Well so far it’s been quite the weekend, it started off with quite and impressive beer and cheese pairing at Cheese Louis on Friday night. Some of the great brews we had included an Oak Aged Yeti Imperial Stout from Great Divide, Jubele 2010 from Deschutes, a beir de garde from Lost Abbey, a semi sweet cider from Wandering Angus, Oatis from Ninkasi, and there where a couple others. We also had a great lineup of cheeses, 30 month aged cheddar, beer cheese, stout cheese, whiskey soaked cheese, and a triple cream cheese that was something like brie but was freeking awesome. There where 7 of us and still I think maybe we brought a little too much beer especially considering the abvs of many of them, next time I should probably make the lineup a bit smaller or get more people to come.
After a late night I needed something substantial for breakfast, I used to like me a good breakfast sandwich when I was a kid, this usually consisted of two pancakes with a couple of over medium eggs and a couple of strips of bacon in between them all covered with fake maple syrup. All grown up now I used two waffles instead, one egg to keep the cholesterol down, thick cut homegrown bacon and real maple syrup. It was quite tasty but it was just the start of my culinary pursuits for the day.
Katy and I had decided last week that we wanted to check out the Asian market in Kennewick and Feista foods in Pasco, which is like the Mexican foods super store around here. Let me just say if you haven’t visited ethnic foods markets you haven’t lived, they are so cool and you always find things that you would never think of, for instance at the Asian market Katy found a package in the freezer case that said “Inverted Pig’s Bung” need I say more? At Saigon Market we were greeted with all sorts of oddities and like a true lame American we bought curry, rice noodles, and sardines but I promise some day I’ll buy something interesting probably not pig’s anus though.
Fiesta Foods was our next stop, I was asked by one of my friends the night before “How’s your Spanish?” which I replied to with “Taco”. True we where maybe only a couple of the handful of English speaking white people in the place but I didn’t find this to be a problem, everything is clearly in English and Spanish and the staff easily transitions from Spanish to English. When you first walk in the door huge ass displays and smells of Mexican pastries and chillies assault your senses. The produce section is huge, the seafood section is huge, the meat department is huge, it’s just all huge. They make fresh tortillas that are still warm in the package, of course I had to buy these, oh and they make salsa, I bought that too. We were really tired and hungry so it was kind of sad but we didn’t buy much, we did get some tamales to eat, which were alright I’m sure I could make better if I knew how to make them but at least I know where to get stuff to make them now. Needless to say Fiesta Foods will be on our list of places to go again especially since I need to go back and buy the huge solid block of Salt from Ukraine.
Inspired by Fiesta Foods and having a very large package of fresh tortillas I decided to make Carne Asada last night. I’ve never made this dish before and all I can say is that it was pretty much the best thing ever, picture says it all. I used some of the salsa that I bought from Fiesta as well which just brought this meal together. So far it’s been a great weekend, we have some great things planned for today too.
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Last weekend my wife and I popped down to northeast Oregon to go camping. On our way down and on our way back we stopped a new kids on the block Prodigal Son Brewing in Pendleton Oregon. I’ve been following these guys on Facebook for some time impatiently waiting for them to open. It’s nice to have another brewery within an hour of Ice Harbor as there really isn’t much of a brewing community over here. I spoke to the brewer Brian about his equipment, beer, and his new business venture. So far he said that the community has been very supportive of the brewery to the point of drinking 10bbl of Hef in just one week. Brain worked for Rogue for two years and then decided to go back to his home town and open a brewery, his experience at Rogue shows in his beer and I was delightfully surprised at how well crafted his Porter was and how he put thought into making a English style IPA rather than a big hoppy NW IPA.
On the way back from camping we stopped for food and beer this time. I had the Ploughman’s plate and my wife had the hamburger. Both where very good and I could tell that the owners really thought about the menu. The atmosphere is great and Prodigal Son even has a private hangout room and a kids room. It also looks like they are trying very hard to use local ingredients which is always a big plus in my book. Brian is doing a great job on the beer, I could drink the hell out of his porter. I wish them the best of luck, I can see this brewery being a very successful venture. I’m definitely looking forward to my next visit. If you make it out to Pendleton I totally recommend Prodigal Son Brewing.
