"Oh my god that's good beer!"

Yesterday was the Super Bowl. Congratulations, Saints!!! I'm not much for football but it looks like it was a good game. I wasn't riveted to the T.V. but was fortunate enough to catch the two most memorable moments: the onside kick & The Interception. Maybe there was more than one interception in the game; if you saw it, you know which one I'm talking about. It was cool. I can only imagine what it feels like to a professional sports player to have a moment like that. I imagine it's the best feeling ever.

I like the Super Bowl because I can make food, lots of food, for no real reason whatsoever other than: that's what people do on this day. I like having an excuse to cook a mountain of food. When my kids had their Bar & Bat Mitzvah, I made dinner the night before for an intimate family gathering... of 30 people. It was a real highlight for me. OK, the REAL highlight was seeing each of my kids on the bima the next day, each of them shining in the spotlight in their moment, each of them excelling in their unique talents in front of the congregation with me beaming the whole time. I love my kids. The point I'm trying to make now is that I love to cook for a crowd.

For Super Bowl Sunday, I wasn't cooking for a crowd. I was cooking for myself, another adult (my ex-wife #2) and one teenager (my son). I didn't let that stop me from making a mountain of food. My intention was to make short ribs, pork ribs, jerk wings, guacamole, key lime pie & lemon meringue pie. I can't say it's the most cohesive menu but all of this was stuff that I wanted to make. I didn't end up making the wings or key lime pie and another teenager (my daughter) joined us. It was still a lot of food.

I also had gotten lots of beer. Lots. Toronto has several really good beer bars and over the months of travel I'd taken the opportunity to sample all sorts of brews from all over, preferably local/Canadian, within wide range of alcohol percentage. I was particularly enamored of the aged barley wines from the cellar list at the Beer Bistro on King at Yonge, such as Rogue's Old Crustacean which has a depth and richness of dried fruit with a strong kick of alcohol cutting through it. I didn't have anything quite so indulgent yesterday but I made sure there was a wide variety to choose from, the equivalent of about 16 pints.

For myself and one other adult. I have quantity issues.

I busied myself with making the food, going at it all with an uncharacteristic laissez-faire. The good thing about not having very many people to feed is that the pressure is off; I don't have to hit every note spot on. Some part of the meal can fail -- deeply, miserably fail -- and it doesn't really matter. There's something else to eat. So I'm going at it with the cooking, working on multiple components for multiple dishes depending on my mood in the moment and my best guesstimate about the timing required to bring it all together at least by halftime, with guacamole and a fine cheese plate to tide things over. Like I said, it wasn't a very cohesive menu.

The game starts and it's time for a beer. I asked X2 to pick out a beer for herself and one for me and I really didn't have a preference for opening round, surprise me. I had gotten an assortment of Great Divides and she poured me a Hibernation Ale into a pint glass from my collection of pint glasses. (I collect pint glasses and coffee mugs; I have nowhere to put a new acquisition for either collection but that won't stop me.) The beer had this beautiful deepest-deep amber color, very pleasing to the eye. I took a moment to take that in and Cheers! took a sip. Oh my GOD that's a good beer! Every so often I get a taste of something that's so unbelievably good it feels important and it's not quite that time stands still but in a way it's kind of like that. I know what you're thinking. It's a beer, get over it. But truly folks, this might be the best beer I've ever had. At the very least it's the most enjoyably drinkable. What hits me first is the rich caramely sweetness that's somehow not too sweet, followed by some longer, smooth notes of a winter spice mix, ending with a hoppy bitter finish. Damn! I like that beer. I still had to keep on cooking a bit so I don't know this for sure but my instinct is that this beer goes great with food, food of the dark meat, rich sauces, potent cheese and chocolate variety, foods that I love. Stay tuned and I'll let you know. I plan on getting a few bottles to have around for those times at home when I can really indulge in the flavors of what I'm eating.

For the record, the stout-marinated short ribs and smokehouse-spice-rubbed pork ribs were pretty darn good, too. The glass of Hibernation Ale was empty by the time they were ready. So sad! The lemon meringue pie was not very good. This was attempt #2 at lemon meringue pie and after I finally nail it I'll write about it. However, there are some foods that elude me and lemon meringue pie might be one of them. Time will tell.