The Victorian Kitchen Garden

by A.J. Coltrane

Digging around the internet, I came across The Victorian Kitchen Garden. It’s a 13-episode series that aired on BBC2 in 1987.

From wikipedia:

It recreated a kitchen garden of the Victorian era at Chilton Foliat in Wiltshire, although at the time the series was made Chilton Foliat was in the county of Berkshire. The presenter was the horticultural lecturer, Peter Thoday, the master gardener was Harry Dodson and the director was Keith Sheather…

…The series began in the largely derelict walled garden at Chilton on a freezing January morning and followed Harry and his assistant Alison as they recreated the working kitchen garden.

I’ve watched the first two episodes. I’ve found a few things interesting about the show:

1. It’s four-season gardening at the 56th parallel. They’re way north of us *and* well inland, and yet they’re still able to have a productive space without electricity. I’ve already gotten ideas from the little bit that I’ve watched.

2. Harry Dodson was an old man at the time, and he was familiar with gardening techniques that went back to the 19th century.

3. The show doubles as a look at Victorian era life.

Beer of the Week: Terrapin Moo Hoo Chocolate Milk Stout

By Iron Chef Leftovers

Chocolate and beer is a great combination if done correctly, otherwise you end up with a sweet mess that is neither good chocolate or good beer. I think that the best chocolate beers are the ones that use either really high percentage dark chocolate or cocoa nibs, since you get all of the complex flavors of the chocolate (and the beer) without adding much in the way of sugar. Terrapin, a brewery out of Athens, GA, does this, adding nibs and shells from a wonderful small chocolate maker out of Nashville, TN, Olive & Sinclair (these guys are really great, I highly recommend trying their stuff), to produce their one of their seasonal offerings – Moo Hoo Chocolate Milk Stout. The beer is not available in the Seattle market, but intrepid internet searchers can find it and have it shipped.

The stats from Terrapin’s Website:

ABV: 6.0%

IBU: 30

OG: 16.1

Malts: 2-Row Pale, Flaked Oat, Crystal 85,Chocolate, DH Carafa III, Roasted Barley

Hops: Nugget, Willamette

Other: Olive & Sinclair Cocoa Nibs, Cocoa Shells, Lactose

The beer pours jet black with a light brown head. Cocoa nibs, malt, roast, chocolate and light vanilla all appear on the nose. The beer drinks lighter than you might expect, starting off with a light malty sweetness before moving into deeper flavors of roast and cocoa nibs with an ever so slight bitter bite (think really high percentage dark chocolate). The beer then moves to a more classic chocolate profile with long dark chocolate bar and vanilla notes before finishing with a creamy, chocolate-like finish in both taste and texture – it reminded me of the mouth feel of melting chocolate. The finish is long, lingering and pleasant and more of the fruity notes of the chocolate begin to show on the finish as the beer warms. Not as chocolate forward as many chocolate beers but well balanced and layered with the complexity of a well-made chocolate bar, allowing you to appreciate both the chocolate and beer notes.

Terrapin Brewing’s Moo Hoo Chocolate Milk Stout comes in from the pasture with a perfect 5 bovines out of 5.

UK Restaurant Thefts

By Iron Chef Leftovers

I have head of thieves breaking into restaurants to steal booze, money and food (yep – there is a major black market for spendy ingredients), but furniture, and just the furniture, that is a new one:

A Thai restaurant has been “left one chair” after almost all its furniture was taken in an “unusual burglary”, police have said.

Thirteen tables and 25 chairs were taken from The Thai Cafe in Saltford, near Bath, between 12 and 15 January.

Police said there was “no clear explanation” for the theft, but the items may have been stolen “to order”.

Really? They left one chair? Why?

It gets a little more odd:

Mr Appleby, who took over the restaurant 10 years ago, said the theft was “weird” as no wine, beer or spirits had been taken.

“The chairs were quite old, 12 to 13 years old, they came with the cafe,” he said.

Hmmm. Maybe it is the New Yorker in me, but this sounds a bit fishy.

Beer of the Week: NW Peaks Cave Ridge Rye

By Iron Chef Leftovers

For our loyal readers, I am going to take us back on a trip to January in my beer of the year post:

This really was a challenge – I had about 15 beers that I scored 5 points so I took down my list from there to 4 contenders for the best. It was actually going to be 5, then I realized that the one that would have been in the 5th spot has not yet had a review posted, so, it is an early contender for 2014 (and no, I won’t tell you what it is).

Well, I am ready to reveal what that 5^th beer is since this is the review for it. In some ways it is better that the review slipped to 2014, it would not have won in 2013, but it is really the front runner for 2014’s title of beer of the year.

From the NW Peaks website:

Cave ridge, fresh hop, rye. Cave ridge rye features fresh simcoe hops, imparting a beautiful/delicate piney aroma and acidity in the beer. To feature the simcoe hops, we put the hops on top of a light, dry pale. We used ~35% rye, which aids in drying out the beer, but also adds a little complexity complementing the simcoe. Some might find this a strange pairing, but they work really well together in Cave Ridge rye.

The beer pours a very pale yellow in color with strong notes of berries, grain and mild notes of rye on the nose. The beer starts out quickly with a quick hit of hops showing some light resin and pine before moving into heavy rye notes with a mild fruitiness before finishing off with a tinge of very pleasant bitterness, pine needles and more rye dryness at the very end of the beer, showing notes of raspberry on the finish as the beer warms. Layered and complex, the beer doesn’t have the strong bitter/citrus hop character of most fresh hopped beer, but is much deeper and show how the hops can play with several other complex players, making a the hops an important member of the symphony rather than the star of the show.

NW Peaks Caver Ridge Rye stirs the cauldron and makes a prediction of 5 oracles out of 5.

The Super Bowl Winner Will Be…

By Blaidd Drwg

…the Denver Broncos.

Sorry Seahawks fans, you won’t win because of one simple factor – you lack a player from Boston College on your roster. Denver has 1.

Think I am joking? Looking at Super Bowls that have occurred in this century, the team with more former BC Eagles on their roster has won 7 times and lost 4 (there were 2 years in which no BC players appeared on either team’s roster). This is actually how I determine who I root for in the Super Bowl (and the playoffs in general) if the Steelers aren’t playing or the Patriots are playing (can’t root for them as a Steelers fan). It has served me pretty well.

What, you expected some deep statistical analysis?

Beer of the Week: Epic Ales Bottom of the Sea Batch 1

By Iron Chef Leftovers

I like beers that are different; it makes drinking beer fun since I don’t tend to get caught in a style rut. I also, when I am in the mood, love sour beers since they tend to jumpstart the palate and, when they are done right, are as complex and deep as any beer out on the market. Epic Ales out of Sodo in Seattle cover both of those points – they make beers that are definitely different and they do a bunch of sour based styles. On a trip to Bottleworks, I noticed Bottom of the Sea – a beer brewed with oysters and wasn’t a stout. Actually, I had no idea what style it was until I opened it – it was a gose, an obscure German sour style. I figured that for $5 for a 22 oz. bottle, it was worth the shot. The beer is just 5% ABV and a minuscule 10 IBU.

The beer pours jet black with a creamy brown head and shows lots of malt and barley on the nose with light amounts of roast, hints of what reminded me of pilsner yeast and a vague smell of salt air. On the palate, the beer betrays its dark color by showing light on the palate with a hint of sourness upfront that gives way to salty malt and grain, before finishing with a long sour cherry, light roast and mildly salty ending. As the beer warms, the oyster component becomes more pronounced – more a briny sea water type taste than a fishy one and the sour component becomes more subdued. It is very complex and layered and brings to the table flavors that you would not regularly find in beer, especially the combination of cooked oysters and sour.

This is definitely not a beer for everyone. Heck, it isn’t a beer most people would enjoy. I will be honest, I thought the beer was good, but I struggled to finish off the 22 oz. bottle. I wish that is was available in a smaller bottle size. If you are feeling adventurous, find a couple of likeminded friends and give Bottom of the Sea a shot. You might find you like it.

Epic’s Bottom of the Sea (Batch 1) attaches itself to a rock with a solid 3 Ostrea conchaphilia out of 5.

Useless Super Bowl Trivia

By Blaidd Drwg

Interesting but useless: The top 3 passing games by yardage in Super Bowl history all belong to Kurt Warner, with games of 414 yds (SB 34), 377 yds (SB 43) and 365 yds (SB 36). No one else has topped 360 yards in the history of the game.

Even more interesting is that Warner and Craig Morton are the only 2 QB’s to ever start the SB for 2 different teams (Peyton Manning will be #3). They managed to combine to go 1-4 in those starts (Warner 1-1 with the Rams and o-1 with the Cardinals and Morton 0-1 with both the Cowboys and Broncos). Raise you hand if you had any idea that Craig Morton was the starter for any Cowboys Super Bowl (he started SB 5).

Seed Germination Temperatures and Times. Days to Maturity. And Plant Minimum Temperatures. NW Edition.

by A.J. Coltrane

A couple of spreadsheets with seed germination times and temperatures, days to maturity, and the minimum temperature that the adult plants will tolerate.

The spreadsheets only contain the plants that:

1. Do well in the Pacific Northwest. That’s where we are.

2. Do well in containers. That’s how we’re gardening.

and

3. Represent plants we’ll potentially eat.

I’ll likely add more plants at a later date, either because I overlooked the plant on the first pass, or because somebody else asks for the info. As it was, I made more manageable spreadsheets (and saved work) by not including most of the root vegetables, as well as the veggies that we’re unlikely to consume.

Much of the information is from the Territorial Seed website. The balance was drawn from various online, reasonably reputable sources (other seed houses, edu sites, etc.)

The first spreadsheet is sorted alphabetically:

Continue reading “Seed Germination Temperatures and Times. Days to Maturity. And Plant Minimum Temperatures. NW Edition.” →

Beer of the Week: Populuxe Dry Hopped Saison Cask

By Iron Chef Leftovers

If you are free on Thursday nights, you should join me at the Populuxe Brewery for their weekly science experiment known as Cask Night. Most Thursdays, they tap a cask of something delicious and interesting for your drinking pleasure and, in most cases, those beers are fun. One of their experiments was with a dry hopped saison. Not a beer that you would normally associate with a cask beer, which meant that I needed to try it. The beer clocked in at 7.3% ABV and was dry hopped with horizon.

The beer pours hazy orange in color with plenty of grain on the nose coupled with lemon and passion fruit accompanied with light hop notes. The beer is dry on the initial taste with lots of grain before transitioning off to a pleasant hop middle coupled with citrus and lemon, before finishing slightly tangy with long notes of passion fruit and citrus. The classic saison earthiness/grassiness runs throughout this beer, but there was a touch of alcohol burn at the back of the throat on the very end of this beer which, while not unpleasant, did distract from the finish.

Populuxe brings in back home with their Dry Hopped Saison, carting in a strong 4 musty barns out of 5.

Cheapseateats.com turns 1000 or almost 4, depending on your count

By Iron Chef Leftovers

According to the blog stats, this will be post #1000 for CSE. Coincidentally, it took us almost exactly 4 years to reach that number – our first post was on February 18^th, 2010 when AJ Coltrane (who was then just known as Coltrane) posted about the NBA Celebrity All-Star game. Blaidd Drwg then followed it up the next day with a sappy post about retiring baseball players. My first post was a few days later about a controversy in Italy over eating cat (and I still see no reason why they are not a viable protein source). Coltrane’s famous pizza posts began with his base dough recipe on March 11^th. Our first comment was posted by loyal reader Junior Joey Jo-Jo Shabadu (somehow I don’t think that is his real name) to Coltrane’s first post on February 19^th.

For those of you who were not with us in the beginning days of the blog, the early posts were mildly entertaining and full of charts and graphs, mostly about sports, some about food and rarely about games (our first games post was June 26^th, 2010), posted sporadically over the first few months, maybe one or two a week. I am pretty sure the first few months the only people reading the blog were the writers and a handful of people who were married to/related to the writers. There were emails between the writers when we would see comments from people we didn’t recognize trying to figure out who we told about the blog and celebrating that someone new was actually reading our stuff.

We had a few hiccups along the way – who will ever forget the failed WordPress update we had in January of 2013 that crashed the site and led to a frantic call from Coltrane and me spending a couple of hours getting the site back up (we still don’t have any pre-2012 pictures on the site – I should get around to that at some point) without losing any content. There were a few posts that my computer crashed on before I ever saved them and there are the spelling errors which drive Mrs. Iron Chfe nuts (I did that for your Mrs. Iron Chef).

The blog has grown since then in term of quality, quantity, scope and readership. I started posting my beer reviews mostly because I wanted someplace that I could reference them easily and not be completely screwed if I lost my notebook. That had the added side benefit of bringing in a bunch of new readers. Coltrane started urban gardening in earthboxes and his lessons and pictures brought in all sorts of folks doing the same thing. Both Coltrane and I have become better cooks and it shows in what we are posting. Coltrane and Blaidd Drwg have become more analytical about sports and make some pretty rock solid cases for what they are writing about. There are now posts almost daily (granted most of those are from the horrible backlog of beer notes I have), but I would also like to think that we have become better writers because of it.

Despite my usual sarcasm, snark and general obscure sense of humor, I would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to all of our readers, whether you started reading us at the beginning or just found us last week. We write on this blog to entertain ourselves and I would have never guessed that I would still be doing that 4 years later. Hopefully you find our blog as useful, entertaining and informative as we do. If you are a regular reader (or even an irregular reader), feel free to leave a comment or drop us a line on Facebook, and tell us how you found us – it is still exciting for us when we find out we have picked up a new reader.

Until our next 1000 posts (or my next post, whichever comes first), this is Iron Chef Leftovers signing off and to quote the immortal writing of the great Bartholomew Jo-Jo Simpson: