Marc's Musings

Eating dinner with the kids tonight, my 7 year old daughter asked me if they could ask me they could repeat the all the words they’re not allowed to say and ask me what they mean.

What an interesting dinner discussion! Fortunately too, they didn’t throw me any curve balls.

We covered definitions, etymology, gestures. And why people use them even if my kids can’t.

I was so proud when the conversation moved into how God wants us to use our words. And how we can use our words to tear others down or build others up.

I was even more proud when my 7 year old daughter pulled out Wise Words For Moms. This is a useful matrix of negative behaviors, probing questions, and Scripture with to show how to put off the bad and put on the good. But my 7 year old daughter read it to her brother and sister.

My heart is very full right now.

(Even more so because she said the title should’ve said “Moms and Dads.”)

My sister-in-law is a crafty person. In alot of ways.

She knitted me a really cool looking thing. But didn’t tell me what it’s for.

Here’s a slide show of my family’s attempts at guessing what it could be.

Interestingly, there was nothing like it on her Etsy store (although there are really cool project bags there!).

What do you think this is?

Whipped this up for tomorrow’s Yankee swap. It’s a sampler of my three most recent brews:

• Stormy Seas Stout
• Fruite of Eden
• O’Darn Irish Red

It was a very popular gift item!

I did forget that six packs have four sides. So after the Yankee swap, I created this fourth panel.

A couple weeks ago, I shared a recipe for making muffins with beer. These were so good, I decided to try again.

This time I used my Stormy Seas Stout. The muffins were definitely darker than those made with the O’Darn Irish Red! But still tasty. And incredibly easy!

So, I decided to try out an almost too easy beer bread recipe that my friend Renee pointed to on the Farmgirl Fare blog.

 

This bread is, as we say in Maine, “wicked” easy!

Here’s the loaf I made with my hoppy Fruit of Eden beer. This tasted amazingly good. Especially with a ham and cheese sandwich!!

Stormy Seas Stout is my latest homebrew. I love stouts. My first beer, Bombadil, was a coffee stout.

This time I brewed a stout from NorthernBrewer.com called “St. James Gate Foreign Extra Stout.” I renamed it because it was brewed during a summer thunderstorm, racked the first time during a torrential downpour, and bottled six months later during a snow storm!

The addition of a second strain of yeast and the aging both work to mimic the funky, fruity undertones that developed in process of brewing a beer sturdy enough to withstand travel on the seas in Victorian ships. Guinness originally brewed this for travel to the Carribean, Africa, and Asia. Apparently, Nigeria is the largest market for this stout today.

Out of the bottle, the first thing you notice is this beer is black. Opaque. Black as midnight on a moonless night. (Remember that from Twin Peaks?) This is the way I like my beer.

Funky, fruitty it is. Not what I expect from a stout. But much more drinkable than my Mo Joe Stout Porter. It turns out, this stout is a lambic. So it’ll age well for over a year or more.

Which is good. I’m still now sure what I think about this one. But I’ve been assured the flavor will continue to change!