'The Yellow Door: Our Story, Our Recipes'
By Simon Dougan
Photographs by Cliona O'Flaherty
Blackstaff Press -- 2008
Buy it on Amazon

After four years in London, "hungry young chef" Simon Dougan returned to his hometown of Gilford, Northern Ireland, and took what he considered a temporary position at pub-fare restaurant Sarah's Moon. At a time when local cuisine prized prawn cocktails as "one of the smartest dishes on any menu," and boiled eggs were a regular staple, Dougan preceded the gastropubs of today, seeking to serve more polished dishes, with an emphasis on heightened flavors, fresh ingredients and a cooked-to-order standard.

"The one thing we always remembered was only to use the freshest and best ingredients," Dougan writes. "This is still at the core of the business, and just as important now as it ever was." This notably warm cookbook imparts Dougan's heartfelt approach to refined home cooking with a fabulous collection of recipes.

See what we tested and find out whether the book's worth buying after the jump.

A weekly look at the draft selection at beer-friendly bars across the country.

The city of Milwaukee has long been known as Beer Town USA. Considered "the beer capital of the world" at the turn of the 20th century, it was home to four of the world's largest breweries (Blatz, Miller, Pabst and Schlitz).

Nowadays less than 1 percent of Milwaukee's workforce is employed by the brewing industry, but as long as Miller stays in business, Old Milwaukee remains on store shelves and the city keeps calling their baseball team the Brewers, it will continue to earn its moniker. Like many cities, the area is seeing a boom in craft-beer culture. Smaller brewers like Lakefront and Sprecher have national followings and the city is home to a number of brewpubs.

One of Milwaukee's most highly regarded watering holes is Romans' Pub, which DRAFT and Imbibe Magazines have called among the best beer bars in the nation. Indeed, 30 selections grace today's tap list. Sounds like Wisconsinites like to stay relatively local when they booze, though: Owner Mike Romans informed us that Goose Island IPA from nearby Chicago is their most popular brew. Locals craving a beer can simply check the list: "As soon as one gets changed out, it goes up on our site."

A sampling of suds on tap is after the jump. Got a favorite microbrew? Let us know in the comments.

Between Marisa and I, we pretty much have the Philly phood food scene covered. Especially when it comes to Beer Week.

But there's one not-so-subtle difference: Marisa reviews the classy beer critic's news. And me? Well...I stick to what I know. Dive bars and cheap local beer, baby (I'm not sure if I'm proud or ashamed of this fact. Maybe a little of both).

And there's more dive bars and cheap local beer in this week's alt-weekly than one could ever ask for. Now, the alt-weekly staff certainly aren't the most highly regarded reviewers of food and drink, but they do know their fine hole-in-the-wall pubs and classic dingy taverns when they seem 'em. Ask them for the best spot to get a PBR and a shot of Jack, and they'd never steer you wrong. (For the record, it's Bob & Barbara's).

There's a grainy little video of the #1 choice, Grace Tavern. But even if you don't live in Philly, you'll appreciate it for its old-timey tavern feel and the little quirks that make it unique.

Hey Philly readers: which ones from the list do you frequent? And which bars did the paper mistakenly leave off the list?

Oh, and for the record? I've been to exactly half of them. Bring it on, Marisa!

BloggingBaby found an interesting piece of news about a boy in South Yorkshire, Chris Hardacre, who might just be the world's youngest bartender. At twelve, he is the youngest person on record to have passed the British Institute of Innkeeping exam and become a fully licensed bartender.

Chris said that he was inspired by the fact that he eventually wants to take over the pub that his father runs and thought that it would be a good idea to learn all he could about it. After only a few weeks' worth of study, and probably a good deal of time spent in the pub, and he was ready to take the exam. He passed on the first try. His license allows him to serve beer with adult supervision, but does not allow him to drink anything that he serves.

In southwest England, Trading Standards officials carried out a survey of various pubs and other alcohol-serving venues and discovered that one in five pints had noticeably less liquid than it should. Given that this shortabe happend with such regularity at many different locations, perhaps the theory is that once you've had a few pints, you won't really be worried about a few extra mouthfuls. Or, perhaps the quality of bartenders has simple declined, since it is much more difficult to pull a drink with the appropriate amount of foam than you might guess.

Officials recommend asking for a top-off if the drink appears to be a bit short, not only to ensure that you're getting what you've paying for, but to encourage vendors to be a bit more careful in their pouring in the future.

Local authorities in Preston, Lancashire want to ban "vertical drinking." Based on that verbiage one might think that they're bent on promoting "horizontal drinking." But that's not what they're on about.

The police want to stop pubgoers from standing while drinking, not because they're likely to fall if they imbibe too much, but because they feel that standing and swilling promotes rowdy, sometimes violent behavior. The solution, they say, is to have all drinkers be seated. While rowdy drinkers causing fights does seem to be a problem in Lancashire, I'm pretty sure that forcing them to remain seated won't help things a bit. If anything it might make the punters surlier.

Michelin-starred chef, Marcus Wareing of the Pétrus restaurant at the Berkeley hotel, in the UK, said that the standards in airline fare were higher than that of the average pub. While many pubs rely on canned soups and old sandwiches with little sign of improvement orver the years, the airlines are constantly trying to "up their game." Wareing takes a rather optimistic view of the recent discontinuation of food service on many airlines, however, seeming to imply that the reason they have done this is because they don't want to serve sub-standard food in an effort to cut costs.

Does anyone agree with this? Granted, some of the airlines do try to serve quality foods, but they know that people will eat just about anything on planes and readily take advantage of that fact. The quality of the food may be better from a freshness and food-safety standpoint, but that doesn't change the taste.

It sounds like Wareing needs to frequent some different pubs.

 

 

Known for his cutting edge experiments, er, cooking at one of the world's top restaurants, The Fat Duck, chef Heston Blumenthal is not a man to shy away from a challenge. When he bought a pub, the Hinds Head, he thought he would have to leave his chemistry set in the car and cook more traditional pub fare. While some of the dishes are quite ordinary, what the diners didn't realize is that Blumenthal has a more unusual definition of "tradition" than most.

Instead of simply looking for classic favorites to serve at his pub, like fish and chips, he looked through medieval cookbooks as a jumping off place. Dishes like "quaking pudding" from the 15th century were cooked up, along with "chocolate wine" from the early 1700s. The most disturbing recipe, which seems to be what engouraged his curiosity for the old-fashioned cooking, is as follows, recounted by Blumenthal: