Recently Nick and I were in the gritty West Loop neighborhood of Chicago, after a long, pork-ridden meal at The Publican , where we fed on cracklins, rillettes, belly, shoulder, and all manner of sausages. We slipped out of the restaurant happy and stuffed into the long fluorescent shadows, in search of a good bar to aid all the oncoming digesting to be done.
We ended up at Matchbox ...
The authentic Julep is a drink from the Heroic Age of American Tippling, and as such is not for novices. That's perhaps the chief reason it's fallen out of favor in these weak-livered times.
- David Wondrich
I'll get to the julep soon enough. But first I want to talk about the Kentucky Derby. Though I grew up on the Indiana side of the Ohio River, I don't care much about the Indy 5...
Diced instead of Ground Meat
I had stopped using ground beef a few years back, after watching a Good Eats episode. The reasoning makes sense. When ground beef is used, the fat either needs to be drained off immediately, or needs to be skimmed off the day after when all the fat has accumulated at the top. But if you use chunks a lot of the juices stay inside, leaving both the chili less...
Alas, I didn't take home the top prize, but I did have an amazing time at the 2009 Time Out Chili Cook-off. There were some quite good chilies there, including a smoked brisket one that happened to be stationed right next to mine made by some firemen. I can't believe theirs didn't win!
As I promised people who liked my chili at the event, here is the recipe that I used for my Drunken Texa...
Oh, geez, where to begin. While Blake was off gallivanting around the eternal city sampling the finer things in life , I was once again down in Kentucky on another bourbon tour. I'm sure Blake spent his free time strolling along ancient streets admiring priceless art. Yet, here I was staring down a family - complete with dog - made from whiskey barrels (the one with a...
Over the past year or so, Nick and I have developed a kind of unhealthy obsession with cocktails -- some could argue literally. We've quietly stocked our cabinets with liquers, liquors, bitters; our fridge doors are weighed down with vermouths (yes, they should be refrigerated ) and simple syrups; a regular supply of rye whiskey, bourbon and gin comes and goes, mixed with a recurring stoc...
It's a tale of the old and the new. Of the high and the low. It's Wild Turkey and Maker's Mark , two bourbons I love, but couldn't be more different from each other. The Turkey is a high rye bourbon made to grip your taste buds and warm your insides, while smooth and seductive Maker's Mark is the gentleman's choice, somewhat conservative and much more expensive. Feeling guilty th...
I took a little break from food this past weekend, turning my back on all the pieces of meat curing in my stairwell (I’ll get to those later in the week), and set off for the rolling hills of Kentucky to sip the best bourbon I could. I’d been blabbering on and on to my brother-in-law about the stuff for well over six months now and it was about time to actually see where it all came from...
I tend to spend way too much time researching what I'm going to eat. Nearly every recipe is cross-examined against other works I have, just to make sure I'm doing things correctly. But I was on to this recipe the moment I saw Alton pull out his steaks. I didn't check if this was the authentic way to make this, I just went for it.
What could cause me to go into such enthusiastic fits? S...
Let's say you're just not feeling the joy you need to properly celebrate a festive party. It's the holiday season, and you need a slightly alcoholic milk product to help you reach that next level of cheer. The store-bought stuff? Gluey and tasting of artificial thickeners. You need some true, homemade eggnog--that's been established. Perhaps you prepared for this situation and made t...