Death to the Spice Packet!

It’s time to say goodbye to spice packets.

I was thinking about this the other night as I was making dinner, and was making a batch of rice from a box.  It came with a small packet labeled, “Spice.”  No further explanations were given.  I thought, “What is this stuff?”  And later, “Why does it taste so good?”

Packet #1138, developed in secret at Area 51.
Contents: Classified.

Which brings up an interesting point.  I tend to shy away from overly-processed foods.  I like cooking, with real ingredients, but processed food tastes so good.  If I was forced to live off one food for the rest of my life, it would probably be sushi, but Kraft Mac & Cheese is running a close second.  That stuff is awesome!  But these foods are carefully engineered to taste good, with little or no regard to nutritional value, or actual ingredients.

But not all “processed food” is necessarily bad.  After all, one of the very first processed foods is beer.  Don’t believe me?  Take grains, keep them moist until they germinate, dry and crush, then boil until the enzymes convert the starch into sugars, which the yeast turn into alcohol.  Sounds like a process to me.  Processing of foods is important and necessary.  What’s the difference between this and what I’m calling “processed foods?”  The conversion of grains into beer makes the grains easier to consume and actually adds nutritional value from the yeast and hops.  Modern processed foods make the food easier to prepare and consume, but sacrifice nutritional value and create a psychological separation between the original food and the boxed food with its spice packets.

Less than 2% of...what?!

What’s in beer?  Malted grains, hops, yeast, water.  What’s in Suddenly Salad?  Beats the hell out of me.

Just because the picture on the box looks like food, doesn’t mean it is food.  If it was food, it would use spices, not an anonymous, unlabeled spice packet.  And it would not include "Natural and Artificial Flavor" as an ingredient.  Ain't nothing natural about that.

Still, the spice packet mocks me.  It knows that as long as it remains unlabeled, I’ll never know exactly what’s inside.  And it knows that if I knew what was inside, I wouldn’t need it anymore.  We’re locked in a kind of spice cold war.  But fortunately, my spicy CIA has a few spice spies behind enemy spice lines, and I have a pretty good idea of what I’ll find in that spice packet.

-          Monosodium Glutamate

-          Artificial colors (Yellow Dye #5)

-          Chemically engineered flavors, because the real spices don’t taste “spice-y” enough.

-          And maybe some actual spice.

Is there anything wrong with this?  Isn't it the job of science to make things better for us, or give us some advantage that nature cannot?  Okay, I'm not here to argue with science, but what advantage does the spice packet give us?

In gives us more chemicals in our diet, on the one hand, and on the other, what?  Time, you say?  Certainly, time is valuable, especially to us parents.  Do spice packets make cooking faster and easier?  Well, let’s see.

First, I’ll use the spice packet.  I got my water boiling, add my rice, and now the spice packet.  I try opening one corner, but these things are built to last.  I try another corner, no luck there.  I start rummaging through kitchen drawers looking for a pair of scissors, and finally, failing in that, grab a butcher knife and chop the damn thing in half.  Spices go in.  Elapsed time: about 2 minutes.

Now, without the spice packet.  I boil the water, or, depending on the recipe, some chicken broth (hey, liquid is liquid, boiling in boiling, no time difference so far), and add the rice.  Then, I add some garlic powder, parsley, paprika, cumin, salt and pepper, maybe some cayenne if I’m in a spicy mood.  Elapsed time: about 2 minutes.

Spices.  That thing in the background is called a spice rack.
You probably have one.  Why not go introduce yourself?

What do you get out of spice packets that you don’t get out of spice jars?  MSG.  (Unless, of course, you go to a decent spice store and buy a jar of MSG, in which case, you’re golden!)  Yellow #5 (actually a synthetic chemical called tartrazine).  Something called disodium inosinate (no idea).

What do you get out of spice jar that you don’t get out of a spice packet?  Lots.  You get to know what’s in your food, you get to know the difference in taste that specific spices make, and, most of all, you get a recipe.  So the next time someone says, “I love this rice!  What’s in it?” you have an answer that doesn’t involve the word, “packet.”

I’ve been pretty hard on the lowly spice packet, and that’s not entirely fair.  Most of what I’ve said here can be applied to other processed (“boxed”) foods as well.  Processed foods are a wonderful technological achievement and they have a place in our diet.  (As I said, I LOVE my Kraft Mac & Cheese.)  But I maintain that any average person, with average cooking ability, in an average kitchen, can recreate almost any processed food from scratch without much difficulty.  It might mean some investment in time, and you might mess up the first couple of times, but in the end, you will learn the trick of it and the result will be better than any boxed or jarred food you can buy anywhere.

Dad Lite, and the Homebrew Dad

Father's Day is fast approaching, which means it's time to say a few words to all the dads out there reading this blog.  (Sorry, moms, this one is for the guys.)

Ok, dads, grab a beer and have a seat.  We need to talk.

I never stand between a father and his beer

I want to talk about parenthood, about being a dad.  And about the inherent sexism our society applies to parenting.

No, not the kind of sexism that says a woman’s place is in the home and it’s up to the man to go to work and bring home the bacon (figuratively, of course; shopping is women’s work).  I like to think that our society has moved at least a comfortable distance away from that stereotype.  (And if you happen to agree with that stereotype, I’d like you to go stick your head in a 5 gallon fermenter until you come to your senses.)  Instead, I’d like to talk about the “dad” stereotype, one that tries to dictate what we dads can and cannot do when it comes to childrearing.

I’m reminded of my place as a father in our society nearly every day.  Mommy And Me classes.  Parenting magazines geared exclusively toward mothers.  TV sitcoms featuring clueless, uninvolved fathers dispensing bad advice, with hilarity to follow.  Or, even better, sitcoms now showing dads changing diapers and driving minivans, and suddenly questioning their masculinity and overcompensating, with hilarity to follow.

And how many story-times have I been to where the teacher/librarian/person reading the story says, “And now give your moms a big hug,” glances me way, and quickly adds, “and dads, too”?

Not to mention, just a couple weeks ago, I brought my daughter to pre-school after helping her complete a project to show off, and the teacher said to me, "And tell Mommy she did a great job, too!"  I tried to take that as a compliment, but somehow, I couldn't.

Is it fair for dads, in this day and age, to be relegated to some second-class parent designation behind mothers, grandmothers, or even pre-school teachers? 

Should we be seen as an inferior, uninvolved, unwilling partner in the parenting process?  With everyone thinking of us as “...and dads, too?”

Do dads deserve this?

In a word, Yes. 

Face it guys, we have no one to blame here but ourselves.

When I first became a father, this stuff really got to me.  I would rant and rave about how fathers are not inferior, that fathers are capable of looking after children, how they are involved in their children’s lives, and how society just hasn’t caught up with the reality of the New Dad, yet.

Then, something happened.  I start meeting other fathers.  And that’s when I realized all those stereotypes are pretty much dead on.

(I’m not talking about you guys.  You guys are awesome.  Seriously, you’re reading a blog about fatherhood and homebrewing.  That right there gives you at least two points above the average American male.  No, I’m talking about the guys you see in the playgrounds on weekends, pecking away on their iphones, ignoring their kids, who are usually doing something incredibly dangerous on the monkey bars.)

It’s not their fault, those other dads.  They were raised to think men worked and women stayed home, boys don’t cry, winning is all that matters.  They turned into dads with a false understanding of what fatherhood means, and they’ve internalized all of the social stereotypes surrounding dads.  And if they do make a move in that direction, suddenly the masculinity thing kicks in and they have to go drive sports cars and go to Hooters (good wings, or so I've been told).  So we have the Modern Dad, call him Dad Lite, keeping a safe distance from any kind of real parental responsibility. 

And here I am, the Homebrew Dad, here to change all that. 

But I can’t do it alone.

We, the Homebrew Dads, must show the rest of the Dad Lites that we are not inherently second-class parents.  And that we must accept responsibility for all parenting entails, be it feeding, diaper changing, bathing, dressing, or educating, and encourage our fellow fathers to do the same.

We need to remind the Dad Lites of the world that, as dads who like grilling, who eat bacon and barbeque like their on the endangered species list, and who make our own beer, that there is nothing more masculine than being a dad.

Of course, that’s the easy half.  We dads are finally acting like parents, but we also need to be treated like parents by wider society.  And that’s the hard part, the part that I’m hoping to enlist your help with.  I’m hoping that one will follow the other: as more dads become involved parents, it will become less an anomaly and more of an expectation. It’s starting to happen. 

I know you all are out there. 

I know you don’t think it’s weird to take your daughter to Princesses on Ice.  

I know you play dress-up, and sometimes you get to be the prince, and other times, you're the Evil Queen. 

But I have a feeling, based on my own experience, that we still in the minority, and society will need a gentle shove in the right direction.  Here’s what you can do:

1.       Be a parent.  And not a Dad Lite, I'm talking about a Homebrew Dad.  Put down the iphone and pick up “Goodnight Moon.”   Stop changing channels, and start changing diapers.  You get the idea.
2.       Hang out with moms, and get used to it.  You don't actually need to have a couple recipes to swap, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't help.  I can give you a killer beer bread recipe to start with. 

3.       Show affection in public.

4.       Whenever possible, correct common misconceptions about dads. No need to be mean or snarky or sarcastic about it, just politely let people know that you are proud to be a parent.  And remember, the common misconception isn’t actually a misconception, yet, so their snarky comment about how “Your daughter’s outfit is so cute.  Did you wife pick it out?” is socially acceptable.  Don’t start any fights over it.

5.       Have fun.  Play with your child(ren).  And let them lead.  It’s kind of like improve theater.  Sometimes when I play with my daughter, my character changes seven times in ten minutes.  Just go with it.  And smile.  This is the best part.

Now you may be thinking to yourself, jeez, this sounds like a lot of work.  Can’t I just do what society expects and sit on my butt watching sports and maybe play a little xbox?  Seriously, what’s in it for me?

Hey, man, that’s your call.  But a couple of nights ago, after I tucked her into bed and kissed her goodnight and was just about to turn off the light, my daughter shouted, “Wait!”  And she jumped out of bed, ran over to me, threw her arms around my legs (what can I say, she’s short), and said, “I love you, Daddy.”

And that’s reward enough for me.

“Daddy, can I sleep in your bed, tonight?”

Not a chance.

When Smaller is Better

Living in the good ole United States of America, I was raised on the idea that bigger is always better.  Being the father of a young, and therefore by definition small, child has turned that idea into a lie.  The best things in life seem to come in small packages.

Take books, for example.  I’ve read plenty of 1000+ page books, and many of them were very good.  But none of them can stand up to my four-year-old reading me Madeline.  “In an old house in Paris that was covered in vines…”  Priceless.

Even furniture.  I love walking into her pre-school classroom and seeing everything is about a foot lower than I’m used to.  Of course, I have to be careful if I decide to sit down on one of those pre-school chairs.  I’m not always able to get back up again.  Even my daughter gets excited when she sees small-sized furniture.  “Look,” she’ll say, “it’s my size.” 

On the other hand, when it comes to beds, she seems to prefer our king-size bed over her new twin-size bed, much to the detriment of a peaceful night’s sleep.

As it turns out, size matters when it comes to beer, too.  I’ve recently become enamored to the idea of single gallon mini-batches, which yield just about one six-pack.

Why, you might ask, would I want to make even less beer at a time?  Is it faster?  No, not really.  Is it cheaper?  In the short run, yes (fewer ingredients), but proportionally, no (ingredients still cost the same).  So what is the advantage to smaller batches? 

Experimentation.

Five gallons of beer is a lot of brew at a time, roughly eight six packs.  Now, in the case of rich, delicious homebrew, five gallons is barely enough.  Time to upgrade, you might say!  Ten gallons!  Twenty!  Open your own brewery!  But what if the beer you’re making turns out to be terrible?  What do you do with five gallons of bad beer?  The size, and the cost, for that matter, of a full five-gallon batch makes branching out and trying new things a risky proposition.

I'm thinking of calling them "Skipper" and "Little Buddy"

Enter the one gallon carboy.

This little beauty has enabled me to be risky, try different flavors, and generally experiment.  The first batch I tried was an IPA.  Not very exciting or unusual, but it was my first ever all-grain brew.  I don’t have the equipment do make a full five gallon all-grain brew, so the smaller size made it perfect for practicing my technique.  My second mini-batch was one I’ve always wanted to try: coffee bacon beer.  I made a basic English-style ale, and added fresh-brewed coffee right to the wort.  Then, after primary fermentation was over, I added bacon that I cooked until it was near burned, to get as much of the fat out of it as possible.  It really could have gone either way, a miracle of brewing science, or a sin against nature.  The result smells strongly of coffee, with a distinct taste of bacon, and the reviews have been generally positive.  While I would never advocate beer for breakfast, this is the perfect brew for a late-night waffle run.

My next mini-batch is another one I’ve been dying to try: hot pepper beer.

I started with a pale lager recipe, currently going through primary fermentation, and I created an infusion of hot peppers and Tabasco infused oak chips in vodka, to add during secondary fermentation.

I might someday make a full batch of coffee bacon beer.  And if the hot pepper beer works out, I’ll do a full batch of that, too.  But the point is, I would not have tried a full batch of either one if I hadn’t been able to try a small batch first.

And what’s next for the mini-brew, after the hot pepper beer is done?  Not sure yet.  Maybe turn it into a perfect toddler-sized root beer factory.  Of course, my daughter doesn’t drink soft drinks yet, but someday I’m sure she will, and when she does, I’ll be damned if she drinks that mass-produced high fructose, artificially flavored, laboratory-manufactured chemical poison!  Daddy Makes Cola, all the way.

As you can tell, I take my beverages very seriously.

A Quick Word About Something I Know Next to Nothing About

I know next to nothing about the SOPA bill or any of the other proposed pieces of legislation that will supposedly destroy the internet as we know it. I therefore am hesitant about saying anything here against the bill. I never planned on having this blog become my personal political soapbox, and I don't want to voice an opinion about something that I know so little about. I realize that by definition that is what bloggers do, it's just not my thing.  As my daughter always tells me, "That's not the plan."

However, after finding I have much more free time on my hands thanks to the Wikipedia blackout, I find I have something to say after all.

If the history of homemade alcohol can teach us anything, it is that passing a law against something people are going to do anyway doesn't help anything.  Prohibition didn't stop anyone from drinking.  SOPA won't stop anyone from downloading music (or whatever it is it's supposed to stop, like I said, I really don't know anything about this).  Instead, we'll have a "moonshine internet."  The internet brought much that was underground into the mainstream, it can just as easily send it back into the underground.  Who would benefit from this?  Probably no one.

But there is good news.  We can protest, we can sign petitions, and even if that doesn't work, laws can be changed.  We've had really bad laws before, and we'll have them again.  We have three co-equal branches of government to help prevent dumb laws, but it doesn't always work.  But I do believe, in the end, democracy works. 

Very very very slowly, but it works.

I yield the soapbox. 

Best Beer Ever!

What did you get for Christmas?

I got beer.

Jealous yet?

You may not think beer to be as cool and sexy as say, an ereader tablet (I got one of those, too), or the one pound Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup (yup).  And you might think beer might not be the best gift for a DIY homebrewer, but you’d be totally wrong.  I love beer, and I’m always on the lookout for new beer styles and better beers.

And this year, I might have gotten the Best Beer Ever.

Aren’t you just dying to know?

It’s not what you think.  It all depends on individual taste.  My Best Beer Ever is probably not your Best Beer Ever.  And it has almost nothing to do with the beer itself.

Sometimes, the Best Beer Ever is a Bud Light, served in a plastic cup, alongside a hotdog with extra mustard, while sitting in the bleachers of Fenway Park.  Or it could be a bottle of Rheingold’s served in a Romanian steakhouse in NYC during one of my best friend’s bachelor party.  Sometimes, it’s the beer you made from scratch, with your own two hands, idiot grin on your face as you add bacon and coffe to the brew.  (More on that later.)

In other words, the very Best Beer Ever is not just a beer, it’s also a situation, a setting, a slice of time, in which beer and happiness meld together, forming a kind of perfection.

This Christmas, I got to spend the day with my family, watching my daughter open presents, helping my wife cook a ham dinner, eating and drinking, with some of the Best Beer Ever (a spiced winter ale, by the way, and it was fantastic).  And now, with my brother-in-law in town for just one more night, I’m planning on splitting a geuze lambic with him before he leaves.

I have a feeling it might be the Best Beer Ever.

On a slightly different note, even the Best Beer Ever might not be the best present I got this year.  My personal fav might just be a bottle of floor cleaner.  It's called "Dave," is eco-friendly, and has the silohette of a man holding a child on the bottle.  Check it out:

Best Floor Cleaner Ever.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Princess Cake Construction Company, Inc.

Christmas is right around the corner (lurking in the shadows, ready to pounce, like a jungle cat), and there’s so much left to do.  Tree decorating, cookie baking, present wrapping (ahem, present shopping).

But no time for that now, I have a birthday cake to construct!

Yep, I said construct, not bake, because when you have a birthday for a princess, you need a castle.  It’s a rule, or possibly a law of nature.

I started off some days earlier, with two boxes of cake mix (yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, but it saves so much time, and I got to hand it to Betty Crocker, she makes a tasty cake), and two boxes of pudding mix.  You should always mix pudding into your cake batter.  It makes all the difference.  I baked the layers of cake (three of them, two large, one small), let them cool, then moved them into the freezer.  After a brief digression to make a test batch of chocolate stout beer cupcakes, I let the cake layers freeze hard while I went out and bought ice cream cones.

On party day, I took the cake layers out of the freezer, and whipped up the frosting, pink, of course.  I frosted the top of the two larger layers and stacked the layers on top of each other, putting the small layer on top.

Next, I carved out circles at each corner and one in the middle, fitting an ice cream cup into each hole.  Then, I frosted the rest of the cake.  I put the ice cream cones upside on top of the ice cream cups, using a small amount of frosting as glue to hold the cones in place.

Finally, I put on the finishing touches.  I put a border of frosting around the bottom and around the top layer, around each cone (covering up irregularities on the holes I cut in the cake), and a drop of frosting on top of each cone.  Then, I made a batch of blue frosting to lay down around the castle, making a moat.  My wife and daughter helped by adding candy and mini-marshmallow touches all around the cake.  The result: magnificient!

I’m also available for weddings and bar mitzvahs.

Now, some of you might have noticed me mention something about chocolate stout beer cupcakes.  This is a recipe I’ve adapted from the Coca-Cola chocolate cake recipe which can be found here.  I used Young’s Chocolate Stout (and jotted down a chocolate stout recipe to make myself at some point).  I mixed up a chocolate stout frosting to go on top.  The results were quite yummy, with a strong taste of the component beer.  I’m jiggering the recipe a little to make it a little richer, but the stout frosting is simply fantastic.  Want to try it at home?  Here’s the recipe:

2 cups sugar

2 cups flour

½ cup butter

½ cup vegetable oil

3 tablespoons cocoa

8 oz. chocolate stout

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ buttermilk

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

½ cup chocolate pudding

Mix together, pour into cake pans or cupcake holders, bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes.

For the frosting, mix together with an electric blender:

½ cup butter

3 cups confectioner sugar

3 tablespoons chocolate stout

3 oz. melted baking chocolate

Was There Beer at the First Thanksgiving?

Myths pervade our history.  The signing of the Declaration of Independence.  George Washington and the cherry tree.   The First Thanksgiving.

We all know the story.  Brave pilgrims cross the ocean to find a place to practice their religion without persecution, endure a harsh winter, befriend the local Native Americans, who teach them to work the land, hunt the local animals, and to say thanks, they all have a big turkey dinner.  The end.

"Havest thou any beer nuts?"

History is rarely so simple.

And yet, in this case, it almost is.  Sure, it wasn’t exactly a turkey dinner, although wild turkey was served, and “The End” fails to take into account the lingering distrust that grew with later generations which led to arrogance and violence on both sides, culminating in King Phillip’s War, but that’s still more or less what happened.

This past week, I stopped by our local library to pick up some books to read to my daughter about Thanksgiving, to get her in the spirit, so to speak.  I was a little late, and there were only a half dozen books left, but I made do with what remained.  Along with an enthusiastically illustrated version of “Over the River,” that we sang to together over and over again, and a picture book about Abraham Lincoln declaring Thanksgiving a national holiday (sorry, did I mention I’m a history geek?), I picked up a book about time-traveling twins visiting the First Thanksgiving (Thanksgiving on Plymouth Plantation by Diane Stanley).  And about halfway through, one pilgrim says to one of the twins, “It’s a pity we have no beer for you.”   Yes, quite by accident, I found the only children’s book on Thankgiving to talk about beer.

This isn’t that surprising, really.  Not only was beer important to life in England in the 1600s, it is also the real reason we celebrate Thanksgiving at all.

Beer was of vital importance to the English.  European city-dwellers did not know anything about microbes or bacteria, but they did know that polluted river water made them sick, but turning the water into beer somehow made it okay.  And since beer also contained residual carbohydrates from the barley malt, and vitamins from the yeast, it was downright healthy.

The English Separatists (those people we now call Pilgrims) boarded the Mayflower in 1620 with a charter to start in colony a the northern reaches of Virginia Colony, specifically a site near the mouth of the Hudson River.  But the wind and current were against them, and the ship traveled a little further north than originally intended.  They made landfall along the outer banks on Cape Cod, and quickly realized their error.  They attempted to sail south of Cape Cod, but a storm and poorly charted shoals forced them to turn back and seek shelter in what is now Provincetown Harbor.  Now, they had a choice: continue on to their original site, or set up an unchartered colony somewhere along the New England coast.

How they arrived at their decision is described by William Bradford in Of Plimouth Plantation: “[W]e came to this resolution—to go presently ashore…for we could not now take much time for further consideration, our victual being much spent, especially our beer.” 

The rest is history.  The Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, near a big rock, endured a terrible winter, met first Samoset, then Massasoit and Squanto, learned how to work the land, and by the following autumn, had a harvest big enough to call for three days of feasting.

Was beer served at the First Thanksgiving?  Probably not.  Or at least, not much.  Though the harvest was plentiful enough to keep them from starving, food remained a problem in Plymouth for years to come.  Without a food surplus, with starvation on everyone’s mind, and with the grudging acceptance that the water was safe to drink, I doubt anyone brewed much beer the first year.  But by the following year’s harvest, I guarantee some industrious homebrewing pilgrim was making beer out of barley, or maybe corn.  But for sure, our story of the Pilgrims and the First Thanksgiving owes its existence to the very circumstance that usually spells the end of college frat parties.

(Let me be very clear: things are very different now than in 1621.  Today, we have things like water filters, antibiotics, the germ theory of disease, microscopes, science.  We have a bountiful supply of fresh water, and access to many other wholesome, non-alcoholic drinks.  Under no circumstances, not even for the sake of historical accuracy, should anyone give their young child beer for Thanksgiving!)



I'm a little behind on my holidays.



So let us give thanks for those Pilgrims (homebrewers, one and all), and give thanks that they ran out of beer when they did.  Let us give thanks for those Native Americans who helped them survive, teaching us how two different people can live together in peace (even if their own children, and most subsequent generations ignored that particular lesson), and let us most of all give thanks for this holiday, for spending time with the ones we love, and for eating lots of turkey.  With, or without, beer.  Happy Thankgiving!