It's been 16 days since I suggested we declare August "Fruit Beer Month" and it finally looks like the print press is catching up with me. I recently saw on the wire that "Light, refreshing fruit-based beers are way hot for summer." Duh! That's what I've been trying to tell you.
But in her article, Lauren Chapin points out some interesting facts:
1) "In 2007, fruit beer sales grew a stunning 37 percent, making it the fastest-growing segment of the beer industry, according to Paul Gatza, director of the Brewers Association." This figure is in comparison to a 16% growth in craft beers sales overall for '07 (as also determined by the Brewers Association). Thus, it comes as no surprise why '08 has felt like the summer of fruit beers. If you don't like 'em, don't blame me, blame capitalism!
Find two more interesting aspects after the jump...
A few years back, my pal Tom introduced me to the delicious, sweet taste of "Kaba-yaki," broiled eel served with a sweet sauce. As I'm always game to try new things, I scarfed down the piece that he offered me. As soon as I tasted it, I forgot about the fact that the meat came from a slithering, snakelike creature and began to focus on the flavor. It was tender, moist, and perfectly delicious. I was hooked.
Although time, geography, and economics have kept me from regularly partaking of the delicious Kaba-yaki, I can certainly understand why it is Japan's official summer food. I can even understand, to a certain extent, why Japan Tobacco, Inc. recently came out with "Unagi Noburi," or "Surging Eel," an eel-based carbonated beverage. Made from (among other things) the head and bones of eels, the soda contains several of the vitamins that are contained in the fish. The company is marketing it as a sort of energy drink, designed to extend its drinkers' stamina.
According to reports, the drink tastes more or less like Kaba-yaki. While the idea of a broiled, barbecue-y eel drink initially nauseates me a little, I have to admit that I wasn't all that hot on eel itself when I first heard about it. Given how the Kaba-yaki turned out, I may have to give the soda a try!
There's been a lot of talk about summer cooking on the interwebs recently. It's the end of the season and the available produce is ridiculously abundant. However, who wants to spend too much time in a hot kitchen when the outdoor mercury is also near to bursting out of the top of the thermostat?
If you're one of the many people who prefer easier cooking in the summer, here's a round up of recipes for you.
Forget AA, and all of the other addiction services out there. Forget chastity belts. There's a million different techniques for battling the different manifestations of addiction and inclination, but I've seen none that work for foodie excitement.
Do you have it? I'm talking about getting overwhelmed and buy-crazy over tasty food. It's best to keep me out of a gourmet store, and I go totally nuts when faced with a swarm of cheap, nice-looking produce.
To the right, you can see the latest addition to my apartment -- a basil bouquet. Originally, it was supposed to be just enough to make some salads and some tasty pesto. Soon though, it became so much more. I ended up buying more than I needed, and then I got one more huge clump with my weekly organic delivery. Like always, I'm struggling to use it all up before it goes painfully limp.
That being said, it would be hard for me to refuse more if I walked by a nice bunch at a good price... How do you curb your excited, foodie whims?
This time of the year, I love going to the farmer's markets to try the many succulent and colorful tomatoes. Depending on the season, we can enjoy these fruity delectables into mid-fall. Like so many fruits and vegetables, there are plenty of varieties of tomatoes to try. Below are 8 with some history.
Heirloom - Within this category there are approximately 400 different varieties. Aesthetically, they look striking with their unusual coloring and size. I would not use them to cook with. They're preferable eaten on their own with fresh basil, mozzarella, and vinaigrette.
Big Rainbow - These large beefsteak tomatoes can weigh over two pounds. They've been growing in the U.S. since the early 1900s. They start off yellow, and as they ripen they resemble a green pinkish-red rainbow. They're perfect for sandwiches and cooking.
Brandywine - This is another beefsteak tomato. The Amish community has been growing them since the late 19th century. They're softer than Big Rainbow tomatoes and they're bursting with both sweetness and acidity.
Cherokee Purple - These small sized salad tomatoes are perfect for cutting in quarters. They were first grown by the Cherokee tribe as far back as the 1800s. If you have a sweet tooth, these are for you! They're probably the sweetest large tomatoes at the market.
Djena Lee's Golden Girl - Tomato breeder Djena Lee created this deep yellow variety in the 1920s. They're known for their intense taste and sugar-acid balance. Cut them for your summer salad.
Green grape - This yellow-green cherry tomato has a relatively short history. It was created in the 1980s by being bred between four different heirloom tomatoes. They look like muscat grapes and are great for snacking.
Currant red - These tart cherry tomatoes are the smallest ones available.
Yellow Pear - This gorgeous yellow pear shaped small fruity tomato is great for snacking with grey sea salt mixed in with greens.
What are some interesting tomatoes you've tried so far this season?
I have always wished to be one of those people who takes full advantage of the summer growing season. I dream of being someone with rows of dilly beans. I long to be the kind of cook who thinks ahead and freezes 100 cobs worth of corn kernels for the months ahead. I have made several batches of jam this season, and I now have four pounds of blackberries tucked away in my freezer but currently that's the extend of my "preserving."
Judging from Mike's results, it looks like this recipe/technique is a true winner. He served his with a side of vanilla ice cream and says that it was very much like an inside out banana split. He's got plans for fancying it up the next time around, using better chocolate and topping it with a sprinkle of toasted nuts. The picture above is the before shot, click here to see the banana after it's been on the grill for a while.
Can you imagine eating a whole, raw onion by itself, let alone polishing it off in a little over a minute?
J.R. Kuka achieved that feat in the onion eating contest that's part of the Pine Island Summer Fest. Mr. Kuka ate the eight ounce onion in a record 75 seconds, where the previous record had been 1 minute, 55 seconds. Reportedly, this year's winner was cool as a cucumber and smiling as he cut and consumed the onion. He also took his $100 prize and goody bag and left the festival before the local reporter could interview him.
Apparently, the Pine Island onions are known for being much stronger than other onions. I'm personally not a big fan of uncooked onions, so I can't really see myself doing this. For $100, I might enter the contest, but I wouldn't be able to eat it very fast. How would you do in this onion-eating contest?
I spent some time in a friend's community garden patch yesterday, helping her harvest string beans, several handfuls of basil, some tomatoes and a whole mess of squash. She didn't plant any traditional zucchini this year which means I've had to get my zucchini fix from my farm share and the farmers market. However, there's nothing that says summer to me quite like zucchini and these four freshly picked ones are gorgeous examples of the season's bounty.
Thanks to Ataradrac for adding this pic to the pool!
By this time of the year, markets and grocery stores are overflowing with a gorgeous array of melons. There are a few ways to know when your melon is ripe. They involve understanding that there are two classes of melon: the muskmelons and the watermelons.
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a review of Vlada, a New York bar that specializes in infused vodkas. As I mentioned in my post, my experiences at Vlada had made me nostalgic for the moonshine that I had once enjoyed in Southwest Virginia. Back in the day, I used to buy 'shine by the gallon and infuse it with fruits, herbs, honey, and other ingredients, producing a wide range of aperitifs. While I'm a huge fan of store-bought liqueurs, I have yet to meet the mass-produced tipple that can rival the blueberry-infused moonshine, moonshine-based absinthe, or moonshine krupnikas that I once made.
The more I thought about it, the more I decided that the time had come to restart my experiments in fruit infusion. I had a half bottle of Everclear in the liquor cabinet, which I quickly determined was still relatively fresh and potent. A trip down to the farmer's market gave me a couple of pints of fresh blueberries, which I washed, dried, picked over, and packed in mason jars. I covered the fruit in grain alcohol, closed the lids, and set them in the back of one of my kitchen cabinets. Apart from giving them a daily shake, I was content to let time and the 190-proof alcohol do their work.
A week later, the alcohol was stained a deep purple and the berries were gray. A quick taste assured me that the grain was still mighty strong, but was now infused with a nice blueberry flavor. Wanting something a little more intense, I let a second batch of berries steep for a week in the alcohol. Afterward, I had a very alcoholic, very intensely flavored blueberry liquor. I also had a second batch of slightly sour-tasting blueberry alcohol that I got from running the leftover blueberries through my fruit juicer.
I now know what I need to hunt down this weekend -- lots and lots of cherry tomatoes.
Deb from Smitten Kitchen, a woman after my own heart, has just posted a sweet ode to the wonders of the tomato. Better yet, she has shared a great way to use up those small, sweet cherry suckers -- slow roast them. There's just a little bit of prep, a few hours for roasting, and then a bunch of little, roasted tomatoes to eat up. Don't they look delicious?
Just think -- small nibblets for snacking, a wonderful topping to pasta, a great addition to a sandwich, or even a nice twist on classic bruschetta on toast.
As we head into the end of August, things are slowly grinding to a halt in my office. Half of my department is out on vacation and the halls are eerily silent most of the day as people wilt from the heat or the desire to be sitting by a pool. However, one office in Philadelphia is beating off the summer doldrums with a little friendly competition. Food competition that is.
This is not the first guac off I've heard about this summer, I also have a friend who works at a local medical school who planned one for some of her students. So if your workplace is feeling a little sluggish this summer, ask everyone to bring in some guacamole and a bag of chips. You'll have things perked up in no time.
Summer time is hot. Where I live, it's in the upper 90s every day. It makes me want to tear into a frozen treat at any moment. If summer time makes you crave anything frozen, maybe some of these will get your mouth to watering and your feet headed toward the freezer.
1. Here's a whole half dozen ideas from LifeHacker. 2. These FrostBites and FrostTeas look mighty good. 3. The butterscotch banana pops from Parenthood.com may be a variation on a theme, but pretty tasty-looking. 4. The creamy, fruity pops from Frutto della Passione look quite tasty. 5. Here's some more frozen watermelon-y goodness from Eating Out Loud. 6. Why not try some easy strawberry frozen yogurt from Baking Bites? 7. This hilarious post about making an ice cream sandwich is worth a read. 8. For those of us watching our weight, eDiets has a few suggestions about frozen treats under 100 calories.
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A few years back, my pal Tom introduced me to the delicious, sweet taste of "Kaba-yaki," broiled eel served with a sweet sauce. As I'm always game to try new things, I scarfed down the piece that he offered me. As soon as I tasted it, I forgot about the fact that the meat came from a slithering, snakelike creature and began to focus on the flavor. It was tender, moist, and perfectly delicious. I was hooked. 
There's been a lot of talk about summer cooking on the interwebs recently. It's the end of the season and the available produce is ridiculously abundant. However, who wants to spend too much time in a hot kitchen when the outdoor mercury is also near to bursting out of the top of the thermostat?
Forget AA, and all of the other addiction services out there. Forget chastity belts. There's a million different techniques for battling the different manifestations of addiction and inclination, but I've seen none that work for foodie excitement.
Can you imagine eating a whole, raw onion by itself, let alone polishing it off in a little over a minute? 
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A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a 
Summer time is hot. Where I live, it's in the upper 90s every day. It makes me want to tear into a frozen treat at any moment. If summer time makes you crave anything frozen, maybe some of these will get your mouth to watering and your feet headed toward the freezer.
Chocolate-stuffed bananas on the grill
Tyler Florence welcomes new daughter
Beware kids' menus!
