Every weekend should start with a “Beermosa.”  We had been standing outside, waiting to get in while very serious bouncers guarded the door. Apparently, brunch requires surprisingly heavy security.  At a quarter to twelve they opened the flood gates and let us in.  As we passed through the main bar we were each handed a [...]

Carrying beer across state lines can be a real pain these days, so I’ve got to make it a worthwhile choice when i carefully picked out what to bring back from Wisconsin.  We stopped into a market en route to the airport, with only a few minutes to spare.  After grabbing a few other bottles, this one caught my [...]

  A long time ago, Eli mentioned to me “oh, my friend Brian is moving to San Francisco.  You’ll really like him. He’s writing a book about beer.”  Since then Brian has brewed with me on occasion, and is a reliable to always have quality taste in beers, and great stories about the brewmasters who [...]

I started by attacking a huge pile of fresh fruit that was taunting me to go bad.  I has already lost some raspberries to mold, and wasn’t going to loose anymore.  I cleaned and chopped  the blackberries, strawberries, and peaches into a bowl, and lightly dressed them in a bit of sugar and flour.  Still looking a little too [...]

Ah, summer.  Sure it’s cold and windy here in San Francisco, but the fresh produce is bountifully flowing in from the central valley, and filling my kitchen with great summer fruits and veggies.   My CSA box this week even smelled like summer when i opened it: it contained a huge musk melon and heirloom [...]

    “Can you slice it any thinner?” I implored the deli counter at the market in Lake Villa, Illinois. She tried again, and produced a half pound of paper thin slices of prosciutto for my grilling adventure in the afternoon.  Armed with my paper thin prosciutto, a half dozen summer peaches, and my Dad’s new Brinkmann grill, [...]

This last Saturday, I got up bright and early, grabbed donuts for the car from Dynamo, and headed down to Monterrey with my friend Zak & Shmaltz Brewing to help pour beers for the Monterey Beer Festival. After icing the beer and setting up the table, I got a chance to grab some lunch before the event really got going. There [...]