I've always enjoyed lying to kids, and when I worked at camp, I lied to kids often. One of my favorite lies involved dinner - whenever the kids asked me what we were having, I always said, "Gruel."
Anyway, The Awl has a nice little story about how historians and scientists are able to reconstruct millennium-old recipes, and how they were able to recreate the recipe for Bogman's Weedseed Gruel, which sounds like an even better answer to the "What are we having for dinner?" question than plain old gruel. Much to my delight, this recipe calls for water infused with sphagnum moss, which makes me think of the eighth grade, when I ran for class president on the slogan "Vote For Sara Foss or She'll Turn You Into Sphagnum Moss." Ah, nostalgia.
Click here to visit the piece in The Awl.
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The other night I went out to Mahar's, a bar in Albany with an eclectic beer menu, and encountered a kind of beer I'd never had before: banana bread beer.
Sounds weird, right?
Anyway, I decided I had to buy it.
My thinking: How could I resist something as strange as banana bread beer?
I had high hopes.
I generally assume that if a reputable establishment is selling a particular food or drink, it's going to be good - otherwise they wouldn't sell it. This logic is sound, but it has led me astray: For instance, I once bought peanut butter and jelly French toast, and discovered that it was as awful as it sounded - two foods that were never meant to go together. (The restaurant was probably cleaning out its pantry, and decided to trick diners like me into eating something gross.)
Much to my delight, the banana bread beer was good - an interesting and delightful mix of banana bread and beer, as its name implies. You could definitely taste the banana bread flavor, but it wasn't too strong or overwhelming. Made by Wells & Young's Brewery in the United Kingdom town of Bedford, the beer received mixed reviews over on BeerAdvocate.com, but I really enjoyed it. It's a nice, amber beer - not too heavy, and not super-light. I'm not sure I would want to drink it all the time - it was too much like dessert, and probably best in moderation as a result - but I'd certainly drink it again ... especially if I had a hankering for beer and banana bread.
Over at the DG, I write about opening day at Jumpin' Jack's, the Scotia-restaurant that was underwater last August, due to Hurricane Irene, but has been fixed up with great fanfare.
Click here to learn more.
My former colleague Wade Kwon has written a smart piece about an Alabama-made barbecue sauce that features a racist logo, and can be found in supermarkets statewide.
Click here to find out more.
Over at the DG, I recommend a local wine bar, and a local dixieland jazz band.
Click here to learn more.
I've noticed that canned beer is making something of a comeback.
For a long time, my main experience with canned beer involved drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon in college. This stuff is awful, although my feelings about PBR might be strongly influenced by the fact that it was sort of a beer of last resort, and we typically ended up drinking it long after we should have stopped drinking beer altogether.
More recently, I've enjoyed the occasional can of Utica Club, which is sold at one of my favorite Albany bars, as well as Miller Lite, which my landlord keeps stocked in her fridge.
Now Esquire has posted an item ranking the "best canned beers to drink now." Number one on the list is Dale's Pale Ale, which I've had on a few occasions and which comes from Oskar Blues, a brewery that has been canning all of its beers since 2002.
Click here to read the entire list.
I keep reading articles about how bad diet soda is for your health.
According to a new study in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, drinking diet soda every day is linked with a higher risk of heart attack and death. Which is unfortunate, because I drink a lot of diet soda. The question is: Why do I drink so much diet soda? And how hard would it be for me to stop?
One theory is that diet soda helps me get through the day, especially at work. I stay up late, and get up earlier than I'd like, so it helps to have some caffeine in my system. And I've never been much of a coffee drinker, although I don't mind coffee and on rare occasions have been known to drink it. I also think work is an activity that becomes more bearable when I have something sweet to imbibe while doing it, and that a periodic trip the vending machine is something to look forward to, especially when I've been writing for a long period of time. But I also drink soda when I'm at home, so I can't blame my addiction solely on working at an office.
Anyway, I am not the only person questioning a bad soda habit. Over at GOOD magazine, Amanda Hess has posted a piece titled "Why I'm Reconsidering My Diet Soda Addiction." She writes:
"For me, diet soda isn't an occasional treat—it's an occupational hazard, one of the few things keeping me from face-planting into my keyboard. It's my version of chain smoking.
It should have been obvious that my excessive consumption of diet soda was not a wholesome choice. But as a press release accompanying the study notes, our 'current climate of escalating obesity rates' tends to reinforce the idea that reduced-calorie options are healthier than their alternatives. I want to believe it's not that bad."
My old friend Lauren Viera has a cocktail blog.
You can check it out here.
I just finished off a four-pack of Ommegang Abbey Ale, a Belgian beer brewed by Brewery Ommegang in Cooperstown, N.Y. And it was DELICIOUS.
Today the Washington Post reports that Brewery Ommegang is concerned that the controversial drilling procedure of hydraulic fracturing - often referred to as hydrofracking - could damage the quality of the brewery's beer, if approved by the state of New York. Specifically, the brewery worries that hydrofracking would pollute the wells that supply it with the water used to make its award-winning beers.
All I can say is that I don't want anything to ruin the quality of my beer.
Click here to learn more.
I love bacon, and so do many of my friends. Which is why I was pleased to see that Deadspin has put together a list of gifts for people who love bacon. Such as bacon-flavored soap. I mean, who wouldn't want that? Anyway, click here to see the rest of the items.
Over at Slate, Troy Patterson explains why this is the season to drink applejack, which he describes as a cider brandy.
Patterson suggests buying applejack produced by Scobeyville, N.J.,-based Laird & Company, "America's first commercial distillery and the producer of as much as 95 percent of its applejack." (He notes that Laird & Company boasts that it once lent its applejack recipe to George Washington.)
But there are other places to get applejack, especially now that certain parts of the country are experiencing a mini-craft distillery boom. Located about 30 minutes from Albany in the village of Valatie is Harvest Spirits, a small distillery based at the family-owned apple orchard Golden Harvest Farms. Derek Grout, son of the owner of Golden Harvest Farms, runs the distillery, and he has created an excellent applejack, which I've sampled a couple times. (I keep meaning to go back and buy a bottle.) He also makes vodka, brandy and grappa, and is working on a black raspberry vodka, peach schnapps and frozen applejack, which the website describes as "like an apple pie in your face."
Sounds delicious! I can't wait to try it. In the meantime, maybe I'll seek out some applejack.
We often hear that drinking too much is bad for our health. But research suggests that drinking too little can also be problematic.
On Alternet, Anneli Rufus writes:
"I don't want to go to rehab, but a raft of recent studies show that moderate alcohol consumption lowers our risks for many dire conditions including heart disease, stroke, gallstones, diabetes and dementia. Some studies even suggest that the answer to pesky menopause symptoms comes in six-packs and goes great with pretzels.
The keyword here is "moderate." Some studies define this as one drink per week; others as up to four drinks per day. This haziness notwithstanding, these studies show that heavy drinkers are far more likely than moderate drinkers to die from certain diseases.
But so are people who don't drink at all."
Click here to read the whole thing.
Overall, I'd say that these studies are good news for the likes of me, as well as most of my family, and many of my friends.
Over at the BBC News, social anthropologist Kate Fox argues that the way people behave when they're drinking is the result of cultural rules and norms, rather than the alcohol itself. She writes:
"Clearly, we Brits do have a bit of a problem with alcohol, but why?
The problem is that we Brits believe that alcohol has magical powers - that it causes us to shed our inhibitions and become aggressive, promiscuous, disorderly and even violent.
But we are wrong.
In high doses, alcohol impairs our reaction times, muscle control, co-ordination, short-term memory, perceptual field, cognitive abilities and ability to speak clearly. But it does not cause us selectively to break specific social rules. It does not cause us to say, 'Oi, what you lookin' at?' and start punching each other. Nor does it cause us to say, 'Hey babe, fancy a shag?' and start groping each other.
I was unexpectedly saddened by the news that Friendly's has filed for bankruptcy protection and will close 63 restaurants.
I have many fond memories of Friendly's. I actually had my first date in a Friendly's. I even remember what I ordered - the peanut butter cup sundae. (I have no idea what my date ordered, though.) My friends and I used to enjoy going to Friendly's to eat, and blowing straws in each other's faces. It was a great spot for teenagers - a cozy restaurant with cheap, decent food that really felt like a step up from the Denny's, McDonalds and other fast food restaurants located on the same strip. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that if you grew up in New Hampshire pre-food movement, the local Friendly's might have shaped your notion of what fine dining was all about.
I'm not the only person who feels this way about Friendly's. If you plug the terms Friendly's, sad and bankruptcy into google, you get tons of hits from mournful Friendly's fans. My guess is that many of these people are from small towns in New England. On one site, a commenter named Patriot86 wrote, "... when I went to high school in Ridgefield, Connecticut ... Friendly's was our hangout ... I would take a Jim Dandy now ... Yum." Another commenter wrote, "We enjoyed Friendly's on the Cape and in the Metro West. Always friendly service and prices you cannot beat. We miss them on the left coast."
Meanwhile, NPR wonders if nostalgia is enough to save Friendly's.
According to GOOD magazine, there's a new social network for beer lovers called Untappd.
Explains GOOD:
"Untappd also aggregates data on which beers are trending, categorized by microbrews or macrobrews, and organized by location. For example, trending beers near the GOOD office in Hollywood today include several Dogfish Head brews. If you’re curious about a certain beer, you can click on it to get more information, including reviews and ratings posted by other aficionados. Then you can add it to your brew wish list to help you remember which six-pack to pick up on Friday night. And if you need beer in every aspect of your life, you can easily connect Untappd to your Twitter, Facebook, and Foursquare as well."
All I can say is: This sounds cool.
Click here to visit the site.
