Night Market Fever

Checked out the Night Market at Tasker and Passyunk. It has been written up here and much hyped throughout the philadelphia food blogoverse. I'm not as down on the outcome as some commenters seem to be. While I definitely think there is room for improvement (serving size, price point, lines, running out of booze/charging too much for booze) there was also so much good to take away from it all. Most impressive: the mass of people what came out on a school night for an event that focused on promoting local food businesses. The walk from the BSL to the Sinatra fountain felt a little like the walk from AT&T Station (nee Pattison) to Citizens Bank Park (minus the corporate sponsorship). One final thought: The Food Trust should make this a regular event. Great European cities have outdoor night markets all year - even through the winter months. We can do it too! Philadelphia obviously wants - NO! NEEDS - more night markets.

Intriguing

Is "great southern food" the new concept for the Khyber?

As seen on Craigslist.

baking with beer yeast

Martin Lersch at Khymos.org has a cool post on using hefeweizen yeast for bread-baking. It's inspiring me to get back to baking, now that fall is approaching. Martin found that beer yeast didn't change the flavor of the bread in any appreciable way. I think I'll try substituting some fermented beer for the liquid ratios in my next loaf -- I'm thinking rye bread made with our rye pale ale.

crawl before you walk

My friend Lou (not Barlow, see infra) and I are doing a little beer-focused bar crawl through Philly tomorrow. I may or may not send twitter updates. Keep an eye on the widget to your right. (Prediction: like this blog, updates will start off strong and then become sleepy.)

If all goes according to plan, we will find ourselves at Johnny Brenda's in time to enjoy the last of their Pils Picnic before heading upstairs for Wye Oak (below, covering the Kinks) and Lou Barlow.

Wye Oak covers The Kinks

Belly

At Whole Foods today, I noticed some lovely slabs of fresh pork belly in the butcher's case. Since they rarely carry fresh belly, I took this as an omen that it was time to cure some bacon.

The pork was from Simply Grazin' Farm in Hopewell, NJ. The skin had already been removed and the belly cut into smaller slabs, but the overall quality of the meat and the lean-to-fat ratio looked ideal. (You'll have to take my word for it, because I forgot to snap a photo of the pork after I unwrapped it.)

I used the savory bacon recipe from Charcuterie, by Michael Ruhlman & Brian Polcyn (a version was published in the NYT a few years ago).

My pantry and garden yielded a few additions to the basic recipe. Pictured above, clockwise from top left, are coriander seed, herbs (thyme, bay leaf, rosemary), black and pink peppercorns, dry cure mixture (kosher salt, sugar and pink salt), garlic and brown sugar.

I toasted the coriander seeds and peppercorns prior to cracking them with a mortar & pestle. The fragrant coriander reminded me of Froot Loops cereal when I cracked the seeds.

After crushing the garlic and tearing up the herbs, I mixed all of the cure ingredients with the pork belly in a 2-gallon Ziploc bag, shaking the bag until the meat was well-coated on all sides.

It will cure in the fridge for the next week or so, at which point I will smoke it over apple or pecan wood. Something to look forward to...

Handmade Memphis

i'll be selling some wares at "thee most righteous" memphis taproom's handmade market this saturday from 11am - 3pm. the taproom is located at memphis and cumberland streets in the richmond section of philadelphia. if you've never been they have some awesome food and a great/ever changing beer selection. buy art & drink beer. thats a good proposition for a saturday.

hope to see you there!

Go on, you deserve it

You and your liver have been working hard for Beer Week. You should treat yourself to the Three Pigs in Blankets on the Memphis Taproom's brunch menu: hearty pork sausages robed in puff pastry, served with spicy house-made maple mustard. So good.

It don't hurt that their No-Repeat Beer Week is still going strong... beers on today include Lost Abbey Serpent Stout and Coronado Idiot IPA, both worthy pairings with the aforementioned pigs.