Food and Recipes
Central City Bacon Tasting Menu
Friday, August 20th, 2010 | Events, Food and Recipes | 1 Comment
Back in the colonies one of my favorite breweries is doing something extremely rad. Central City is offering a bacon tasting menu all September using bacon cured with their own beer. The three course menu only costs $15 and features bacon and corn cakes paired with Red Racer Lager, country bacon terrine with Red Racer ESB, and maple chocolate bacon cheesecake prepared with Red Racer Stout. Can you believe that? A three course meal and beer pairings for $15 based on bacon, the world’s most delicious food (fat and salt, mmmm)! I might have to fly back for this.
Cheers,
Chris
Boonies Southern Soul Now Open
Saturday, June 26th, 2010 | Beer, Food and Recipes, Review | 7 Comments
About a year ago I posted about a restaurant called Boonies BBQ & Soul Food that was located in the Cloverdale curling rink. Bonnie, the head chef and proprietor, quickly outgrew the curling rink as his reputation for delicious BBQ and comforting soul food grew larger than the curling rink could handle. Boonie has recently relocated to Langley and with a larger location and a full menu – including beer and southern classics such as Jambalaya, black-eyed peas, red beans and rice, cornbread and more. This new restaurant is aptly named Boonies Southern Soul.
Boonie and his wife Tina realized that Southern food and beer belong together and invited Chris and me to make a few food and bee paring recommendations. Chris had a hard time justifying a flight out to Vancouver just for this, so I went in solo. I helped put together a list of four different ales from local craft brewers that will all compliment different menu items.
Boonies Southern Soul is the real deal and I would encourage anyone with a passion for good food to go and check it out. Here is a sample of the current beer menu.
Amber Ale
The best match for this beer would be the pulled pork sandwich but it also pairs wonderfully with a good portion of the menu. Amber Ales tend to have a sweet malty flavour with a medium hop bit, which will work with the sweet and spicy flavours in many of the dishes.
Tree Brewing Thirsty Beaver Amber Ale
Pale Ale
Pale Ale is hoppier (citrusy, pleasant bitter flavour) than an amber ale and works well with spicy foods, but can also match earthier flavours, such as jambalaya. It would also work nicely with the BBQ Smoked Ribs, Cajun Chicken and the Hot Link Bites.
Tree Brewing Cutthroat Pale Ale
Nut Brown Ale
Nut Brown Ale is brown coloured ale with a mild hop flavour and a medium roasted malt flavour. This would work great with less spicy dishes such as BBQ Chicken or a Burger.
Dead Frog Brewing Nut Brown Ale
Stout
A Stout is a classic partner with smokey BBQ. A dark ale with mild hop flavour but tons of roasted malt flavour and has an almost sweet, smokey molasses flavour. This beer would work great with Burgers, Cheese Steak and would be wonderful with the BBQ Smoked Ribs!
Nelson Brewing Blackheart Stout
Cheers,
Erik
Sockeye Salmon Season
Friday, June 11th, 2010 | Beer, Food and Recipes | 2 Comments
Wild BC Sockeye Salmon is delicious. The good news for all of us on the west coast of Canada is that this wonderful fish is now in season. Fatty fish, such as sockeye salmon, is a perfect match for a number of ales, my choice tonight was Brasserie DuPont Moinette Blond.
A fish such as Sockeye deserves to be treated with a great deal of respect; this fish has been over fished and the fishery in BC has been closed or severely limited the past few years making sockeye a treat, as the scarcity of this fish does not allow it to become a staple food item as it may have been previously. In celebration of the Sockeye I cooked up a small feast for my Wife and me.
Pan fried Sockeye Salmon; ricotta gnocchi with a white wine, spinach and mussel broth reduction and cornmeal crusted mussels. Unfortunately the mussels were below par and tasted far to fishy. The Moinette Blond was a great pairing .
Please enjoy Sockeye Salmon with a great deal of Gusto while in season, but of course with a sense of measured moderation.
Cheers,
Erik
The Best of the Pacific Northwest
Tuesday, June 8th, 2010 | Beer, Food and Recipes | 4 Comments
I am completely and unhealthily obsessed with food and drink. I think about what I will make for dinner the next day while lying awake in bed. I couldn’t sleep for nearly three hours one night when I was trying to determine what Pacific Northwest cuisine is. I know we must have a unique food culture, but defining that culture is a challenge, especially when the clock reads 2:00 AM and your alarm wakes you at 6:00 AM.
I love where I live. This region of the world offers easy access to exceptional seafood, an abundance of local produce and some of the greatest brewers in the world live within a day’s drive of Vancouver.
I thought I would put together a list of my favourite local dishes, recipes included, paired with beer. I use local quite loosely as the 100 mile diet is too strict and is simply unreasonable. Growing wheat or barley in the Fraser Valley makes little to no sense.
Moules Frites
Some of the best mussels come from Salt Spring Island. My local fish monger, 1 Fish 2 Fish which is hands down the best food shop in Langley, offers these delicious bivalves when in season (year round excluding March and April). From my experience mussels need very little in the way of cooking – less is more. Here is what I consider to be the greatest way to prepare mussels:
Moules
- Finely dice one large shallot or two small shallots and sauté in a pan with olive oil until translucent
- Finely dice two ripe medium sized or one large tomato until almost a puree and add to the pan – cook for a minute or two
- Add white wine and reduce until it just begins to become syrupy (beer just doesn’t reduce as well as wine – sorry)
- Add mussels and cover the pan – one pound per person for a meal size portion works best.
- After 3-4 minutes (all cook books say 6-8 minutes, but I think they are wrong) uncover the pan, remove all mussels that have opened and put them aside, after one more minute throw away any unopened mussels.
- Reduce the mussel broth, with the mussels out of the pan. Once reduced toss the mussels back in the broth and finish with some roughly chopped parsley or any fresh tasting herb.
Frites
For the frites, I find Joel Robuchon’s method works quite well and is dead easy:
- Cut the fries - Yukon Gold is a good all around potato to use
- Place the fries in a pot with high sides
- Cover fries with frying oil
- Heat oil until 360 degrees F – the fries are now ready
- Remove fries and season with salt, enjoy.
Despite the reduced white wine in the broth, beer is still the ultimate partner for this dish. Any flavorful beer will work. An Oude Geuze is a traditional match, but any assertive Belgian ale will also do quite nicely.
Pizza
Pizza may not be local, but all of the toppings certainly are – it also happens to be one of my favourite things to eat.
Making a good pizza is not that difficult, but making a great pizza is a bit more of a challenge. There is no single recipe to follow to make great pizza. Pizza is more of a philosophy and set of rough guidelines than a recipe. I am nowhere near perfecting pizza, but here are a few tips I have learned along the way:
- Pizza toppings should always be local – fresh produce shipped long distances loses flavor fast.
- It is better to under top than over top.
- Pizza without tomato sauce is just fine
- Making tomato sauce from scratch is the best. Tomatoes from a grocery store are almost always picked when they are green and therefore taste a whole lot like water. Canned tomatoes on the other hand are picked when they are ripe and have more flavor. Use caned tomatoes. San Marzanos are the best, but they may be hard to find.
- Cheese does not have to be grated, it can be torn up by hand and tossed onto the pizza
- The faster a dough proofs, the worse it tastes - use a yeast that is slow rising, brewers yeast is my favourite
- Kneed the dough for more time than you may think is necessary, dough needs a lot of love.
- People who base the quality of the pizza by the thinness of the crust are fools -I was once one of these fools. Yes, a thin crust is delicious, but thinness is not the number one goal.
- Pizza needs to be cooked hot and fast. Many recipes say to put pizza on a stone in the bottom of an oven. I think this is wrong. The top of an oven is hotter – heat rises. I recently switch to the top of the oven approach and the results are superior.
- Hand tossing pizza is fun, but usually results in a mess. I try to hand toss all my pizza, despite how terrible I am at it.
Depending on the toppings, pizza pairs excellently with a spicy pilsner, pale ale, or even an IPA if the toppings are assertive enough. I find dark beers aren’t the best choice with pizza, but I could easily be proven wrong.
Fish & Chips
Our ocean is filled with wonderful fish, but don’t be fooled into buying the most expensive fish. Halibut may be delicious, but it is twice the price of snapper and is an inferior fish when it comes to battering and frying.
In my humble opinion the best batters are thin and crispy – I am not a fan of a thick eggy batter. Mixing cornstarch and flour together in a one to one ratio with a pinch of salt and enough beer to bring the mixture to the consistency of heavy cream has always work excellently for me.
For the chips, I wouldn’t suggest Joel Robuchon’s method – chips are a different beast than frites. I am not a fry master, but the best results have come with an initial poach/fry in oil around 260 – 300 F for 5-6 minutes. Remove the chips and bring the oil to 360 F and fry the chips again in the hot oil until golden.
The key to frying is managing oil temperate, too hot and food will burn, t0o cool and food will become soggy with grease. 360 F is a good frying temperate.
A good ESB works wonderfully with fish and chips – cask ale would be ideal. Any beer with caramel malt included in the grain bill would work well.
Wild Game Ragu
One of my close friends is a hunter and regularly provides me with quality venison. I believe beer is truly at its best when matched with the intensity of wild game. Ragu is nothing more than an Italian stew served with pasta, gnocchi or polenta and is the perfect meal to ejoy in the fall when hunting season begins
Here is the general recipe I tend to follow when making a venison ragu:
- Sauté lardons (French for bacon chopped into match stick sizes) in a pan until crisp and all the fat is rendered out of the bacon.
- Remove the bacon and leave the fat in the pan – don’t even think about removing any of this glorious animal fat, game has almost no fat and needs a bit of pork fat for lubrication. The bacon can be added back to the ragu at the end of cooking.
- Cube 1 pound of venison into one inch pieces and brown aggressively, remove all venison once browned
- Finely dice one large onion, one celery stock and one carrot and add to the pan, this should deglaze the pan a bit
- Add around a ¼ cup of tomato paste, more if you like tomatoes, less if you don’t.
- Add about a cup of stock (chicken, beef, vegetable)
- Add about a cup of red wine. If the venison is not completely covered by liquid add more wine.
- Cover with a lid and simmer for 3-4 hours or place in the oven for 3-4 hours at around 250 F.
- The venison should now be tender.
- If sauce hasn’t reduced enough, reduce stock on the stove top.
- Cool the ragu and place in the fridge overnight – ragu is best the next day, trust me.
- Before reheating on a stove top, shred the venison with a fork
- Once heated through serve the ragu with your starch of choice, pappardelle is my choice.
A Brown Belgian Ale would work nicely with this ragu. A Dubbel or even Biere de Garde would also work. A big tasting beer with some spicy yeast flavour is ideal for this meal. A big Cabernet Sauvignon would also be delicious.
Cheers,
Erik
Refuel
Monday, January 25th, 2010 | Beer, Food and Recipes, Review | 2 Comments
I went to the reincarnation of Fuel yesterday, now known as Refuel. This Vancouver establishment is well known amongst locals for serving quality local cuisine matched with an impressive beer and wine menu. I was beginning to tire of recommending Fuel/Refuel based solely on other’s opinions – I have read so many great reviews that I felt almost as if I had actually eaten there and was comfortable enough to recommend Refuel to some of my food loving friends with an interest in craft beer. Now that I have actually visited Refuel I am pleased to say that my recommendation still stands.
Fuel started out serving locally sourced food to hungry Vancouverites a number of years ago and quickly became a local favourite. Following the recent economic recession, Fuel began to realized that their customers would appreciate the same great food but at a more wallet friendly price. Fuel closed down and re-launched as the more affordable Refuel; the food may be slightly less “sophisticated”, but still delicious, which aside from sustenance and survival is really the reason for eating.
After looking through the menu and the great local beer list I ended up with Vancouver Island Brewing’s Herman’s Dark Lager and a juicy medium rare burger. Yes, that is correct, burger served medium rare and no I am not sick and yes it was delicious. I had to resist the Polderside fried chicken which I have read so much about, but irrelevant of how amazing the other menu items look, including fried chicken, all I really want to eat is a burger with melted cheese and bacon. It also helped that the fries were hand cut and made fresh. The food was delicious, the beer menu was well thought out and that atmosphere was unpretentiously welcoming.
Thank you Refuel for serving a burger made with care that for once is not overcooked and for offering quality local beer that a beer loving food enthusiast can get excited about.
Cheers,
Erik
Granville Island Lions Winter Ale Cooking Competition
Saturday, November 7th, 2009 | Beer, Food and Recipes | 5 Comments
This past week Granville Island Brewing in partnership with the Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts held a cooking competition to celebrate the seasonal release of their much loved, but not so much by me, Lions Winter Ale. The challenge of this event was to come up with the best dish that included Lions Winter Ale as an ingredient.
Unfortunately I was unable to attend the event myself, but the good people at GIB were kind enough to send me a list of the winners, including the winning recipes.
The top entrée was won by Felix Maristany for his winter ale Gumbo, for your cooking pleasure, the recipe is below:
Granville Island Winter Ale Gumbo
Created by Felix Maristany, Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts
Crustacean stock
- 2 – 3 lbs lobster heads and bodies and spot prawn heads or any prawn shells would suffice.
- Mire poix of onion celery and carrot (rough chop)
- 4 sprigs of fresh thyme
- 3 bay leaves
- 2 cloves finely chopped garlic
- 1 stalk of lemon grass (cracked with the spine of a chef’s knife)
- 2L fish stock
- 1.5 bottle of GIB Lions Winter Ale
- 50ml olive oil
- 1/2 can of tomato paste
Method:
In a large sauce pan sweat the shells at medium-low temperature until they turn red.
Add mire poix and sweat until onions translucent and vegetables are slightly tender.
Add tomato paste and continue sweat 3-4 minutes.
Deglaze with beer and reduce slightly.
Simmer 45 minutes and strain pressing on the shells.
Gumbo:
- 1 red onion (small dice)
- 1 green bell pepper (medium dice)
- 1 red bell pepper (medium dice)
- 3 whole garlic cloves with peel (cracked using the back of a knife)
- 1 stalk of lemon grass (Cracked with the spine of a chef’s knife)
- 2- 3 tbsp filé powder
- Cayenne pepper to taste
- 1 tbsp paprika
- 3 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
- Hot sauce to taste
- 1 fennel bulb (cored and cut into wedges)
- Andouille sausage (bias cut)
- 6 slices thick cut pork belly
- Spot prawns (With head on or off)
- Dungeness crab meat
- Mediterranean mussels
- 3 bottles GIB Lions Winter Ale
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Roux (40g Butter 40g Flour)
- 60ml meyer lemon juice
Method:
In a large sauce pan warm vegetable oil over medium-low heat, sweat onions, peppers, fennel, andouille sausage, and lemon grass. Add paprika and cayenne and sweat 1-2 minutes. De-glaze with 1 bottle of beer and reduce slightly. Add hot sauce and Worcestershire sauce. For the roux, melt butter over medium heat in a small sauce pan, add flour and cook 4 minutes. Add a little stock to the roux gradually and mix with a whisk to prevent lumps. When all the stock is incorporated to the roux add mixture is to sauce pan containing vegetables, sausage etc. and continue to simmer.
In a separate medium saucepan add some finely chopped onions, garlic and 1/2 bottle of beer. Add cleaned mussels, prawns and crab meat. when mussels are open, add all the contents to the gumbo and simmer 10 minutes.
Serve over a bed of saffron scented rice and garnish with a meyer lemon wedge.
Winning Dessert went to Jazmin Villarreal who put together a Dessert Risotto Crumble:
Lions Winter Ale Beer & Dessert Risotto Crumble
Created by Jazmin Villarreal, Pacific Institute Of Culinary Arts
Rice Crumble
- 120 g arborio rice
- 20 g butter
- 1 can evaporated milk
- 100 ml milk
- 200 ml Lions Winter Ale Beer
- 50 g shredded almonds
- 2 medium Granny Smith apples (diced 5mm x 5mm)
- ½ vanilla bean
- 60 g granulated sugar
- Prepared muscavado crumble topping
- Prepared Lions Winter Ale Crème Anglaise
Method:
In a medium sauce pan place evaporated milk, milk and 100 ml of beer, warm on burner set at med heat. In a separate saucepan, melt butter and stirfry the rice for 1.25 minutes. Deglaze with 50 ml of beer. When the liquid evapourates start adding warm milk mixture. Add little by little and stir constantly. Cook until rice is ‘al dente’.
In an additional saucepan, place sugar with 20ml of water and ½ vanilla bean and cook until the sugar starts to caramelized (approximately 5 minutes). Add apples and stir until they are golden brown (about 4 minutes). Set aside.
To serve: Warm crème anglaise and add the risotto, almonds, apple and stir until combined and soft. Top with crumble and serve.
Muscavado Crumble Topping:
- 80 g Muscavado Sugar (or very fine brown sugar)
- 80 g Butter
- 160 g All Purpose Flour
Method:
In a mixer, cream sugar with butter. Add flour and mix until combined. Crumble mixture into small pieces and cook for 2 hours at 180 degrees celcius. Set aside until ready to serve dessert.
Winter Ale Crème Anglaise:
- 300 ml Whipping Cream
- 100 ml Milk
- 100 ml Winter Ale
- 6 Egg Yolks
- 125 g Sugar
- 1 Vanilla Bean
Method:
In a saucepan, combine cream, vanilla bean, milk and beer. Bring to a boil. Whisk yolks and sugar together. Temper the milk mix with the egg mixtures and return to stove. Reheat to 80 degree celcius and strain. To reserve, hold in a water bath.
I haven’t had a chance to try either of the recipes, but I hope to give them try in the next few weeks. Pictures should be posted of the event shortly.
Cheers,
Erik
Cassoulet, Beer, and Thanksgiving
Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 | Beer, Food and Recipes | No Comments
The first Canadian Thanksgiving, yes I know I am well over a week behind, was held by an English sailor named Martin Frobisher in 1576 on one of Canada’s many northerly islands. This is a number of years, 42 to be exact, before America was colonized by the pilgrims, signifying what many consider to be the first Thanksgiving. This means that Canadian Thanksgiving is unique from American Thanksgiving in more than timing; Canadian’s are celebrating a whole different event than Americans.
This past Thanksgiving was the first in many years where I didn’t cook a large holiday meal for family and friends; we left that to other people. Instead of giving thanks with friends and family, my wife and I decided to relax, stay in, and enjoy a Canadian Thanksgiving meal ourselves.
I have already established that Canadian Thanksgiving is significantly different from neighboring America’s Thanksgiving right down to the very first event. Knowing this, I thought a traditional roast turkey seemed inappropriate. Instead I opted to celebrate with a rustic French inspired dish – cassoulet with venison, duck and turkey confit. Although Martin Frobisher was English, many of the earliest Canadian Thanksgiving celebrations would have been held by French Canadians. A hearty French feast seemed the only real option we had.
There are a number of great cassoulet recipes; my favourite comes from Jennifer McLagan’s most recent publication titled “fat”. To me, the subtle use of cloves is essential in a good cassoulet, especially when paired with a traditional Farmhouse biere.
While in Quebec this summer, I picked up a number of French beers that are sitting in my cellar, including a bottle of Biere Nouvelle from Brasserie De Saint-Sylvestre. This particular beer paired perfectly with my thanksgiving cassoulet. The subtle flavour of cloves infused in the cassoulet helped to draw out the pleasant spiciness in the beer. The straightforward malt flavour worked great with gamier meats and the heavy carbonation helped to cut through the richness (aka. fattiness) that all cassoulets must have. Farmhouse French beer and cassoulet – give it a try.
Cheers,
Erik
Beer Ice Cream Floats
Friday, October 2nd, 2009 | Food and Recipes | 2 Comments
Post four of the now canonized beer dinner deals with dessert, Beer Ice Cream Floats. Our gracious hosts broke out the ice cream maker for this one. They followed the vanilla recipe that came with the machine and it produced a very good, very creamy vanilla ice cream.
Fresh Vanilla Ice Cream
I know Erik has previously blogged about beer floats and it is no coincidence that I used one of the same beers that he did. The Philllips Longboat Chocolate Porter went really well with the ice cream. It’s bitterness and roasted malt and chocolate flavors combined well with the sweetness of the ice cream. As one who is not particularly fond of sweets, beer ice cream floats might just be my favorite dessert. We also had on hand a Southern Tier Jahva Imperial Coffee Stout, which was a lot more intense than the Phillips Chocolate Porter. This bad boy weighed in at 11% ABV and, while tasty, was tough to drink in anything but small quantities. It was truly a beer for the veteran beer drinker, but it went well with the ice cream in my opinion. In the below picture, you’ll see two floats, one with ice cream added first and one with beer added first. Whichever way you decide to go, pour beer or add ice cream slowly to avoid eruptions, then enjoy.
Beer Ice Cream Floats
Cheers,
Chris
Beer Battered Fries
Thursday, October 1st, 2009 | Food and Recipes | 3 Comments
On to round three of what is now a world renowned beer dinner, Beer Battered Fries. We considered baking our beer battered fries, but then what’s the fun in that? We lost our deep frying virginity that night and it was good.
Our beer battered potatoes in the deep fryer
We didn’t exactly make fries so much as we cut little potatoes in half. We (again, we more refers to the talented cooks in the kitchen) first baked our potatoes drizzled with oil in the oven for 15 minutes to mostly cook the potatoes. We then prepared out batter and put the pot of canola oil on the stove to heat up. To tell when your oil is hot enough, drop a little piece of bread in and see if it quickly starts sizzling and turns brown. If you get that good sizzle and your bread fries up nicely, you are good to go (eat the bread, it’ll be tasty). Our beer batter recipe was originally meant for fish and came from here. We used Central City’s Red Racer Pale Ale again, mostly because we bought a six pack. Here are the ingredients we mixed together for our batter:
- 1 egg
- 1 cup Central City Red Racer Pale Ale
- 1 1/8 tsp. baking powder
- 1 c. flour
- 2 tsp. salt
- 3/4 tsp. pepper
- 1 tsp. garlic salt
We battered our mostly cooked potatoes and dropped them into the pool. Watch out, the oil is freaking hot! I splashed myself and it hurt a lot. Cook until the batter turns a nice golden brown and looks crispy. Remove the potatoes with a small collinder of sorts and let the potatoes dry on a paper towel.
Scoop them out with a small collinder and be careful!
We were probably the most skeptical of how successful we would be with our beer battered fries, but they were delicious! They were perfectly cooked and wonderfully crispy. Combined with the soup, it was a very heavy meal. The salad provided a very refreshing contrast to the rest of the dishes. Despite the heaviness, dinner was excellent. I recommend deep frying to you adventurous sorts.
The salad balanced out the fries and the soup
Cheers,
Chris
Beer Cheddar Soup
Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 | Food and Recipes | 2 Comments
Dish number two in my famed beer dinner series is Beer Cheddar Soup. I hadn’t had too many, if any, Beer Cheddar Soups before, but I was excited to give it a try because beer and cheese are two of my favorite things. The combination sounded mouth wateringly magical to me.
Our soup simmering on the stove
We used a five year old sharp cheddar and, again, Central City’s Red Racer Pale Ale. The recipe we started with was found online here, but we (those actually cooking, not me) made some alterations. We meant to add bacon, but ended up forgetting it. We also left out the leeks, mostly because we didn’t have any. Here is the recipe that we used:
Ingredients
- 2 medium carrots, cut into 1/4-inch dice (1 cup)
- 2 celery ribs, cut into 1/4-inch dice (1 cup)
- 2 teaspoons finely chopped garlic
- 1 Turkish or 1/2 California bay leaf
- 1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter
- 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
- 2 cups whole milk
- 1 3/4 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth (14 fl oz)
- 1 (12-oz) can of Central City Red Racer Pale Ale
- 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
- 1 teaspoon dry mustard
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 lb 5 year aged Cheddar, grated (4 cups)
Preparation
Cook carrots, celery, garlic, and bay leaf in butter in a 4-quart heavy saucepan over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until vegetables begin to soften, about 5 minutes. Reduce heat to moderately low and sprinkle flour over vegetables, then cook, stirring occasionally, 3 minutes. Add milk, broth, and beer in a stream, whisking, then simmer, whisking occasionally, 5 minutes. Stir in Worcestershire sauce, mustard, salt, and pepper.
Add cheese by handfuls, stirring constantly, and cook until cheese is melted, 3 to 4 minutes (do not boil). Discard bay leaf.
Our soup was very delicious, you could really pickup the sharpness of the aged cheddar, which balanced out the richness of all the added fats. The flavor of the beer was also apparent, contributing positively to the soup. Our gracious host thought our soup compared favorably to the one he regularly orders from Big Ridge, success!
Cheers,
Chris