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So… what is it you ask? Sounds exotic you say.

Well, I don’t know the English translation of Feijoada but I do know that it is DELICIOUS!!

Now, this is certainly not for the vegetarian.. not even someone who eats a little bit of meat once in a while. This is for someone who likes… no… LOVES meat. This aint no walk in the park let me tell you. It is meat upon meat upon meat. Throw in a few chopped onions and black beans for that little extra protein.

Start off frying up some thick sliced applewood smoked bacon. The recipe had me at BACON! Anything that has, smells, remotely looks like bacon chances are I will like. Bacon with eggs… eggcellent. Bacon as a sandwich… scrumptious! Bacon on a salad…solidifies it! Bacon on a potato… potential intoxication! Bacon Bacon Bacon! But I digress…

So I mentioned the bacon… fried… in skillet. Keep the drippings!! Yes…it gets used. “What?!” you say. Yep. The pound of pork shoulder cut into once inch pieces gets browned in the bacon drippings. Lord have mercy! Anything cooked in bacon grease makes it even better. The browned in bacon drippings pork goes into a crock pot. Oh yes, prior to browning the pork was sprinkled with salt and pepper (like I really noticed it after the bacon drippings). Then…browned about 1.5 pounds of beef short ribs. Again, sprinkled with salt and pepper first and then into the bacon and now pork shoulder drippings. This definitely is not kosher! Ribs browned…into the crock pot. Also toss in a ham hock…more pork! Throw in chopped garlic, onion, black beans, and chicken stock. Stir and cook. Throughout the day it was a lovely aroma of slow cooked porkiness. I think I was on a pork high from my pork crackpot.

Eight hours later with some cooked up crispy bacon tossed in at the end a delicious array of shredded meat was ready to be consumed. Cooked up some saffron rice…place it on a plate and then top with the porky pork pork. Delicious!!!

This one I will definitely make again.

I’m happy to see that our local restaurants and bars are taking an interest in promoting Huntsville’s craft beer labels. This past week, Tina and I stopped by the Stem and Stein where I sampled Straight to Ale’s Monkey’s Uncle – a tasty derivative of their popular Monkeynaut IPA. I must admit, it was quite good with great hop flavor and aroma; so much so that I’ve decided my next brew will definitely be hop-centric. I will likely try my hand at dry hopping, i.e. adding gobs of hops during fermentation to extract oils and big aroma. Hopefully, it will come out half as good as the Uncle!

In the meantime, homebrew Batch #1 is in short supply and Batch # 2 has matured nicely. Batch two is a slightly modified clone recipe that I found on-line of Founder’s Dirty Bastard Ale, a Scottish-style strong ale from the Founders brewery in Michigan.

My first attempt at liquid yeast and a yeast starter went well, thanks to the discovery of John Palmer’s bible on brewing. Bottling occurred about a month ago, and although Batch two doesn’t seem to have the complexity of Dirty Bastard, the flavors do seem to be aging nicely.

Tina did a nice job on the label for this one! We are calling it Eleven Twenty-niner, in reference to the eleven month, twenty-nine day sentence of bootleggers in the days of prohibition.

Harvest Ale 11-29er

The Huntsville Times ran an article this morning stating that Huntsville, with its four microbreweries, is the craft beer capital of Alabama! On the surface, this seems to contradict my previous statement that home-brewing is illegal in Alabama. Is Huntsville really a city of criminals intent on breaking the law through prohibition-style backroom brewing? Perhaps, but actually home-brewing is distinctly different than microbrewing in the legal sense. Home-brewing is a hobby that was federally legalized during the Carter administration. Alabama is one of a few states that has not changed their prohibition-era laws to exempt unlicensed homebrewing for personal consumption. Microbrewing, on the other hand, is commercial (i.e. licensed) brewing by small craft breweries. In Alabama, these breweries have indirectly been given a kick-start by the variety of beers offered through the “free-the-hops” campaign, a grass-roots effort which legalized high gravity beers in the state recently. The article claimed that Huntsville, with its diverse population of international scientists and engineers, is leading the state in a microbrewing craze (what an absurd picture this paints…). The article failed to mention that microbreweries have been sprouting up across the country for about 20 years now, but I digress. The main point is – I thought the article was a positive omen for my home-brewing activities, which also began this weekend.

After devoting an afternoon to brewing, the ale is now fermenting nicely in the tub. Should be ready to bottle in about 2 weeks. HOT DAMN!

There are times in ones life that are difficult to handle. A child heads off to school for the first time. A teenager goes through puberty and feels awkward. A parent passes away and a child is left to handle the arrangements. But one thing some people don’t consider a difficult situation to handle is dealing with a family pet and their quality of life. For me, it is just as difficult as any decision I have ever had to make.. probably more so.

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Two years ago I was told that I should post something on “our” blog site. After 24 months of heavy contemplation, I’ve come up with something. Yeah! Dave always comes through, eventually.

Forgetting that I regularly run and mountain bike enough to at least confidently tell people that “I bike,” Tina insists I need a hobby. Since “the wife” is always right (or at least wants me out of her hair), I’ve decided to take up the family hobby — so called because my Dad did it for years, my brother has done it successfully on at least one occasion, and my brother-in-law has done it with disastrous results (don’t stick your arm in the fermentation bucket). That hobby would be homebrewing. Never mind that it is still officially illegal in Alabama.

After some reflection on whether I should contribute to the moral degradation of northern Alabama, I decided, “Why not?” So Tina and I went to Nashville (which is decidedly more decadent) this past weekend and bought a good bit of homebrewing paraphernalia, and now I’m pretty much set to head down the road of drunken corruption.

The biggest challenge thus far has been deciding what type of beer to make. On the one hand, I typically like Pale Ales with a hoppy note, but not extremely bitter. On the other hand, I want to brew something a bit different from what I typically drink. So rather than brewing a pale ale, I finally decided on an American Brown Ale recipe. But I am still having second thoughts. Why an American brown ale?? First, I don’t especially like Turbodog. Second, I tried Avery’s Ellie’s Brown Ale yesterday; it was really good with a dinner, but I thought it had a little too much of a burnt quality on its own. But I’ve bought the ingredients, so I feel committed. I hate commitment.

The recipe I got is from Papazian’s second book, “The Homebrewer’s Companion.” I think I might tweak it just a tad – reason being is that when I put the ingredients into ProMash, the SRB color rating is a bit higher than a typical American Brown Ale, due to a combination of amber malt extract with crystal (80L) and chocolate grains. So I’ll replace half the amber malt extract with a light. I’ve noticed a lot of Brown Ale recipes using a light extract, despite their final color, so I imagine this will be fine.

I talk like I know something about brewing. But really, I have no clue. When I bought the specialty grains (that’s the crystal and chocolate malts for the non-brewers), the guy asked me if I wanted it milled. I asked, “Oh, is that something that you have to do?” He said, “Yeah, if you want the flavors.” I guess I do want flavors… Later, when cutting some siphoning tube, I asked him what a good length was. He said it depended on your “setup.” I had to admit, “I have no setup.” He gave me 5 feet, reasoning that there is no setup that needs more than 5 feet, I suppose.

Tina will be designing a logo for the bottle. So at least the stuff will look good before you pour it into a glass. I’ve told her that this is what she should give me for my birthday. Sounds like a reasonable request. Since the beer will be using Harvest-Monrovia water and it will be brewed around harvest time, we figure “Harvest Ale, American Brown” is a good moniker.

Dedicated to our sweet little honeybunny that we recently lost.

We miss you Alley.
1994-2010

Just this side of heaven is a place called Rainbow Bridge.

When an animal dies that has been especially close to someone here, that pet goes to Rainbow Bridge.
There are meadows and hills for all of our special friends so they can run and play together. There is plenty of food, water and sunshine, and our friends are warm and comfortable.

Author unknown…

This is a funny poem I wrote years ago for a friend who just loves chickens!! I just found it on a portable harddrive and thought I needed to share it.
This one is for you JHO

Crazy Chicken

Crazy chicken… whatcha pickin?
You have no nose
Only three toes
We fry you up
Cluck Cluck Cluck
Crazy chicken…finger lickin’!

Crazy chicken… are you pickin?
Always going to poop
In your little chicken coup
Sitting on your bed of hay
Here is where you eggs will lay
Crazy chicken… are you kickin?

Crazy chicken… are you wishin?
That you can be a cow
They’re no good anyhow
We all know you can’t be beat
You have tastey whiter meat
Crazy chicken… finger lickin’!

Crazy chicken… you be chillin’!
Walking and strutting around
Making your little chicken sound
We all know who’s the boss
All is not a total loss
Crazy chicken… are you sittin?

Crazy chicken… whatcha pickin?
I’m not sure where you’re goin
But here we have a hunger growin
Now I see you in a rut
You’ve been pickin your butt
Crazy chicken… you’re livin!

Well…it’s amazing how things can change in the blink of an eye. One minute you are employed and the next…a pink slip sits on your desk.

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Last week Dave and I went out to a new local Indian restaurant. We both love Indian food and we wanted to go to this place again because the first time it was the second day of opening and it was crazy. The only server/host was one little guy. He also apparently owns the place. It wouldn’t surprise me if he was also the cook and dishwasher too! I think he was a bit overwhelmed by the amount of people at his restaurant on only the second night. But I think he forgot where he lives… Huntsville, AL. This town is ‘eat out’ haven! The restaurants here are always hard to get in to. But I digress.

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In the summer of 2006 I embarked on a European tour with a friend. Our destinations…Italy, Paris and London. We visited many cities in Italy some which were Sorrento, Capri, Rome, Florence. We did a lot of walking and I mean A LOT of walking. A lot of late nights and waking up early to do that walking. We visited catholic churches galore!! We felt like this was the Catholic conversion tour before too long. But little did we know that we would soon be giving this tour a name other than what the tour agency called it.

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