My favorite summer indulgence, by far, is the Sea Dog BluePaw wheat ale. Of the several blueberry/wheat beer concoctions I've tried, Sea Dog is the smoothest, with the most natural, satisfying blueberry taste. It's a strong, solid ale with just a hint of real Maine blueberries, and no fake aftertaste.
But the best part isn't just the beer: it's what comes in it when you order. In Boston, at least, it comes to you with a smattering of fresh blueberries floating on top. Each surrounded by teeny bubbles, as you sip, they slowly sink down to the bottom, resulting in quite a pleasing display of physics (trust me, the process becomes more entertaining with each glass).
My friend and I started calling it the "poor man's sangria." But you can also call it delicious.
After typing a post about a wasabi popsicle, I started to think about other spice and and ice combinations. Naturally, I thought of cardamom, one of my favorite spices. A friend of mine recently suggested that we make cardamom ice cream. Unlike wasabi, cardamom is widely used in both savory and sweet dishes, such as rice and pastries. Its deeply aromatic qualities have always attracted me. And now, I'm dying with curiosity to find out its potential with ice cream.
Here is the recipe from Pairings Food & Wine Education Center, and Chef Robert Waldron, of Pairings Coconut Ice Cream with Warm Rum Glazed Pineapple, mentioned in Chapter Five of "Diary of a Distiller."
Coconut Ice Cream Chef Robert M Waldron
Ingredients
1 pint heavy whipping cream 1 quart Half & Half 2 cans coconut cream 1/2 Tbs vanilla extract 1 (15 oz avg) bag coconut flakes, 3 oz. reserved for toasting.
tools ice cream maker measuring cups and spoons plastic containers large whisk or slotted spoon cookie sheet candy or instant read thermometer parchment paper lg sauce pot
In a heavy bottom sauce pan combine the cream, Half & Half, and canned coconut cream and heat to 170'F over med/ med-high heat. Stir more frequently as you approach the 170'f mark. Do not Boil At 170'F you may see a bubble or two, remove from heat and add vanilla extract and 12 ozs. of the coconut flakes. Let mixture cool enough to work with and transfer to a large plastic container and refrigerate overnight. The next day the coconut flake will have risen to the top and be "locked" into the coconut fat, break the fat and flakes into large pieces and pulse in a food processor a few times, this will give a creamer texture. Depending on the size of your work bowl you may want to do this in 2 or 3 small batches. This can be messy so use a rubber spatula to scrape the bowl. Combine the processed coconut cream and flake back into the rest of the chilled batter. Follow the manufacturers instructions for your ice cream machine, making sure you don't overload it.Patience is key, will be rewarded. the ice cream should make a soft serve consistency initially, store in the freezer for a couple hours to firm up.
Pre-heat your oven to 350'F and place a sheet of parchment paper or aluminum foil down on a cookie sheet. Spread the 3 ozs. of reserved coconut flakes over the foil, thinly. Place in hot oven, watching carefully, and brown to a light gold, rotate pan once every 3-4 minutes. Do not over cook. It is better to pull it out a little early since it will continue to brown for a minute or two after being removed from the oven. Just keep an eye on it and you'll be rewarded with golden coconut flake to top your delicious ice cream.
The recipe for the Rum Glazed Pineapple is after the jump.
I was in NYC the past week to attend some food and cocktail events and to tape some spots about summer time cocktails and spirits for a radio show, during the first heat wave of the summer. For several days the temps were in the mid to high 90's and the whole city was in meltdown. Everyone walked around slightly spaced out and dragging their feet, myself included. For me the weather was a real killer because I live on the coast of Maine and the warmest it had been all year was a day or two in the low 70's, with it so chilly at night I still had the heat on every night since last September. The morning I left for NYC it was 42 degrees out and I started the drive with my heat on high in my car, by noon the AC was cranked instead.
As I walked out of the radio studio on my last day in town it was the hottest yet. 96 degrees in the shade and the humidity was so high that you felt like you could actually feel the water sitting lifelessly in the air. I broke into a full sweat before I had walked ten feet and I started to think about waving down a taxi. My original plans were to walk from the financial district, north up to Chinatown to get some eats and buy some lychee fruit, and then through Soho and into the East Village. Now it didn't seem like a very good idea at all.
For me, the beginning of every season conjures up images from my childhood. The changing of the seasons makes me sensitive to the passing of time. And so, while opening the freezer door on a recent particularly hot June evening, I remembered the orange popsicles I'd make during the summer. I romanticized those blisteringly hot summer days as a 7-year-old boy with both of my sisters sitting outside by our inflatable "kiddy" pool. At that moment, I felt compelled to make the same super sweet, mildly acidic, and juicy ice pops.
I went to Bed Bath and Beyond to purchase the identical plastic popsicle molds I used as a child. On the side of the plastic mold is a straw so that you can drink the orange juice that melts to the bottom. For some reason, I remember that being the most enjoyable part of the treat. As a child, creating these orange juice popsicles –pouring orange juice in the molds and placing them in the freezer-seemed so thrilling.
I highly recommend these orange juice popsicles! They're a great way to keep children excited and hydrated during the sizzling summer days. Find out some wild and crazy ice pop ideas and check out the gallery of popsicles of different shapes and sizes.
Earlier this week I spent a blistering hot couple of days back in my home town of New York City. It sparked my memory and took me back to when I was five or six years old and the Good Humor Man would drive up our block in Park Slope, Brooklyn. We all thought he was absolutely wonderful! Ringing his bells to announce that it was Good Humor time, jingling and jangling, starting faint off in the distance and slowly getting louder as he got closer. There was always plenty of time to run up the four flights of our Brownstone (the name of the style of four story buildings made of brownstone that were originally one family homes. Many had been carved up into several apartments) to let my mom know that He Was On His Way. Anticipation built as he made his way slowly up the street, stopping two or three times per block and hopping out to serve all the kids, and their parents, as well as uncles, aunts, and the occasional grandparent.
Everyone had their favorites. Mine varied slightly from day to day, depending on the weather or whim. Red, white, and blue Bomb Pops for those blistering hot days, sometimes varied with Italian Ices. lemon was my favorite, but occasionally chocolate, root beer, or watermelon. On days when it was warm, but not hot, I went for the ice cream bars. Chocolate Eclair or Toasted Almond were at the top of my list. My dad liked the Toasted Almond as well, with mom's favorite being Creamsicles. Sometimes she would get several and stash them in the fridge, something she still does to this day, but with a box from the supermarket. My little sister liked Snow Cones because they lasted so long. She would eat half of one and then stick the rest in the freezer for later, sometimes she would have several different types in there, building up for awhile, until mom would chuck them out when they started to disappear under a layer of frost.
Summer's nearly here, and you know what that means: Potlucks.
Everyone needs at least one dish they can nail at a moment's notice. A dish everyone will love, from vegans to carnivores. Something that's cheap, easy, quick, yet delicious. Something that dresses to impress. Something that even bad home cooks can manage.
I have pretty basic tastes when it comes to hot dogs. Give me a hot dog and a bun and maybe some mustard and I'm good to go. But this recipe from Cooking For 2 seems rather interesting.
They're called Red Dogs, and they're turkey hot dogs that are cooked with currant jelly and Dijon mustard.
I'm not sure why something like National Ice Cream Cone Day is celebrated on the very last weekend of the summer, right when the fall is coming around, but I guess it's better late than never. (Update: Ah, it was invented on this date.)
I really don't eat ice cream cones anymore. I eat a fair share of ice cream during the months of June, July, and August, but it's usually cartons of ice cream or Ben & Jerry's or Haagan Daz that I buy at the supermarket and put in a bowl. I guess my ice cream cone days are pretty much over, for the most part. But you have an assignment today: if you have ice cream, it must be in a cone. Whether you get it at an ice cream shop or buy the ice cream and the cones at the supermarket, you must put the ice cream in a cone.
Of course, it's National Ice Cream Cone Day, with no mention of actual ice cream, so maybe you can just buy a box of ice cream cones and eat them plain. I'm partial to the sugar ones myself.
We all know that Labor Day is the unofficial end of summer. Vacations are ending, kids are going back to school, and even though it might still be warm there's something that has changed in the air compared to August. There's still time for one more cookout though!
Check out that first link above for all the recipes, categorized by different themes: America's Melting Pot, This Land is Your Land, and Big Appetites, Unite.
Well, I told you about the cherry smoothie I made from the summer cherries I put into the freezer for safe-keeping. A lot of good those will be to me in the fall since I subsequently used them all for a liquid breakfast every morning thereafter until they were.
What I didn't tell you is what I did with the cherries I kept fresh on the counter. You, my Slashfood faithful friends, suggested clafouti to spare my fingers the chore of pitting cherries, as well as a multitude of recommendations for what I should do with the result of my gluttonous run at the market. I took the advice of a few and made...
It all started so innocently, didn't it? Some guy speared a hotdog with a stick, dipped it in corn batter, and deep-fried it into a corndog. Now at stat fairs across the country, a corndog is just so...boring. We've got everything from deep-fried cheesecake to Coca-Cola. Remember the winning food in the Texas State Fair food competition last year? A Coke flavored batter deep-fried and served with cola syrup! Dip anything in batter, throw it into hot oil, and you could have a prize-winning food.
And it seems that every year, it gets crazier. At the Texas State Fair, which doesn't even start until the end of September, there are seven entries into the food competition, some of which are reasonable given history, like the Fried Cookie Dough (one step before deep frying an actual cookie, like an Oreo), and others that are just weird, like Fried Guacamole Bites:
Deep Fried Latte
Fried Cookie Dough
Fried Guacamole Bites
Country Pride Peach Cobbler on a Stick
Fernie's Fried Chili Frito Burrito
B.W.'s Original Fried Banana Pudding
Mama's Fried Sweet Potato Pie
Chili and Fritos wrapped inside a tortilla, fried, and served with cheese sauce? It's like people are trying their darnedest to make the most heart-stopping foods they can. Literally.
As you folks may have figured out by now, I love food festivals, and even non-food ones as well. I get a thrill from wandering the grounds watching everyone and taking shots of all the food, people, and weird and wacky events. Well it looks like another one is coming along. The Wild Blueberry Festival and Union Fair will be from Sunday August 19 through Saturday August 25, 2007 in Union, Maine.
The Wild Blueberry Festival is a yearly event here in mid-coast Maine and is part of the Union Fair. Amazingly, out of all the summers I have spent in Union, Maine; I have never made it to the Fair and Festival. When I just summered here, my main goal was to relax in a rustic cottage right on a lake and do nothing for several weeks. I might go out to pick up some lobsters, take a half day sightseeing trip, or go pick a few handfuls of wild blueberries; but then I would scurry back to the lake and sit on the waters edge, enjoying the antics of the ducks begging for food and the cry of the loons.
I have to say that I am a fan of my fellow blogger Marisa's writing. My good friend Risa (short for Marisa as well), absolutely gushes over some of the things Marisa writes as well, and feels that they must be kindred spirits. Anyway, Marisa just wrote about the joy of hot, buttered, corn on the cob. I love corn as well. A Lot. And so this sparked my interest and got me thinking about the delight of corn and how we eat it.
Hot, buttered, corn on the cob used to be one of my favorites, but something happened that changed me forever. There is a local farm stand here in mid-coast Maine called Beth's, and Beth sells some of the sweetest corn I have ever had. What is even better is that it is picked fresh every morning, is still cool from the night air, and often has juice dripping from the broken end of the cob. It's that fresh.
One summer morning years ago, I drove to the farm and waited anxiously for them to open at 8am, so I could load up on corn before they sold out for the day. I was in my car, about to head back to the lakeside cottage we rented for the summer, and decided to first take a look at the corn. I pulled back the firm leaves and silk and saw this super ripe and fresh corn and stuck my thumb into the firm, crisp kernels. They suddenly popped, splashing me with the juice. I stuck my thumb in my mouth to taste it, and it was sublime. As sweet as candy and full of corny good flavor.
Well it's the last day of the 60th Annual Maine Lobster Festival and it's cooler and less humid than the past few days. They were real hot and muggy scorchers.
The biggest, best, and most popular event is saved for 2 pm on the last day. The Great International William Atwood Lobster Crate Race! Invented 31 years ago by Bill Atwood, it became a part of the Spruce Head Island festivals for it's first tens or so years and then became part of the Maine Lobster festival in Rockland. Well it's time to stroll on down to the harbor.
Summer's nearly here, and you know what that means: Potlucks. 
I have pretty basic tastes when it comes to hot dogs. Give me a hot dog and a bun and maybe some mustard and I'm good to go. But this recipe from Cooking For 2 seems rather interesting. 
I'm not sure why something like National Ice Cream Cone Day is celebrated on the very last weekend of the summer, right when the fall is coming around, but I guess it's better late than never. (Update: Ah, 
As you folks may have figured out by now, I love food festivals, and even non-food ones as well. I get a thrill from wandering the grounds watching everyone and taking shots of all the food, people, and weird and wacky events. Well it looks like another one is coming along. 
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