Ventura County food, beer bloggers share Thanksgiving recipes
http://www.vcstar.com/news/2012/nov/...share-recipes/
Blogger thanksgiving
By Lisa McKinnon
Roasting pan for the turkey? Check.
Ricer for the mashed potatoes? Check.
Laptop, iPad or smartphone for finding recipes and connecting with friends? Check.
The digital age has changed what — and who — we bring into the kitchen with us when we cook. That seems especially true on Thanksgiving Day, when everyone from the Mayo Clinic to Butterball offers online advice about getting the holiday meal on the table.
Also weighing in: four Ventura County-based bloggers who write about all manner of edible things. Asked to share their thoughts about the biggest meal of the year, they responded with recipes that will take you from preparing the turkey in a brine of seasonal brews to baking pies worthy of licking the dessert plates. Have your Instagram accounts open and ready.
BEER ME!
Curtis Taylor
Already a writer, illustrator and graphic artist, Curtis Taylor of Camarillo added "cicerone" — the beer world's version of a sommelier — to his list of titles after launching Hop Head Said (
http://www.hopheadsaid.com).
The blog, the website and the decision to go through the independent cicerone certification program grew out of Taylor's interest in homebrewing. That interest has since expanded to include "everything beer," he said.
Taylor uses the blog to explore what he called "the geekier side of beer, like beer styles, appropriate beer glassware and homebrewing." Visitors to the site also will find his map of pubs, breweries and tasting rooms from Paso Robles to Calabasas.
But the blog also focuses on food-and-beer pairings — the more unusual, the better. Taylor, who is married and has two children, has written about matching brews with cheeses, chocolates and vegetarian dishes, and about experimenting with beer as an ingredient.
"The most important rule I have learned about cooking with beer is never reduce a hoppy beer," he said. Reducing an American pale ale or India pale ale "only intensifies the bitterness and will make anything cooked with it inedible."
Writing sample: "Firestone Walker is incorporating a Belgian tradition of blending beers ... You will also be allowed to blend their barrel-aged beers from the tap to make your own ..."
Thoughts on Thanksgiving: After moving to California from South Dakota three years ago, Taylor has learned to celebrate with the traditional stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy even when the state's comparatively balmy weather doesn't call for such stick-to-your-ribs fare.
"I can go and eat sushi on Christmas Day, but for some reason I have to have a big turkey on Thanksgiving. It's magnetic," he said with a laugh.
Thanksgiving recipe: Taylor swears by the Tipsy Turkey brine created by Sean Paxton, known in the homebrew community as the Homebrew Chef (
http://www.homebrewchef.com). The results combine two of Taylor's favorite things: "overeating on Thanksgiving, and beer," he said.
IT'S A DATE ...
Christiana Thomas
Christiana Thomas started The Harmonious Kitchen (
http://harmoniouskitchen.wordpress.com) to document her attempts to make meals that are "delicious, fast, healthy — and that stand an outside chance of being eaten by my two vegetable-averse children," she said.
The blog does that, and more.
Entries include an account of what happened on Thanksgiving 2010, when Thomas cooked dinner for 12 people while on crutches.
There are photos of the kitchen remodeling project now under way at the Thousand Oaks home she shares with husband Samuel Thomas, a California Lutheran University professor, and their children, Eleanor, 6, and Cosmo, 4.
And there are recurring posts about how Thomas, a friend and their respective families pooled resources and freezer space when they bought a pig from ReRide Ranch in Lake Hughes and had it butchered by Old Fashion Country Butcher in Santa Paula. (Owner Kent Short recently talked them into trying a whole lamb.)
"I just really love food and writing and the blog has been a wonderful place to practice my skills and to share my enthusiasm for great food with others. I get great feedback from almost everyone, and I am so grateful for that," said Thomas, who is director of communications for the Sisters of Notre Dame in Thousand Oaks.
Writing sample: "You have probably heard the whole thing about not asking how the sausage gets made? Well, I'm here to tell you to just hang that ish up right now because knowing how sausage gets made is downright awesome."
Thoughts on Thanksgiving: "It's such an easy holiday to do well. Make some great food, share love with the people in your life and everything else is gravy," said Thomas.
Thanksgiving recipe: Thomas was a newlywed when she added Martha Stewart's Date and Pear Cornbread Stuffing to her repertoire. "I was really ... hoping that she could shed some light on how to do all sorts of things that I had no clue about at 23, like cooking and decorating and organizing," Thomas said of Stewart. "But as it turns out, I am almost criminally incapable of following recipes precisely. I substituted some things and it was so good that I have never looked back."
CONSTANT CRAVING...
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