I saw an article last month about a stand at the Northside Farmers Market called Rue Bourre which was selling Cajun food. The proprietors, Bekah Nethken-Ulrich and Alex Ulrich, are from Louisiana and they are looking to open a brick and mortar place at 4692 Cottage Grove Road, not too far from us - and North of the Bayou too.
Ms. Nethken-Ulrich was quoted in the article as saying, “My personal philosophy is that Southern food should be cheap, quality and filling," which sounds good to me as so many new restaurants seem to be keen on appealing to the monied class on the isthmus these days.
On a recent visit to the Northside Farmers Market, I made sure to check out Rue Bourre. Ms. Nethken-Ulrich was friendly and explained that their restaurant was simply waiting on the city to stamp a permit or something like that. I went home with some of their gumbo and jambalaya. My first tasting was of the former.
It looked and smelled like the gumbo I was used to, i.e. - the stuff I make for myself. My nose caught thyme and a fine roux aroma of precious Maillard reactions. This looked like good stuff and I started salivating.
OK, so there was no okra in it. There are those who maintain that it ain't gumbo if there's no okra and I hear you. But I will let others fight this one out.
I generously dosed it with microwaves followed by a few dashes of file powder and I was ready to eat. Verdict?
Mo' bettah!
They did not skimp on the chicken nor andouille. The broth was the perfect consistency. I am now very much looking forward to their restaurant opening up and am hoping that they serve shrimp creole.
The movie was co-directed by Roddy Bogawa, whom I’d never heard of, and Storm Thorgerson, friend of Syd Barrett (and Roger Waters) starting in childhood. Thorgerson, a graphic designer by trade, co-founded Hipgnosis which devised most Pink Floyd album covers plus countless others for a bevy of bands.
The movie is a typical mix of archival photos and film along with talking head interviews by the members of Pink Floyd – minus Richard Wright, and a variety of Barrett’s friends, former lovers, and his sister. Thorgerson is the interviewer here and, since he died in 2013, these interviews are likely 12 years old or thereabouts.
But this doesn’t really matter. Since he personally knew most of the people he talks to, the interviews are more like conversations and have an ease about them that most documentaries lack. They often come across as friends having a chat and reminiscing rather than someone investigating a subject and scrutinizing their interlocutor. No music journalists are consulted for an “objective” view and, aside from a couple television clips featuring Barrett on TV, all of the interviews seem to have been done just before Thorgerson’s death. This movie is a bunch of people who mostly know one another looking back at the days of their youth and mourning the loss of their friend, lover, brother.
Very early on, we are given orthodox rock history: Barrett took too much acid and it fried his brain so he had to leave Pink Floyd and become a recluse. We then get an account of our tragic hero's childhood and see him mature into a handsome young man who joins a band doing American blues and R&B songs. They abandon the trendy covers act and go their own way. Barrett re-christens the group Pink Floyd and the rest is history.
Friends gush about Barrett’s charisma and playfulness while fellow musicians can say nothing less about his musical and songwriting talents than he was simply a genius. Former girlfriends describe how they were attracted to his quirky personality. One of them says something to the effect of a goofy musician being a much more attractive proposition than a banker. So there’s an element of hagiography here.
But we also get some great early Floyd footage. Presumably the filmmakers were given access to people’s private collections of old 8mm or 16mm films from back in the day. I’m not intimately familiar with the extant Syd-era footage so perhaps the movie features stuff largely already available. Regardless, that scene of them playing “Astronomy Domine” with the psychedelic liquid projection and the lights, in color, no less, was just fantastic. Like most music documentaries, Have You Got It Yet? suffers from the we-can’t-play-a-whole-song syndrome. But I did appreciate that “Bike” got an extended examination.
In the latter part of 1967 Barrett started to lose it, I guess you’d say. One interviewee says that the burgeoning pop star simply didn’t want to be in the music business anymore, that the taste of fame he'd already had was enough. While I can certainly believe this, his behavior and eventual seclusion suggests there was more to it than that. He became withdrawn and undependable. At first, David Gilmour was brought in to augment the increasingly erratic front man but he would go on to replace him. I was happy that “Vegetable Man” and “Scream Thy Last Scream Old Woman With a Casket”, Barrett songs from his last days with the band, were brought up as I adore both of them.
He was kicked out of Pink Floyd in 1968 at the tender age of 22 and his recording career was done within a couple of years. I had no idea that he occasionally played gigs with other folks until 1974 or so but we find out that he did. The section of the movie where Barrett turns up at the Floyd’s recording session for Wish You Were Here in 1975 was heartbreaking.
At first, the band didn’t know who he was. Someone – I cannot recall whom – noted that he had a new still camera in the studio that day and took some photos of the revenant band leader in the control booth that I had never seen. We are told that Barrett picked up a guitar and strummed a bit as the band looked on, not quite knowing what to do or say.
Barrett lived the rest of his life painting and his sister says that he cared for him because he was unable to do so for himself. An ex-girlfriend vehemently denies the legend that people dosed Barrett’s coffee daily with LSD so that he ended up tripping all day. But, in the end, no one really knows what happened to Syd Barrett. While he did take a lot of LSD, we cannot definitively say that his usage caused a mental breakdown. Maybe it exacerbated another problem. Or perhaps it had nothing to do with it.
Near the end, Gilmour remarks that the guys in Pink Floyd did all they could for him but they were young. In a tender moment, he admits that he regrets not having gone to visit Syd despite Barrett’s family discouraging visitors.
Even though Have You Got It Yet? covered a lot of territory that was familiar to me, it was interesting to hear people relate tales of events that they were present at that I’d only read about. I loved seeing the old performance footage on a big screen with a good sound system. There is a brief clip of Pete Townshend talking about Barrett’s status in the London music scene and his influence on other musos. I do wish there was a bit more of this because Barrett's musical output is rather paltry so I’d love to hear more to better understand his outsized legacy. So much that is said about him relates to his tragic life instead of how his creative genius influenced others.
Lastly, watching this movie gave me the desire to really investigate Barrett’s solo albums, something I’ve never done.
I've meant to drink more kombucha than I do for a while now. It's tea and I like tea. (I've taken the Nestea plunge many times.) It is fermented and I like fermented foods. (Beer! Sauerkraut!) But I drink the stuff very sporadically. (Boo!)
Kombucha is prepared by adding a SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast - that slimy thing floating inside your bottle) to sweetened tea - usually black tea, from my experience. You let it sit for a couple of weeks and voila! You've got kombucha. At some point in the process of making the commercial stuff, fruit (juice?), spices, and/or flowers are added. Probably sugar surplus to fermentation requirements too. Some of the stuff on store shelves has a fair amount of sugar in it. Kombucha contains at least some alcohol in it. I think I see "<0.5%" on bottles. I'm not sure if the fermentation process simply produces very little of it or it is removed. It must be the former. Removing alcohol is a complex and expensive process.
Kombucha has some fizziness and so there's a little bit of a bite to the drink along with a bit of tartness.
It doesn't seem that long ago that it was available only at the Willy Street Coop or a similar store. Then a brand or 2 from the west coast appeared in the coolers of more mainstream grocers. Soon enough Madisonians got in on things and we had local kombucha. At some point the drink became big business and now my supermarket's cooler has a whole lot of kombucha in it with maybe 1 local brand, if any. It's a big business these days and I can't help but think that behind the tie dye labels lurk a Kraft or other mega food corporation product. So I buy local, when possible.
A more recent purchase was Wisco Buds & Petals from Madison's Rude Brew.
Rude Brew dates back to 2017 when proprietor Lacy Rude threw caution to the wind and decided to become a purveyor of kombucha. The bottle gives an address on Sherman Avenue so it seems that she makes her tea at that northside shared commercial kitchen that I cannot remember the name of.
This brew has black & green teas along with elderflower, roses, hops, lavender, lemongrass, and Wisconsin hemp. Sounds delightful!
It looks like a gold color that's had a fair amount of red added to it - something like a white zinfandel. Opening the bottle released a fair amount of fizz. It smelled sweet and floral.
Since the weather gods had mistaken Madison for Phoenix, the temperature outside was 100 degrees and I was happy to find that the kombucha was light and fizzy with a not insignificant amount of tang to it. It tasted floral and herbal and the lemongrass with its floral-citrus thing was fairly prominent. Plus just a hint of sweetness.
I really loved this stuff, especially the floral taste. It wasn't too strong but there was no mistaking the presence of flowers. Just as the label promised, it was a herbal union and a delicious one.
The bus was barreling down University Avenue in the center lane like a bat out of Hell or a driver behind schedule. I watched it for a couple seconds before realizing the driver had no intention of stopping for us. In what I thought would be a vain attempt to flag it down, I stepped out towards the street and peered into the windshield. Much to my surprise, 40' and a few tons of metal and plastic was hastily brought to a stop near us with the front doors only about 5' from the concrete pad at the stop.
Considering how quickly the bus had slowed down and pulled over, I boarded expecting to see a couple people picking themselves off the floor and a bloody nose or 2.
The driver was a middle-aged fellow. He looked Polish, or maybe just Slavic, to me. His face was thin, mildly gaunt, maybe, weathered with lines etched in it. He looked to me like a guy you'd see in a photograph of the resistance from the Warsaw Uprising.
I missed a few words that he had rattled off to another passenger but he turned and looked at me and sagely noted, "It's five o'clock somewhere."
I am happy to see that Season 2 of 30 COINS is coming. I thoroughly enjoyed the first season and will admit that ending, well, I did not expect that. Creepy, thrilling, depraved - great stuff!
And Megan Montaner...it's always a pleasure to watch as she plies her trade.
My boss is not always the most prompt person. He expects us to show up early and finish our work before it's due but he has a much more lenient sense of punctuality and timeliness when it comes to his own responsibilities. For instance, while we all appreciate that he takes out our entire unit out for a year-end holiday lunch, the meal is not always taken near Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Saturnalia, and whatnot in December. I think our celebratory meal came when the year was well underway last April and this year it came in May. Soon things will come full circle and we'll actually have this lunch in the proper month.
Just as we did last spring, we went to Petra Bakery & Restaurant this month, a Middle Eastern joint on Madison’s west side.
To start the meal, we had the deep-fried halloumi (cheese made from goat and sheep milk) which was really tasty with a crispy outside and a smooth, creamy inside. This being Wisconsin, land of the fried cheese curd, I assume this is a big seller. Deep fried cheese seems to be something that transcends cultures. It's like a universal culinary language. Well, at least amongst those of us who are neither vegetarians nor vegans.
For the next round of Vorspeise, we were treated to stuffed falafel, deep fried balls of chickpea filled with onion, sumac, and chili paste. Oh, these were excellent too, I can assure you. Not very spicy but they did have a little bite. They reminded me that we have a jar of sumac at home so I must figure out some way to cook with it.
For my main course, I ordered a Fattoush salad topped with chicken shawarma.
While I probably, well, definitely, didn’t need the large size, I cleaned my plate anyway. Without any flatbread, rice, or other starch, I figured that I wouldn't slip into a particularly deep food coma when I got back to my desk. Underneath all of that chicken was the salad comprised of lettuce, tomato, and cucumber dressed with olive oil, garlic, maybe some sumac, and lots of lemon juice. Quite tasty and just perfect for a rather warm day.
In a feat worthy of Hercules, I restrained myself and did not order any baklava for dessert despite it looking very alluring and highly tasty in a display case that, curiously enough, is close to the entrance and catches your attention right as you walk in the door.
********
When the work week ended last Friday, my Frau and I went out on a date night to the North Street Cabaret, just a couple miles from home. For one of Chicago’s finest bands, The Claudettes, were in town.
They are led by Johnny Iguana, a pianist with a blues pedigree. While there is a definite element of blues, barrelhouse and otherwise, in some of their songs, particularly their older material, there is much besides including R&B, cabaret pop, hints of New Wave, et al.
With them was their new singer, the willowy Rachel Williams.
I am kicking myself for not having snagged a copy of the setlist but I can confidently say they did a mix of originals and covers.
Bassist/guitarist Zach Verdoorn sang on a fine rendition of “Cosmic Dancer”, originally done by T. Rex, while the night ended with a rockin’ “See Saw”, a classic Aretha Franklin song. The band composition “Pull Closer to Me” was dedicated to a friend of my Frau who was sitting next to us. She has seen them several times and they now recognize her as a fixture of their Madison shows. And they've gotten to know her favorite songs.
“Terms and Conditions” brought tears to the Frau's eyes while we both laughed out loud to a song poking fun at a CNN reporter who, when reporting on the death of the bassist of the band Bon Jovi, pronounced his job title like the fish and not the musical instrument.
Iguana augmented his wonderful tinkling of the ivories with humorous between song banter; Verdoorn effortlessly switched between bass and electric guitar, his playing tasteful throughout. Drummer Michael Caskey kept things moving along and did some great work on the toms. Plus he has the best facial expressions. One moment he’d be pounding away on his kit with a maniacal look on his face, as if he was going to hurt someone, and the next he is smiling and laughing like he'd just been told the world's funniest joke.
For her part, Williams looked to be having fun. This was one of her first gigs as the new singer and so there were times when she appeared to be working on her front lady routine. Similarly, the band seemed to be figuring out just which songs from their back catalogue suited her best. Williams' predecessor, Berit Ulseth, was no less talented but had a Scandinavian reserve to her while Williams seemed more inclined to let go occasionally and just belt it out.
I ended up buying 3 CDs and Johnny Iguana came over to chat with us after the show. My inner fan boy was like, “It’s the guy who played piano on ‘Infernal Piano Plot...HATCHED!’!” That being the first song of theirs I heard back in 2014 or so and got me hooked on them.
It was a really fun night and I was impressed with the North Street Cabaret as it was my first time there. While it may be a small joint, it is cozy and colorful with the exposed wood lending a warmth to the atmosphere. In such a space the performance was intimate. The band were right there instead of being indistinct figures off in the distance of an arena. They could see us just as we could see them.
Iguana said he’s trying to land them a spot at the AtwoodFest, a block party an easy bike or bus ride from our house, this July. Fingers crossed.
********
My pursuit of the ideal loaf of rye bread continues. I found a promising recipe online that contained cocoa powder and molasses and it was once more unto the breadmaker.
It turned out alright.
The loaf didn’t collapse, which I was proud of. But how did it taste?
It was good. Not great, but good. I liked the earthy bitterness of the cocoa as it made a nice contrast to the wheaty sweetness. Plus, I think the molasses added a little something to bolster that earthy taste as well. The crispy crust was great.
But it just didn't have enough of that spicy rye flavor.
While an improvement on my previous loaves, I still have much to learn of the way of breadmaking.
********
My Frau and I went to the Northside Farmers Market on a recent Sunday morning that was grey and a bit glum.
Despite this, there were some lovely colors to be seen.
There were some great looking mushrooms to be had.
The Frau ended up buying summer squash and broccolini. While I was sorely tempted to get some pastrami, I managed some self-restraint. Another time.
********
A week or so ago I went south to St. Charles, Illinois to go see the band The Musical Box at the Arcada Theater. I saw them there last year but couldn’t turn down a chance to see them perform The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway once again. Since I wrote about their previous show at the Arcada back in the spring, I won't go on at length here. I will, however, note that it was a great show despite a loud drunk guy a couple seats to my right who would occasionally turn on his phone light to look at the pills he was going to pop.
The guy just kept talking and talking. At one point, he was basically yelling at his friend about something that happened the last time he went to a Roger Waters concert. I felt like Roger Waters at that 1977 concert in Montreal when he went off on the audience.
"Oh, for fuck's sake. Stop letting off fireworks and shouting and screaming!"
But I may have witnessed evidence for the existence of a higher power that night. The song that I was most looking forward to hearing was "Silent Sorrow in Empty Boats". I mean, I was looking forward to all of the songs but my musical mind was keen on sitting there in the dim glow of the projections at the back of the stage and just letting those waves of Mellotron chorus wash over me. At previous performances of The Lamb I was eager to feel the rush of air over my face as every instrument came crashing in during "Fly On a Windshield" or to feel that unsettling feeling as the bright lights shine directly into my eyes and Death rises on the screen in back.
This time I just wanted a moment of serenity, of calm. To be overwhelmed by voices. And, by the gods, the drunken loudmouth allowed me that much.
The song was just beautiful.
Despite having been to the Arcada several times, I’d never really investigated St. Charles much and so I availed myself of the opportunity to trek around town the next morning.
It has a very pretty downtown with the Fox River splitting St. Charles in twain.
The St. Charles Municipal Center sits on the shore next to the St. Charles Dam. Built in 1940, it features a neat tower. Is this Art Deco? I’m not sure.
Here’s the Osgood Building with a fine turret, an architectural feature that has sadly (if you ask me) gone out of fashion.
There were murals along one side of it and I just had to take a photo of the one with a cat. The artist has captured the naughty look and demeanor of the feline creature here as this tabby looks ready to cause trouble.
There was a neat ghost sign a few blocks down the street, although the new occupants are in the same business as the old.
I found this mural with some timeless words of advice.
St. Charles is home to Ghoulish Mortals, the source for all of your monster and horror needs. Don’t mess with the flowers outside its windows.
There are lovely paths along river for a scenic stroll.
For dinner, I went to Alter Brewing which called a newer building home.
With my dinner I had a glass of their golden ale, Center Line, which was very tasty. A nice grain flavor with just a dash of fruitiness before the some spicy hops came in for a dry finish. It was light and refreshing and a very pretty brew.
On my way back to the interstate, I passed through Elgin. I don't think I'd ever been there before. It's always just been a sign that meant that I was getting close to Chicago and the traffic is going to get crazy soon. My impression was that it had something of an industrial past, judging by the buildings. St. Charles, on the other hand, seems to have had more of an agricultural history.
Cruising down the highway, I went by a building with a really nice ghost sign. I had to turn around and park to get some photos.
********
Bonus photo. Here’s Piper relaxing in the sun while I was hard at work.
So bad that an older couple showed up at my house offering to bless my marriage because, the wife informed me, so many marriages are in trouble and children are suffering.
And they were persistent/desperate. When I didn't answer the front door they went to the side door.
I neglected to ask what qualifications they had to bless a marriage. They offered none. Maybe the Christian deity will just honor any old marriage blessings.
A couple months or so ago, I was spending some quality time with friends. It was gaming day. As is customary before we begin a Twilight: 2000 or Pathfinder or whatever RPG we are playing, we BS about the events of the day, the state of Madison, property taxes, etc. The usual fodder for middle-aged men.
Some time is almost always devoted to all of the new construction going on in Madison, all of those shiny, new apartment buildings. We started talking about the luxury student housing being built near campus. The idea that college students at a state school could afford luxury apartments was foreign to all of us, even my friend who didn't attend a university.
As a UW-Madison graduate, hearing stories of kids (their parents, really) paying 4 figures monthly for rent seems almost absurd. I get that times have changed and there's inflation and whatnot. But still, students in luxury apartments?
I think it seems so alien to me because most of the people I knew when I attended the UW were not from wealthy families. They were from average middle-class homes and hailed from Marinette, Two Rivers, Mosinee, Portage, Green Bay - and several were farm kids. My friends and I pondered if the UW was accepting fewer in-state students in favor of those from out of state or even from another country as folks in these latter groups get charged higher tuition.
While we found an article from 2019 saying that that year's freshman class had the fewest kids from Wisconsin in it in 25 years or more, I don't think we found a whole lot of data and nor did we try. At the end of the day, we concluded that there were fewer Wisconsinites at the UW-Madison and that the student body, overall, came from wealthier families than 30 years ago because why else would developers being falling over themselves to build luxury student apartments?
I was reminded of this conversation recently when I began listening to lectures by this fellow:
This is Charles W. Anderson, a former political science professor at the UW. I had a class with him my senior year and it was, not only incredibly interesting, but it also had a great impact on my thinking, my outlook on things - how they are and should be.
He also taught courses for the Integrated Liberal Studies program and his lectures for the Western Culture: Political, Economic & Social Thought classes were broadcasted by Wisconsin Public Radio back in the mid-80s on its University of the Air program. There have been a few moments so far that made me think about the UW, those luxury apartments, and how the institution has changed over the years since I attended it. Anderson made references to things that assume that the vast majority of his students, if not all of them, were from Wisconsin.
In the very first lecture, which is an introduction to the course, he says at one point, "In the old Vince Lombardi style of teaching..." Here we have the assumption that his students are from Wisconsin or are Packers fans or football fans or some combination thereof to know who the legendary Packers coach was.
Later, in the third lecture, Anderson is talking about ancient Athens, the cradle of Western democracy. He notes that the city had roughly 250,000 inhabitants with 100,000 of those being slaves. Of the remaining, only 30,000 - all men - could take part in the city-state's democratic process. He likens that number to the population of Manitowoc. I think he is assuming that the great majority of students before him were from Wisconsin and would know of Manitowoc.
In the following lecture, again we're talking ancient Greece, he mentions the Greek goddess Demeter and says, "Some of you who've been with Future Farmers of America or groups like that might have encountered the group the Daughters of Demeter..." Anderson seems to believe that many of his students were from rural, if not farming, backgrounds here.
I'd never heard of Daughters of Demeter but found that the group is still around today and is now known simply as Demeter.
Demeter is a service organization established in 1917 and named for the Greek goddess Demeter – the goddess of agriculture and the harvest. It serves the University of Wisconsin-Madison, primarily the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences (CALS), and the Madison area community. The original organization was called the Daughters of Demeter, and membership was comprised of wives of faculty members in the then-named University of Wisconsin College of Agriculture. Today, while this group is still prominent in the organization, membership is open to both women and men who are faculty, staff, and friends of CALS, along with their spouses, with an interest in agriculture. Demeter currently has about 120 members.
My guess is that a UW-Madison liberal arts professor would not reference a Packers head coach today, nor small towns and cities around the state, and not the FFA/Demeter. Maybe they do and I just don't know about it. I am not a student there, after all. Maybe they do and explain exactly who and what they talking about.
"...about the same number of people who live in Manitowoc, a city in east central Wisconsin on the shores of Lake Michigan."
But Anderson never explains these things. He assumes his students know who Vince Lombardi was, where Manitowoc is and about how many people lived there, and that at least some of them know about youth organizations that promote agricultural training.
But it's also possible that Anderson was just being an old duffer and
saying whatever he felt regardless of the composition of the class. Or
perhaps he was taking into account that he had a radio audience.
Still, listening to these lectures gives me the impression that the UW circa 1985 had a much higher percentage of students from Wisconsin than it does now and also a student body that had a higher percentage of kids from rural areas than it does today.
As I mentioned previously, I spent some time in Indianapolis recently and my visit included a trip to a liquor store. In that post I relayed how I had snagged a six pack of Bier Brewery's Special Kölsch on the recommendation of a very helpful and friendly clerk who refrained from insults and profanity when I informed him of my dislike for IPAs of the American variety. Although eye rolls are impossible to display in text, my peepers were strained to their limit at the liquor store as I spied some Oktoberfest and a pumpkin ale on display even though August was not yet a week old. Well, next to these uncomfortably early seasonal beers was a display for Taxman Brewing Co.
A friend and I had walked by their Indianapolis location on S. Delaware Street the previous morning and so I was keen to see what they brewed. While I would later learn that Belgian-style or Belgian-inspired beers are their forte, I never got that far because of the 4-packs on the top shelf of the display. My eyes basically stopped scanning for further info after reading "honey blonde ale with lavender and elderflower". Not one but two kinds of flowers in a beer?! That sounded right up my ruelle.
Taxman was founded in 2014 by a group of folks, a few of whom were accountants. Bean counting took at least a couple of them, Nathan and Leah Huelsebusch, to Belgium where they seem to have acquired a taste for the local barley pop. Hence the Belgian styles in the Taxman's portfolio. The original brewery is in a small Indiana town called Bargersville which is just south of Indianapolis. The Indy outpost that my friend and I traipsed by opened in 2019.
As noted above, this beer, Field Audit, is a honey blonde ale with lavender and elderflower. The latter in the form of St. Germain Elderflower Liqueur seems to be a fairly trendy cocktail ingredient these days so I am unsurprised to see it in a beer. In fact, my wife bought a bottle of the stuff after encountering it in her travels to some of the trendier cocktail destinations here in Madison. If I recall correctly, the St. Germain is still in our liquor cabinet where it sits uneasily next to a bottle of Malört.
Personally, I think pairing elderflower with lavender is a stroke of floral genius as I adore this flower's scent as have people throughout the ages. For instance, it was like a dryer sheet in the Middle Ages as washerwomen would put clothes out to dry in fields of lavender.
While I am sure I have eaten lavender before, I can't think of when. But I am having chocolatey visions of truffles with small bits of the dried flower on top...Earl Grey chocolates from Gail Ambrosius. That's it! The idea of using flowers for flavor is attractive for me. I like it when brewers deviate from the hoppy norm. My only reservation going in here is that I am not the biggest fan of Belgian beers. At least the big trippels and quads. Just too astringent for my taste. Field Audit is 5.5% A.B.V. so I am expecting it to be quite palatable.
Whatever the flavor turned out to be, I was entranced by the beer's appearance. At the widest part of my glass, it appeared to be a deep, dark yellow - golden, perhaps. It appeared much lighter in that little dimple at the top of the stem, however. The aureate elixir was topped by a big head of loose foam which went away quickly, depriving me of a photo of the sudsy crown in all of its glory. The aroma had an unexpected lemony bit to it - the lactic acid kind you get with sour beers. Was this a sour beer? Nothing on the label to that effect. This scent was rather prominent but beneath it I caught a something floral and a hint of earthy honey.
A light body and moderate fizz were the first things I noticed upon tasting. Then I caught a little grain followed by the tempting flowers. It was rather sweet and my tongue noted an earthy honey flavor along with clovey-tasting phenols which became more pronounced as the beer warmed. I wasn't able to distinguish the lavender from the elderflower, mainly, I think, because I am not sure what the latter tastes like. To me, lavender has a prominent earthy component to it. It's not a sweet floral kind of deal.
On the finish, the sweetness and the floral taste slowly faded away leaving a 19 I.B.U. bitterness and just a modicum of dryness.
I liked Field Audit but need to register two complaints. First, the clove taste became almost overpowering as the beer warmed up. My tongue was not able to register the delicious floral flavors underneath. Which brings me to my second gripe: it needs more flowers. I wish the lavender and elderflower were more forward in the overall flavor scheme here. The beer doesn't need to taste like a mouthful of the bouquet I am going to buy my Frau for our wedding anniversary but I would like the floral taste to be stronger.
A good beer when cold so drink it fast before it gets too clovey.
Junk food pairing: Pair Field Audit with a bag of sweet & spicy chips from Indy's Broad Ripple Chip Co.
I saw the trailer for The Last Voyage of the Demeter and found myself intrigued. While it looked to be a boilerplate slab of Gothic horror, I like Gothic horror. And the movie just looked really good with its period sets and moody visuals.
It is apparently based on a chapter from Bram Stoker’s Dracula which is the log book of the captain of the Demeter that chronicles the horrors inflicted on the crew of the ship by Dracula as it sailed from Varna, Bulgaria to Ol' Blighty with its hideous cargo. I discovered that the director is André Øvredal who made the interminably fun Troll Hunter and whose The Autopsy of Jane Doe is a masterclass slowburn creepfest that I loved every minute of. And so I went in thinking that I’d get some quality scares.
And I did.
I’ve never read Dracula so I cannot say just what is and what isn’t in the book. Here, our story opens on the night of 6 August 1897 with the Demeter having run aground on the English shore. Rain pours down in buckets as a band of constables investigate the wreck and searching the ship leaves one nearly petrified by what he saw there. Another opens the captain’s log that was recovered from the Demeter. Its ink runs like blood down its pages as the constable reads its chilling entries about crew members being killed.
We then go back several weeks to Bulgaria as the Demeter is taking on cargo and Captain Elliot is seeking crew members. A doctor named Clemens throws his name in the hat but he is rejected in favor of an old, grizzled salty dog. I don’t recall if anything is implied that he was rejected on account of his skin color – he’s black – or not. I think it was more the case that the hiring committee thought he was a landlubber.
Shortly after this, Clemens saves the life of Toby, the captain’s grandson who was standing underneath a crate being loaded onto the Demeter when the ropes gave way and it fell to the dock. The crate has a dragon emblem affixed to it which one of the new recruits, who seems to be a local Balkan fellow, knows to be an evil symbol. He promptly bails at the sight of it and Clemens is made a crew member by the grateful captain.
Our newly-minted naval surgeon befriends Toby who introduces him to his faithful hound, Huckleberry. “Surely they won’t kill the dog,” I thought to myself. Soon strange things start happening as the ship sails the Aegean. For instance, a shadowy figure is seen on deck at night. One night a noise is heard in the hold and a crate is found to have fallen and busted open. All that seems to have spilled out from it is a lot of dirt until a young woman bursts from the mound gasping for breath.
Clemens begins to give her regular blood transfusions to fight off what he has diagnosed as an unknown infection. But we discover that the woman, Anna, is a quick snack for Dracula as she shows Clemens a body laced with scars. She ominously warns him of the daemonic passenger that is now aboard the Demeter.
Then one night all of the ship’s animals are found to have been killed with bite marks on their necks. This includes not only the chickens and goats and whatnot that were to have been food for the crew but also Huckleberry the hound. I was so saddened to see him meet his demise. If the dog got it, then I figured Toby was fair game too.
Each night one of the crew is taken by Dracula. He goes after Toby who locks himself inside the Captain’s quarters in a rather harrowing scene. The boy hides underneath a table and looks to the side only to see Dracula crouched in the corner, slowly rising to meet his prey.
Yeah, Toby got it. Øvredal pulled no punches here.
While there were a few jump scares, the movie is mostly about the growing menace aboard the ship and the crew becoming ever more desperate and paranoid. Heightening the creepiness factor was the order of the day and Øvredal gives us only brief glimpses of Dracula, for the most part.
Clemens and Anna are the last 2 survivors of the wreck of the Demeter. We see Dracula pinned against a mast by a boom but he manages to free himself. Our heroes are adrift and Anna reveals that she will soon be a vampire. It was only the surgeon’s blood transfusions that delayed the transformation. She parts with Clemens and floats on a bit of wreckage into the light of the new dawn where she is engulfed by the purifying flames.
Later in London, Clemens is at a pub where Dracula reveals his presence to him. The good doctor vows that Dracula shall meet his end at his hands, Hippocratic Oath be damned.
I enjoyed The Last Voyage of the Demeter quite a bit. It was chilling and scary but it didn’t go overboard with jump scares. At certain points I knew they were coming but I jumped regardless. The sets were great, bursting with Gothic goodness. The deck of the Demeter at night was wonderfully spooky and the movie wasn’t afraid to end the lives of its most sympathetic characters, a boy and his dog.
Not having read the book, I don’t know if Clemens is a character and, if he is, if he’s black. At first I was on the lookout for nods to contemporary racial commentary but I didn’t notice any. At some point in the second half of the movie Clemens reveals how some people’s reactions to his skin color have motivated him in life but really, he’s just another crew member of the Demeter.
Joseph, the cook, is a devout Christian and, after some sanctimonious dialogue, it was quite satisfying to see him forcibly donate his blood to the cause.
While The Last Voyage of the Demeter doesn’t break new ground or any such thing, it was a very fun horror flick. Will we get a Clemens the Vampire Hunter sequel?
Earlier this month I made a trek to Indianapolis ostensibly to attend Gencon but I ended up doing various other things besides, which I'll write about later. While there, beer was drunk and, as always, I endeavored to locally source my brews.
This was rather easy as Sun King beer was everywhere. I get the impression that they are the Revolution of Indiana, the New Glarus of Naptown. Sun King has some deal with Gencon and the brewery gets to brew an official beer of the con. Earlier this year there was a poll asking gamers what style of beer they wanted to slake their thirsts after a hard day of rolling dice and rubbernecking at Sailor Moon cosplayers. While I voted for a Kölsch, an English mild made with honey proved victorious. It was christened Hive Mind.
I sampled it the first evening we were there at a place that I cannot recall. My friends and I were disappointed to see that our usual hangout, Claddagh, had been replaced by a more trendy joint. The new sleek, IKEA-like interior and steep drink prices were tailored to keep the unbathed, black t-shirted hordes out. And so we found respite elsewhere. Hive Mind was just OK. A bit too sweet with the honey flavor too forward for my taste. Instead of being a pleasant accent, the treacly, golden goodness was like an ochre jelly oozing over my palate so that I couldn't taste the fine malty-leathery flavor that I expected from the mild. And so I switched to Sunlight, Sun King's cream ale which was everywhere. Its ubiquity in downtown bars and restaurants led me to believe that this is their Spotted Cow. I ended up drinking the stuff at multiple venues including the hotel bar at the Omni which, I noticed, auctioned off the Hive Mind tap handle after the kegs were emptied. It was hot down south and Sunlight was easy going yet flavorful with a nice grain taste and without Citra-Mosaic-Simcoe overload. (Or is that Mosaic-Simcoe-Citra?)
One day I decided to go in search of local brews that weren't from Sun King. The Crown Liquors outpost at Ohio and Delaware was close to our hotel so I paid it a visit. A young gentleman behind the counter noticed a bewildered look on my face and asked me if I needed help. I did and he directed me to the local beer section of the coolers.
But, not only did he do that, he hung around unbidden and offered some handy advice. He gave me the 411 on the various breweries I'd never even so much as heard of and he seemed to be honest in his assessments. A couple of breweries were deemed sub-par and he noted a couple more that were hit or miss. One of the breweries he lauded as consistently brewing good beer was the rather unexcitingly named Bier Brewery. My local beer guide asked what kind of brews I like and, upon hearing that I was not an IPA kind of guy, he promptly pulled a 6-pack of Bier Brewery's Special Kölsch out of the cooler. Like a master addressing his novice, he looked me straight in the eyes and said, "You'll like this."
Bier Brewery appears to be a brewpub while the can notes that my sixer was brewed and bottled by South Broad Ripple Brewing which, as far as I can tell, is a subsidiary of Bier Brewery as they have the same address at a website I found. Perhaps this arrangement is just a quirk in Indiana law that requires brewpubs and packaging breweries to be separate legal entities or some such thing.
While I was the liquor store, I noted that Founder's Oktoberfest and Schlafly's Pumpkin Ale were both on display. Uff da!
I never cracked a can while in Indy but was eager to try my Special Kölsch out when I got home. For the occasion, I dug out a Stange from the basement.
The label features the Cologne Cathedral and what I think is the Hohenzollern Bridge so I was expecting a fairly true to style brew here. It certainly looked the part with its lovely light yellow hue. The bier was clear as day and I managed to pour a nice, big head of firm foam in my Stange. And this stuff had staying power - enough for me to actually get a decent photo of it. Some bubbles were seen inside. It had a wonderful Kölschy aroma too, just like the ones from Cologne that survive a trip across the ocean. My nose caught some delicate cracker, a slight fruity scent like -berry, and a bit of grass from the hops.
My first sip revealed a moderate fizziness permeating a nice, light bodied beer. The malt was biscuity and complemented very well by the grassy-herbal tasting hops. This combo made for a tasty earthy-grainy gestalt that was accented by a bit of -berry fruitiness. But there wasn't much sweetness to be had.
On the swallow, the grainy and fruity flavors slowly faded and gave way to a more herbal tasting hoppiness. At 14.4 I.B.U.'s, the finish had only a dash of dryness and a modicum of bitterness.
This is a very fine bier. Very fine indeed. The label evoked Cologne and the liquid inside was what I would expect from a genuine Kölsch. All of the flavors were deployed with a light touch, nothing heavy or overwhelming. The malt taste was clean and not sweet while the hops added balance and some flavor but they didn't try to run roughshod over my palate. And those yeasty fruit flavors complemented all of the other ones very well, even if they were a bit stronger than I am used to. Not cloying at all. I do wish the bier had been slightly hoppier to add a bit more of its herbal counterpoint, but this is a minor quibble.
Junk food pairing: The pork tenderloin sandwich is the unofficial sandwich of Hoosierland so pair your Special Kölsch with a bag of pork rinds. Go with the plain variety to ensure that the delicate flavors of the bier aren't overtaken.
