In their November 2009 edition, GRID featured a recipe for Barley Pilaf Stuffed Squash by Tara Mataraza Desmond. I didn’t have all of the ingredients on hand, so I made up my own version of the recipe and it turned out great! Here’s my interpretation:

2 small butternut squash, halved and seeds removed
1 T. olive oil
6-8 white mushrooms (or other small mushrooms), finely diced
1/2 c. short grain brown rice
1/2 c. beef broth
1/2 c. water
4 oz. sweet Italian sausage
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 small shallot, minced
1 T. chopped fresh sage (about 4 large leaves)
1/4 c. dried cranberries, chopped
2 T. balsamic vinegar
sea salt and fresh ground black pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
2. Rub insides of squash with 1 T. oil, season with salt and pepper, and place cut side down in a large roasting pan. Roast 45 minutes to 1 hour, until squash is tender.
3. While squash is cooking, combine rice, beef broth, and water in a small saucepan. Heat to boiling over medium-high heat, then reduce heat to low and simmer until all the liquid is absorbed (about 40 minutes).
4. When rice is almost finished cooking, remove sausage casings and brown loose sausage in a skillet over medium heat, breaking apart sausage into small pieces as it cooks. Add garlic, shallot, sage, cranberries, and mushrooms, and cook 2 minutes.
5. Add cooked rice to skillet along with vinegar and stir to combine. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
6. When squash is tender, remove from oven and stuff cavities with rice mixture. Serve with excess pilaf and sautéed greens for a mouthwatering meal!

Jim Lahey’s bread needs little yeast and no kneading. The dough is poured into a hot pot before baking. (Don Hogan Charles/The New York Times)

Check out this article from the New York Times about an innovative breadmaking technique from Jim Lahey of the Sullivan Street Bakery. The article came out about three years ago, but I just found it again recently. I am very excited to try it—as long as I think about making bread at least a day before I want it!

I’ve also seen a recent book on breadmaking that uses a similar technique, called Artisan Bread in Five Minues a Day. In fact, their rising time was even longer—you mix up (no kneeding involved) a big batch of dough on Saturday or Sunday and then after a few hours of rising at room temperature, you put it in the fridge. Then each day you want a small loaf of bread, you take out a bit of dough, shape it and let it proof for a bit and then bake it normally. Again the key is in the high water content of the dough that allows the gluten to aggregate just by sitting there… And the longer the dough sits in your refrigerator, the more it develops a sourdough flavor, so each loaf tastes slightly different!

Here’s his recipe, as published by the NYT:

3 c. all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
1/4 t. instant yeast
1 1/4 t. salt
1 5/8 c. water (1 1/2 c. + 2 T.)
Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed.

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.
2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.
3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.
4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

While on vacation in the beautiful Pocono Mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania, we had the pleasure of dining at the Settlers Inn, an award-winning restaurant which specializes in “innovative regional Pennsylvania cuisine”.  This chef-owned, farm-to-table restaurant seeks to provide excellent food made from local and seasonal ingredients, thereby supporting the local economy and culture of small farms in their community.  The Settlers Inn also offers overnight lodging in their guest rooms, encouraging vacationers to relax and enjoy the beauty and bounty of the region.  Their philosophy of hospitality has earned the Settlers Inn accolades from National Geographic Traveler magazine, which named them one of 150 top location-inspired hotels in the United States, Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean.

We considered such a restaurant worthy of a 30-mile drive from our vacation house and were not disappointed.  The meal was not cheap, but well worth paying for the quality of the food and hospitable attention to detail in every aspect of our memorable evening.  Appetizers range from $6-$12 and entrées from $25-$35.  The restaurant also sports an extensive wine list, as well as a wide selection of beers and spirits, which has won yearly awards from Wine Spectator magazine.

Beautiful Mission-style Furnishing with Arts and Crafts Decor

My husband, Brent, began his meal with a chilled blueberry and ginger soup—berries provided by Paupack Blueberry Farm.  I started with a salad of grilled local peaches and heirloom tomatoes over green lettuce with Fallsdale Farm chevre, figs, and a balsamic vinaigrette dressing.  Brent’s soup was much more subtly flavored than he expected given the ingredients, but a refreshing and unique summer soup that he thoroughly enjoyed.  My salad was a bit more disappointing—the peaches were not very sweet and the tomatoes resembled the pinkish wedges that populate most standard salad bars—but they were saved by an amazingly delicious vinaigrette.

Next we shared a Pennsylvania cheese and charcuterie plate, featuring a selection of local cheeses, chicken liver mousse, venison sausage, and smoked trout mousse.  Our overwhelming favorite was the smoked venison and beer sausage from Highbourne Farm.  It was served with a spicy mustard that complemented the hearty German-style sausage very well.  Along with all of our appetizers, we enjoyed an herbed foccacia bread baked on premises, served with excellent olive oil for dipping.

For my entrée, I ordered a pan roasted, locally harvested brook trout served over a stew of new potatoes, artichokes, and cherry tomatoes in a lemon garlic sauce.  The dish was also accompanied by steamed haricots vertes and a small Romaine salad.  The entrée far outdid either of the appetizers—the potato and artichoke stew was a fantastic combination of flavors and complemented the trout well without overpowering it.  The salad was simply lettuce covered in a lemon-garlic-cheese dressing (perhaps the same that was in the stew), but was incredibly tasty.  I would recommend this restaurant just on the basis of their salad dressings!

Brent had the filet mignon, which was served with chanterelle mushrooms and a red wine sauce over an onion fritter.  The dish was accompanied by garlic mashed potatoes, sautéed zucchini, and thick slices of local heirloom tomatoes.  These tomatoes were the real deal: bright red and full of flavor—not at all like the ones on my salad.  Each of the vegetables were prepared in such as way as to maximize their unique flavors and textures.  The onion fritter was the most unique contribution to the plate and showed off the tangy sweetness of roasted onions.

Award-winning Wine List

Along with our meals, Brent and I both enjoyed the wide selection of beverages available at the restaurant and the excellent taste of the sommelier.  I ordered Claude’s tasting selections of white wine and Brent ordered the Connoisseur’s beer tasting menu.  My flight of wine included three excellent French wines, each of which would be significantly above my price range if purchased by the bottle.  The first was a 2007 Sauvingnon Blanc by Pascal Jolivet (Sancerre, Loire); the second, a 2000 Marsanne by Cave de Tain (Hermitage, Northern Rhône); and the third, a 2004 Chardonnay by Château Labouré-Roi (Meursault, Burgundy).  The Chardonnay had an incredibly complex flavor, with more shades of character and a longer finish than just about any other white I’ve tasted.  I could pick out flavors of honey and oak, which set this wine apart from the more citrusy Sauvingnon and Marsanne.  The Marsanne paired very well with my trout entrée, as I discovered, and is actually rated the highest of the three by Wine Spectator (93 pts, followed closely by the Chardonnay with 92 pts).  Brent enjoyed a Brooklyn Brown Ale (NY), Black Sheep Monty Python Holy Grail Ale (UK), and a Smutty Nose Star Island Single (NH)—with the Brooklyn Brown coming out as his favorite.

Finally, for dessert I ordered a slice of plum pie with cardamom ice cream and Brent ordered a blueberry cobbler with a lemon biscuit and lemon-scented whipped cream.  The cobbler was more delicately flavored than we expected, as was true with the blueberry ginger soup, but maintained a good balance between the berry and lemon flavors.  My pie, on the other hand, was everything I imagined and more!  The plums were still juicy and sweet and the house-made ice cream was smooth and creamy.  The cardamom flavor, while not usually seen in ice cream, was a perfect match to the pie, giving a blend of sweet and spicy reminiscent of Indian chai.  With a cup of coffee to cap off the meal, we were fully satisfied and thankful that we had made the trip to the Settlers Inn.  If you’re ever vacationing in the Poconos, it’s worth a visit—or even a stay!

Southeastern Pennsylvania is a land of temperate climate and fertile soils, so by the end of summer the Clark Park farmers’ market is nearly overflowing with incredible regional produce!  Even my own little garden is at the height of its summer production.  I have five varieties of tomato, broccoli, eggplant, cabbage, and several herbs ready to harvest with cauliflower following close behind.  This morning at the farmers’ market I purchased blueberries, raspberries, yellow peaches, Honeycrisp apples, Bartlett pears, Yukon Gold potatoes, purple potatoes, multi-colored beets, carrots, green beans, Lima beans, garlic, chives, red onion, yellow onion, Rainbow chard, Pattypan squash, and watermelon.  I wish that I had my camera so that I could show you how utterly gorgeous my haul is!  You’ll just have to imagine, for now.

However, even in the midst of such abundance, there are still many families and communities in Philadelphia that struggle to put food on the table.  When money gets tight, fresh fruits and vegetables are often the first thing to get cut from a family’s grocery list.  Unfortunately, this also means that the nutritional quality of these families’ meals is also diminished.  Philabundance, the region’s largest hunger relief organization, operates a program called “Share the Harvest” in which farmers and gardeners around the region can donate fresh produce to be distributed to needy families.  If you have your own garden and are overwhelmed by zucchini or tomatoes, please consider giving away your excess produce to this or a similar organization.  Or, plant a section of your garden each year specifically to be given away.  This program with Philabundance continues through the last Saturday in September.  Check out the program web site for information about drop-off locations around the region.

Rainbow Chard

Chard is one of the most beautiful vegetables that I know.  And it tastes great, too!  Although we’re starting to get to the end of the spring greens season, there are still plenty of bright bundles of multi-colored rainbow chard at my local farmers’ market.  I was recently seduced by a particularly luscious bunch of chard from a farm near Newark, Delaware, but I had no particular plans for how to use it.  Thankfully, my husband and I had the brilliant idea of putting in on our Sunday omelets.  Delicious!!  Both the stems and the leaves of the chard are edible and by slicing them up finely into the omelet, we were able to enjoy their unique textures and tastes without overcooking them.  Here’s how we did it:

1 T. butter
4 eggs
salt and pepper
2 pieces of bacon, cooked and crumbled
2 green onions, finely sliced
6-8 leaves fresh basil, finely sliced
8 leaves fresh oregano, finely chopped
4 leaves fresh rosemary, finely chopped (his)
4 sun-dried tomato halves, finely diced (hers)
3 large chard leaves (preferably multiple colors), stems finely sliced and leaves cut into 1/2″ strips
1/2 c. shredded Pennsylvania Jack cheese

1. In a large non-stick skillet, melt half the butter over medium heat.  Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, whisk 2 eggs until blended and frothy.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Pour egg mixture into skillet and cook without stirring until egg is just set.  Reduce heat to low.
2. Sprinkle half of bacon, green onion, chard stems, basil, and oregano over one half of skillet.  Add rosemary or sun-dried tomato, as desired.  Top with half of the chard leaves and shredded cheese.
3. Fold cooked egg in half over toppings with a wide spatula.  Cover skillet and cook 3-4 minutes, until cheese is melted and chard begins to wilt.  Transfer to plate and keep warm.  Repeat with other half of ingredients.  Makes 2 omelets.

The original salad was made with only spinach leaves, but the salad tastes great with any combination of lettuces. Just yesterday we enjoyed it with arugula, romaine, and red leaf lettuces from our garden.  Simply toss together the spinach or lettuce, sliced strawberries, and dressing (and pecans, if you like nuts) for a delightful spring salad.  Here’s the recipe for the dressing:

Dutch Blue Poppy Seeds

1/4 c. minced onion
1/2 c. white sugar
1 t. mustard powder
1 t. salt
1/3 c. red wine vinegar
1 c. canola oil
1 1/2 T. poppy seeds

1. In a blender or food processor, combine onion, sugar, mustard, salt, and vinegar. Blend until smooth.
2. With machine running, gradually add oil and process until combined. Add poppy seeds and pulse 2-3 times until combined.
3. Pour into bottle or other container and refrigerate. Shake before serving as necessary. Makes about 1 3/4 c. dressing.

According to my husband, today I have progressed to a new level of local foodism.  Not only do I grow some of my own food and try to purchase much more of it at the farmers’ market, but I actually gathered berries from a fruit tree up the block from my house—after having eaten a few and not died—and made jam.  Yes, it is true.  And it was some amazing jam to boot!  And tomorrow I’m making muffins, and maybe a pie later this week…

I happened upon this tree (actually four trees in a row planted between the sidewalk and the street) on Sunday evening and noticed it’s ripe, dark purplish red fruit.  At first I thought that it was a crabapple tree because the fruits (or pomes, to give them their technical name) looked like small red apples.  But then I picked a fruit and noticed that the flesh was squishy, not firm.  I also concluded that it couldn’t be a crabapple tree because crabapples ripen in the fall, not late spring!  I ate the fruit, not quite knowing what to expect, and was surprised by the sweet and robust flavor of the berries.  Later at home I tried to make a taxonomic identification of the trees, but as I am most definitely not a botanist or horticulturist, I didn’t get very far.  I did, however (with the help of Wikipedia), correctly decide that the plant must be in the family Rosaceae and the family Maloideae (related to apples and pears) based on the characteristics of the fruit.

Thankfully, when I returned on Monday with a pint basket to gather more berries, I noticed a metal tag on one of the trees which read, “Amelanchier Aut Brilliance”.  It turns out that the trees are a cultivated variety of the genus Amelanchier known as “Autumn Brilliance“, displaying showy white flowers in the early spring and bright orange-red leaves in the fall.  They also have delicious edible fruit, which is often eaten raw or cooked into jam or pies.  The tree (and its fruit) goes by many different names in different parts of the country and world, including shadbush, serviceberry, sarvisberry, juneberry, Saskatoon, shadblow, shadwood, sugarplum, and wild-plum.   According to Wikipedia, the name serviceberry derives from the fruit’s similarity to the European Sorbus.  But to me, juneberry seems to be the most appropriate name!

I used a basic skillet jam recipe from my trusty Good Housekeeping Cookbook with the berries on Monday night.  I made an extra-special trip to the grocery store just to purchase fruit pectin because I was so excited about my find!  I had never made jam before, but it wasn’t that hard—the trick is to have everything ready to go before you start, as the jam cooks very quickly.  The recipe filled two 8 ounce jam jars from the farmers’ market that I had washed out and saved.  It was a bit tricky to spoon/pour the hot jam into the jars without some sort of funnel, but I only lost a little bit over the sides.  In just one day, we’ve already nearly finished off one of the jars!  So, here’s the recipe:

2 c. juneberries/serviceberries, crushed
2 T. powdered fruit pectin
1/2 t. butter or margerine
1 c. sugar

1. In a large skillet, heat crushed berries, fruit pectin, and butter to a boil over high heat, stirring constantly. Stir and boil 1 minute.
2. Add sugar and heat to boiling, stirring constantly. Stir and boil 1 minute.
3. Immediately ladle or pour hot jam into clean 8 ounce jars. Wipe rims clean and close lids securely. Cool in refrigerator for at least 6 hours. Use refrigerated jam within 3 weeks or freeze up to 6 months.

There are many other public trees and shrubs around the city that bear edible fruit! Some are planted by homeowners, others by the city, and yet others by various non-profit organizations. Here in Philadelphia, there’s a great organization called the Philadelphia Orchard Project that specifically plants fruit trees in neighborhoods across the city to provide healthy food, green spaces and community food security for some of the city’s most needy residents. They also help maintain a collaborative map of local fruit and vegetable sources in the Philadelphia area, known as the Philadelphia Food Harvest Map. Perhaps this summer I will sample some other fruit from the urban orchards of West Philly!

On a side note, we recently signed up for the summer season of Keystone Farm’s CSA.  This 24-week subscription will begin June 6 and continue through November.  For those of you considering joining a CSA for the summer, there’s still time!  Keystone Farm and Landisdale Farm both offer pick-ups at Clark Park on Saturdays.  For other locations in the city, there’s lots of good information collected at Farm to Philly.  You can also find links to both the Keystone Farm CSA and Farm to Philly in the right-hand column of this blog.

The big picture of our food spending has remained the same since the beginning; we spend the most on fruits and vegetables, followed by grains, and then dairy products.  These three food groups acquire over two thirds of our total food budget.  On a slightly more detailed level, we spend over half of our budget on fresh fruits and vegetables, cold cereal, prepared or canned fruits and vegetables, bread, and non-alcoholic drinks.  Fresh produce alone represents 15% of our spending in the past six months.  Below is a bar chart that displays our monthly spending divided into each of the eight major food and drink categories.

Monthly Food Expenses by Category

In general, I’m happy with this picture.  We seem to be eating healthily and sticking very close to our budgetary goal of $400 per month.  Our total spending on cold breakfast cereal is still rather high, but over the past few months we have been attempting to cut back in this area.  While we used to have cereal about 5 mornings per week, recently we have lowered that to about 3 mornings per week.  The other days we eat hot cereal, pancakes, eggs, bread, yogurt, fruit, or some combination of these.  Encouragingly, I can see some obvious results of this change in the breakdown of our spending in the grains and dairy categories.

Monthly Grains Expenses by Category

Our spending on cold cereal has dropped consistently over the past three months to the point that our spending from late March to mid April was nearly the same as during the winter holiday months.  Our spending on bread has remained generally constant over the same period, although as noted before, it is another significant part of our total budget.  We spend a lot on bread because we really care about buying and eating good bread.  I buy fresh bagels for our lunches and artisan loaves from Metropolitan Bakery for sandwiches and table bread.  In the coming months, I hope to try making some of our bread at home—we’ll see if it ends up being worth the time and effort!

Monthly Dairy Expenses by Category

Along with a gradual decrease in recent cereal purchases, the data suggests that our milk consumption has also declined.  This stacked bar chart does not show the change as noticeably, but we spent about $10 less on milk in April than in February (a decrease of over 30%).  Our spending on cheese has fluctuated widely over the past two months; however, it will take more time to see whether these represent a significant trend or a random deviation.

Thanks to all of you who eagerly await these updates!  Your interest helps keep me motivated to enter all the data, week in and week out.  Hopefully I will post another quarterly update this summer where we may begin to see if there exist any seasonal trends in our buying habits.  If you have any questions or suggestions about how to make this study better, please leave a comment!

I am generally following Mel Bartholomew’s “Square Food Gardening” method in my front yard garden.  So far, I have constructed one 4 foot by 8 foot box that is filled with 6 inches of peat moss, vermiculite/perlite, and compost (basically, make-your-own potting mix).  I have two chicken wire covers to keep the neighborhood squirrels from burying nuts in between my carrots and to keep the cats from making a litter box of my lettuce.  The front of our house faces west, so at best the garden gets about 7 hours of direct sunlight—from noonish until the sun drops below the roofline of the houses on the opposite side of the street.  I hope that this is enough to get vegetables to grow…  We had a potted tomato plant, which we brought with us from our previous apartment, that did tolerably well in the yard last fall.  However, our beets and carrots never really “fattened out” as we expected them to do. Below is a picture of the garden from earlier this spring.

So far this spring, I planted a flat of pansies around the front and sides of the raised bed.  I also purchased a handful of onion sets (baby onion bulbs) from a garden store and planted them about a month ago.  Then last week I planted upland cress, arugula, spinach, red leaf lettuce, and romaine lettuce in one half of my 4′x8′ bed.  I plan to use these mainly as baby greens for salads throughout the spring and early summer.

Then yesterday I transplanted some broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower plants into the other side of the bed.  I got a very late start on these indoors, so they’re a bit small for transplanting (they’re only just putting out their first set of “true” leaves), but I hope that they’ll do better in the sun than under my meager grow light.  I tried to plant a fall crop of broccoli and cauliflower last last year, but some of the plants didn’t survive transplanting and the others were devoured by a hungry caterpillar before I noticed.  Hopefully I’ll have better luck this time around and I plan to be much more vigilant for caterpillars!

I keep having trouble with my seedings growing too tall and spindly in their indoor pots and many never even make it to transplanting because their stems get damaged.  What is the problem here?  Do they just not have enough light?  If anyone has any suggestions, I would be very grateful for the advice!

Brewing beer for export to US. Photo by Walter Sanders, August 1947.

The rest of the beers in our mixed case are ales, that is, they are fermented with ale yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) at room temperature (70°F) for 2-7 days and then allowed to mature for a period of several more days before bottling.  As opposed to lager yeast, this type of yeast rises to the top of the fermenting beer and forms a foam that is skimmed off several times during the fermentation process.  This process is often known as “top” fermentation, as opposed to “bottom” fermentation for brewing a lager.  Historically, ale was the most important alcoholic beverage throughout Northern Europe from the fall of Rome until the mid-19th century.  With the rise in popularity of lager across much of the continent, only England and Belgium continue to mass-produce ale in the original way.

Pale ale is brewed from malted barley that has been kilned (baked dry) in such a way that the barley retains its light color, as opposed to brown ales, which contain malt that smoked or browned during its kilning.  There are many distinct regional pale ales, two of which are represented in our mixed case.  One of the main differences between these two styles of pale ale is the amount and kind of hops added during the brewing process.  Hops, the female flowers of the Humulus lupulus vine, are an essential flavoring ingredient added to all beers in greater or lesser amounts.  The resins and oils found in the hops contribute bitterness and aroma to beer that may otherwise be unpalatably sweet or have an unpleasing aroma.  According to Harold McGee in On Food and Cooking, the hops also help prevent the growth of bacteria in the beer and slowed the rate of spoilage in the days before pasturization.

Common Hop, 19th century engraving

The India Pale Ale, or IPA, was originally a well-hopped English ale known as October beer that was intended to cellar for two years before consumption.    It became popular among East India Company traders in the late 18th century because of its ability to hold up well on the long voyage from England to India, thus gaining its new name.  It even perhaps benefited from the weather conditions of the four-month voyage, maturing more quickly than in a cellar and arriving in India in prime condition, according to Zythophile.  This style of beer became popular in England around 1840 with American varieties appearing before 1900.

Most modern American IPAs are brewed with citric American hop varieties, such as Cascade, Chinook, Centennial, or Columbus.  Usually, hops are added two or three times to the boiling wort (mashed malted barley in water).  Dogfish Head brewery, however, has developed a machine that adds hops continually to the boiling wort, giving the resulting beer an unmatched intensity of hop aroma and bitterness.  The 60-Minute designation refers to the length of time that the wort is boiled with the hops.  The brewery also makes 75-Minute, 90-Minute, and 120-Minute IPA varieties (for the stout of heart!), but the 60-Minute IPA is their most popular brew.  This beer pairs well with strongly flavored foods such as pizza, pesto, sharp cheddar, or other spicy dishes.

Dogfish Head 60-Minute IPA (Lewes, DE) — 6.0% ABV; style = American IPA

Belgian Pale Ales, on the other hand, are traditionally much less bitter than most other regional varieties because of their use of aged hops.  According to Beer Advocate, they were developed during the 1940s to compete with Pilsners, a pale lager with prominent hop character originally developed in Pilsen, Czech Republic, and popular in Germany, The Netherlands, and Belgium.  Today such pale ales dominate the Belgian brewing scene.  These beers pair well with Thai food and tangy cheeses or salads.

Leffe Blonde (Dinant, Belgium) — 6.6% ABV; style = Belgian Pale Ale

Although the Abbaye de Leffe brewery claims association with the Belgian tradition of brewing by Trappist monks, it is an Abbey beer in name only.  To qualify as a true Trappist beer, the entire production process must be carried out by, or supervised by, Trappist monks on the site of the monastery.  Only a handful of breweries in Belgium currently meet these standards.  Of these, only two still produce the “Holy Trinity” of traditional brews—the Enkel, Dubbel and Tripel.  According to Wikipedia, the Dubbel is a rich brown ale that was originally developed in the mid-19th century at the Trappist monastery in Westmalle.  Today many commercial brewers in Belgium and the US make similar strong ales, such as this variety from the nearby Flying Fish brewery.  Flying Fish claims that their Dubbel is “more like a wine than a beer… [with] a lot of the qualities of a fine Burgundy.”  It’s full body, slight alcohol warmth, and complex flavors pair well with rich foods such as beef, sausage, buttery or pungent cheeses, and chocolate.

Flying Fish Belgian Style Dubbel (Cherry Hill, NJ) — 7.3% ABV; style = Dubbel

Two more beers in our mixed case are marketed as Belgian-style winter ales.  Winter ales are generally distinguished by a higher alcohol content and the presence of spice flavors or aromas, and can be either pale or dark brews.  The Flying Fish Winter Ale exhibits “an undercurrent of fruitiness and clove,” even though no fruit or spice was added to the beer.  The flavors result from natural compounds in the malt and hops that are released during fermentation at a relatively higher temperature than for other ales, according to the brewery.  The River Horse version boasts the highest alcohol content of any in our case in their dark amber brew.  Like the Dubbel, these beers are often paired with hearty or rich foods, such as winter stews or smoked meats or cheeses.  However, they are also often enjoyed alone as a before-dinner apéritif or after-dinner digestive.

Flying Fish Belgian Grand Cru Golden Winter Ale (Cherry Hill, NJ) — 7.2% ABV; style = Belgian Strong Pale Ale

River Horse “Belgian Freeze” Belgian Style Winter Ale (Lambertville, NJ) — 8.0% ABV; style = Belgian Dark Ale

The final beer in our mixed case is produced right here in Philadelphia, PA, but is styled after another traditional Belgian brew.  This variety, known as Saison, originated in Wallonia—the French-speaking region of Belgium—as a refreshing and easily drinkable beer brewed in the late fall and winter for consumption by field hands during the summer.  Originally they had an alcohol content of as little as 3%, so as not to impair the work of the farmers, but most modern varieties range from 5-8%.  Most are moderately tart and dry with lots of spice or fruit flavor.  This beer pair well with Thai cuisine and lighter dishes such as seafood, poultry, earthy or nutty cheeses, and salads.

Rowhouse Red Philadelphia Style Ale (Philadelphia, PA) — 5.0% ABV; style = Saison/Farmhouse Ale

So, that’s it!  I hope that you learned something interesting about beer in these two posts, because I certainly did by writing them.  I’ll report back soon with our reviews and recommendations.  Cheers!

An English woman harvests hops, late 19th-century photograph