You know, for kids!

Homebrewing around here has taken a back seat to general everyday survival. We’ve been making a lot of our food from scratch and trying to get our probiotics in. We’ve been brewing kombucha for a while, but I have really been missing soda. Enter naturally fermented sodas!

The dream begins … now!

I post very little about my career. This is first because of the nature of my employer and also because my commute sucks away just about any free time I have.

I’m a communicator; a professional talker. Basically, I put..words together to help my…co-worker’s messages be…good. 😉

My dream, is to work in marketing and public relations. And for whom? The craft beer industry, of course! From my earliest home brewing memories, I knew that I wanted to some day work in the beer industry. I didn’t know what that looked like or how it would work out. I always held onto that dream. A dream is only as real as what you do while you’re not dreaming it, however. I dreamed away years watching my actual job get further and further away from my target.

A local marketing company with which I’ve been developing a relationship sent me a tweet the other day with a URL:

@ThinkandDrive Thinking about heading back to school? http://chronicle.com/blogs/bottomline/for-portland-state-u-beer-is-just-business/

At first, I assumed their Twitter account had been hacked and this was some sort of TweetSpam. But I checked their account and it was the only tweet like it. I went ahead and visited the link and my brain has been abuzz ever since.

Say hello to my little friend

About to rub this grassfed brisket down with some olive oil, garlic and ginger. On the barbie tomorrow.

As one of my Facebook friend pointed out, it has “love” to give.

S’n’B relaunch – don’t call it a comeback

So it has been entirely too long since the pork update. In that time, we have split a quarter cow with some people and embarked on a pseudo-paleo/traditional-food diet. What’s kept me from posting more about was my inability to easily post updates.

So, we’ve got more meat to eat!

About two years ago, my formerly-vegetarian wife suggested we buy a chest freezer and go halvsies with some church friends on a side of local, grassfed beef. Aside from my wedding, the birth of our son, the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, and discovery of beer, this was the most monumental day of my life! I had no concept of the quality and quantity of beef we were buying. Seriously, if you have a pink highlighter around you, that’s the vibrancy and color of the ground beef! You’ve never eaten a tastier cut of beef before (Waygu perhaps excepted).

Thanksgiving 2012

Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name. Psalm 100:4

Our first grain-and-refined-sugar free Thanksgiving was a resounding success, if I do say so myself.

Thanksgiving at our house is also a maturity test

I’m staring at a bowl of green beans that needs to be cleaned, so I’ll try to make this brief. Last night, I rubbed my bird with the Pavo al Horno rub and wrapped in plastic before placing in the fridge. I’l going to let y’all in on a little secret for getting a perfectly-cooked bird.

Mexican turkey for an American holiday?

We’ve been hosting both wings of the family at our home for several years–since we got the Big Green Egg. The first year, I looked for something special to do with the turkey. I found it in the Bomb Brine. I don’t know who this “TJW” guy is. But he apparently has a PhD in flavor. I’ve served turkey with this brine every year except one. That year was … not as good.

Not meat or beer. This post is about . . . bread?

So, the blog has been quiet as of late due to work being crazy insane (National Cyber Security Awareness Month FTW!) and Liam being just plain insane. We haven’t slowed down in the kitchen and the brewing looks like it’s going to be making a comeback.

In the mean time, we have been exploring more traditional cooking methods. This means more fats and less grains. Mandie is even going grain free for now. This means breakfasts and “breads” have take a turn for the nuttier. Coconut, that is.

I think we have a li’l bard on our hands

Liam is a child of habit. So much so that I was getting tired of singing the Hokey Pokey EVERY night. After six months, I was looking for an alternative. I spotted the Shakespearean Hokey Pokey on BoingBoing.net and thought it would make a nice change.

Little did I know it would become his new favorite. Well, it only took him two months to memorize it.