Recently I found a quick and easy peppermint candy recipe in the New York Times. Honestly, the only ingredients are sugar, water, peppermint extract, and a bit of oil to grease a baking sheet.
For an unknown reason I began to attempt this recipe at halftime of the ridiculous Steelers game yesterday (don’t worry, I had [...]
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Batch #1 has finally been pulled out from storage and is going to be / has been used as a straight infused vodka. I decided to go directly into action and worked through 4 variations of drinks until hitting something nice, and pushed on for a 5th, because why not? Kyle supported the process by [...]
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A man (who will remain anonymous and henceforth be referred to as Morgan Freeman) walks into the bar on Monday night.
Morgan Freeman, fairly well dressed and in control, orders whiskey, a bowl of steamed brown rice, asks for Tabasco on the side and eventually acquiesces to Sriracha. He drops a 20 on the bar and [...]
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The Post Gazette has finally reviewed Richard Chen Pittsburgh.
The staff was eagerly awaiting China Millman’s review, which came out at 12:00am Thanksgiving day. It’s a pretty good read (or maybe I’m biased because I work there), and certainly bodes well for the restaurant’s success in Pittsburgh. We were hoping for 3 1/2 stars as Ms. [...]
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Two weeks ago I started infusing some vodka with cardamom and white pepper in hopes of making a spiced liqueur. During the creation of that batch of infused vodka and the subsequent waiting period, I had a few questions come to mind about the process:
Should I have ground up the spices?
Should I actually add [...]
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I just got back home from working the bar at RC. Today was my first encounter with the unbelievably phallic and outright ridiculous mollusk known as the Geoduck (pronounced “gooey duck”).
One of our sous chefs had mentioned before shift that “the gooey ducks are in!” but I wasn’t quite sure what he was alluding to [...]
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To accompany the current batch of infusing liqueur (now possibly just to be infused vodka), I decided to tackle a quick and easy ginger simple syrup. I went for this one on a whim, but making simple syrup is unsurprisingly simple, even a flavored one. Because it was on hand, and I like the flavor [...]
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I don’t like it. I don’t intend to slam the place, but I don’t understand how the Church Brew Works can put its name on consisently disappointing beer. Honestly, in my last 5 trips (and please, ignore the fact that I’m an idiot for going back so much) I haven’t once been satisfied with the [...]
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It’s gone!
And I’m not quite sure where it went. Walking through Squirrel Hill yesterday morning for a traditional Bagel Factory hangover breakfast, something looked a bit off at the Forbes & Shady intersection, but I couldn’t quite figure out what it was. Then it hit me.
“Boston Market is gone!”
“Huh?” Roommate Kyle and visiting friend Gaurav [...]
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Yesterday started my journey towards an infused cardamom-white pepper liqueur, vodka being the base liquor. I have no experience making liqueur, but I have a feeling the returns will be much greater than the near-trivial financial and active time investment. The real challenge will be waiting 3 months to try it! I decided to chronicle [...]
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