From the Kitchen and from the bar – new beers, new food and a tattoo!

Well, we never made it to the March for Science.   I did watch it on CSPAN, and they had pretty good coverage of it.   Some of the signs were priceless. I did like the one that read something like “we knew it was going to rain because of science”. I find it terribly weird that some people are offended that anyone dare have fun making the signs and dressing up, seeming to indicate that we all must be the stereotypical scientists with no senses of humor and no lives outside the laboratory.

This is to catch up on some of our gustatory and other adventures over the last few weeks.

On a visit to the grocery store, I found a “prime” top round aka London Broil. Prime generally indicates a cut that has a lot of marbling in it, and that is just a weird thing to claim for top round which is very, very lean. But there are other ways to determine “prime”, so maybe that’s how it works.   In any case, my curiosity got the better of me and I bought it since it was on sale. I couldn’t tell it was any more tender than a regular top round (the south end of a north facing cow).

I found a marinade on Saveur’s website. Since I didn’t have fennel, I used some star anise that I’ve had lying around.   I generally don’t care for the flavor of anise/licorice but I do like it in combination with other things. Spouse made a very hot fire in the charcoal grill and we had flames licking up around the meat as we like, and grilled it to a nice medium rare. Cut on the bias, it was tolerably tender and had a great flavor. We had it with fried potatoes and onions.

During that same shopping, I also found a pair of small beef tenderloins for about half their usual price. They were netted, which indicated that they weren’t holding together well (being three separate muscles).   But they’ll make a treat for beef stroganoff, or just slices of it raw since I tend to like that kind of thing.

We’ve also tried some new beers. PA changed the law so that distributors can sell singles, six and four packs, and mixed packs of beer.

Flying Fish Blueberry Braggot – I wonder if the PA liquor control people know how strong this is. 15%? Very strong, very sweet but not that much blueberry flavor.

Troegs La Grave – It does have a nice dry finish despite its caramelly notes and biscuit nose. I was a little surprised at this since it is a cork and cage bottle.

Goose Island Matilda Pale Ale – Their website is being glitchy, but the beer is very good. Not a hop bomb like so many pale ales. We had to get it since we love Matilda, from “The Professional” (and yes, I know the spelling is different).

Ballast Point Red Velvet – It tastes like a slightly less sweet cream soda. Very good.

Ayinger Celebrator Dopplebock – Very molasses-y.   Not bad but not what I expected.

We also have a new brew a-borning in our fermenter.  It’s the White House Honey Porter, from when we had a coherent human being in the White House, and not that orange idiot, Trump.  That’ll be the subject of a future post, once it’s in the bottle.

As another beverage, not so tasty, we’ve been drinking kava, a root-based drink from the south Pacific islands. I wanted to try it for my issues with anxiety. We had tried it a handful of years ago to no effect but this is from a new source and it does work nicely. It doesn’t make me feel intoxicated like alcohol, but just makes me feel contented. It also helps me sleep without my usual bad dreams.   Not exactly nightmares, but constant dreams where I can’t find something, can’t get somewhere, and I wake up feeling angry and frustrated. Kava is a bit nasty tasting, like dirt and roots (looks like thin mud), and it makes your mouth a little numb, as if you were sucking on a Sucrets sore throat lozenge. Spouse has taken to calling it “Mudder’s Milk” in tribute to Firefly’s episode “Jaynestown”. (alas, Adam Baldwin isn’t as cool as his character)

And finally, spouse has a very nifty new tattoo. it’s a combination of the classic climbing panther with the Cheshire Cat. He’s a fuzzy, pudgy little fellow. Because, you know, we’re all mad here.