The Harbinger

This week my fellow Girl On Tap has been wildly busy at work and in summer school so she could barely breathe, much less get in a lot of tasting time. She managed to squeeze in a taste of something found in most grocery stores in Budweiser’s new Chelada.

This “beer product,” which is to beer what Velveeta is to cheese, proved to be an interesting drink in my house. My husband had expressed an interest in it after I shared Jacki’s opinion so; I bought him some and stole a sip.

All of that is said to lead to this – No foodly thing goes on my table without some enhancement from me. Even take-out is not safe from my improving hands – and neither is this beer.

Chelada-Maria Brunch

We start with preparing the Chelada to fit into this scenario. If you are a purist, just stick it in the coldest part of the refrigerator and skip this part.

Chelada Maria

2 cans Chelada

1 ripe summer tomato

dash celery seed/salt

1/8 tsp sea salt

washed, sliced, fresh lime

Peel and finely dice the tomato, press through a sieve to remove seeds and pulp. If you like those things, just squish the diced tomato in your hands to make as much juice as possible; either way, put it into a pitcher and add the Chelada. Mix in the celery seed/salt and sea salt, stir,

Stick into the refrigerator to stay cool until time to serve in Pilsner glasses.

What is super-cute is to freeze a basket of grape tomatoes and pour them into the pitcher as ice cubes. If you don’t do that, just put regular cubes into a small zippie bag and add those to the pitcher to keep everything good and cold.

Serve with chilled vodka and shot glasses so people can spike their drink as desired. Put the lime slices out for people to add as they wish; pickled green beans and okra are also nice additions.

This beer, even in my “improved” incarnation is a sprightly beverage with a light character that can be mismatched if you aren’t careful. You can’t assume that its vegetable-flavored bottom note will work with brats or steak; this is a more rarified brew.

To that end I offer a menu to match that has very little to do with recipes and is more about food choices.

Chelada Platta

Basic Avocado Salad

10 grain toast points

Brie

Cucumber spears in Lemon

Lox Rolls

Sliced Anjou pear

Avocado salad is a fancy way to say ripe avocado cut into 1” chunks tossed with lime juice, salt and pepper.

Buy some Pepperidge Farms whole grain bread, toast til slightly dry and cut into triangles. It needs to be able to stand up to a brie being spread on it. Speaking of which, just get some of that Ille de France brie from Publix, it is fine in this context.

The actual quality of the cukes matters less when you augment with lemon, just remember to seed the cukes if the seeds are hard.

You’ll need to make your own lox rolls?

Lox Rolls

Standard packet of sliced, smoked lox

2-3 tbl capers

3-4 tbl cream cheese

pkt fresh dill, rinsed (1/2 tsp chopped for recipe)

½ cup thinly diced red onion

Mix items 2-5 gently together, spread evenly over lox slices, roll up and slice pin-wheel style. Serve with a small dish of horseradish for the hot heads. It is pretty to sprinkle the extra dill on the serving plate.

Mazal Tov!

You could slice some crisp Roma tomatoes to act as palate cleansers but be sure to toss the apple and pear with a scant amount of lemon juice to keep them from browning.

I hope you enjoy this little pairing from us and look forward to having you come see us at girlontap.com.

I have enjoyed writing for the Harbinger. I love writing and the opportunity to write creatively for a deadline again has been a gift.