Blogged about my homemade hard cider

From LizCrain — Blog by Liz Crain

March 25, 2009

Just want to let the hard cider drinking Culinate crew know that I just posted about this November’s home hard cidery at my house on my blog Food Lover's Guide to Portland.

I wrote about the sourcing, grinding, pressing and initial ferment of the cider. The post got too long with all the photos to cover the bottling, ageing and, finally, the tasting!! All I have to say is we’ll definitely be making our own again next fall. Well worth all the time and effort.

Stephen McCarthy writes a New York Times blog post

From LizCrain — Blog by Liz Crain

March 2, 2009

One of my book blog readers in Pennsylania alerted me to this recent blog post for the New York Time's by Portland's Stephen McCarthy. I think Culinate readers who enjoyed my interview with McCarthy would doubly enjoy his piece...

Please check out Lizcrain.com!

From LizCrain — Blog by Liz Crain

February 9, 2009

My site -- partly devoted to my spring 2010 Sasquatch Books title Food Lover’s Guide to Portland -- just went live. There are still a lot of placeholders in terms of images but the content won’t change too much. Well, the blog will just get bigger and bigger...

I’d love any feedback on it -- I’m most interested in the parts and content that you don’t like.

Thanks everyone!

25 Randoms

From LizCrain — Blog by Liz Crain

February 6, 2009

Thanks to Ivy Manning I just spent more than an hour working on this list of 25 random things about me and food and drink. Somehow I convinced myself that this was work and so it was ok to take time-out at the end of a busy Friday.

I had a really good time WORKING on it and was inspired by all of the touching and funny bits and pieces in hers.

Without further ado...

Random Food:

Continue reading 25 Randoms »

Deceased yeast

From LizCrain — Blog by Liz Crain

January 10, 2009

I’m determined to make some kind of use of the yeasty sediment -- the lees -- left behind from our racked hard cider.

I just read this in Sandor Ellix Katz’s Chelsea Green title -- Wild Fermentation. It applies to wine lees but I’m pretty sure cider lees can be substituted. I don’t know why not:

“When you rack and bottle wines, you are left with yeasty sediment at the bottom of the fermenting vessel. This sediment is not pretty, so generally it is not bottled or served. But all the deceased yeast is full of B vitamins. If you’ve ever used nutritional yeast, it is essentially the same thing as this.

Continue reading Deceased yeast »

Rack it!

From LizCrain — Blog by Liz Crain

January 10, 2009

Today I racked off our hard cider into a clean carboy. More importantly I got to try it for the first time since the early November press. The verdict: it tastes great! I am a little surprised to be honest. I’ve talked to a fair few local cider makers professional and otherwise and most agree that a good hard cider is the result of an interesting medley of apples. We used one type AND it was a fairly sweet fresh eat heritage red. Typically hard cider is made from a majority of tannic, sour and not-so-good-to-eat-fresh apples.

Continue reading Rack it! »

Dreaming of gravy boats

From LizCrain — Blog by Liz Crain

December 8, 2008

The thought of dealing with all the edible Thanksgiving surplus was enough to send Tyler to the Land of Nod.

They caught it!!

From LizCrain — Blog by Liz Crain

December 7, 2008

Another great Thanksgiving potluck. Tyler cooked the turkey outside in the oven he built a couple years ago. For now we wrap the bird in lots of foil because the flames are so close but he’s redesigning the oven for more ambient/less direct heat. I made garlic cheese grits, standard and vegan stuffing with wheat sourdough lots of local butter (oil for the vegan one) and herbs from the front yard, and cheese breads -- party rye topped with a mozzarella, parmesan, minced onion and mayonnaise spread and broiled. Others dishes on the table: broiled brussels sprouts, Tofurky and roasted carrots, green beans, salad, plum and pumpkin pies.

Continue reading They caught it!! »