Today is beet day. I’m making pickled beets. I picked as many beets as I could stand out of my garden, and got the rest of the required volume from the grocery store. Beets require serious love. Not only do you have funny bright red stains all over all your cutting boards and skin, plus the usual canning casualties of scalds and sweating all through a summer afternoon. In addition to these, peeling (skinning) the damn things is just a pain. I’m told that high level masters can sense those precious instants in the boil between when the beet skin loosens and the beet itself de-compensates. I have not yet achieved such mastery.
Easing my pain is the Dogfish head, 90 minute IPA. Easily the best IPA I’ve ever had. It’s pricy ($10 for a four pack), but they managed to balance an Imperial level of malt with a continual hopping over 90 minutes. It rocks. Go find some. Anyone who’s in the Delaware area is welcome to invite me for a weekend of hanging at their brewery.
Anyway, part of the pickled beet recipe includes tying up the top secret spice mix into a piece of “thin cloth.” You are then able to remove the top secret spice mix from the final product. Sadly, the “thin cloth” was a little too thin today, and it ruptured, spilling cloves and cinnamon sticks into the mix. My consumers can cope. If you bite down on a clove, smile and consider it a lucky gift from your chef.
We’re in that part of the recipe where we wait for things to return to a boil, so we can start the clock on the “process” which kills off bacteria. This is also the part where the cook says “Wow, I’m drenched in sweat. Where’s my beer?”
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