Boulevard Long Strange Tripel and Celebrator Doppelbock

Tonight we are sharing two brews with our good friend Bree, with only a few nights left in her visit.  The main result will be to make her husband, Jonathan, jealous; he would love to be here tasting them with us.  However, few of you will truly feel the triumph of this aspect of the evening so let's move on to the beers.

We start with the Long Strange Tripel brewed by Boulevard Brewing Company, a part of their smokestack series.  It has a golden colour and very good head retention.  It has a fruit smell, some lemon and some wheat.  It has a strong honey character with a very slight hint of licorice.  My wife says, "It doesn't seem as if it would have a lot of flavour from the look and the smell.  It starts off very light at the tip of your tongue but develops a bite, some spiciness around the middle, and ends with a sweet fermented finish."  I'd give it a four.


Next is the Celebrator Doppelbock.  "The one with the plastic goat figurine," Jonathan says over the phone.  It is much more straightforward than the Tripel.  The colour is very dark with a hint of red.  It smells syrupy.  Britta describes the flavour as Syrupy, molasses, smoky.  It is a firm, to the point beer.  Bree chimes in describing it as dry and sweet.  We all agree that this is an excellent beer, 4.5 is my vote on it.

Food Cart Frittata

Breakfast time!  Britta has been working for an hour over this meal, hopefully with success.  I would hate to have to disparage a meal which took so much of her energy and time.  I do have to think of my marital bliss in these reviews.  Today's meal is a sausage and veggie frittata with fried potatoes on the side.  We are joined by our good friend, Bree, and my father-in-law, Homer.  My wife made enough for all of us, a feat in and of itself.

The plate looks good, the frittata is presented in a triangle shape and the pile of potatoes is adequate but not extravagant.  I dig in to the potatoes first, they are served with ketchup and a cilantro ginger chutney made with cumin and rapidura.  Red potatoes were chopped into small cubes which fall apart in my mouth.  The chutney is sweet and accentuates the warm moisture of the fried potatoes.

After I polish off my potatoes I start on the frittata.  The conversation around the table takes a turn that is not uncommon whenever we eat with Homer, concerning the quality of Britta's cooking his paean ends with an exclamation to the effect that Britta should start a food establishment of some kind (Food Cart, is often his choice.)  His vociferations were not as strong as usual, though.  Was it the food or perhaps Bree's added presence?

The frittata was made with eggs from our friend's chickens.  It had sausage, spinach, broccoli, zucchini, tomatoes, parmesan, colby jack, and green onions on top.  Every bite was like a brand new culinary adventure; one bite would yield sausage, another broccoli, another spinach.  The frittata was moist and satisfying, however the vast variation of flavours resulted in a different experience with every mouthful: sometimes divine, sometimes too concentrated in one way or another.  When things went well I enjoyed the mixture of sweet and savoury and an herby tang, the juicy zucchini stood out particularly.  If only there were a way to scientifically distribute all the ingredients evenly through the frittata.

The eggs were cooked well for the most part, very fluffy but a little burnt on the bottom.  Due to this, the imbalanced nature of the recipe, and Homer's milder than usual enthusiasm I am giving this meal a 3.5.  Hopefully, my wife and I can work through this little difficulty and move on to fulfilling Homer's dream of our being restaurateurs.

Ovila Dubbel

We've just had a baby and, finally, I get to enjoy a beer with my wife.  I have been saving this one for a while, a collaboration between Sierra Nevada and the Abbey of New Clairvaux.  I have looked longingly at the sleek bottle and classy packaging many a time.  The label with the light sketch of Gothic architecture hearkens my imagination to the whole world of delicious monk brewed beers.

We open it and I pour, perhaps I'm excited, because my wife's ends up a little foamier than I had anticipated.  The colour is dense, dark amber, "like a cloudy cola," my wife says.  The smell is somewhat like that of a wine, a good Abbey ale smell, but the true smell expert has no comment because she is stuffed up with a cold.

The beer is smooth and has a robust flavour with a sweet touch.  My wife describes it as toasted, almost like prunes, leathery, like dried fruit.  We detect a nice hoppy bite at the end.  We are both satisfied.  And my wife, the true tasting expert, states, "I like it, and I'm sick."  I'm sure the brewers of Sierra Nevada have always been looking for such high praise.

Sideways Sandwich

My lunch today came on a biodegradable plate with plastic wrap over it.  Due to the unwieldy packaging, the sandwich slid down, because I had to place it sideways into my satchel.  It was fortunate that my lunch was not mangled. 

The sandwich itself was very good.  Turkey lunchmeat, greenleaf lettuce and cheese on Dave's killer bread.  The lunchmeat was flavourful and the lettuce crisp and crunchy.  My wife slathered each slice of bread with lemonaise, making the sandwich almost creamy.  it was a wonderful effect. 

On the side I had a carrot, an apple, and a mandarin orange.  The apple was large and delicious which is to be expected with a red delicious.  The carrot was not as good as my usual carrots; it tasted more of dirt than normal, muddying the bright taste to which I am accustomed.  Were I to guess at the appearance of the carrot from its taste, I would not have expected it to be as orange as it was.  The orange was juicy, but I found the peeling and seed-spitting arduous.  I hate to have to work for my food. 

Though the central piece of my lunch rendered an extremely pleasant experience, I am giving this meal a 2.5 because of the difficult packaging, the poor quality of one of the sides and the work I had to put in myself.  Also my wife made me support her neck by wrapping a rolled-up towel around it and holding both ends while she got her hair shampooed by a hairdresser.  So this is payback.

Fiesta in the Rain

It's November 16th, a week from Thanksgiving.  The day has been wet and stormy, the first of what is expected to be a long stretch of dreary days.

My wife is serving enchiladas, a bright meal in contrast to the weather outside.  We have just come home from shopping and a child induced trip to the pet store.  Britta did not want to cook so I am doubly thankful for the effort she has put into the meal.

When the enchiladas come to the table my first sense of them is green.

They are very green.

Like a neon sign.

They are served  with chopped lettuce piled on top, and the enchilada sauce is green.  It is a meal to flash a message.  In addition to the lettuce and green sauce, the white corn tortillas are filled with sauteed zucchini squash and chile rellenos, fresh spinach and mild cheddar.

The flavours are rich and straightforward.  The zucchini squash and chile rellenos do give the meal a feel a spring, an almost fruity edge.  Weitchpec chile hot sauce and tapatio are provided to add to taste, but the table is not properly accoutred and I am forced to get a knife myself.

The beverage that is selected to compliment the meal is a chilled PBR aged two months in a large refrigerated upright plastic box.  The light beer coolly cleanses the palate, complimenting the meal quite well.  It does not contradict the spiciness of the hot sauce or the chile rellenos.  In fact, it adds to the thrust of the meal, poignantly addressing the climactic meteorological change we are experiencing: the meal is cheery.

Were it not for milk being poured on our dog Pepper's head the effect might have worked.  All in all I am well fed and satisfied that I have once again been provided with a delicious meal.  This one's the first, and I love cheese too much, so this one's getting four stars; perhaps as the winter months lengthen I'll be more critical, but for now I am happy to be reminded of the sunshine.