The New Other Best Beer

21 Feb 2014 13 Comments

by scolgin in Beverages, Humor Tags: , , , , , , , ,

I like to do beer reviews from time to time, especially when I discover a new beer that sets my heart a flutter.

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Such was the case recently when I was out to lunch at a beer chain place called Yard House with my father and brothers. I was looking over the comprehensive list of beers on tap, including plenty of favorites and plenty I’d never heard of, when I spotted a chalk board with some special selections. I picked one whose name I liked, and which was local — Ballast Point Sculpin IPA from San Diego. And imagine my surprise when here, in my glass, was one of the best beers I’d ever tasted! More

Another Zen Temple Favorite

14 Feb 2014 7 Comments

by scolgin in Cookbooks, Recipes Tags: , , , , , , , ,

I got to my in-box one morning to discover an email from my pal Paul in Florida with a link to a Google book called “The Book of Miso.” The book had been written in the 1970s, published originally as one of those old timey paper editions, one would have to assume. It was filled with the line drawings popular with cookbooks of that era.

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“You probably already have it but it is new to me,” Paul said. People often mistakenly assume that I have every piece of information on cooking ever published. I do not. More

Cauliflower Candy

07 Feb 2014 21 Comments

by scolgin in Recipes, Starlets, Yoga Students & Quinoa (stories) Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

I used to be roommates with my sister Laura, who was a skinny yoga teacher pescetarian type (and partially responsible for the name of this blog). Laura used to roast all manners of vegetables — squash, eggplant, cucumbers — always sliced into little coins, always cooked until they became caramely and delicious. It was a nifty trick I was never quite able to repeat — perhaps because Laura was such a prodigious user of olive oil. Where others would drizzle, she would pour.

Before

Before

One day, I was roasting some cauliflower and forgot about it. It cooked about 45 minutes longer than I had intended. And when I finally returned to the oven, the plump snow florets had shrunk by two thirds into little brown caramel bombs. More

More Neat Tokyo Tricks

04 Feb 2014 16 Comments

by scolgin in Pork, Recipes Tags: , , , , , , ,

As I’ve explored in previous posts about tempura, ramen, sumiyaki, sushi and other specialities Japonais, dining in Japan can be very segmented. Stroll about a street in Tokyo and you’ll find restaurants devoted to each of these particular styles of cooking (or not cooking) and many more.

Tonkatsu with Japanese cole slaw and egg/mirin dipping sauce

Tonkatsu with Japanese cole slaw and egg/mirin dipping sauce

Browsing the aisles of my favorite Japanese market the other day, I found a beautiful Kurobata pork loin on sale. Now pork loin can be one of the stupidest of meats, mostly because it has zero fat. But the Japanese have a nifty way of rectifying that problem with the dish, tonkatsu. More

The Hostess with the Mostess

31 Jan 2014 23 Comments

by scolgin in Food, Humor, Starlets, Yoga Students & Quinoa (stories) Tags: , , , , , ,

When cupcake and confection maker, Hostess, went bankrupt a few years back, I watched the news with some mixture of interest and nostalgia.

I hadn’t eaten a Hostess product in probably more than a quarter century, and had paid little interest to their presence on the grocery store shelf all those years. I was never much for Twinkies, which seemed to be getting all the press as the company went under. I liked the apple pies, the little chocolate donuts and, most of all, the Ding Dong. I thought they did chocolate well.

How to make your Ding Dong look fancy so you can serve it to your snooty foodie friends

How to make your Ding Dong look fancy so you can serve it to your snooty foodie friends

The Ding Dong, for the uninitiated, is a little disc of chocolate cake with a cream center, and chocolate coating. Like most Hostess products, it remains fresh and moist even after several months on the shelf. More

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