Scones are one of the only things I’ve made where I’ve tried (and kept track of) many changes to a recipe over time and gradually evolved it. Here’s my current favorite version: Maple-Pecan Scones(makes 16) First, preheat the oven to 425 (don’t you hate recipes that don’t tell you to preheat the oven until late in the recipe?) You’ll need: 2 & 1/2 cups white flour 1 cup whole wheat flour (I’ve tried more– this is about as much as I can fit in) 1 & 1/2 cups chopped pecans (for even better scones, chop half of these pecans coarsely, and grind the other half into a powder, almost a “pecan flour”, in a food processor). 2 Tbsp baking powder 1 tsp salt 11(!) Tbsp cold butter 1 cup milk 1/3 cup maple syrup (plus a little extra to brush on) (real maple syrup, of course) A cast iron skillet The process: ...

Just a simple mayonnaise-free variant on potato salad I make from time to time: Wash and boil small russet potatoes with the skins on (20-30 minutes, until done). Toss some green beans into the water a minute before the potatoes are done (to blanche). Drain and rinse the potatoes and beans. Add plenty of mustard and olive oil, salt, pepper, fresh dill and chives.

So far I’ve seen about a third of the beers I had in Belgium for sale in San Francisco takeaway-bottle-style, either at City Beer Store or Healthy Spirits. Here’s a tasting I organized today with a few folks: La Chouffe -> Orval -> Gouden Carolus Classic -> Gulden Draak -> La Trappe Isad’or -> 3 Fonteinen Oude Geuze. The last two elicited strong opinions in both directions. My favorite of the six was definitely the Gouden Carolus Classic (tastes that remind me of caramel/burnt sugar and coffee, but not cloyingly sweet). ...

Here’s a map of the best breweries and beer cafes from the trip (as well as a few select restaurants). Perhaps some day I’ll post more details about a few specific ones.

[the original motivation for creating this blog– I had pages of notes from a trip and wanted to share them with a few friends] I recently spent a week in Belgium with three friends, visiting breweries and tasting beers. Without further fanfare or detail, here’s a list of everything I tasted and my favorites (somewhat subjective, I’m sure, depending what I was eating with them and so on): My very favorites: ...

[2011 intro:] Just a place to jot down recipes, beer tasting notes, restaurants I liked, and so on. I could write these down in a notebook, but why not keep them online? [2024 edit:] Ah, the early 2010s, when a blog felt like the easiest way to share notes and photos with friends… As I started using social media more, I drifted away from longer-form text, so this site mostly petered out in 2019. It’s too bad, because I still look back at it from time to time to jog my memory on how I cooked something, or remember the name of some beer I liked in Belgium 13 years ago. ...