Beer Can Appreciation Day

Today. According to Holiday Insights, "Beer Can Appreciation Day celebrates that great day in 1935 when beer was first sold in cans."

Personally, I find it hard to appreciate anything that contains a substance as revolting as beer, but YMMV....

Hot Buttered Rum Day

Today is National Hot Buttered Rum Day. Strikes me as a good idea....

Recipe here.

Or here.

Or here.

Or here.

Variants here.

Hot buttered cider,

for the teetotalers.

Buttered rum sticky buns.

Hot buttered rum pecan sundae.

BaconTots

Tater Tots wrapped in bacon. Yum....

H/T to Tam.

The ultimate grill

I ran across this contraption whilst doing a Google search on something totally unrelated. Mrs. Baird’s Ultimate Smoker and Grill has a wood-fired 48x120" (yes, four feet by ten feet) grill that can cook approximately 200 16-oz steaks, 500 hamburgers or 1000 hot dogs. The smoker compartment can smoke 2000 pounds of meat. The trailer (pulled by a Peterbilt 379 tractor) also has a 48" flat grill, a double fryer, a 4-burner gas stove and running water. And there are a 48" flat-screen television, with satellite hookup, and a Bose Entertainment System to keep you occupied while you wait for your meal.

Want to hire it? $5000.00 per tour stop, plus travel expenses of $3.00 per mile. The menu? Hot dogs ($5.00), hamburgers ($7.50), a BBQ meal ($12.50) and a 16oz ribeye steak dinner ($17.50). There are also Cowboy Cook Menu Packages - a cooking demo by "Cowboy Cook" Grady Spears, with the following menu:

Appetizers (choose one)

BBQ'd Bacon-Wrapped Shrimp
Fried Calf Fries with gravy
Jerky Buffalo Wings

Main Course

Chicken-Fried Steak $15.00
with garlic mashed potatoes and roasted corn on the cob
Grilled Ribeye of Beef $20.00
with macaroni & cheese with roasted poblanos, and grilled asparagus
Grilled Double-Cut Pork Chops $25.00
with grilled new potatoes, and grilled mixed vegetables (squash, zucchini, and red and green peppers)

Wow.

It's that time of year again....

Thanksgiving Menu and Recipes

Turkey & Most of the Trimmings

Gina's Thanksgiving 2008 Menu and Recipes

Georgia Mountains Thanksgiving Dinner 2006

Turkey Carving Techniques

Turkey Safety

Champagne

Pizza burgers

My old shipmate Mega Munch and two of his friends had a contest recently to see who could make the best-looking pizza burger.

Wild Bill's open-faced burger was the winner, with 14 votes. I was one of those who voted for it - the insalata caprese on the side looked too good to resist.



This burger by Mega Munch himself came in second, with six votes. (It actually looked the least appetizing of the three to me.)



This burger, by Skinnyboy, only got four votes. I do like the idea of using frozen mini-pizzas for the bun.




Their first challenge involved peanut butter burgers. The next one is really going to be something else....

International Culinary Olympics

The 2008 Internationale Kochkunst Ausstellung (IKA*), or International Culinary Olympics, began today in Erfurt. In addition to national and regional teams, and individual entries, ten countries - Germany, Hungary, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and the US - are sending military teams. Eash of these teams consists of a team captain, four chefs and a pâtissier (pastry chef).

Looks like an interesting event to attend (as a spectator, not a competitor!) in 2012....


* The official IKA home page is here, but parts of it are in German.

AH 6.4 beer

ZUI this article from the MOD Defence News:

A Suffolk-based micro-brewery has celebrated the strength and power of the Apache attack helicopter by brewing a brand new beer which will also help to raise money for a military charity.

Bartrams Brewery has brewed a new ale - called AH 6.4 - a 6.4% strength beer in honour of the Apache attack helicopter, technically known as the AH-64. And the design of the label incorporates the colours, the "Red and Green", of 4 Regiment Army Air Corps and lists the Regiment's battle honours.

The beer, which started out as a one-off present for when a commanding officer was posted, has now become such a success that it will be permanently brewed with 10p from each bottle going towards a military charity.

*******

Mr Bartram decided to brew an old-fashioned India Pale Ale (IPA). He then did some research of hops and as the Apache is a blend of British and US industry, he chose a traditional British hop called Target and an American hop called Mount Hood and blended the two.

The product was purely going to be for the dining out event but proved hugely popular with the guests.

*******

Lt Col Dalton suggested that if it was to be permanent then a donation should be made to the Wattisham Branch of SSAFA (Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association) Forces Help. Now 10p from every bottle sold will go towards the military charity that provides support to military personnel.

The web page for Bartrams is here, though there's no mention yet of the new brew. And for more about the Apache, see here and here.

Doughnuts

Wasn't it Dunkin' Donuts that used to sell the cake doughnut with the handle, for easier dunking? It occurs to me that I haven't seen one of those in years - decades, even. What became of them?

National Vanilla Ice Cream Day

It's today.

Celebrate!

Alton Brown's Vanilla Ice Cream

Basic Vanilla Ice Cream

French Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

Moolicious Recipe Vanilla Ice Cream

Murphys Single Bean Vanilla Ice Cream

Vanilla Ice Cream

National Peach Ice Cream Day

It's today.

Celebrate!

Alton Brown's Burned Peach Ice Cream

Georgia Peach Ice Cream

Honey-Peach Ice Cream

No-Cook Peach Ice Cream

Peach Ice Cream

Peach Yoghurt Ice Cream

Peachy Peach Ice Cream

Summertime Peach Ice Cream

National Ice Cream Month

July is National Ice Cream Month.

Celebrate!

National Hamburger Month

It just came to my attention that May is National Hamburger Month.

Celebrate!

Eight at the Thatch

Last year, a Royal Marine chef named Jeremy Hooper was selected as the winner of a "reality TV" show called The Restaurant. The BBC is currently looking for contestants for a second season of the show. In the meantime, ZUI this article from the MoD Defence News:

Jeremy and Jane Hooper's Thame restaurant Eight at the Thatch has been doing quite well since it opened four months ago in a blaze of publicity. Their success in the BBC TV show, which pitted nine couples against each other, all with a chance of running their very own restaurant with Blanc, came as a surprise to the couple.

But winning the show was just the beginning. Now, with over 14,000 guests already having sampled Jeremy's cooking and every weekend fully booked for the foreseeable future, the couple are unsurprisingly very busy.

*******

The restaurant itself, which also includes a friendly bar, is tucked inside a 16th century half-timbered thatched cottage in the heart of the beautiful market town of Thame, 10 miles (16km) from Oxford. A mixture of the old and the new, all the dishes are made with seasonal ingredients, many of which are free range, local and sourced from small producers.

The restaurant's home page is here.

Sounds great. Now if only they were a little bit closer to Connecticut....

Xmas with 40 Commando

ZUI this article from the MoD Defence News:

Chefs from 40 Commando Royal Marines have been doing their bit to bring Christmas cheer to troops serving in Afghanistan by serving a festive dinner to colleagues on the front line.

Some of the commando chefs have been cooking for Royal Marines at Camp Bastion in Helmand Province while their colleagues located at some of the Forward Operating Bases have been doing likewise for the men of 40 Commando operating on the front line over Christmas.

Being commando-trained, the chefs can expect to help with sentry duties and go out on patrols as well as carrying out their culinary tasks. Marines at Camp Bastion will visit the galley – the tradition of naval terminology being maintained even in the middle of the desert.

*******

Christmas lunch is traditionally served by the officers and Senior NCOs of the Commando unit and this year will be no different. One of those officers, Captain Mark Elliott, Adjutant of 40 Commando, said:

"It’s a long-standing tradition within the Royal Marines that officers serve the Marines their Christmas dinner by way of thanking them for their hard work throughout the year. Luckily for them, we don’t actually cook it!"

A full menu was expected to be served to the Marines today, including prawn cocktail, soup, roast beef, ham and of course the traditional turkey with all the trimmings.

Philadelphia II

As I said in part one of this, my camera-to-computer cable has apparently gone to God. I've been holding off on finishing this post, hoping that it would show up, but no luck yet. Hard to believe it's been three months already....

On the second day, we got off the train at SEPTA's Market East Station, a few blocks west of Independence National Historical Park. We arrived at the old State House (Independence Hall) at 1100, just in time for the tour we'd booked in advance. The tour started with a talk about the building's place in history as the place where the Second Continental Congress met and the Declaration of Independence was signed (1776), and where the Constitutional Convention met in 1787.

From there we went on to the main building. First we visited the courtroom, where the Pennsylvania Supreme Court met; then came the Assembly Room, where Congress met.

1776 is one of my younger daughter's favourite movies, and it's my favourite musical. Most of it is set at Independence Hall, so of course we had to compare the real thing with the movie version: Not only the meeting chamber itself, but also the stairs where the Committee of Five sang But, Mr Adams, and the outside of the building, where (in the film) the members of Congress run out to see a fire and the conservatives board their carriages.

Then came lunch.

A few months ago WillyShake, of Unconsidered Trifles, mentioned having visited a Philadelphia restaurant called Fogo de Chão. After reading his post, I of course had to view the restaurant's website* - and as soon as we decided that we were indeed going to Philly, I added it to the list of Things to Do.

The restaurant, a Brazilian churrascaria, offers a salad bar, with such things as artichokes, cheese, and an excellent apple salad. In addition, each table is given plates of cheese bread, mash, fried polenta and fried bananas (wonderful!). All of these are somewhat superfluous, though, because this place is Carnivores' Heaven.

Each diner is given a cardboard disk, green on one side, red on the other. Want meat? Flip it over to green-side-up. The servers are constantly passing through the dining room with skewers of meat, fresh from the grill; when they see the green disk, they'll stop to see if you're interested in what they have. Had enough? Or just need some time to clear off your plate a bit? Flip the disk to red-side-up, and they'll stop coming. Want more? Go back to green.... (Did I mention that it's all-you-can-eat?)

My younger daughter, as I'd expected, loved the linguica (sausage); she also said the beef ancho was very good. Her sister is a very picky eater, but she liked the chicken breast (served in chunks wrapped in bacon). The lamb chops were good, though a little too heavily salted for my taste; I agreed that the beef ancho was very good, as were the fraldinha (bottom sirloin) and the filet mignon (also wrapped in bacon). The picanha, however, was my real favourite - after a couple samples of that, I was about ready to mug that waiter and take his entire skewer.

Wines are available, but we all settled for sodas; my wife and I really enjoyed the Guaraná Antarctica. They have desserts, too, but even the girls weren't interested. Maybe next time....

After lunch we returned to the NHP. We decided to start with one of the horse-drawn carriages, which offer tours of the area, and took a 40-minute ride. Don't remember the driver's name, but her horse was named Truman, and he took us through the historical district while she pointed out various old houses and churches. We ended up back at the NHP, of course, and went in to have a look at the Liberty Bell. From there we went across the street to Congress Hall (immediately west of Independence Hall), where the US Congress met during its stay in Philadelphia from 1790 to 1800. Downstairs is the large chamber where the House of Representatives met; upstairs are the Senate's meeting room (truly an upper house and a lower house!) and several committee rooms.

We'd hoped to get to see the US Mint, too, but by this time it was already closed, so we caught a train back to our car. We were still full from our lunch at Fogo de Chão, so instead of having supper we just stopped off for ice cream, then headed home.

Going back? Absolutely! In addition to the Mint, there's a lot more to see at the NHP. And my older daughter still asks from time to time when we can go back to Fogo de Chão.

And hey - maybe now that I'm posting this, the cable will reappear....


* Amongst the reviews available on their site is one of the Philadelphia location.

Gearing up for Xmas in Afghanistan

The other day I wrote about a US Navy submarine cook who is currently working at an Army post in Afghanistan. Now ZUI this article from the MoD Defence News:

Due to arrive at the main British base in Helmand Province in the next few days are nine thousand kilograms of turkey breast, fifteen thousand kilos of cranberry sauce, four thousand mince pies, six thousand after dinner mints, six thousand balloons, four thousand party hats and five thousand Christmas crackers.

So it will be a traditional Christmas lunch in the two huge tented barrel cookhouses on the camp, and on Christmas Eve, the chefs plan to put up Christmas trees and decorations so the troops will be greeted on Christmas morning with a festive atmosphere.

*******

SAC [Stephanie] Thorogood points out that it's actually in the Queen's Regulations that no one is allowed to leave the cookhouse hungry, and there is not much chance of that happening at Bastion. They have seven different choices for lunch or dinner, ranging from lamb curry to steak with béarnaise sauce and chicken stir fry to lasagne, and it all tastes excellent:

"People like curry," SAC Thorogood said. "We cook off six green boxes of rice a day, that's a lot of rice! I did the stir fry the other day too, with six boxes of peppers, that's a lot of peppers!"

*******

The Christmas tradition of officers and senior ranks serving the junior ranks their Christmas meal will be alive and well at Bastion too, and [head chef] WO2 [Alan] Watkins will know how to gauge the troops appreciation of the food[.]

Note: A Senior Aircraftman (SAC) is an RAF rank equivalent to a USAF Airman (E-2). A Warrant Officer Class 2 (WO2) in the British forces is a senior enlisted rank equivalent to a USAF Senior Master Sergeant or USN Senior Chief Petty Officer (E-8).

Ice cream

Wonderful stuff, ice cream. When I was a kid in Michigan, we had a DQ and an A&W drive-in right next to each other; it was a common occurrence to see a car park at one and then send someone over to the other. There was a Bresler's 33 Flavors at the local mall when I was a teenager in Illinois; I haven't seen one of those in years, but Baskin-Robbins is quite similar. Farrell's Ice Cream Parlour Restaurants were absolutely wonderful (I Made a Pig of Myself there many times), but unfortunately the chain closed down after new owners changed the concept in the late '80s. Possibly the best ice cream I've ever had was the gelato in La Maddalena; we'd have dinner at L'Aragosta (one of my favourite restaurants anywhere), then wander down the street to a gelateria for dessert.

My favourite ice-cream flavours are vanilla, rum raisin, spumoni, strawberry and peach; my favourite fancy ice cream is Ben & Jerry's Phish Food. Turkey Hill put out some really good stuff, including "Limited Edition Flavors" that are only available for a short period. This month, for instance, they have Peppermint Stick and Rum Raisin Premium Ice Creams, Peanut Butter Marshmallow Frozen Yogurt, Raspberry Duetto (vanilla soft serve with raspberry Venice® ice) and Cherry Orchard Sherbet.

I just found out this evening that they have a blog. An ice-cream-oriented blog, of course. And this month they're doing a giveaway:

Speaking of the holidays, this year we’ll be celebrating them with something we’re calling the “12 Days of Ice Cream.” Starting on Friday, December 14 we’ll be posting a new entry every day (including weekends) through December 25. Each day will feature a different ice cream related gift, which we will give away to one of that entry’s commenters chosen at random. We’re excited about it and when you see some of these gifts, we think you will be too. The best part is, we’ll be giving away a year’s supply of ice cream to one lucky reader. If you remember our National Ice Cream Month giveaway in July, that’s a pretty cool prize no matter what season it is.

Whatever you do, don't go comment on their blog this month. I don't need any more competition....

H/T to my old shipmate Dave.

Submarine cook in Afghanistan

ZUI this article from the Northwest Navigator:

The sign above the kitchen door reads, “GALLEY.” Although it’s more than 500 miles from the nearest ocean, it’s still the closest thing to a ship that a small group of sailors have in western Afghanistan.

When CS2 (SS) Class Timothy Wright came to Forward Operating Base Maimaneh, he was the only Sailor here. He was also the only cook. So the officer in charge of the FOB, Army Lt. Col. Robert Williams, put him in charge of the dining facility.

*******

There are few non-contracted military dining facilities in Afghanistan, and even fewer still being run by a sailor. For a Navy petty officer to operate an Army dining facility is positively unique, and Wright has a reputation for running a good one. He’s enjoyed it so much he extended his tour in Afghanistan to almost two years.

*******

Wright spreads Navy influence in ways that are sometimes obvious, sometimes subtle. A Navy flag hangs on the dining facilities wall, and signs around the FOB remind “Shipmates” to replace water in the refrigerators, and call smoking areas “Smoke Decks.” It’s starting to pay off. He’s even heard soldiers refer to the latrine as the “head.”

Ice Cream and Violins Day

Celebrate!

Really!