Schlafly Beer and Cheese Pairing

Since last night's beer and cheese tasting at the Wine and Cheese place was cancelled due to a power outage, I was totally psyched up for tonight's Schlafly Beer and Cheese Pairing, which they host once a year. This year's class was held during STL Craft Beer Week!

This class was hosted down at the Tap Room, which will hopefully be easier to get to once they reopen 40!

Anyway, it was a very eclectic crowd and I was trying to guess if folks were there because they were beer fans...cheese fans...or both. I sat at the "young people" table and I guessed beer...I was right. hehe Luckily, some "both" fans sat down on the other side of me so we could "ooooh" and "aaaah" over the cheeses together. But, I do admit that I appreciated my tablemates' knowledge about the beer.

My first thought was "Awww...look at the cute mini-beer glasses!" So I was schooled that the glasses were from an annual beer festival that Schlafly hosted. Each glass came from a different year and was in a different style. The beer folks then actually tried to match up the beers with each glass. I really wanted to take the beer glasses home so bad. I really need to start bringing a camera to these classes for this very reason.

Of course I noticed the cheeses! Don't be silly! My favorite cheesemonger, Adam from the Wine Merchant, made sure we each got HUGE pieces of cheese so I was QUITE pleased. (Especially since this ended up being my dinner!)

Overall, ALL the cheeses had a strong flavor and were able to stand up on their own. No wussy cheeses tonight! I do think that was on purpose because we were dealing with beer. The only beer that was super light (and my favorite) was the Hefeweizen. The cheese that was matched with it, Tumbleweed, was way too overpowering. Sometimes opposites work in pairings but my poor light Hefe just couldn't keep up.

In reverse, the Oatmeal Stout was way overpowering over the Dry Jack. It probably went better with the APA. The APA actually was matched with the Humboldt Fog (a crowd favorite) and those went pretty well together because they both calmed each other down...took the edge off.

The worst cheese and the best cheese were put together with the Biere de Garde (which comes in a bottle no less!) and both were pungent cheeses in their own way. The worst cheese was the Menuet which was totally barnyard tasting to me. Hopefully you catch my drift when I say "barnyard". The best cheese was the Cabot Clothbound Cheddar. A sharp aged cheddar...YUM! That beat all the other cheeses by far.

At the end of the class...I looked around and could once again tell who the beer lovers were versus the cheese lovers. I saw A LOT more plates full of cheese (ACK!) and mostly empty beer glasses. I'm sure you can guess that I finished my plate of cheese completely while leaving 3 of the 6 beers. I just can't do those heavy beers. I'm sure people were sneering at me for being such a beer wuss too.

Here are the pairings as provided by the class but we were encouraged to mix, match, and then discuss some more! Lots of good descriptions and teaching from the brewer as well as from Adam about the cheese.

1. Dortmunder with Carmody (Bellwether Farms, CA)
2. Hefeweizen with Tumbleweed (5 Spoke Creamery, NY)
3. Pale Ale with Osage Orange (Goatsbeard Farm, MO)
4. Oatmeal Stout with Dry Jack (Vella Cheese Co, CA)
5. AP with Humboldt Fog (Cypress Grove Dairy, CA)

Special thanks goes out to my Personal Beer Instructor (PBI)...I knew right away Hefeweizen was perfect for me.

Best of luck to Adam since he is off to work for Cowgirl Creamery in Cali next month. I am immensely jealous. St. Louis will miss him for sure!

Chihuahua's

Now I don't go to ritzy, trendy places all the time. This is more my speed...an authentic Mexican restaurant. So much better than a chain!

This little gem is hidden at the end of a strip mall behind the Mobil station at the Dorsett and McKelvey intersection. I know my cousin likes Mexican food so it was my chance to go there for only the second time. The first time had been years ago.

I always get a chicken quesadilla wherever I go and it was a little on the small side. Regular tortilla sized. But I was fine with that because it came with a huge pile of rice and beans. Quite filling. And that was the lunch sized portion. Only $7!

So it's worth it to seek out your neighborhood Mom and Pop owned restaurants. They have more reasons to serve quality foods.

May Seafood class at Whole Foods

I went to my first Seafood class at Whole Foods yesterday. This was the second one for the year put on by the Seafood Team Leader, Matt Hoffmeyer. This class' theme was Alaska. Matt and some other Whole Foods folks really did get to go fishing off the coast of Alaska offered by their distributer! You can email him for any of your seafood cooking questions at matt.hoffmeyer@wholefoods.com.

This was more of a cooking class than a tasting class like all the cheese classes that I go to. Unfortunately, this means you have to wait for the item to actually be cooked! ACK! Luckily, the wine is poured while you wait and it becomes a wine pairing as well. Really, most of the food is already prepared and just needs that last part...the heat! hehe I could have done without the 20 minute oven cooking for the last course though...

Anyway, on to the food! We started out with a Chipotle Cod Cake with Lime Mustard. I didn't taste the mustard part too much because the chipotle takes over after I dipped the Cod Cake into it...it starts out as a teaser and then WHAMO...it sneaks up on you! But really, it is a great compliment to the Cod Cake. I couldn't tell it was Cod from any other fish either.

Next was the King Crab legs. Yes, they were giant...longer than my forearm and plenty meaty. Matt was nice enough to slice them for us but I still had to fight with it. Matt provided butter sauce for us to dip it in of course, and they were awesome. But I hate it when I have to struggle to eat my food. I still needed a bib! ACK!

Luckily, the next fish just laid there calmly...fresh salmon! It started out BRIGHT PINK and then was broiled for only about 6-7 minutes. Matt was wishing he could have grilled them for us but that's hard to do in a retail store! hehe The salmon just melted in my mouth...

And the last fish...(4 COURSES!)...was a Roasted Red Pepper and Ridder Stuffed Halibut Fillet. Matt came up with this with Michael's help. Michael is the cheese guy. The halibut was wrapped around the Ridder cheese. That probably could have been a meal all unto itself. So filling....

Normally I don't pay attention to the wines because that's not my area of expertise, but Michael, the specialty/cheese guy, mentioned that the Austrian Gruner Veltliner is really good to serve with asparagus or brussel sprouts. I thought this was noteworthy since those veggies can be a bit strong depending on how they are cooked. And I always try to eat my veggies when I'm at the parent's house! hehe

To top things off...as if 4 glasses of wine wasn't enough...one for each course...Whole Foods let us get a scoop of gelato from their selection...of COURSE I got the Chocolate flavor! Wow...I couldn't tell it wasn't ice cream. (Not that I really minded.)

Matt is always looking for themes and ideas for future seafood classese. We suggested sushi. Next one probably won't be until July though...but I definitely will be going back.

Certainly worth the $35!

Wines from SLeeK

I finally found the name of the red wine from my dinner at SLeeK: Stag's Leap Artemis. It was a very smooth red with not much tannin.

My favorite white for the evening was the Qupe Chardonnay.

Tomorrow night 5/26 is Seafood Class at Brentwood Whole Foods at 6:30pm! More to report then. I am curious if I will be having lobster three times within six days!

IceKitchen at Westport

Unfortunately, Ice Kitchen has closed.

So tonight's excursion is the real reason I am starting this blog. This was the second meeting of the Food Adventure Club (F.A.C.), which I just named tonight since meeting twice makes it official. hehe

My friends and I had tried a Japanese steakhouse in St. Charles County before because there was interest in trying sushi, which I cannot get enough of. While the newbies didn't like the sushi, I was very proud of them for being willing to try.

The IceKitchen was reviewed in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch a couple weeks ago and of course I always share those articles with the F.A.C. members. This is important to me because being single, it is hard to find people to go out to dinner with. I am not quite able to go out to fine dining by myself, which is a big reason I volunteered to go with STLWineGirl to SLeek in my last post.

Normally it's not wise to hit a newly hyped up restaurant right away. It's usually better to wait for the hype to die down. But I made a reservation so we'd be ready. Turns out it wasn't necessary for a Sunday night! Or maybe because everyone is BBQing over Memorial Day weekend? We were one of two tables in the whole place for most of our stay. They put us in the back...where it was dark. Maybe we weren't pretty enough? I dunno.

Right off the bat, I could tell that this would be a great happy hour place if you like martinis or "foo foo" drinks. Their drink menu was just as long a their food menu with crazy names for their mixed drinks. I had a "Dreamsicle" which had Ameretto in it so I was happy. I really wanted to try the "Son of a Peach", which was very fun to say. All drinks were $8 and up so you really gotta like flavored drinks. Not the place for beers although they had quite a few typical bottles so everyone would be happy drinking there.

The decor is really what stands out when you pass by, walk around, and in the bathrooms. It's worth it just to go inside once to check it out. We were hoping they really had some drink that could be set on fire like in their logo. The ambiance is really for hip folks since they played techno nonstop mixed with some current hip hop and a DJ stand behind us. At least during happy hour, drinks are half price.

We went ahead and tried the "fusion" tapas. I have been asked what does "fusion" mean? I dunno exactly but my definition is "combination of flavors to make something new you've never had before". While the descriptions of the items sounded calm, the actual plates had quite different sauces and garnishes. We kept having to look back at the menu to see exactly what it was that we ordered. And yes...they all had some strange flavorings to it. Definitely different.

I started out with the House Salad...perfectly sized and the rice wine vinagrette had a great, light flavor to it.

My friends ordered a soup flight which is a smart way to try more than one soup. The Roasted Corn Chowder stood out from the rest. Tortilla Soup...you really need to like Mexican for that one. Elephant Garlic Soup came in 2nd. Slight hint of garlic so not overpowering at all.

I ordered the Beef Kabob as my "light tapas" and it was excellent...served on a bed of rice. I could have used a few more than the four small pieces. Of course that was the most expensive "light tapas" at $9.75. Light tapas seemed to be smaller sized too.

My friends ordered the "Trio of Wonton Tacos". I only tried one and was overpowered by the crispy shell and avocado so I couldn't taste the "meat" of it.

Since there were four of us, I got to try quite a few of the "Signature Tapas". The Acorn Squash Gnocchi came out first and was the most disappointing. I think of the Gnocchi at Maggiano's but this was in a heavy mushroom sauce. We could not taste ANY of the other flavors except for the mushroom. We were hoping for more Acorn or Squash flavor. Only a few bites of lobster mixed in couldn't save it either.

Fortunately, everything else was much better. The Chilean Sea Bass was probably my second most favorite due to the mirin shisho broth...which again was a sweet, rice wine flavor. My friends didn't like the sicky, pasty rice (like the kind used for sushi), but when you had the fish and rice dipped into the sauce - heavenly.

My favorite that I ordered was the Petite Surf and Turf. I knew this would be the best from my SLeek experience and it was the most expensive at $18.25. The filet was big enough so I could cut it in four and have a good tasting. The lobster meat was buried in the ...well I'm still not sure what it was. I probably would have liked bigger chunks of lobster.

Anyway, my friends ordered the Chicken Lollipops, which were delicious but so small it was hard to enjoy the taste of it for too long, and the Duck Breast. The duck was cut into small bite-size slices and was completed glazed in an Asian plum-flavored sauce. Covered in the sauce, the duck was excellent...no greasy or gamey taste at all. But the sauce was very sweet...a little strong.

I really was curious about the Ahi Tuna and the Grilled Wild Salmon.

And of course we had to order dessert! And of course I ordered the chocolate one...Chocolate Crepes. They were bigger than dollar-sized pancakes but a good size since I was so full. They were real thin and soggy. But once I pushed them into the chocolate sauce, all was good. There was a strong berry flavor to them so that the chocolate is not overpowering. I prefer my chocolate desserts to be overpowering though.

Cookie Dough Wontons were small and bite size. I could only taste cripsy outside for the most part. The Funnel Cake Sticks were definitely the sweet taste that you think of although it was more crispy than soft. It was so large, that the four of us couldn't finish it at all.

We were sad we didn't have enough room for the French Apple Tart though!

So overall...the food is very different...different textures and flavors. If you love new tastes and food adventures, this is something new to try. But unfortunately it was a bit too pricy for my friends and I to try more often.

The next meeting of the Food Adventure Club is hoping to land at Mongolian Beef. While nothing new, not your typical Chinese.