North Carolina brews good beer

Posted from the Greensboro News & Record:

North Carolina brews reputation for good beer

Welcome to the revolution. North Carolina is the craft beer state of the South.

.......Hang on any bar stool and you’ll hear a dozen reasons: the changing laws, the increasing interest, the supportive retailers, the growing number of festivals, and the natural tie-in to the homegrown food movement.

And of course, the brewers themselves. They’re making good beer here.

You’ll also hear barroom proclamations about North Carolina becoming more hip and hear how Beer Advocate magazine picked Asheville over Portland, Ore., earlier this year as the No. 1 beer destination in the country.

Imagine that. Asheville — a city once called backward by one of its own favorite sons, Thomas Wolfe — now has nine breweries.

........A change in the law helped. Four years ago, legislators overturned a law that dated back to 1935, the era of Prohibition, and allowed brewers to make beers that could exceed 6 percent alcohol content.

That change happened because thousands of people never involved or even interested in politics jumped aboard to help push what became known as “Pop the Cap.’’

And last August, brewmasters formed the N.C. Brewers Guild to help craft brew pubs go the way of the N.C. wineries: lobby, collaborate and get the word out about North Carolina’s homegrown brew.

Click the top link for the full story, I've just pasted some excerpts here.

The Heart Attack Grill

People ask me what I miss about the states.

Insanity, that's what I miss...

France seems to me to be a very self-conscious country, very concerned to be taken seriously and where no one wants to risk looking foolish. Ergo, there is a distinct deficit in over-the-top lunacy of this particular American variety:







Gigantic quadruple-decker hamburgers served by "Naughty Nurses" with cigarettes and beer.

God bless America!

(Note - I did not believe these pics at first, figuring they must be Photoshop fakes. Oh, the burgers I could easily believe, but not the cigs ,not in today's world of inane anti-smoking freakout. Then I learned the place was in Arizona, and it all made sense. Go Midwest!)

Super U has gone American on me

Wonder of wonders... I stopped by Super U to load up on junk food today and not only are they carrying Pepperidge Farm chocolate chip cookies now, but they've got Oreos! This was the first time I've seen Oreos on a grocery shelf for six years. As you can see, I bought them all. :D They even had microwave popcorn, albeit salted only, no buttered.

(BTW, the selection of beer in front was some random experimentation with Breton microbreweries, plus Chimay. I'm curious to try this MorBraz beer and see if it's any good...)

Popcorn Quest Continued, and Weird American "Food"

..... And I do mean to put quotes on "food", as some of what I will mention is pretty questionable (especially if one defines food as something needed for nutritional value). But first, a word on the popcorn quest. For three years now, Emily and I have depended on the kindness and forebearance of friends and family to send us the microwave popcorn that we couldn't find here. I can't imagine how tired they are of us begging for popcorn, and I'm certainly weary of bothering people, so we've recently launched a concerted effort to find our own sources of popcorn in Europe. Thanks to a very helpful friend in FumeursdePipe, we were pointed to the German website "United Lifestyles" - an online business catering to the strange and twisted tastes of British and American expats residing in mainland Europe. Suddenly, I can order beer online! (This was a really strange concept for an American - being able to visit any number of online wine & alcohol shops and purchase wines from all over France via the net... an unheard-of concept for the US, where alcohol sales are strictly controlled). UF has microwave popcorn, and our first order is on the way. Time will tell.

Unwilling to pin our long-term popcorn plans on one source, however, we valiantly pursued other avenues, and eventually found the two models of hot air popcorn poppers that were available in France. One visit to Boutique Plus and 25 euros later, we now have a real popcorn popper to try out (Seen in the photo above, along with all the other essentials of life for an expat abroad - caramel liqueor, giant bottles of Texas Pete, Pez, and a mead horn). We can get popcorn in kernel form here - just not the instant microwave bags that are so beloved of lazy Americans. Still, popping our own has its charm, and it is great fun to watch the thing firing hot popcorn randomly all over the kitchen. Makes movietime a lot more festive than just sticking something in the microwave, even if we'll miss all the amazing and sometimes-frightening flavors that our US friends have sent over to us. If our French and European friends are curious to see just how exotic the American snack food fixation can get, have a look at these links:

Orville's Pre-popped Chocolate Drizzler Popcorn
Orville's Cinnabon Cinnamon Butter Popcorn
Orville's Kettle Korn
Orville's Caramel Corn
Orville's Honey Butter Corn
Orville's Pour-Over Butter Popcorn
Orville's Pour-Over Cheddar Popcorn
Orville's Movie Theater Butter Popcorn
Orville's Ultimate Butter Popcorn
Orville's Corn-on-the-Cob Popcorn
Orville's Tender White Popcorn

And this is just a fraction of the variety produced by one brand! That doesn't even touch on the truly eccentric (to les francais) exotica such as microwave pork rinds, peanut butter cups, S'Mores, buffalo wings, not to mention our national fixation on really intense hot sauces.

Our French friends often ask us what are typical American "cultural" foods. I never know how to answer this question, because Americans don't really define ourselves culturally through cuisine - We tend to base our sense of cultural identity on accomplishments rather than regional dishes (This is probably a good thing), and most of the foods that I think of as uniquely American (hamburgers, chilidogs, corndogs, hot wings, etc) aren't the sort of "cultural" foods that I'm being asked about (Though personally speaking, I would just as soon have a really delicious county fairground corndog, dripping with grease, and some crunchy fresh onion rings to some of the haute cuisine we've encountered in our travels). So, si vous me demandez un example de cuisine americaine, don't be surprised if I look a bit confused and have to think for a while... especially since the inquiring person is thinking of something like gallettes avec fruits de mer and I am likely thinking of something like Chewy Sweet Tarts...

If any of our French or European friends ever get curious to try cooking some very "American" foods (and can translate recipes into metric), here are some good recipes:
Chili Cheese Dog
Chili Dog Chili
Pork Burritos
Cornbread
(Cornbread is essential. If one ever tries to cook Southern food, Ye will be Judged by thine cornbread)
And of course, plenty of other dishes I grew up with.