New Glarus & Cheese Pairing

Beer and Cheese. Its a great combo.While passing through Wisconsin I had the good fortune to stumble upon New Glarus Brewing, and brought home a good deal of beer from them and some cheese from the area giving me the chance to host a local Wisconsin beer and cheese pairing session. The results were tasty, I assure you and in the hopes that you will give beer and cheese a try Id like to share my pairing notes with you. 

Spotted cow ( Saison Style) with brown cow Baby Swiss:

Spotted cow turns out to be a very light interpretation of the saison style. Brewed with corn, light, refreshing, with just a hint of the belgian "funk" of lemon and grass. Very nice beer. Apparently is 70% of their sales. The lightness and the slight funk is present in both the cheese and the beer, bringing out new flavors from both, while still keeping it light.

Stone Soup ( Belgian Pale Ale) with one year aged brown cow Swiss:
Stone Soup seems almost like cross between a belgian and a german wheat beer, it has a good deal of sweetness but is fairly sharp. The swiss is tasty, and the beer seems to contrast with the cheese, making an OK pairing.

Moon Man ( American Pale Ale) with one year aged Cheddar:
The beer has a strong nose of citrus, especially grapefruit, however the taste is much milder, with a fairly low bitterness. The cheese is a very rich creamy cheddar, I cant say the pairing is good. The dominant citrus in the beer just does not have anything to grab on to in the cheese.

Fat Squirrel ( Nut Brown Ale) with ten year aged Cheddar:
The nut brown ale is just how I like it, subtle nuttiness, dash of smoke, balancing sweetness, and a strong bitter middle. Cheese is sharp, as one would expect, but also retains more creaminess that i would imagine. Pairing is good. Specifically the nut flavor and bitterness in both come together well, and the sweetness and carbonation in the beer contrasts with the cheese to form a new flavor experience. Cheddar and Brown Ales are usually nice, and this pairing is no exception.

Coffee Stout and Wisconsin Belgian Red ( Wheat beer with cherries and aged on oak) with Chocolate Fudge:
Not actually a cheese pairing, but close enough. Coffee Stout does exactly what I would expect it to do. Sweet malts enhance the fudge a little, but the bitterness and astringency of the coffee beer contrasts and balances with the fudge delightfully. Not necessarily adding a bundle of new flavors but deepening the existing ones. The Wisconsin Red on the other hand brings dark cherry, earthiness, vanilla, and a host of new flavors to the party。Great on its own, paired with the fudge the Wisconsin Red becomes an event desert experience.

Overall I would say the best pairing was the Spotted Cow followed closely by the Fat Squirrel. Beer pairing is a lot of fun, and fairly easy. Nowhere is this more true than in the case of beer. Just pick up some quality beer, and a variety of cheeses and you'll probably find a good match in there somewhere. If you want to increase the odds of create a memorable pairing consider the following:
1. Match the impact of pairing elements. Make sure the "impact" of the beer and cheese are similar. This includes flavors, richness, aftertaste, really everything.
2. Compliment or contrast main flavors. Take a minute to consider the dominant flavors in both the beer and the cheese. These are not always the flavors which will come through in a pairing but usually it will be the case. Then try to either match the main flavors somewhat, or put two opposites in for contrast.
3. Have fun. Food should be about fun. You will make mistakes. Regardless if you have good beer, and good food, it will be fine.

On a final note if your ever in Southern Wisconsin I highly recommend New Glarus Brewery. Essentially what they have done with their brewery is build it, from the start, as open to visitors. The brewery is laid out somewhat like a museum where you can watch the production process from grains to bottling and ask the staff questions. Of course they have a gift shop, a bar, and a bottle shop. The set up is just amazing from a management and marketing stand point, really just a great business model. From a beer stand point its also nice because it brings in people who would not normally drink good beer, but does it in a classy way. Basically, New Glarus has branded themselves as "Wisconsin's craft beer", they do a wonderful job of this, and it really shows in their beers and their brewery.

-Eric

New Desert Beer

So I found an excellent pairing. I was assisting my restaurants chef in pairing some beers with an Xmas dinner. Originally I had decided to go with a belgian double ( heavy, sweet, dark beer). However since we were just doing a test dinner, and the beer in question is fairly expensive, I randomly grabbed Fullers London Porter out of the fridge. Its imported by one of my parent companies so I figured its use would please everyone.
We tried a number of food pairings for this dinner coming to these conclusions: First, Paulaner works fine with salmon with basil dressing, but not so good with salmon + spicy salsa. On the other hand hoppy beers, like a pale ale, or an amber with good bitterness work quite well. Second, Fullers ESB is a hefty beer. We tried it with turkey with stuffing and all that and it was just too much. When we substituted in London Pride, the result was much better.
Finally, London Porter is great with chocolate cakes/tarts/ chocolate. Puts wine to shame. Not even a contest. We tried the porter with a chocolate tart with a raspberry sauce ( real raspberries, watched chef blend them) Flavor ride. First you get luscious semi sweet chocolate, and all the little flavors that come with it. The raspberries follow it up with that tart, woody flavor that they have. Then you drink the beer. All of a sudden the chocolate flavors from the tart and the chocolate flavors in the beer come bursting back out. Weeee! But wait, whats this? Its a peety, burt, bitter finish which contrasts so well it real feels, filthy is the best way I can describe it. Afterwords I tried the beer with some other chocolate deserts with similar results. Its quite versatile and surprisingly robust. Try it for yourself and tell me Im wrong.

Nabe Pairing Testing

There are some good resources for Beer Pairing out there. But none I have found really cover with much depth pairing Japanese food and beer, aside from say sushi. Of course you can take a pairing for a more general food and apply it to something similar in the Japanese cuisine, but thats tricky does not always work.
So Its been a bit of a quest of mine to find beers that pair well with Japanese food. Last night I tried to find some beers to match with Nabe. Nabe really is one of the great things about Japan. Its basically a pot, usually cooked at the table, with veggies, shrooms, meat, tofu, and whatever you want boiled in a light broth of some kind. If you are unaware of this dish, or have not made it I encourage your to go find a recipe and make it. It is, like all good recipes, tasty, easy, and healthy. Wonderful in cold weather as well. Try it with a kotatsu for bonus points.
I made it with a soy sauce based broth, then hakusai ( cabbage), shitake, negi ( big ass green onions), and pork. Also made some yuzu ( sweetish lemon thing) dipping sauce, and sesame dipping sauce.

As shown above I tried a pilsner ( the original), Anchors Liberty Ale, Nests Pale Ale, De Rankes XX Bitter, and Fullers London Porter. Just some beers I happen to be able to grab. I was expecting big things from the Liberty Ale, I guess just because Anchors Steam Ale did well before with Temaki, another Japanese dish. It was good, but as it turned out a bit too big, the beer overwhelmed the dish, just a bit, in terms of malt, hops, and even carbonation. The looser of the night was the pilsner. I think this specific pilsner has a very delicate and slightly sour taste, which while probably amazing with other dishes clashed with this one. The london porter and XXX bitter we also satisfying in their own rights, but they both quite overwhelmed the dish, no meshing of flavor.
The winner of the night was Nests Pale Ale. I am not a fan of this beer, I have drunk it before and found it to be satisfying but not special. This time it worked though. Not 100% sure exactly how, but I think the light body and slight sweetness matched the impact of the dish well. Then I would say that the flavor of the hops worked well with the dish, but that is really to vague to be all that useful. I do remember distinctly that combined with the nabe, the beer tasted much sweeter, providing a nice balance to the foods general saltiness. So next time I think I will try a few more Pale Ales and see if I cant reach a clearer conclusion.



-Eric

Spicy Chicken Sandwich and (not)homebrew blonde ale

Had a bit of a brewing day last Saturday in which I brought some friends over and we bottled one batch, made another batch , and probably drank 1/4 of a previous batch of homebrew beer.

To get ready for this I threw together some light sandwiches. i used pan seared chicken with a dash of hot sauce, greens, a light italian cheese and a bit of mustard on the top. For bread we tried both baguette and English muffins, with the winner being the former. The sandwiches were great. I was especially happy with the balance between the ingredients, rather than being overwhelming each ingredient melded with the rest. Also I was happy with the versatility of the dish, I could easily substitute any one of the ingredients, for instance a different cheese, out for something else and have a new, tasty, easy dish.

The pairing was also nice. I was drinking a homebrewed session ale, light, hoppy, with a nice cistrus cascade hop flavor to it. The light bitterness worked well against the mild spice in the sandwich and the greens. We also tried a Brooklyn Lager against the sandwich. The sandwich highlighted the complexities in the malt, which was quite nice, and the foods spice provided a linkage to the spicy hops in the beer. On the whole, I would say the Brooklyn lager was the more skillful pairing, bringing out more of the flavors in the food and the beer, but also adding some heft to the meal. On the other hand the homebrew was solid, and kept the feel of the meal quite light, which might be preferable. Overall an excellent culinary experience.

-Eric

T.Y. Harbor

I decided to try out T.Y. Harbor last week. The place is on Tennozu Isle, is "contemporary American", and they have their own beer. I was expecting some really fine food, but on the whole I was somewhat disappointed. Not painfully disappointed, but the food and the beer were fairly blah-, especially for the price. The view was quite nice though, and the service was fine.


I see this alot with "branded" restaurant chains. These companies use classic business strategy: standardize a core product in this case a core menu,  then modify the brand with a different name, different decorations, nice location, and other "branding" elements. All industries do this, from cars ( create a standard car, modify frame, seats etc) to accounting firms. In the food industry what this leads to is generally bland food at a high price. Of course it does not have to be this way, but the trend is for companies to pay more attention to "branding" elements rather than actual food quality.

I tried the seasonal, wheat, pale ale, amber, and dark. They were all drinkable, and probably quite accessible but lacked the depth that I am used to. The wheat was the best, the PA was a bit ugly. Food wise the bread, cesar salad, seared shrimp, pizza, and wings. None of it was unpalatable or poorly made, but it was all just standard and uninteresting. If I want that Ill make it myself.

Baird & spicy pizza

Today on the blog I pair a few beers from Baird Brewing with a spicy pizza. The phenomenon of how spice and beer interact has really intrigued me ever since I had some great mexican and a bottle of 90min IPA. So after getting some great hot sauce from a friend back in the states I promptly decided to use it on some pizza.

Beer and pizza are a fantastic match up for many reasons. First off roasted malt and pizza have similar flavors, baked bread, a slight sweetness. Then you have the spices in the pizza playing with the hops in the beer. Finally pizza can get a bit heavy, and beer is happy to wash away those heavy flavors with its carbonation. This is not complicated, most college students already know this simply by instinct.

My thinking was that I would try two beers from Baird Brewing. Their flagship, Rising Sun Pale Ale and a favorite Angry Boy Brown Ale. American brown ales are usually thought of as a good counterpart to pizza and I figured that since it was a fairly light pizza (just cheese, and a light sauce of tomatoes, onion, garlic, and mushrooms) the Pale Ale might also work well (BA Review). I also thought that the hot sauce would be fairly mild and work well with the bitterness, especially in the brown ale.

Unfortunately, the hot sauce was really far too hot. The heat was tasty, and not without depth, however it was a bit much for the beers. To be honest I am not sure if anything could have paired with hot sauce this hot, maybe a very malty and very bitter DIPA. What I ended up with was two beers who's subtitles were washed out by the heat. Oh well, lesson learned next time less hot sauce.

Celis White vs Hoegaarden

Todays post Celis White versus Hoegaarden. Both belgian wit beers, both made by the same man, both available in Tokyo. Paired with a green salad and the lemon dressing on the right ( olive oil, white vinegar, lime, spices). The verdict Hoegaarden is a very light white beer, which would be a great bridge beer, unoffensive but with slightly more character than your average macro beer. I think i got a whif of macro lager in it as well, perhaps thats the influence of ABInbev on the recipe. Celis White deeper color, aroma, and flavor. The flavor is subtle, but is like a lime, in a dusty room filled with wheat. Both went well with the salad, not overpowering the light veggies, forming a weak link with the citrus flavor, and clearing off the flavor of the dressing. I really enjoy comparing beers, very illuminating.

Great Japan Beer Festival: Yokohama

Prologue

So there I am after my weekly group running/drinking club which happened to be in Ryogoku this week. Naturally I skipped the after party in favor of a sojourn to Popeyes, basically the destination for Japanese craftbeer. I settled down for a pint and half way through the glass the dashing fellow in the middle of the photo, comes in. We get to talking, have a few more pints and I learn a number of interesting things. First, As it turns out he is David, is in town from New Zealand, and is the export manager for Tuatara Brewing. Second, the tuatara, after which the brewery is named, is the last living dinosaur in the world, another reason why New Zealand is awesome. Finally Aoki-sans homegrown hop tempura is delicious. I had a lot of fun and was even more excited to get ot the festival and try out his and all the other beers.

Great Japan Beer Festival: Yohohama


Beerfests are a great chance to try out a large selection of beers, some of which are not normally available, to meet people, and to generally have a great time. The Great Japan Beer Festival is no exception. They have it three times a year in Tokyo, Yokohama, and Osaka. The most recent one was in Yokohoma out at Osanbashi in the hall of the same name. Its underneath that big pier looking thing south of Akarenga with grass on the roof and pretty blue lights at night, and here is the 2010 beer list.

The festival was all you can drink, rather than a ticket system, with the little glasses which I appear to be double fisting. The glass size was no problem but I was a little disappointed at the lack of cleaning stations for glasses, although some of the attendants, especially the brewers were kind enough to rinse out our glasses before putting a new beer in. Overall, the beer was done well in terms of quantity of beer, serving, attractiveness of stalls. Only once did I have a beer that was clearly not being served properly, and that was towards the end of the festival and from a bottle.

I tried to work a proper tasting order ( light impact beers to stronger) starting with the lightest of beers pilsners and such and moving up to the strong and bitter Imperial India Pale Ales, with wheat beers, english milds, pale ales, light stouts, and others in between. It worked out fairly well and while I did not get to taste everything I would have liked, I did well enough.

In terms of beer there were no huge surprises. From the Japanese brewers I especially enjoyed the Weizen Rauch from Gotenba, HopSlave ( which I poured at the Real Ale fest last year), the Helles from Chateau Kamiya, the North Island IPA. I disliked the beers from Hansharo, and the Johanna. From the Import side my group and I thought the Maui Brewing coconut porter was fantastic, Deschutes Beer was even better than I remember it from my college days, my first taste of Odell Brewery was good, the lambics from Revelation Cat were quite interesting, and the Saison de Lente from The Bruery was almost worth the price of admission itself. Last but of course not least the American Pale Ale from Tuatara Brewing was a really solid example of what I like in in APA, great hop aroma, strong bitterness. I think their belgian was also good, but I tried it out of order and cant really make a good judgment on it.
All and all it was a good beerfest as far as I was concerned, and I will definitely be back again next year, hopefully in some sort of professional capacity.


Epilogue


Once the drinking was finished we all poured out on to the deck above, and were treated to a wonderful view of Yokohama, met a few friends, and also serenaded the deck with a powerfull rendition of "can you feel the love tonight" with some strangers (hats off to you random dude).

On the recommendation of Chris and his blog I went to a place called Charcoal Grill & Bar Green.
I was pleasantly surprised. The interior is artfully decorated, lots of wood and paintings, with the restaurant and the kitchen in the same room, a setup I love. They have three craft beers on tap, and I went with Hitachino Nest Nipponia. Which was a good general match to the food, with some hops and spices to match the fat and spices in the grill. The waiters were casual but professional and made excellent recommendations. We had the BBQ Pork, oyster, goat cheese salad, all spice ribs, and the rosemary chicken. Everything was great, but the BBQ really blew me away. My first bite and the meat melted in my mouth, to use a cliché. Behind that was an expert use of spices which truly enhanced, rather than overcame the meat and the skillfull grilling technique. Really good. I highly recommend this restaurant if you are in the Yokohama area, and I will certainly be back.

Cheers to everyone I meet, and to a great day!

-Eric

Apple Hop & Bulgogi

Part I
There is a relatively unknown brewery here in Japan called Minamishinsyu Beer. They are actually not half bad, but nothing special. However, a few months ago they made a beer called Apple Hop that won some awards and a number of us in Tokyo are digging. Its fermented with apples and basically tastes like apple cider, only less sweet, dryer, and with a bit of a pale ale taste to it. Also they change the Apples used every month or so and I had a couple in my fridge, so I got to thinking, what kind of dinner could I do with this. Immediately I thought of a recipe for Korean BBQ or Bulgogi which uses apples in the marinade, and decided to give it a try. I used the following recipe for the marinate and its going as I type. So I will see how the pairing works out in a bit:

meat

apple (grated)
apple Hop Beer
ginger (grated)
garlic (grated)
green onion (grated)
korean pepper
sesame oil
mirin

Part II

My little grill did not let me down, and the meat was grilled successfully. I was expecting a flavor link between the Apple Hop/ shredded apple/ apple hop marinade. Unfortunately, and probably because I was only able to marinade it for a hour and a half the connection was rather weak and mostly lost in the other flavors of the dish. However, the meat did get quite 『まるやか』、as they say, or roughly translated rounded in taste, so juicy a little sweet, that type of flavor. It was more subtle than I was expecting but satisfying in a delicious way. So much so that it gathered a crowd in from the unusually strong rain, and someone bought more meat to grill on my little fire hazard bombe. Then out of the blue a friend from the area shows up, having a just few hours before learned he is to be a father. Much celebration and good beer, including a great bottle of Bons Voeus from Dupont ensued. For a review check my BA profile and click on the beer. All and all a surprising but rewarding night. Congratulations to the soon to be father! Cheers!

-Eric

Frijoles + Dead Guy

2010/10/17 Update
Tragically Frijolles has stopped serving anything decent to drink with their delicious tacos no Rouge no Koedo. When I asked the owner gave me some BS about switching suppliers. You can now only get Carlsberg draft with your tacos. The disappointment of this change has prompted me to find a new favorite restaurant in the area.


Original Post
There was a palatable static in the air. An unspoken message passing back and forth between the customers lining up outside Frijoles, the small Azabujuban restaurant, for lunch. The message was simple, “tacos!”.

For those who have not had a chance to dine there yet. Frijoles is a hip mexican lunch type place. The menu consists of Tacos, Burritos, Fajita Burritos, and Salad. From there you choose between grilled chicken, carnitas, steak, and vegetarian as your meal moves down the line, finally choosing from the usual assortment of salsas and toppings. The prices are in the 1000 Yen range, and its well worth it. The carnitas is juicy, the steak is well marinated, and the salsas are reasonable approximations of what one might get closer to the border in the states, making it worth a bit of a detour to get there.

As if that was not enough, the restaurant also stocks macro pilsner beers, which get destroyed by any kind of spice, but a beer from both Rouge and Koedo brewing. The Rouge Dead Guy Ale is a great pairing, and really shows what beer can do with food. Its a Mailbock beer, a lighter version of the dark lager bock with a more substantial hop presence. After the first bite of mexican deliciousness the dark, caramel flavors in the beer join hands with the meat and do a little flavor dance. While this frivolity is going on the hot salsa attacks and, backed up by the bitter hops, makes a delicious assault on the tongue, bringing out the flavor in the heat. Finally, the heat is repelled by the sweet malt and the carbonation cleans off the palate, leaving you excited for more. All this for a mere 600 Yen extra.

It is great to see a bit more variety of quality mexican in Tokyo, and even better when it has a few great beers to pair with. Hopefully the chain will be expanding soon, you can check out their website here and their Facebook page for more information.

Cheese cake and stout

Cheese cake and stout night was the pairing. Cheese cake is not something I would normally make, as it is made from fake cheese, sugar, and cookies, thus clearly fails the "real food test" miserably. Also I dislike fancy cake type things in general, far too finicky for my tastes. But, a friend asked me nicely. Anyway, I got this pairing from The Brewmasters Table, and I am still not all that sure why it works so well, but it does.

The basics for the pairing are there. That is, the impact of the dish and the beer are generally of the same level. The smooth carbonation clears all the fat and sugar of the tongue, which is critical here. Also there is little hop aroma in the style, which would probably interfere with the flavors here. The chocolate sauce on top of the cake matched to toasted malts in the beer as well. But, it still seems like a weird pairing to me for some reason. Still glad the book provided me with yet another good pairing, and as my first serious pairing of desert and beer, I was quite happy with the result.

Beer steamed mussels

Last night was mussels steamed in beer sauce. I had been wanting to do this one for a while, but just now got around to it. The dish is quite easy to make, but tastes wonderful, and looks like it should be on the front of a cook book. For starters I made oven fries, and edamame as well. Tried a wide variety of beers actually. Most of them were from Minamishinshu. Not great but solid beers, I especially liked the hefeweizen, and the amber worked quite well as the base for the steaming. The shop is my favorite local beer shop Iseya.

Basic procedure

1. Take basic aromatic veggies , and spices and sweat them in a pan
2. Then  add the mussels and beer, keep on med-high heat, until they open up.
3. shut off the heat and add some garnish/flavor type spices.

Example Ingredients

1. Onions, Garlic, Tomatoes
2. Minamishinshu amber
3. Scallions, Red Pepper, Parsley

2 temaki and 3 beers

Last night I was feeling like some fish. I was expecting the pairing to be quite difficult, envisioning my dinning parter saying "やっぱりお寿司には日本酒だね”　or some thing to that effect. But in actually the paring was much easier for a couple of reasons. First temaki, unlike sushi is wrapped in seaweed, and I used brown rice, as opposed to the sickly looking white variety. Both of these factors added some robustness to the dish. For the fillings we had two kinds, one with Tuna and wasabi, and one with Katsuo, negi, and ginger. So in hind sight temaki was a great choice because it is more complex in flavor and because its less fussy, more fun than regular sushi,

The surprising winner pairing of the night was the Anchor Steam Beer. None of the pairings were bad but the Weihenstephan (A german weissbier) added some sweetness to the dish that seemed out of place, and the Yona Yona was delicious but to heavy for the dish. The steam beer was light enough to match the impact of the temaki, had some of the same nutty, earthy flavors present in the temakis rice and seaweed, and a low bitterness to cut through its slight fat and spiciness. All and all a thoroughly satisfying dinner. Next time Id like to try some different combinations of fish and topics paired with some of the good Japanese rice beers, such as Miyama blond.

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Temaki Sushi ( for 2)

1. Make rice ( 1 cup of brown rice with 2 cups of water worked for me)

2. Cut up fillings ( Look to classic sushi combinations for inspiration, or go with what looks freshest at the store)

3. Mix rice with vinegar mixture (Roughly 1 cup vinegar 1/4 cup sugar or honey or something sweet)

3. Spread rice on seaweed (best place to put it is in the section which will become the innermost section when rolled up, easier tried then explained)

4. Add other ingredients on top of rice

5. Wrap up into a cone and eat (mmmm)

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Grilled salmon and Moinette

Last nights dinner with a friend near Ikebukuro, Grilled Salmon with a salad of assorted greens. Paired the dish with Moinette from Dupont. Got the idea from the inspiring and useful book The Brewmasters Table by Garrett Oliver of Brooklyn Brewery.


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Salmon

1. Buy good looking salmon
2. Rub Salmon with salt and pepper
3. Grill lightly

Salad

1. Buy good looking green vegetables
2. Combine Olive oil and Balsamic Vinegar at roughly 3/1 ratio
3. Add dressing (2) to salad (1)

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Of course, for the Salmon I would suggest rock salt, freshly ground pepper, and a wedge of lemon squeezed over before and after cooking. Maybe some paprika? For the salad I would add some spices such as salt, pepper, basil, oregano, paprika, perhaps some mustard and a dash of brown sugar.But feel free to ignore these directions is they detract from the simplicy of the dish for you. Or better yet play around with it and come up with your own additions. Thats what cooking is about.

My ranty suggestions. First, when buying ingredients trust your senses. Iceberg lettuce has virtually no smell and is vaguely greenish white ball. Thus its going to taste like that. Don't buy it. On the other hand that deep green spinach or those bizarre greens with crazy smells? Those are gonna taste interesting and make for a tasty meal. Second, whenever possible make stuff yourself. Making olive oil is out of the reach of most of us, but thats ok because it already has only a few ingredients. On the other hand, store bought marinades, salad dressings, are full of all sorts of scientific ingredients that are designed to keep "food" tasting exactly the same for ever, shallow and fake. So just make a quick dressing. It will taste better, save you money, and ultimately make you feel better.

Hello World

Hello world,

Thank you for taking the time to looks at my blog. This is the beginning of a journey for me, and if I succeed others as well. The purpose of this blog is to show, by example that life-changingly good culinary experiences and easy, exciting, healthy, reasonable, and thoroughly worth while. I believe that food, cooking, and brewing can, and should be taken to complex artisanal heights. I also believe that eating, drinking, and cooking are fundamental human activities that any one can do reasonably well, thought too much hassle and without worry. To put it another way, any one can have amazing culinary experiences, without being rich, or a trained chief. Furthermore I believe that by engaging in these activities cooking, eating, drinking, the world can, in a small way, become a much better place, and I intend to prove this.