Two Beer Queers is a podcast about beer, from Hawaii. These guys have a great balance of raunch and refinement–they take their beer very seriously, but get in plenty of off-color silliness as they pour, observe, sniff and drink(chug!) each brew.
Hosts Bully O’Sullivan and Russel Kealoha taste test all the oddball beers that I would like to try, if I weren’t reaching for familiar brands. Even tho I consider myself a discriminating beer-drinker, the beers featured on this show make me want to challenge my palate.
I really love how the Two Beer Queers keep in mind the masses of BudLight and Heinekin drinkers, constantly encouraging everyone to try something new. At the same time, they let us live vicariously through them, since my wallet already knows that a $13 bottle of stout is not gonna happen anytime soon! I can’t imagine what a 20-something(??) oz beer would have to have in it for it to be worth so much. Breastmilk? Miracle anti-oxidants? sheeeeeit. But watching you drink it is fine with me, 10% ABV would put me down too quick anyway.
Cheers, fellas! I am officially a fan. Keep up the good work!
Carousel Candyland in Kahala Mall is the only place in Hawaii with a reliable source of black licorice and most importantly, the salty salmiak kind. Above are the four strong ones they had earlier this week.
The kitty kat one is very mild and sweet with a hard, gummi texture but sort of a waxy, shell coating. The diamond and the coin are Dutch, very salty. Both are usually chewy, but unfortunately this double salt coin is hard and stale. The lil gumdrop is somewhere in the middle flavor-wise, sweet but with a definite tang.
It seemed like a practical move when I quit drinking coffee; it wasn’t for health reasons that I did it. I had no idea I was so strung out. If I had known from the beginning how caffeine withdrawal feels, I probably wouldn’t have made the switch. Come to find out Caffeine Withdrawal Is Real.
My cracked French press carafe had finally broken, buying coffee every day was costing over $40/month and I had like 3 lbs of this yerba mate stuff that someone had given me, just sitting in the cupboard. I figured it’d be like drinking coffee, which it wasnt.
First I subbed yerba mate in for coffee on the weekends, when walking to the corner cafe for a drink to enjoy at home began to seem ridiculous. After a couple weeks I took some into work and started drinking it there during the week, fully switched off coffee.
The tiredness I felt at first was expected, but I didn’t get any headaches or think that I would. Around day 3 I started developing flu-like symptoms. It could have been a very mild flu, but the sore throat and mucus never got overwhelming and I was working, working out, eating healthy, all better than normal.
At the start of week two, I experienced body aches so severe that they woke me out of my sleep. Pain bowled up and down my body between my knee and my waist, mostly on the left side and in my hips. I’d experienced something similar while fasting, which not incidentally, was the last time I’d ever abstained from coffee for more than a day or two. That passed in about 3 days.
Now I’m on week three with no coffee and am feeling much better, more alert, no aches & pains, other symptoms fully gone. I still take caffeine; some of the yerba mate I have is a blend that includes green tea, and I’ve had other teas and soda. It’s not like I’ll never have a good cup of coffee again, but now that I know how fully addicted I was, I’ll try to take it easy.
And even tho I make yerba mate wrong (through a tea strainer into a coffee cup), I look forward to learning more about it and tea in general. (I’ll just go ahead and ignore this story from Finland about coffee lowering the risk of liver cancer.)
Eating cheesecake and sampling cocktails, yeah, I know, I make it look easy. But the painstaking hours of research paid off because both these articles look good enough to eat. And drink.
A Sergio Goes photo takes full page in the Hana Hou piece and the four (count em, 4!) pages in HI Luxury include a shot of my girl Chia making a sour face while muddling limes. haha.
According to this urban legend/recipe, if you can boil water, you can make an omelet. All you need is a couple eggs, the chopped-up ingredients you want in your omelet, and a quart size Ziploc baggie (same size they want to see your toiletries in when you fly).
The recipe has apparently been circulating on the interweb for some time:
Crack 2 eggs (large or extra-large) into the quart size Ziploc bag (not more than 2) and shake to combine them. Put in a variety of ingredients such as: cheeses, ham, onion, green pepper, tomato, hash browns, salsa, etc.
Make sure to get the air out of the bag and zip it up. Place the bag(s) into rolling, boiling water for exactly 13 minutes. You can usually cook 6-8 omelets in a large pot.
Open the bags and the omelet will roll out easily.
Because I’ve never successfully made an omelet–it turns into scrambled eggs every.single.time–I knew I had to try this. “But is it safe?” was my nagging, second thought. After googling around, I’m pretty sure the short answer is no, not really. That’s why you don’t do it every day. Just like you don’t microwave your leftovers in Tupperware and don’t drink from plastic water bottles every day…. right?
So anyway, I didn’t take pictures of the process, but I tried this with olives, tomatoes and mushrooms inside and came out with the fluffiest, most cohesive omelet I have ever made! tah-dah!
Only one minor mishap: the bottom of the baggie split open at the end of the cooking time, and the eggs got a little soggy. Maybe cuz I used generic Ziplocs? Some sites recommend the freezer baggies, but I don’t buy those in that size so, whatever. My toxic omelet had a deformed lump on the side because I cooked it with part of the baggie under the lid of the pot in an effort to keep it from touching the bottom. Next time I guess I’ll just put a metal strainer down.
Oh and that purple poo on the side? Potatoes. When I bought em I thought they just had purple skin but they were purple all the way through. Not sweet tho. Fried em up with some onions and rosemary, yes yes.
There are about 282,000 ways to make fried rice and there doesn’t seem to be much consensus on the steps or the ingredients. The more I look around, the more I am convinced that an “anything goes” approach to the dish is just fine.
So last night, pressed for time again and my stomach rumbling, I threw together some shrimp fried rice using what I had on hand. It came out okay, but it was bland. I solved that problem with some hot sauce, but I would rather have the shrimp be more savory.
Next time I’ll do a quick marinade of the shrimp in some kind of garlic/ginger/shoyu sauce and include red pepper or hot sauce while cooking. I’d love to hear how other people make it… holla at me in the comments if you have suggestions?
I did use Jasmine brown rice instead of traditional white rice (no, please, keep reading!). And I really messed up because I added the egg to the same pan as the rice (doh!), which coated the rice and looked bleh. Next time I’ll scramble it on its own, set aside, and mix it in at the end. Finally, I didn’t have any green onion, and it was seriously missed.
Global food prices have risen dramatically, adding a new level of danger to the crisis of world hunger…. In the United States there has been a 41 percent surge in prices for wheat, corn, rice and other cereals over the past six months.
I see my grocery bill creeping higher and higher for the same amount of groceries. But I’m also becoming more savvy about wholesome, cheap meals and I feel like blogging about that :~j
I think of myself as a vegetarian with omnivore tendencies–I’d eat anything if I HAD to, most likely, or if it would be especially rude not to, or if I’m just curious about the dish. But I prefer not to for the most part. Officially I’m an ovo-lacto-pescatarian, meaning I will happily consume eggs, dairy and seafood in addition to starches, veggies, fruits and grains. I prefer simple foods.
Popcorn is an amazing food. Kernels of whole grain goodness that pop to unique, tasty shapes. Like snowflakes with substance. It tastes so great all salty and crunchy and chewy and in the case of my recent addiction, coated in white cheddar powder. We were eating it bag by organic bag-full when the “popcorn lung” scare hit mainstream media.
Even tho the scare concerns the ConAgra-fake-buttered type of microwave popcorn and not the heath-food-store-bought version we’d been consuming like popcorn-crazed maniacs, the story did make popcorn suddenly seem a little less wonderful.
This is all you have to do to make your own microwave popcorn.
You’ll need a brown paper lunch sack about 1/4 cup of loose, organic popcorn kernels. Measure the kernels into your bag. Add one teaspoon of olive oil and popcorn salt to taste. Fold the top of the bag and shake gently to mix.
Press most of the air out of the bag. Secure with two staples (they won’t spark in most ovens) or tape loosely, leaving room for steam to vent. Place flat on a microwave-safe plate and heat on a high setting until the pops have slowed down to about three seconds apart. it will take less than four minutes.
Within hours of reading this recipe, I had to try it, and the results were fantastic (see photo). The recipe is extra simple, but can be refined with different proportions, flavors and methods.
