The vintage travel poster aesthetic is rad… but a trip to Belize for Chocolate Week is even rad-er-er. Email them (chocolateweek@mastbrothers.com) for more info.
Buffalo Trace Distillery started a project over a decade ago to explore the influence of barrel aging variables on their already top notched bourbon. Using 192 unique sections harvested from 150 year-old oak trees from the Ozarks, this Kentucky whiskey house got serious about pursuing a grand experiment.
The project is now in full swing, with tastings at select locations across the United States. Lucky for us here in San Diego, Buffalo Trace included Starlite on that list and we’ll be there for a special tasting next week to kick things off. With a celebrated interior by Bells & Whistles and our favorite Kentucky Colonel in town, we couldn’t think of a better spot for this tasting to go down.
Learn more about the Single Oak Project, and look for a recap of the tasting on the Mother Sponge blog next week!
One of my clients (El Take It Easy) is hosting a special dinner each month in collaboration with local cultural notables who are also vegan. The series is aptly named “Veganized.”
I got to help out with this month’s dinner, which will be hosted by the prolific artist Acamonchi (who painted the pedicab in the photo above). The artist will share some of his latest paintings, and join the rest of us in enjoying a three-course meal featuring produce from Suzie’s Farm. El Take It Easy also has phenomenal cocktails and an extensive list of mezcals.
The dinner is tonight, Wed. 1/11 at 5pm. Hope you can make it!
A COUPLE FACTS:
- San Diego County leads the nation in small family farms practicing organic methods.
- Apparently, the Seeds@City program at San Diego City College is the only high learning institution in San Diego County offering a degree in sustainable agriculture.
Seeds@City wants to add more staff to manage already available land, offer more classes, grow the program, and in-turn educate more future farmers and food entrepreneurs. But with recent cuts in education funding, the program must become more self-sufficient.
THE PROPOSAL:
Become a nursery for urban food producers.
THE PLAN:
Seeds@City aims to build a greenhouse that will generate ongoing revenue through a CSA-style (Community Supported Agriculture) program producing plant starters for urban farmers across the city. With some collective investment from the community, Seeds@City will be able to build the greenhouse and gain more financial independence by which to grow the program.
YOUR PART:
You can support this project at any level, whether you are growing tomatoes at home, selling pickles at a farmers market, or running a restaurant featuring local food. Check out their Kickstarter page to get on board.
My family has a new holiday tradition that we’ve enjoyed the last couple years – Christmas pizza! This year we took some inspiration from the famous Trappist beers of Belgium and the Netherlands. Here’s a little recap from the Mother Sponge holiday baking laboratory…
Instead of a wild yeasted sourdough starter (A.K.A. the “mother sponge”), I infused the dough with some Trappist Ale Yeast from White Labs.
A lazy pizzaiolo’s best friend, the stand mixer.
Shaping the dough balls. We made three 10″ pies per the Cheeseboard Collective Works recipe… gotta make sure we had plenty of leftovers.
The dough was more dense than my usual sourdough mix… the yeast probably needed more time to get the dough to rise. Next time I’ll make a new starter with the Trappist yeast and give it plenty of time to reach full strength.
Tossing the pies! The dough may have not risen as much as I would have liked, but it made stretching and tossing the dough really easy.
Our favorite family recipe is a “New Mexican” pie, with roasted poblano chiles, corn, pine nuts, goat cheese, mozzarella, and cilantro. Nothing like 70 degree San Diego weather for a camp stove session on the front porch!
We don’t have a wood fired oven (yet!), but a pizza stone helps to finish the bottom of the pie to get a nice balance of crispy and chewy. If you were curious, that beautiful tea kettle was designed by Sori Yanagi, and you can get one at Halcyon Tea in South Park (it’s our workhorse for tea & coffee).
The Cheeseboard usually tops their pizzas with Italian parsley, but the New Mexican pizza calls for something more complimentary to roasted chiles, and cilantro delivers.
Here’s one of the pies, fresh outta the oven. Much thinner and mild than my usual tangy sourdough, but still incredibly tasty. That bottle of Chimay Grande Reserve snuck into this meal through mere coincidence as a stocking stuffer, but rounded out our Trappist inspired Christmas feast beautifully.
The finishing table, where the pies were showered with fresh chopped cilantro, avocado oil (from Bella Vado), and kosher salt.
A big thanks to White Labs for providing the yeast for this experiment! If you brew beer at home (or wine), check them out. We’ll report back when we try a few of their liquid yeasts for more baking and homebrewing adventures in 2012.
From our family to yours… we hope you’ve had a scrumptious holiday thus far. Cheers to a tasty New Year!
Photos courtesy of Stacy Kelley.
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