This might be a little much. Rogue’s brewmaster is overseeing the production of a beer the yeast for which was extracted from his beard, which has not been shaved since 1978.
The Rogue people in this article are giving a mirabile visu! spin to finding a viable beer yeast in his beard, but I suppose if you were going to find such a yeast in anyone’s beard, in would be that of a man who spends all day every day in front of beer.
My chief fear when buying this cider was that it would be too sweet. Rest easy. It is not.
Fox Barrel is owned by Crispin, so our prospects were good.
The bouquet on this thing is a strong and straight blackberry, although not so big that it makes you fear death by berry. The pour is less carbonated than I’d expect, featuring a deeply blushed but completely translucent red (I’d be curious to know if the color is achieved strictly with blackberry juice, or if something else is added).
My preference is for drier ciders. More Strongbow and less Woodchuck. That’s one of the attractive features of pear ciders for me, and this one did not disappoint. Although it was sweet (how could it not be, with berry juice?), the sugar only touched lightly on the tongue, and transitioned with the swallow to a nice bitterness, and finally a clean finish.
Fox Barrel apparently has other pear ciders. I will be trying them.
A picture of my preacher with the one loaf in hand.
Our church does some things with the Lord’s Supper that I really like. For one, we use real wine (obviously! that’s the only option, right? I mean, right?). For another, we all share from one loaf. We’re still small enough to eat from one loaf, even at eighty strong. The loaf is torn in half, then each person tears of a piece for himself. To tell the truth, with an only sightly bigger loaf we could continue to tear off the healthy pieces that we do and still give bread to two hundred; it’s suprising how far the loaf stretches.
Another cool thing we do is the provision each Sunday by different families of the loaf. There’s a sign-up sheet, then an elder or a deacon makes a list and sends it out to the wives.
The bread tastes different every time. I never know which family brings what bread and what recipes, unless it’s our week to bring it. I think I know which family puts honey in their loaves, but I still have no idea who the crazy person who’s always putting herbs in the bread is.
And this is awesome, and only serves to bring us closer together as one body. For what is eating and drinking unworthily but despising brothers over issues of food and table? How easy and sanitary it is for churches to go out and buy bread made in a factory somewhere. Every Sunday I take the Lord’s body and blood, and it comes to me not only through the hands of the fallible men at the table, but through the hands of women who don’t do things the way I’d choose to do them. Somehow, whether it’s the way I’d choose or not, their work feeds me. Pastors and bakers alike.
This morning some silly thoughts reminded me of this. I ripped off my piece of bread and popped it in my mouth. Immediately I thought to myself, “Oh, this is the woman who never puts in enough salt.” But as I chewed I had a doubt. “Is it? I can’t quite tell. Not as much salt as it needs, for sure. Kimberly doesn’t like as much salt as I do either. I wonder why. Ooh! Is that oil?” Right as I was about to swallow I’d suddenly noticed that the bread had much more oil than my family normally uses, and it was really nice. In fact, more salt might have messed up the smoothing effect the oil had on ol’ bite n’ swallow.
There is only one loaf, and that is all there ever will be. And yet there are so many ways to make bread.
This gal thought it would be a good idea to make steak pops. You know, like cake pops. But with steaks. “How about a Meaty / Manly take on the famous Cake Pops? I’m more of a meat person than a cake person, so I really love this treat.” All the images are from the Instructables page linked to above, showing how to create this…dare I say it, abomination.
So she turned this…
Into this…
This guy’s surely embarrassed of his hairy chest right now.
At the cost of this…
My friends, go and cook a steak now. Create some beauty in a world that destroys it.
Remember when Starbucks came out with the trenta size last year? It’s huge, huge, huge. Two grandes in one cup. They only use it for tea and water-based drinks, because the prospect of that much frappuccino or milk seems unholy even to Starbucks.
It was even claimed that the Trenta was unnatural and unholy because it is larger than the human stomach.
Oh, yeah? If that’s the case, what’s with this awesomeness? (This was taken over a year ago, but I just got it.)
Today I “liked” Tanqueray on Facebook. Do you know why? Because Tanqueray told me to.
Look at this ad, just brimming with confidence. No spiel, no trickery, no desperation. Just the command, “Like Tanqueray”.
If there’s one way to manipulate me through marketing, it’s by exuding manly confidence. Sadly for Tanqueray, I will only be admiring their mojo abstractly. I remain a Bombay Sapphire man.
I hung out yesterday with a friend who is very enthusiastic about chickens. He has many chickens at his home, and as he sat in the garden drinking beer with me, I could tell from the way he watched my four chickens that he loved them.
He is trying to raise a bunch of Marans chickens, a French breed which it is illegal to bring into the U.S. He bought twenty chicks in Georgia, which, disappointingly, is quite legal. I guess once the chickens are here there’s no problem. This disappointed me greatly because I’d thought for a moment that I knew a chicken smuggler.
Anyway, Marans lay a dark chocolate-colored egg which is said to be super-duper delicious. My friend told me that his experience was “Yeah, yeah, I’m sure they’re good, but an egg’s an egg…wait…these are amazingly delicious!” This from someone who’s very used to the eggs of free range chickens; the Marans eggs were that outstanding. I’m really looking forward to trying some when his chickens are grown.
This friend also mentioned that Marans are James Bond’s favorite eggs. Ian Fleming loved egg dishes, and he gave James Bond a voracious appetite for eggs, particularly scrambled eggs. Here is a recipe for the Bond eggs, which has much molten butter whisked in, and was included in Ian Fleming’s short story Thrilling Cities.
From wikipedia:
When in England and not on a mission, Bond dines as simply as Fleming did on dishes such as grilled sole, oeufs en cocotte and cold roast beef with potato salad. When on a mission, however, Bond eats more extravagantly. This was partly because in 1953, when Casino Royale was published, many items of food were still rationed, and Bond was “the ideal antidote to Britain’s postwar austerity, rationing and the looming premonition of lost power”. This extravagance was more noteworthy with his contemporary readers for Bond eating exotic, local foods when abroad, at a time when most of his readership did not travel abroad.
On 1 April 1958 Fleming wrote to The Manchester Guardian in defence of his work, referring to that paper’s review of Dr. No. Whilst referring to Bond’s food and wine consumption as “gimmickery”, Fleming bemoaned that “it has become an unfortunate trade-mark. I myself abhor Wine-and-Foodmanship. My own favourite food is scrambled eggs.” Fleming was so keen on scrambled eggs that he used his short story, “007 in New York” to provide his favourite recipe for the dish: in the story, this came from the housekeeper of his friend Ivar Bryce, May, who gave her name to Bond’s own housekeeper.
Scrambled eggs are, by the way, delicious for dinner. In this iconic Ron Swanson clip (the “Turf n’ Turf), the right to consume a t-bone, a porterhouse, a whiskey, and a cigar at the same time is heralded as quintessentially American. It might be. It is certainly quintessentially testosteroney. But what remains unmentioned by Swanson is the generous serving of scrambled eggs next to the steaks. Fleming and Bond would have been proud.
My friends, I do not know how I reached the ripe old age that I have without knowing that men make candy out of wax, but I did. I bought this at an awesome little “general store” (you know, that new-fangled sort that’s popping up all over, full of candy and expensive knickknacks) in downtown Greer, with the intent of doing a review. I wondered aloud about the wisdom of using the word “wax” in one’s branding; it didn’t seem like good marketing. My wife stared at me, rolled her eyes, and asked where I’d been my whole life.
I’ve been in a paradise of good candy, that’s where.
The first ingredient of this stuff really is wax. Apparently people find this normal. I suppose I should appreciate another combination of mustache with wax, but I cannot.
My review of it is below. I get the kids’ input.
