new glarus brewery, wisconsin

If you ever end up in Madison, Wisconsin with a couple hours to kill, go here. New Glarus Brewery is in (duh) New Glarus, which is about 20 miles southof Madison. If you are from California, it is almost just like Solvang, except instead of being a Danish tourist trap, its Swiss. Therefore, almost every building/hotel/restaurant is really tacky and named "Pumple's Olde Tavern" or something like that. They are also obsessed with painting plastic cows.

There is a gem though, and that is New Glarus Brewery. It is situated in rolling green hills about 7 minutes down the road from the main part of the town. When you go there, you can pay a few bucks and do 4 tastings. My favorite is definitely the Raspberry Tarte , the Belgian Red ale is also amazing, which is made with local Door county cherries. Their other famous ones are the Spotted Cow and Fat Squirrel, which are both solid beers. You can go on a self-guided tour of the brewery, which is shiny and very clean. The best part is watching the guy fill kegs, because it looks really funny. New Glarus is one of my favorite breweries that I have been to because it is really beautiful to sit on their patio and overlook the driftless zone of Wisconsin. Also, it was the first craft brewery to be opened by women! woo hoo!

"beer has dispelled the illness which was in me"

So last week, there was a great reunion of both parts of c and c in New York. Landing on monday, I naturally made Crystal go with me 3 hours later to the Brooklyn Brewery in Williamsburg. We took their tour, which is $8 per person, and is very worth it, as you get to taste almost all the beers that they have on tap, some of which never leave the brewery. Crystal's favorite was their summer seasonal, the "Summer Ale". It was really light, and would be perfect for a hot day, as it was that day, and pretty much the whole time in New York. My favorite was their current "Brewmaster's Reserve", "The Concoction". The brewmaster'sreserve is a beer that Brooklyn Brewery produces that is only available for a short time, on tap, only at the brewery. This particular one was very potently gingery, and there is almost no way you could drink more than one bottle as it was so flavorful. Almost too flavorful, but it was really good to me. I think our tour guide said he hated it. Oh well, more for me!

Then we went on the tour, where what we saw was what is pretty much your standard craft brewery. They weren't bottling that day, so there was none of the cool whizzing equipment that you see at a brewery that was up and running. After the tour, you can go back to the bar, and with "tokens" that you buy from them, you can purchase beers and hang out for an hour before they let the regular joes in again.

City of Politics, Government and Great Food

Hello C&C LA Followers!

Thank you for your interest in our D.C. Edition of great, affordable eats. We have two days, two legs, and two stomachs to fill ourselves with 14 places.

Hey, we’re determined people! It’s not about the size of your stomach that allows you to eat, it’s your advantageous muscles that help you digest (says the Japanese world renown contesterTakeru Koboyashi hot dog eater). Well. We are going to take you up on that Takeru!

Here are the list of savory places:

We were very surprised by the wide variety of cuisines offered at our nation's capital. We discovered lots of Ethiopian and Korean eateries and a few sprinkles of Indian, Middle Eastern and Soul food. As we know, Maryland is the home of Dungeness crab legs so we were expecting more seafood. There are a few here and there so we’re going to visit Red Hook Lobster Pound and the Maine Avenue Fish Market.

D.C. is not only Obama’s playground, but college students as well. We see on Yelp there are quite a few food trucks so we will tune you in on Facebook and Twitter with some ratings.

D.C, I hope you’re ready for our taste buds!

With Food and Love <3,

C & C D.C.

Ricotta Chocolate Chunk Cookies

So, we ended up with having about six pounds of ricotta cheese in our house, all at once...it happens. Therefore, I was willing to try and recipe that had ricotta in it, especially if it wasn't lasagna. This recipe was good too, because I could therefore give the cookies away to people that had sent me grad presents. Hopefully they like ricotta, but the flavor is not really there, its mainly for the nice puffy-ness that these cookies get. Putting them in the freezer also makes them more puffy instead of getting flat when you cook them. Try them out if you one day also have tons of ricotta to use!

Adapted from La Kocinera

1 cup whole-milk ricotta cheese

1/2 stick unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 egg

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 bar dark chocolate

1/2 cup dried cranberries

In a large bowl, combine the ricotta cheese, butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar, whipping until well blended and slightly fluffy. Mix in the egg and vanilla.

To the wet mixture, add the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt, mixing well to combine. Take a sharp knife and cut up the chocolate bar into smallish hunks. To this mixture, add the chocolate bar chunks and cranberries (or any dried fruit you like), again stirring until well blended.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place in the freezer for 20 minutes. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Once chilled, form the cookies into balls (about the size of golf balls) and put them on the greased cookie sheet, or as I used, a Silpat (which you don't have to grease). Cook them for about 14 minutes, maybe a little more, depending on your oven. I cooked them for seven minutes and then rotated the cookies sheet so that the ones in the back didn't get too brown, then put them back in for 8 more minutes. There will be about 24 cookies.

Father's Day special

What to serve to the dad that loves all things lemon? Well a lemon brunch, of course! I'm thinking lemon waffles or pancakes, and then later of course a lemon dessert! Yum! Lemon cocktails, perhaps?

Look's like it'll be lemon meringue pie! This is dad's favorite kind of pie, and I have never tried making it before...

I borrowed Martha Stewart's pie recipe, from her 1985 edition of "Pies and Tarts"

AMERICAN CAKE

I made this cake for our last quarterly party. Yes, its true usually at keg parties there is not cake provided, but I always hate being disappointed by the fact that cake and keg sound vaguely familiar...therefore, the america cake!

Vanilla Lime Poundcake: adapted from here

• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 eggs
• 2 limes, zest and juice
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Lightly grease and flour a standard 9-inch loaf pan. Set aside. Or, if you want to make the flag cake, use a rectangular pan that's a little bit bigger.

In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition. Add the lime zest, lime juice, and vanilla extract.

Meanwhile, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the creamed mixture. Stir until the dry ingredients are just incorporated. Note, you can add baking soda (1/2 tsp) if you want it to be a little bit fluffier. However, this makes it pretty poofy at first, so do not be alarmed.

Transfer the batter to the prepared pan, smoothing the top. Bake for 60 – 65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean (or with a few wet crumbs). Let the cake cool in the pan for 5 – 10 minutes. Then, take the cake out of the pan and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before slicing.

Strawberry Rhubarb Galette

coming soon...

AVOCADO GELATO

coming soon...

BEER FEST 2011

Oh dear, when you pay $43.56 to go to an all you can drink beer fest, well, the results aren't pretty. Being cheap, as well as a beer fanatic, I was darn well going to drink $43 worth of beer. Let's just keep it at that.

Winners of the beer fest, in my book was the Raging Bitch by Flying Dog brewery. I don't really like IPA's that much, and so I never really tried this one before. Sure, you can buy it anywhere, but here I got to try it and I really did like it. I guess that's because its a "belgian style" IPA, and since I love belgians, I liked this too.

I also tried Blast...this is like the new Four Loko that Snoop Dogg is promoting. It tastes like caffeine laced jungle juice because that's exactly what it is. It has a 12% abv and comes in four flavors: strawberry lemonade, blueberry pomegranate, grape (purple!) and raspberry watermelon. My prediction: it will sell wildly at small gas stations and some 7-11's until it is pulled off the market in 9-12 months. You heard it here first.

ARTISINAL LA

creme caramel la

Today we went to Artisianal LA at the Santa Monica Place mall. There we so many wonderful things! Wow!

It was $15 at the door and well worth every penny, here are some of the highlights:

VeeV acai vodka: They made this amazing drink with lemonade. Very light and refreshing, and I would definitely drink it again. It would be perfect for a beach party, I wish that they gave me the recipe! Oh wait, here it is:

Skinny Acai Lemonade

1 and 1/4 ounces VeeV Acai spirit

2 lemon wedges, squeezed

1/2 ounce agave nectar or simple syrup

club soda

spring of mint or basil

Creme Caramel LA: their creme caramel (like a French Flan) is delicious, but their bread pudding was amazing! there were some pretty unique flavors, but I think that I liked the original the best.

Soladad Goats: oh goat cheese, you will never do me wrong. This is delicious! They served it on French bread with some orange marmalade, and it was so good. I mean, that is basically my favorite food anyways, so how could I not want to buy all their products?

Plush Puffs: Okay, usually, I'm pretty okay about marshmallows. Plus, their not even vegetarian. But these, well, these are not your jet-puffed whatevers from your childhood. The caramel swirl one! Yummy! They even had little sterno cans where we could roast them before sampling. How could you not love them?

Gotta Have S'More: ever wanted a cupcake and a s'more? Were you truly unable to choose between them, leading to a mental breakdown. Well look no further! These were delicious little s'mores in cupcake form, gram cracker bottom and all. There is chocolate and caramel to choose from, I like the caramel better!

Green Leaf Chop Shop: this place is all about the basil pesto dressing. That is what you should get from there, and you should get it right now. You will get this, and want to put it on everything. You might gain 80 lbs, but I am not responsible for this.

The Olive Press: there are a lot of olive oil options out there. there are even a lot of amazing options out there. This place is delicious, but that's not really the point here. The read reason this place stands out is that they will let you refill your containers for 1/2 the price! And not just the bottle that you bought from them, but any glass container! just bring it to the farmer's market, like the Brentwood one on Sundays, and they will fill you up with their remarkably delicious olive oil. Do it! Its sustainable!

Le Bon Garcon: their salty caramels are the best. They offer macadamia nut as well, but the salty caramel is where its at, for sure.

All Spice Cafe: I have seen some of their sauces at Whole Foods, but I've never bought them. I will now! The guys are super nice and friendly, and their ghost-pepper infused jam is amazing! ya, it sounds intense but its soo good.

Crust: crust, by Stephanie Jane is good, but there are a lot of pie places out there. Why is crust different? because Stephanie Jane is adorable and decorates her booth like a old fashioned county fair. Therefore, I will quickly hand her my money and buy her addictive cracker brittle and individual little pocket pies. Mini pies! what could be cuter?

San Angel Mole: Mole! I love mole, but I am a vegetarian. Therefore, my mole experience has been relegated to only liking the sauce off the plates of my dining companions. I don't get why they only make chicken mole, so its seems. Anyway, this company has come to my rescue in the mole department, because they have 2 kinds and they are both delicious. I like the black mole the best. You can buy it at Whole Foods in some places, but they were not clear which ones. However, you can definitely buy it at the Bristol Farms in Westwood. Hurray!

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AVOCADO TAKEDOWN SPECIAL

I made this recipe for the avocado takedown in Los Angeles this Sunday. I got asked quite a bit for the recipe, so here it is. I hope that the people looking for it can find it! I made this recipe x 6 for the competition, but the normal version is here for everyday use.

Kennedy Family Guacamole

adapted from Diana Kennedy, Epicurious

1/3 cup white onions, finely chopped
3 to 4 serrano chiles, finely chopped, with seeds
1 teaspoon coarse salt
2 pounds ripe California avocadoes (about 4 large)
2 to 3 tablespoons fresh lime juice
3/4 cup fuji apples, peeled and finely chopped
3/4 cup seedless grapes, halved
3/4 cup pomegranate seeds

In your food processor, grind onion, chiles, and salt all together, until it forms this spicy slushy mix. Gradually add the avocado, coarsely mashing it (you'll want it to be chunky). Stir in the lime juice. Fold in the apple, grapes, and 1/2 cup of the pomegranate seeds. Sprinkle the rest of the pomegranate seeds on the top so that it looks really pretty when you serve it. This is also delicious with pears instead of the apples, depending on what looks best when you are at the market.

BEST CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

Best may seem like an overstatement, but these are really good. Normally, I don't just crave chocolate chip cookies, but these are great. The recipe is from Epicurious, via Carla Rollins.

Ingredients:

3 cups flour

1 and 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 and 1/2 teaspoons salt

2 sticks of butter, melted and slightly cooled

1 and 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar

1 cup white granulated sugar

3 large eggs

1 and 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

2 and 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees, and make sure that your rack is in the middle.

Next, mix together flour, salt, and baking soda in a little bowl. Set it aside. Get a big bowl and mix together the melted and cooled off butter with both the sugars. Use an electric mixer to beat the sugars and the butter together until it is really light and fluffy. It will also get lighter in color too. Then, add in the eggs, one at a time. The original recipe said to use only part of the first egg, but then, I didn't really feel like wasting part of the egg, so I just put it all in after beating it lightly. So then you mix all the eggs in, and then you add in all the vanilla. Mix that well, and then slowly mix in the flour mixture. Don't mix it all too much. Then stir in by hand all the chocolate chips.

So when you go to put them on your greased cookie sheet, make the cookies really small. Because they WILL expand to become MONSTER cookies! But, if you are in the mood for only one cookie, and would like to make it a good one, well then, go ahead and make it regular size and then it will come out and be the size of your hand. So delicious...

Cook them for 15 minutes, ish, but watch them cause a couple trays came out a little too crispy.

UMAMI BURGER

Umami Burger is a much hyped burger joint with several locations around LA. After a failed attempt to go to Santa Monica Umami Burger with a group of 8, we decided to take a smaller part of 4 to the new location in the Valley. So, we arrived at 6:30 and got awesome street parking on Ventura Blvd. Others might not be so lucky, but it works for now. After putting in our name, we were told that the wait would be approx. 30 ish minutes. My clever friend pointed out that we should go next door to the Mexican cantina there, which I reccommend for anyone who is waiting for Umami Burger there before 7pm, as they have a great happy hour margarita deal, and they give you really tasty chips. The other place is called Mexicali Cocina Cantina. They also have some sort of Monday deal which I think I might go back and try.

So finally, we get into Umami Burger. Problem #1: table situation. The chairs facing the booths are cute, they look like red king chairs, so the two men in the group felt like big men, all sitting in their throne chairs. However, for the ladies sitting on the benches, there was really no way to get up from the table besides making your friend next to you get up from her seat, if you were unlucky enough to sit next to the side of the table that was about 2.5 inches away from the neighbors' table. Problem.

So we order the Dirty Shirley cocktail. Like a shirley temple, but for adults. Bubble Up, Cherry Vodka. Okay, fairly good drink. Bubble Up is some sort of fake vintage soda, but just as bad for you as Seven Up, so I don't really know why they use it at Umami Burger other than the fact that it is probably more expensive. We order the Onion Rings, Sweet Potato Fries, and twice fried potatoes. For the main, I get the Umami Burger, portabella version. The best was the onion rings. They were really good, but I mean, they're deep fried onions! You have to really try to mess those up, so whatever there. Not the best I've had, ever. Sweet potato fries were a bust. They covered them in brown sugar. Made them way too sweet. There was about a quarter cup of brown sugar left in the dish after all the fries were gone. The twice fried potatoes looked bad but were actually good. But, there isn't really that much that was notable. The burger definitely has a different taste. Good. Solid burger but, I don't know. No one's jaw was dropping to the floor here about how AWESOME they were. I think the whole business is overhyped.

NIZAM INDIAN

We went for the lunch buffet. At $7.95 per person, its around $2 less than the other indian buffets on Westwood and the surrounding area. There seem to be a lot of them around here. However, you kinda get what you pay for. Usually we go to New India Grill, which is always really really good. The food here was good, but there was less variety, and their spicy pickled veggies were not quite spicy enough for my liking. New India Grill usually has these whole garlic chunks in it that are sooo good. Also, the naan situation. At New India, we usually get like 3 baskets of naan because while I love like actual indian dishes, I love naan even more, especially when I get to have unlimited amounts of it. At Nizam, they give you one basket, and then it costs more for extra, so I think. The waiter was a little unclear. I mean, they gave us a second basket and I asked him if it was extra, and he said yes. And then I said nevermind then, but then they didn't charge us. I just don't like having to give up any naan. I think we will stick to New India. Also, there was a more limited variety of dishes than there usually are at New India. I think we decided that next time we will try Jaipur, which is across the street from Nizam.

MALIBU WINES

BF and I went to Malibu wines last weekend to do a wine tasting. Its beautiful there! We were luckily able to sample all their wines at the outdoor tasting room. It was very crowded on this Sunday, so it was difficult to find a place at the counter to sample wines. However, once we were able to, it was really a delicious experience. We got to try their sweet orange Muscat, which was very light and refreshing, but we ended up coming home with a bottle of the Saddle Rock 2005 cabernet. If you buy a bottle of their wine, bring some snacks and some good friends, this is a really pretty place to sit and chat in the sunshine, sitting around their rustic tables. The drive up is really pretty too, and you get to drive on PCH all the way home if you live on the westside. Something everyone should do once in a while when they need a break from the normal weekend routine.