Two recent projects of mine came together recently, with pretty nice results! I’ve been making sourdough bread for a couple months now, and it has been working well. In addition, I visited New York recently. As we all know, bread+NY=pizza. Except in alternate axiom sets where bread+NY=bagels, but we’re in my reality. Plus, while bagels were all over New York, most of them were nothing special. Not that I didn’t find some grub ones, it’s just that most were delivered from somewhere, and really not that great.

Just got back from NYC. It was a lot of fun, but catching up afterwards with regular has kept me from getting everything current. I do have a bunch of pics up, so just click on this one to get to my picasasite. I will be posting some info on my experiences with New York pizza, and probably some tales of good times. cheers!

Score today! N prepped up some provencal braised cod (ala Test Kitchen cookbook) and potato-leek gratin (from The Modern Vegetarian Kitchen, my current favorite cooking tome), and I spoiled myself with a 22oz bottle of Rogue’s Morimoto Soba Ale, “A perfect accompaniment to lighter cuisine.” It’s meals like that that just make you stop and think and blog that Life is Good.  Even better, the meal is over and the ale lives on.

Kegged up my honey wheat ale this week and tossed it into the kegerator yesterday. You’re looking at a tasting of it. Well, unfortunately, I have to say I wouldn’t buy this one myself. It’s a bit too sweet, I think the yeast didn’t convert as much of the malted wheat as I’d like. It definitely has wheat beer characteristics, and some honey love going on. At this time it’s lacking body.

Something beautiful and Zen about this. And beer+Zen must be good. Credit to marriedtothesea.com

Ah, Full Sail, we’ve had out ups and our down, good times and bad. We’ve been through a lot together, and though we don’t see a lot of each other lately, it’s always nice to sit down and catch up. Full Sail beers are good. Not really spectacular, but good. Potentially really good. Depending on what you’re into. And right now I’m pretty into this pale ale I’m drinking. It’s light and refreshing, and hitting the spot after riding home.

It’s looking to be a pretty sweet Spring, if I can just get myself healed. I put together the hammock N gave me for my bday last Fall, and have gotten to relax in it just a little bit, as you can see… I’ve also gotten into bread making a bit. Well, today I’m making my second batch. This is sourdough, and it came out great. In the first one I forgot to add salt, so it was really just flour and water (and starter).

Just got back from a conference in Vegas. I played hard and learned a lot. And I drank a bunch of crappy light beer. At the craps table one time, asked what I’d like to drink I responded “light beer.” I had a brief out of body experience as the words escaped between my lips. She returned with some form of Miller. We have it really good here in the Northwest.

Ah, the first day of Spring. Flowers blooming, the sun is shining. A perfect day to drink my last winter ale, the offering from Elysian. A gorgeous gold hue, this one pours a lot like so many ales not of the winter ilk, only a bit bigger. In fact, this one is drinkable any time of year, so yay Spring! And yay Elysian for producing a winter ale that isn’t packed full of nutmeg and other odds and ends to drown the an overly strong beer.