Unleash your inner Tom Colicchio and sample the suds of 12 of the area’s best amateur brewmeisters this Sunday, February 28, at Lake Worth’s always fun ‘n’ funky Havana Hideout, where chef-owner Chrissy Benoit is hosting the first of a planned series of Top of the Hops brew-offs. From 1…
Unrepentant beer drinkers, rejoice! Each week, Clean Plate Charlie will select one craft or import beer and give you the lowdown on it: How does it taste? What should you drink it with? Where can you find it? But mostly, it’s all about the love of the brew. If you…
Unless you missed the arctic blast the past few days, it’s a little cold outside. And it’s going to stay that way for at least the next week and a half. In the spirit of this unusually long winter in South Florida, I’m planning on warming my insides with my…
“It was a brave man who first ate an oyster.” Jonathan Swift said that, but he could have just as easily been talking about the artichoke, a member of the thistle family with spiky little thorns that looks like the Jolly Green Giant’s fist. You gotta give credit for at…
Welcome back to Charlie’s dried chili adventure. In previous installments, we talked about how to prepare dried chilies as powder or puree and how to transform those ingredients into award-winning chili con carne. Today, we’re going to use our chilies to make pork al pastor, a Mexican dish I put…
Unrepentant beer drinkers, rejoice! Each week, Clean Plate Charlie will select one craft or import beer and give you the lowdown on it: How does it taste? What should you drink it with? Where can you find it? But mostly, it’s all about the love of the brew. If you…
Yesterday, I talked about how to turn dried, Mexican chiles into powder or paste that can be used in any number of dishes. Today, we’re going to put those ingredients to use in a batch of chili con carne, Texas-style. I haven’t always made chili sans beans, the method most…
With the biggest sports game in America now over with, us ladies have exactly six days until the biggest commercialized holiday of the year. And what’s the best way to a man’s heart? Well football is over, so his stomach, of course. Women are simple. We are materialistic. Give us…
A couple weeks ago, I asked readers if they had any suggestions on what to do with some dried, Mexican chiles I had purchased at a local grocery store. I bought a bag of cascabel chiles and a bag of ancho chiles, and was looking to make something fun with…
Unrepentant beer drinkers, rejoice! Each week, Clean Plate Charlie will select one craft or import beer and give you the lowdown on it: How does it taste? What should you drink it with? Where can you find it? But mostly, it’s all about the love of the brew. If you…
The Jupiter Craft Brewers Festival went down this weekend, and again it turned out to be one heck of a beer event, drawing more than 3,000 fans of craft beer to Roger Dean Stadium near Abacoa Town Center. The four-and-a-half-hour event featured more than 50 beer booths, and each of…
• Clogging strong arteries 12 ways is the heart-stopping menu at the new Heart Stoppers Sports Grill in Delray Beach. Have your “nurse” (yes, server hotties really do wear lab coats and carry stethescopes) bring you an order of Chili Chest Pain Fries or Flatliner hot wings or the Heart…
With the Super Bowl just around the corner, a game plan for homemade fried food is in order. On Monday and Tuesday, we talked about how to make the perfect French fry at home. And if there’s one thing that’s true about deep-frying, it’s that you don’t want to do…
Yesterday we talked about the prep work involved in making the perfect French fry at home. To recap, we chose Russet Burbank potatoes and cleaned them thoroughly. We left the skin on and cut them into quarter-inch sticks. Afterward, we soaked the soon-to-be fries in a bath of cold water…
This weekend, I decided, in the spirit of the conference championship games, to bust out my rarely used deep fryer and have a sort of hot oil brouhaha. After all, what goes better with football than fried food? (Hmmm, maybe I can think of something.) So I called up the…
I never grew up cooking. My mother kicked me out of the kitchen because she never wanted my help. She favored my brother — now a cook — and disregarded any interest I had in learning how to cook or bake. Caring, right? It wasn’t until I moved out for…
Unrepentant beer drinkers, rejoice! Each week, Clean Plate Charlie will select one craft or import beer and give you the lowdown on it: How does it taste? What should you drink it with? Where can you find it? But mostly, it’s all about the love of the brew. If you…
There’s going to be a whole lot of drinking going in Jupiter come January 29 and 30. That’s when the Jupiter Craft Brewers Festival transforms Roger Dean Stadium into a sudsy paradise just this side of heaven. With over 100 rare beers from Florida-based and national brewers, the fest is…
Last week, we told you about the Brews and Blues series going down at Whole Foods Coral Springs. Now, just in time for for the Super Bowl, the third Beer-Offs are hitting the store February 6 at 6 p.m. Just like previous incarnations of the event, the Beer-Offs will feature…
Whether it’s the first time they’ve woken up at your place, the 100th, or the 1,000th — I personally believe there is no better way to impress someone the morning after than to make them breakfast.Don’t make eggs. Because eggs are like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches: specific and personal…
Besides the blatantly obvious, avocados are good for more than just guacamole. It’s also more than just a topping to a sandwich to deem it a “California” meal. Good for anything, from snack time to dessert, here are three (almost surprising) ways to utilize one delicious fruit. Note: Personal preference…
Unrepentant beer drinkers, rejoice! Each week, Clean Plate Charlie will select one craft or import beer and give you the lowdown on it: How does it taste? What should you drink it with? Where can you find it? But mostly, it’s all about the love of the brew. If you…
