Bye Bye Beer, Bread, and Breakfast
Passover begins Friday at Sundown. That means I have three full days left, dammit: Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.
In traditional households at this time of year, there is a mad dash of spring cleaning, which involves getting all traces of the forbidden grains out of the house. Technically, the forbidden grains are wheat, barley, spelt/farro, oats, and rye. They are hametz. Hametz is bad.
As a kid, Passover was much harder because my people, the Jews of Eastern Europe, also stayed away from rice, millet, legumes, peas, caraway, fennel seed, mustard, garlic, corn, soybeans, and peanuts during the holiday. These seeds, grains, pulses, and legumes are known as kitniyot. While kitniyot were widely avoided on Passover for generations, a growing number of people are now eating these foods during the holiday.
Obviously, ours is not a traditional household. So instead of cleaning, I’m entering a final stage of eating and drinking. It’s fitting that this final stretch happens on April 20.
Local Beer Arrives
Beer is one of those things I won’t be able to enjoy next week. Passover is coming, and you’ll hear endless complaining on the subject in due time. But while I’m still able to drink delicious fermented barley beverages, let’s talk a little bit about the suds.
Yes, I know it’s only Tuesday, but this has as much to do with farming as drinking. I promise. And not only that, but it also has to do with the future of a burgeoning New York State industry. So perhaps you can indulge me just a little.
Especially since today I’m going to making some broad assumptions and speak on a topic I know precious little about. That said, I think my read of the current situation is on target. So New York State now has farm breweries. Right? And that’s good. Kind of. But it’s also a little bit misleading.
Three Days With Chef Ric
For years, NPR was the soundtrack to my life. It’s what I listened to when I woke up in the mornings. It’s often what I would have on the radio during my commute to work. It even provided me with news and entertainment on the weekends.
Somehow that pattern of media consumption didn’t quite carry over when we made the move from California to New York. I think some of that had to do with the programming mix on WAMC. My sense was that it was weighted heavier with local programming and less reliant on the national feed.
I loved that national feed.
Which isn’t to say that the local programming in Albany isn’t without its charms. I really really need to start making more of a point to listen to Foodie Friday. The problem is that two o’clock on Friday afternoon is usually when I’m pushing my Yelp deadlines for the weekly newsletter. However, the show archive is available on the WAMC website.
But this last week’s show was a doozy.
When A Wine Pairing Beats A Beer Pairing
Exploring the wide world of beer is a lot of fun. I’m really looking forward to Hudson Valley Hops tomorrow at the Albany Institute of History and Art. Tickets are available at the door, and I should probably note that Yelp is a sponsor.
But these are always great opportunities to try and taste a bunch of beers and glean some deeper knowledge or appreciation of a beer or two. The beers that stand out at festivals are typically not the ones of delicacy, grace, or ballance. Rather, they are the ones that hit you over the head and wake up your palate from the chore of sampling beer for hours.
At the New York Craft Brewers Festival at The Desmond Hotel, that beer was Druther’s Double Dare, which was a double gose. Interestingly, it’s not a style of beer I typically enjoy. But after a couple of hours of drinking lots of good local beer, the Double Dare made me stop and say, “wow.”
This is very similar to what happens at wine festivals.
It may not win me very many friends in the beer world or the wine world, but I continue to insist that these two very different beverages are more similar than most people think. Although there are a few key differences.
A while back, I was eager to hear about people’s thoughts about beer and food pairings. After a few months of experimentation, I’m back to share a revised hypothesis or two on the subject.
Dullards
My knives have been embarrassingly dull since 2010. Thank goodness I publicly confess the things I’m most ashamed about. That means there’s a record of my trespasses, and I can track how long it takes to turn around my bad behaviors. I’ve been cooking with shitty knives for over six years. And really, I think it’s been longer. Probably much, much longer.
There have been very generous people in the community who have heard my tale of woe and offered to teach me how to sharpen my own knives. But in all honesty, it’s something that I just don’t have time for these days.
For some reason, I always had a mental block about the guy at the Honest Weight Food Co-op and could never remember what days he used to be there. Apparently, now he’s gone. I really wanted to get them done well, and had my doubts about the service at places like Different Drummer’s Kitchen.
But mark my words. The days of my dull knives are behind me. I’ve finally found the answer. And it was hiding in Schenectady at a place that’s largely off the radar.
The Next Peck’s
Evolution is a process. It’s a series of small changes that happen over time.
What’s been really exciting about living in the Capital Region for the past several years, has been watching the slow but gradual improvement of our food culture. Do we have a thriving food culture here? Not quite yet. But we’re on our way.
It’s true that I get excited by watching the progress our area has made over the years. And it’s important that I get called out on my occasional irrational exuberance by commentators from the Interwebs. The Masticating Monkey made a good point when he suggested that I had gone a step too far last week.
Everything has an opportunity cost. For better or for worse, I’ve decided to focus on what’s going on here in the Capital Region. I’ve fully committed. Sure, there are the occasional meals in Paris, Beijing, and the SF Bay Area to break things up a bit. Now and again I’ll try a food truck in Providence, some dim sum in Flushing, or a pizza in New Haven. But I’m not making regular trips across the border to Vermont, or out to Ithaca, or even to the Berkshires to taste what some great regional kitchens are cranking out.
And that’s a blind spot to be sure.
But I do believe that there is also something to be gained by staying focused on the local community. I think it’s easier to see the growth and the improvement when it’s not being measured against markets where a higher standard already exists. Our standards are absolutely rising. And that’s exciting. That’s remarkable. So now, I have to ask the inevitable question.
AskTP – The Big One
Oh dear. Is answering questions still something that happens on the FLB? You betcha .
One notable thing from the Throwback Thursday posts was just how active the comments sections were at the beginning of the blog. Maybe that was because I was bringing a new voice to the Capital Region food scene. Maybe it was because I wasn’t fully articulating my arguments. Or maybe it was because I hadn’t as thoroughly exhausted all of those arguments as I have by now.
That’s just one reason I am thrilled to see some new voices coming into the Albany food blogging scene. Did you read Melinda’s piece on local bagels? It’s great work.
But dammit, I still occasionally pull out something unexpected. There are still sometimes questions. And those questions demand answers. Will they get timely answers? Probably not. But answers are answers. So today, I’m excited to bring back Ask the Profussor for a special lightning round where we tackle the last four months of neglected queries.
You Won’t Be Disappointed
Reviews. I’ve written a lot of them. I’ve read even more of them.
Part of my job is scanning through the reviews that are written about all the businesses in the Capital Region on Yelp. I can’t read them all. But I’ve read thousands. Possibly tens of thousands. And I’m doing a few things as I read through the Yelp Stream.
One, I’m looking for good writers. As Yelp grows, and more people discover the platform, the more the Yelp Elite Squad grows. And while I don’t decide who gets to be Elite and who doesn’t, I do recommend people to the Yelp Elite Council.
Two, I’m on the lookout for troublesome reviews. Anyone can flag a review that violates Yelp’s Terms of Service or Content Guidelines. Reviews have to describe a personal experience at a business. If your friend got fired from his job, and you write a nasty review about that business to punish the jerk who stiffed your buddy, I’m going to flag it.
But there’s a third thing I do when reading through the torrent of local criticism. I’m taking stock of the perspective of Capital Region residents. Occasionally, I’m able to pick out themes or tropes from the reviews. And there’s one that I really want to talk about.
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