little village

little village
freewheelin' it

Monday, October 25, 2010

Is your beer fresh?

Hello everybody,

I recently figured out the "secret" code stamped on beer revealing the date in which the beer was brewed.  This of course is only relevant to unpasteurized beer.  Pasteurized beer should stay "fresh" for several years.  The cans of Molson Canadian I found in my golf bag from the previous year for instance tasted lovely.

Essentially, the code works like this:

A = January, B = February, C = March and so on and so on.  However there is no "I" therefore December is M.

Next time you're shopping for a box of unpasteurized beer, you might want to check and see when it was brewed.  Lagers stay fresh for about four months and darker beer about five months.  Beer like food is a perishable product where bacteria begins to form after a certain amount of time. It's just not regulated like food is.
I am sure we have all had skunky beer before and you can surely name the usual suspects. Corona, Heineken, Steinlager. Well, these beers for example must travel a long way to get here, hopefully in a refrigerated shipping container and who knows how long the beer was sitting in customs.

Stay thirsty my friends.

With Love,
Theo

Friday, October 1, 2010

Everybody Loves Hummus

Good Day Foodies!

Hummus is a dip or spread that is versatile and nutritious.  Think of using it as a dip for veggies and crispy bread or use it as a condiment to transform a boring sandwich into a healthy super sandie. Here is a recipe for hummus that's quick, easy and of course, delish.

Ingredients:

- 2 19fl. oz. cans of chick peas drained but save the juice from one can
- 5 cloves of garlic
- The juice of 1 1/2 lemons
- 1 heaping dinner spoon of tahini
- 250 ml. olive oil
- 75 ml chick pea juice
- 6-8 two-fingered pinches of salt
- a pinch of pepper

Directions:

Simple. Put all ingredients into a food processor (if you don't have one, you should get one) or blender and blend until smooth. Stop in between a couple of times to scrape the sides with a rubber spatula and fold the hummus like a cake batter to ensure that all the ingredients are well mixed. The finished product should be rich, moist, smooth and have a nice balance of all the ingredients.

With Love,
Theo