Cherish.

My posts are being titled after songs. There may or may not be any connection with the content. After 14,986 blog posts, a little freshening up might help.

---

I posted earlier today at Food & Dining Magazine.

Edibles & Potables: “The restaurant remains a symbol of freedom.”

... For those who’ve always found their third spaces in eateries and watering holes, the months since have been challenging. There was, and remains, a palpable sense of confusion and loss – for a lifestyle, yes, although not only that – existing alongside similar sentiments pertaining to the pandemic in general.

Speaking only for my own household, it was not difficult to organize grocery pickups, head into the kitchen and begin cooking, augmented by occasional curbside carryouts. But something big had gone missing.

I believe this is true. Something Marty Rosen wrote in his column two weeks ago keeps coming back to me.

Letter from the Editor: Our adaptive carry-out and cooking routines feel both new and familiar

 ... There were times, early in my adult life, when cooking was normal – and dining in a restaurant was a rare and special thing. If people were flush, we might dine out once a week – and always based on a keen awareness of price, value, and quality. When I was a kid, it was a memorable treat to go to the Dizzy Whizz (well, really, it still is). Going to a sit-down restaurant was a strange and exotic experience. Even when I reached adulthood, dining at any “serious” restaurant – a place that took reservations, perhaps, or a place that had a wine list (gasp) was a rare and intimidating thing.

We'll eventually return to a version of what we had before. I'm doubtful it will be the same, though. It may be heresy to say this given my line of work, but I've greatly enjoyed cooking at home the past few pandemic months. The times we've gone the curbside carryout route have felt special. When we sit down in a restaurant again, some day, it's going to involve a great deal of gratitude.

Really. 

THE BEER BEAT: Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale and a stray recipe for Eastern European Sauerkraut, Bean and Mushroom Soup.

These thoughts originally were published two years ago at the since-mothballed Potable Curmudgeon. Tonight's Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale (drained; above) prompted the recollection.

The single most hellish aspect of aging are the times when you think something happened last month, and it turns out to have been five years ago. Consequently, most readers already know the point of today's digression.

First, some personal history.

At some point in the late 1990s and early 2000s, I'd pre-order as many kegs of Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale as North Vernon Beverage could acquire via hook or crook, and we'd pour them at the Public House for weeks on end.

Probably a keg each year was deposited directly into my own stomach. It's a wonder we ever made any money. Holiday sentimentality is utterly lacking in my interior world, and yet this annual arrival of Celebration Ale truly came to define the Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons.

In later years, the world evolved; NABC began its own brewing operation in 2002, and in 2004 came the first Saturnalia Winter Solstice festival, as explicitly devoted to "celebrating" winter and holiday seasonal draft beers.

In the years since, I've had my ups and downs with Sierra Nevada itself. To this very day, it still seems to me that an aspect of the company's crucial foundational California mythology was lost forever when it began brewing in North Carolina. However, this is not the point of my digression, and I've made my peace with multi-coastal modernity.

A couple of weeks back we were out shopping for groceries. I needed beer for sauerkraut, bean and mushroom soup (recipe below), and Bridge Liquors was just around the corner, so we stopped there for a couple of bottles of Paulaner Salvator.

Pro tip: Never, ever use water in soup.

While browsing Bridge's packed aisles, I saw six-packs of Celebration Ale and couldn't resist the temptation. Having paid very little attention in recent years, what threw me at first glance was the changed label design, which is gorgeous, and the words "Fresh Hop IPA."

The simple fact is that while we always knew Celebration Ale was a hophead's delight, I can't recall many barroom discussions centering on whether it was or wasn't an IPA. We simply accepted it was what it was, and remains: Celebration Ale. It's the same way I feel about NABC's Elector; not this or that, but merely Elector, itself.

Concurrently ... those various annual "Harvest" releases were designed to be Sierra Nevada's showcase for "fresh" hops, weren't they? Hence, this belated effort to rectify my grasp of semantics, and now it makes sense to me, because ...

The word "IPA" wasn't on the label in 2013, and appeared for the first time in 2014.

The Harvest series is about "wet" or unprocessed hops, while the significance of "fresh" in Celebration Ale, according to wording first deployed in 2010, is that the finishing hops (Cascade and Centennial) are selected, dried and used immediately. These distinctions are explained in detail by Heather Vandenengel at All About Beer:

A FRESH CELEBRATION: THE ORIGINS OF CELEBRATION ALE

Celebration Ale, which has been in production since 1981 and in its current form since 1983, is an enigma of a beer. It’s a holiday beer, so consumers might expect it to have the standard spices—nutmeg, cinnamon—but instead will find hop aromas and bitterness akin to an IPA. Since 2010, Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. has labeled it as a fresh hop ale, garnering confusion with wet hop ales, which are also often referred to as fresh hop ales.

Finally, at the risk of waxing curmudgeonly, I will never in my life consider Celebration Ale to be an IPA. To me, the attempted specificity mars the legend. It's a one-off, and should remain that way.

---

Eastern European Sauerkraut, Bean and Mushroom Soup

4 – 6 “medium” servings

I’ve adapted this Polish/Slavic/Hungarian amalgam for a cold day from The Frugal Gourmet on Our Immigrant Ancestors: Recipes You Should Have Gotten from Your Grandmother, by the late Jeff “Frugal Gourmet” Smith. It’s easy to make and requires only 20 or so minutes of prep time. I like it meatless, though carnivores might choose to accompany with Kielbasa.

Ingredient list

Olive oil or other cooking oil

2 medium yellow onions, peeled and chopped
4 fat cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped

24 ounces of beer … my preference for this recipe is Rauchbier, but Doppelbock works just fine and a malty Brown Ale would suffice in a pinch. The picture perfect choice is Schlenkerla Urbock, but save it to drink with the finished product. If you use Rauchbier, omit the smoked paprika – or not. Of course, feel free to get creative.

28 ounces vegetable broth

(Note: The object is to have a combination of beer and stock totaling around 50 ounces).

2 teaspoons Hungarian paprika (sweet)
1 teaspoon smoked paprika (see beer note above)
¼ teaspoon Hungarian paprika (hot)
1 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper

32 ounce bag sauerkraut from the refrigerator aisle, rinsed
8 oz mushrooms from the produce aisle, rinsed
2 cans (circa 16 oz) navy beans, rinsed; add a third can if you’re a bean lover

Directions

Sauté the chopped garlic and onions in oil on medium heat until tender, about five minutes.

Add beer, veggie broth, sauerkraut, paprika, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, then lower the temperature and simmer for an hour, stirring occasionally.

After an hour, add the beans and mushrooms. Bring to a boil, then lower the temperature and simmer for another hour, stirring occasionally.

To serve

Serve in bowls with a dollop of sour cream. We accompany the soup with bread and butter: Jewish Rye (light rye with caraway seeds) or Pumpernickel (dark rye, no seeds) are preferred.

Local joys of cooking at Every Day Fresh.

How's this for foreshadowing?

"Still gotta keep it under wraps, but big things are happening!!! I'll have a huge announcement a week from tomorrow."

That puts it around the 26th. Meanwhile, you can read Gina Brown at her blog ...

Welcome to Every Day Fresh

My name is Gina Brown, and I want to show you and your family how to live healthfully and tastefully. Nothing makes me happier than teaching someone the joys of cooking. If you know someone who needs a little help in the kitchen, or a new bride/groom that wants to learn how to make some basic meals. I can show you how easily it is to stock your pantry, so you can create fantastic, yummy meals.

... and at Facebook.

Every Day Fresh

One of my favorite Julia Child quotes really sums up how I feel about food, ”Learn how to cook — try new recipes, learn from your mistakes, be fearless and above all have fun.” I want to help you find the fun in cooking!

Can't wait for that announcement.

Food: Umami and freshness in history.

I'm not impressed with the inception of the Umami chain. Thought processes in the kitchen -- that's something else entirely.

Empire of the Bun: Today, burgers. Tomorrow, the world. The Casual-dining revolution of Adam Fleischman and his Umami Group, by Lesley Bargar Suter (LA Magazine)

 ... The signature Umami burger isn’t some towering, sloppy menace that’s as impossible to grasp as it is to bite. It’s compact, almost cute, with a reasonable six-ounce patty served on an eggy, Portuguese-style bun that Fleischman sources from a top-secret local bakery. “The burger-to-bun ratio is key,” he says, “but it’s amazing that nobody ever gets that right.” Once cooked to the lowest, pinkest edge of medium rare, the meat is seasoned with the now-patented Umami Sauce and Umami Dust. “We don’t use MSG,” says Fleisch-man, despite many accusations to the contrary. The full recipe is classified, but he will allow that the sauce contains some soy sauce and the dust, some ground-up dried porcini mushrooms and dried fish heads, among other umami enhancers. Toppings include known umami heavy hitters such as oven-roasted tomatoes, shiitake mushrooms, caramelized onions, and a crisp Parmesan wafer. “Parmesan,” says Fleischman, “has the second-highest umami levels of any ingredient, and it has the most of any cheese.”

Umami as a "fifth taste" surely is an ancient notion, one only recently elevated to a place in food-related discussions. But it's been there all along, right?

online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303560204579248201225981092">Historical Recipes Are the Next Big Thing, by Elizabeth Gunnison Dunn (Wall Street Journal)

Chefs are trolling archives and raiding centuries-old cookbooks in search of inspiration, and the results are some of the freshest recipes around

"SO MUCH OF what's served in restaurants these days isn't even recognizable as food," said Shane McBride. As the chef talked, his hands moved with care through a vintage copy of Richard Olney's "The French Menu Cookbook." He paused on an entry for a dish called Pheasant Salmis, which opened with matter-of-fact instruction on how to spot a good eating bird in the wild.

Robin Garr on Cincinnati Chili.

In my world, chili always has been an omnibus concept. There needs to be chili powder in it, but like goulash (paprika) or borscht (beets), there is no end to creative regional and personal variations springing from the basic concept.

I'd never experienced Cincinnati-style chili until I was in my late twenties, working in downtown Louisville within range of a long-departed Gold Star outlet. While everyone else argues about meat, beans, spaghetti and other nebulous orthodoxies, I merely opt for the Cincinnati version and am quite happy.

Previously, I shared my recipe for Vegetarian Cincinnati Chili, which is a monthly household favorite. Earlier in the week, Robin Garr wrote about this culinary art form at his Eat.Feed.Love.Live. blog. He links to a recipe I might have to try ... with veggie ground beef substitute. That's because as an omnivore, I inhabit a (muchly) vegetarian domicile; when I want Cincy chili with meat and cannot make it to Ohio, there's room for an exception to my chain restaurant standards (it's all about shift) and visit the Skyline outlet in front of Louisville's Mid City Mall.

Cincinnati chili: No hating, please!

... From a food anthropology standpoint, it may help to recognize that this is just another strain of immigrant cuisine working its way into the American melting pot.

The Floyd County Health Department replies.

Here are the questions: On the Harvest Healthcoming Department's festival permit cross-pollination. Below are the answers, courtesy of Dawn Stackhouse.

---

Roger,

I am the Environmental Supervisor for the Floyd County Health Department and I received your email from Dr. Harris and wanted to go over a few items with you that you had concerns about.

First, you were required to get a Temporary Food Permit because you were preparing food outside of your facility and serving it outside. Your facility permit would not cover this type of operation. If your facility sets up a booth outdoors and prepares and sells food, you must get a temporary food service permit. If you wanted to have a permanent cooking setup outdoors you would have to provide coverings over your cooking equipment to protect them from elements, and provide permanent fixtures for handwashing.

Second, the temporary food permit for the Harvest Homecoming festival is the same as any other temporary food permit that we issue. It has the same requirements, fees, inspections, etc. We issued you a temporary food permit for the Harvest Homecoming festival because you were setting up the same days as the festival. We appreciate you bringing this to our attention, and in the future we will issue just a temporary food permit to those establishments who are operating separately from the Harvest Homecoming festival to avoid confusion.

Third, we will be unable to issue you a refund for your permit for Sunday. As stated on the application you filled out at our office, fees for temporary food permits are non-refundable. In addition, when your permit was typed up, it stated you were operating for four days. Upon issuance of the permit, you stated you would not be operating on Sunday, so I changed the dates and placed my initials on your permit and you paid $60.00 to operate for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

If you should have any more questions or concerns, please feel free to give me a call at the number below.

Sincerely,

Dawn Stackhouse
Environmental Health Supervisor, FCHD

"Food porn" from the the NYT Book Review.

While puttering around the kitchen to prepare a pot of Cincinnati-style chili for Super Bowl Sunday, I picked up a two-week old New York Times Book Review and read something really funny, as reported by Dwight Garner in "TBR: Inside the List":

Michael Pollan’s slim new book, “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto,” enters the nonfiction list at No. 1. It’s Pollan’s third book to appear here in hardcover, after “The Botany of Desire” (2001) and “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” (2006). On NPR’s “Talk of the Nation” a few weeks ago, Pollan deplored the “heroic” cooking on many food shows.

“They make it look really hard,” he said. “You know, it’s like watching too much pornography. You think that that’s how sex is done, and it’s kind of intimidating.”

Nothing heroic about chopping two onions, opening a few cans, adding spices and a beer, and dumping all of it into a pot to simmer while I continue reading and sipping tea.

What was that about sex?