I was inspired to take over the kitchen. Not that there was much to take over: only one burner on the stove worked. I can’t tell you how long the oven had been dead. I cut my veggies with a steak knife because it was all we had, and I cut them on the back of an engraved cutting board we received as a gift. I am now sure it wasn’t made for use because it warped and snapped down the middle after a few years of use. To this day, I don’t know why I tried. Maybe it was Rachel Ray on TV, a desire to make things better at home. It made me feel a little bit better about a life I did not enjoy or understand. Unless I was cooking, I was just a ghost waiting for things to change. The apparent hardship of cooking in those conditions was just life. I didn’t know any better. My parents would take me to the store, and I would do the grocery shopping. They just paid. They suffered through steaks covered in Cayenne Pepper, all manner of monstrosities as I made my own ‘recipes’ for dinner. That was almost fourteen years ago now, and here I am writing for my own food blog. I have bought my own knives and cutting boards (plural for both. Amazing). I own a kitchenaid, a fully working stove and oven, a food processor, and a keurig machine. I can bake my own fucking bread. In some way, these things make me feel like the master of my own life. I had control over something, anything, and I have only gained more control of it as I grew up. What I learned now nourishes my husband and I, literally and metaphorically. I get so much joy out of cooking. It isn’t about control anymore. I can share these skills, give the fruits of my labor to the people I love. In turn, food has given me much. I would not be who I am today without cooking. It’s a therapy. It’s a practice of love that, like me, gets better with every day that passes. I came to love food because it made me feel like I had something under my control. I love it still because I can give from it freely. If nothing else, my journey through food is a reminder that everything can and does get better. Where do I have to go but up? These are the things I remind myself of when I begin to waiver. The onion and the bulb of garlic cracked and skinned on my cutting board are reminders every day that nothing is forever. All pain goes away. All darkness must pass into light. If a little heat from an electric stove can make a meal of disparate ingredients, why can't a hard life make a masterpiece out of a child who wanted to give up? So with these thoughts, I say thank you. Thank you for reading my new project these last few months. Thank you for every view and visit that makes those little charts grow higher and higher. It means a lot to me that this experiment is being received by both friends and strangers. It means a lot to know that cayenne pepper steaks have lead to this.
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Brewings and Eats implies a balance between the two. The food rises to make the balance with the superb beers that I already talked about on Tuesday. I never leave a Dogfish Head joint disappointed with what I eat or what I drink. Sharing that with visitors is a joy, and we began this journey with a table-center appetizer that I had only once before that fateful meal with visitors from distant Illinois. The dogpile nachos are a sight for the hungry man. Chili, pickled jalapenos and onions, cheese, and (yes, and) spinach-artichoke dip dogpiling together on a bed of freshly fried tortilla chips makes for a very promising appetizer. It was made to sit at the center of the table for a group of ravenous youths, not that we are so youthful anymore. We dug in together from the bottom up. Each chip we pulled out had elements from almost every layer. You had to work to really get the whole experience from pickled jalapeno to spin dip, but each element eaten separate of each other via tortilla chip vehicle remained pleasant and delicious. All four of us cleaned the plate without the help of the little man at the table. He was very interested in coloring at the time. Can you blame him? My husband and I shared a favorite that briefly left the Brewings and Eats menu: The Old Man and the Sea. This pizza is the star of Rehoboth Beach to me. It has a soft, crunch on the outside pizza dough covered in crab dip, mozzarella, micro-celery, and pancetta bits. All of it was dusted finely with Old Bay. We have had a lot of interesting seafood related pizzas in Delaware, but this is king. The crab dip is nearly indistinguishable from the thick layer of cheese. It all stretches apart from the pizza after you take your first bite, and the pancetta is a perfect little crispy bit on the top to introduce some porky fat. God, we love this pizza. We love it so much we highly recommended it to one of our guests who got his own: he took the rest home with him. Chesapeake and Maine is right next door to Brewings and Eats, although they have added a souvenir/beer store in the once empty space that stood between the two icons of the beach. You can pick up all kinds of things here, namely the distilled spirits that can be hard to find if you leave the state of Delaware. Once the tourist traffic clears up, I’m worried I’ll wind up down there grabbing a new case of beer every weekend. Thanks, Brewings and Eats, for a delicious meal as always. It was a good weekend for myself and food. My husband and I had some semi-unexpected company, and one of our favorite things to do with guests is share the food of Delaware with them. We dearly love Dogfish Head in any iteration, so we brought them to Brewings and Eats down at Rehoboth Beach. Before we ate, we took them to the boardwalk, enjoyed an unusually cool summer day, and fought our way through the crowd. Most of the beach restaurants, including Brewings and Eats, had a wait due to the high tourist population of the July Fourth weekend. I ran ahead of the group (which included a three year old, much entranced by the idea of sandcastles) to get a spot. We waited a little more than a half hour in total, fifteen minutes of which I waited alone. We made it work for us in order to visit a favorite with close friends. Brewings and Eats does not take reservations over the phone, so keep this in mind if you decide to visit during the tourist season. The facility itself is spacious to accommodate the high traffic that comes during season. Second floor seating helps relieve some of the wait, but we were lucky enough to sit in some of their window boxes. Our three year old guest loved the circular enclosure we sat in, and he may or may not have used the crayons on the windows. We didn’t leave it for them to clean up, we swear! To accurately describe to you my experience at Brewings and Eats, my review will be broken into two parts: The brewings and the eats. Today, we’ll have the brewings, what Dogfish Head is known for throughout much of the country. The Brewings For the first time in my beer drinking journey, I ordered a proper beer flight. The brewpub has several beers only available in the building, and the flight is the most efficient way for a self-described connoisseur to try the new and the exclusive. I rarely get out to Rehoboth proper, so I needed to capitalize on the opportunity. In order of preference:
The first and favored beer in my flight, Faithful COmpanion, was aptly named. This classic American Ale was first released June 13, 2018, and it is exclusive to Brewings and Eats. It has the taste I prefer in a beer, running a little bitter with caramel flavor in the back. On the upside, it's only 3.5 alcohol by volume (ABV). I knew right away this would come to the front of my rankings. It’s highly drinkable, not too busy, and a faithful companion for the summer. 2. Festina Peche Festina Peche came in as my second place beer among the flight. Originally released in 2007, it reappeared for the summer season, May to August. It is classified as a Berliner Weisse, a type of beer that I often gravitate to at any brewery. It has a slightly higher ABV of 4.5 compared to Faithful Companion. Given that I had such a small amount, I didn’t notice the ABV difference. It was slightly acidic and fruity comparatively. These are the kinds of beers that got me comfortable with this type of alcohol overall.. It’s a good beginners choice for a first timer to Dogfish Head Brewings and Eats. 3. Midas Touch This one wasn’t new to me. I had it during my last visit, and back then I thought it perfect. It’s described as ‘an Ancient Ale’, and it clocks in at a heavy 9.0 ABV, twice that of the Festina Peche. They say it’s somewhere between a wine and beer, which I can confirm. It runs a little sweeter than the other beers in the flight. After just six months of growing more and more used to beer, it runs a little sweet for me. I wouldn’t say no to a bottle, but its not my first choice. 4. Fruit-Full Port I went way out of my box testing this bad boy. Dark beer usually isn’t for me, and I have to tell you, I would have been better served trying something else. It’s a Belgian style beer with a strong 50 IBU, way too much for me. I couldn’t appreciate the berry flavor behind whatever it is that the IBU brought to the table. It’s a new release, part of the reason I grabbed it, and if you like a dark, strong beer, it might be worth checking out. Coming later this week: The Eats. Ona warm June evening, I got a text from my husband that there was some food truck thing going on downtown. Those words excited me. The morning Farmers’ Market on Saturdays largely lacked finished food vendors like food trucks, and I missed those most from Burlington. That little town was blessed with such great food trucks and a special farmers market.
We arrived at the riverwalk to find the area up and down Main Street filled with a myriad of vendors, food trucks and art vendors mostly. It was the first I had seen the food trucks physically in town. To me, the food truck is the ultimate delivery system for these summer events. I’ve had some of my best meals come out of a little square window. High hopes were immediately established as we walked down the middle of the street. I was attracted to the Mr. BBQ food truck parked right along the riverwalk. Any indulgence I make in meat has to be well worth the tummy ache that comes later. Their menu was promising and appeared to be a worthy reason for stomach suffering. Chili cheese fries, for example. Mmmmm… And cheese curds? On the east coast? Okay, maybe that's more cheese than meat. Still, the draw of chili proved difficult to fight, and there I was in eighty degree weather with a boat of chili cheese fright and another of cheese curds. Heaven on the riverwalk despite the high temperatures. The best part about the fries is the chili over top: chunky, mildly spiced, and soaking the fries. This makes the dish for me no matter who I get it from. Mr. BBQ makes a chili full of chunky tomato which is all I want, really. Rob’s distaste for tomato makes every bite I get of it twice as special. The cheese curds lived up to what i used to get in Iowa. The fried shell was nice and crispy, as it should be. The curd inside had softened just enough to get a bit of a stretch out of it when I took two bites from a single curd. They served it with a nice chipotle sauce to give it a little heat, necessary to cut through the richness of fried cheese. I’ll be checking them out again. What’s awesome about this event is choice. Don’t want food truck food? Georgia House is right there to get you out of the heat. You can shop both the vendors and the stores themselves on main street. There was an ice cream truck during my stay down toward city hall, and it was delicious. If you need something to do on Thursday, July 19th from 5-8 PM, visit Milford, Delaware’s downtown block party! Local vendors looking for a gig that night can still sign up until July 12th. See their event page for more information. It’s the last week of June, and we have to talk about my adventures in vegetables through the book Six Seasons by Joshua McFadden. Before we even talk about the food, I have to gush poetic about all that I learned from this man and his book. This isn’t just a cookbook. It’s a tome of knowledge. The cover of the book says it best: “Joshua McFadden has the soul of a farmer.”
A farmer and a chef made one is a dangerous thing -- for the vegetables. This kind of person knows just what to do, and Joshua McFadden shared his skills with us through this book. For every season and every vegetable, there is a section dedicated to that vegetable. He talks all about how to clean it, what to look for when you’re at the market. For a novice, this is a perfect guide. He teaches you how to store the vegetable once you bring it home and advises how long it’ll generally keep in the fridge. I know next to nothing about how long a squash is going to survive in my fridge, but he does. Thanks, Joshua. That said, I have never bookmarked this many recipes from a single book. I save twenty-four different recipes that range from butters to casseroles (yes, casseroles. Apparently they aren't as dead as I thought, but more on that later). Each is inspiring and flexible, broken down by seasonality of the star vegetable. I love this approach to a cookbook. You’re going to laugh, but I may as well have bookmarked the entire ‘corn’ section of the book. I come from corn country. His approach to this dietary staple brought life to the bowl of canned corn or the traditional corn on the cob that I grew up with in Illinois. I started my approach to his corn centric recipes with his recipe ‘Corn, Tomatoes, and Clams on Grilled Bread, Knife-and-Fork-Style’. As I started my preparations, I wasn’t sure what to expect. My husband is very anti-tomato, and it felt like a big risk for me to try to make him a recipe that featured both cherry tomatoes and tomato paste. I hoped that the inclusion of clams would more than make up for the ingredients that my husband hates. I said a little prayer over my stock pot as I poured the clams in over the broth. I put the lid on and sealed in clam and prayer alike. It paid off. When I served that thick cut piece of bread covered in clams, broth, corn, and the occasional piece of tomato, I was not greeted with declarations of how I should know he doesn’t like tomato. He ate it gladly, declared it ‘pretty good, babe’, and I couldn’t expect much more than that. Speaking as the person who really enjoys tomatoes, the pop of acidity that the cherry tomatoes added in the mouth to help back up the lemon made them a worthwhile addition. Too bad my husband didn’t get to enjoy that. The recipes are sometimes not feasible for a weekday, but there are plenty of project cooks in here for me to have fun with on the weekend. He’s driven me to figure out how the hell to make creme fraiche since its not sold in stores here in rural Delaware. He’s given me a new appreciation for vegetables that has helped me through my new pescetarian diet. That said, this is not a beginner's cookbook. He does a lot to teach the reader about the product, but some of the techniques called for in his recipes were new and challenging even for me (I’ve been at this since I was twelve). Clams and certain other types of seafood are a little scary for anyone to cook, especially when you pick up the bag of clams at the grocery store and they all start to open and close at you. Some fruits and veggies just don't appear at the store when you want them, even peak season. Six Seasons can be challenging,but I will continue to recommend it going forward. I have vegetarian and pescetarian family that would surely enjoy some of the recipes. For this reason, June’s cookbook of the month earns a prime spot in my reference materials. Thanks, Joshua. For real this time. |
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