PACKING LIST : THE BKTX BEACH EDIT

Whether you grew up taking the A train to Far Rockaway or, like us, driving your dad's pickup (let's be real, your mom's silver minivan with a trunk full of friends) to Galveston, summertime beach trips are universal. No matter where you are, there always seems to be a group of sunscreen streaked toddlers sloshing in puddles of sandy saltwater, overly tan women in underly sized bikinis flipping through magazines, bros with impossibly gelled hair playing volleyball. If you're driving down to South Padre or taking the ferry to Sandy Hook, NJ*, you're going to need to make sure to pack a few necessary objects to make sure you have the best. beach. day. ever. Here's our edit of essentials to bring with you on your next trip to the shore. Quoth Minaj: Let's go to the beach, each, let's go get a wave!

THE PACKING LIST: 

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*Though most beach trips have some universal qualities, there is one distinct difference about Sandy Hook, the beach that inspired this post: the clothing optional beach is NOT A JOKE. After arriving at 9am, Olivia went for a solo walk down an otherwise normal looking beach to discover hundreds of the happiest, most unclothed people (over the age of 35) just chatting and hanging out – it was like another world. While she was gone, Emily was "reading" on her beach blanket, i.e. eavesdropping of the group of men doing Sunday Funday right (they had already broken open their Cupcake Chardonnay before 10 am). One of them had just gotten back from attempting a few games of naked volleyball, and apparently, the naked volleyball veterans were "mean!" It sounded like they were just surprisingly polished players.

We highly recommend the day trip from Manhattan, but believe us: the word "nude," previously ascribed (by us) to the smooth bodies of models in paintings and classical sculpture, has forever been changed. FOREVER.

Kolaches

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There are plenty of places to get bagels in Texas, but there's a Texan breakfast delight that's very rare in New York: the Kolache. It's pronounced Koh-LAH-chee. Originally made in Czech communities in central Texas, these pastries ultimately became breakfast staples all over the state (you can find them anywhere from truck stops to donut shops), though they are uncommon outside of Texas. We prefer the signature sweet dough wrapped around savory breakfast foods, like sausage, cheese, and jalapeno, but you can find them with fruit or cheese too. Though they're rare, they aren't impossible to find in New York thanks to Brooklyn Kolache, a cute Bed Stuy bakery claiming to be the king of kolaches. We wanted to see if kolaches could stand up as a breakfast food in a city saturated with specialty bagels, cronuts, and pretzel croissants, so we rounded up 8 friends, 7 of whom live in Brooklyn and 4 of whom have lived in Texas, to see what they thought of this traditional Texan treat.

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Have you ever had a kolache before? If yes, tell us about your previous kolache experience. 

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If no, what are your kolache expectations?

Please write a brief statement about what you just ate. 

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Adrienne

Our friend Adrienne is super inspiring: she is a freelance shoe designer, and she just launched an Etsy shop for her gorgeous, origami-inspired jewelry (did we mention she's a contemporary origami pro?). She also happens to have grown up in Houston, TX, and has been living in Brooklyn since graduate school, which makes her a prime BKTXer! We sat down with her in our favorite Greenpoint Bar for some Texas whiskey and chatted about what inspires her jewelry, what it takes to be a good designer, and the importance of queso. Thanks Adrienne!

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Tell us about how you started seriously thinking about being a shoe designer and going to school for fashion.

I went to FIT. Before that I was living in Austin doing research at the University of Texas in a cognitive science lab, and I would come home and draw things and fold things and sew things and do little fashion things, and watch project runway. I spent all this time working on cerebral research and I enjoyed it, but I needed a creative outlet. I applied for some funding to do origami in New Zealand. I was waiting to hear back, and I was bored of Austin. I was antsy after living there for 6 years. So, I moved back to Houston and decided to do some fashion classes because I thought, I’m not going to be here for too long, I don’t want to get situated. So I started taking classes at Houston Community College and I loved it, I was so excited to be there. And the classes were really good and really affordable, I’m a huge fan of HCC. It turned out I didn’t get my funding to New Zealand, it was very competitive, but by that time I knew I wanted to do fashion. So I moved to New York, and I was applying to FIT’s apparel fashion program and it just didn’t sit right. I was going through the course catalogue, and I was so excited by all of the accessories classes, and I was like, "Oh my God I’m going to do footwear!" It made so much sense. In high school I decorated all of my shoes and all of my friends shoes. I painted them, I glittered them, I rhinestoned them, I sequined them. I put flowers on flip flops, with glitter and confetti butterflies. The assistant principal at my high school had me decorate her shoes for prom. So ten years later, it made so much sense that I would study shoes. Like, why didn’t I think of this sooner, it seemed so obvious.

Take us through your process of designing shoes!

So it starts off with a certain customer in mind, and for a big section of the industry that is Macy’s because they are such a big chunk of the market. So you have to know who you’re selling to or who you want to sell to. If I was my own brand I’d make all kinds of glorious weird shit that probably wouldn’t sell. A company like Macy’s has their own trend forecasters and buyers, so they tell you they are looking for casual things at this-and-this price point, and this is what is selling right now. So, you have to know your market, see what they are looking for and what the trends are. Maybe Opening Ceremony and other boutiques will take more risks. You go through all the trends and the magazines, and see what celebrities are wearing because that actually is important because people follow them. From there, you make 10 million sketches and most of them just get thrown out. They say they want “something fresh, and that they want it to sell.” “Fresh” means they want to see something new, but “want it to sell” means they want to see something old, so they want both at the same time. 

Buyers are looking at what sold last year, designers are looking at what’s going to sell next year, and then there are a bunch of in between people that either want their opinion to be heard or they have input. So you’re trying to appease like 45 different people all at the same time, who want at least 5 different brands from you. They want whatever sold last year, but whatever’s new and fresh and cool but not so cool that their core buyer won’t buy it. So you have to please everyone. But then you make your sketches, and you scan them and write a million notes, you send them with references, with measurements, and photos of anything remarkably similar, all to China. China sends you back a prototype, and you fix it here and there, but then you’re running out of time, and you have to present 80 samples to Macy’s or Dillard’s. So then, you just go to China, because stuff gets done a lot faster when you’re there. I’m showing them stuff so there’s not a huge language barrier, and there’s not a 12 hour time difference. So it’s not like it takes 3 business days — it all happens in real time. We’re all there, and I’m like drawing on people’s feet. We’re putting tape, and scissors, and I’m cutting up shoes on their feet and taping them up and drawing lines and moving things, and they're like you can’t have that material it’s too expensive. So we’re running around the market trying to find a cheaper material that doesn’t completely look like shit. So I’m always back and forth. And meanwhile I’m in China, there’s something else that needs to be approved for production. You’re always in several different cycles because you’re doing four to six seasons a year, so you might be concept in one season, sales samples in another season, they’re making a buy in another season, production in another season, fit confirmations, all of these different things. And you have a sample factory making the samples and a production factory making the shoes. So you approve them at the sample factory, but then there’s a totally different place to make the shoes, and you approve the sample and they go to production. The buyers want Gucci for $15.99, the sales reps want Gucci for $15.99, both of them don’t understand why you can’t get Gucci for $15.99, and so the designer is stuck in between all of that.

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What is your favorite pair of shoes and do you still have them?

Absolutely. They are a pair of laser cut, pewter, Haider Ackermann oxfords that I bought off of somebody’s feet. It was a coworker of mine at Kenneth Cole, she worked in prints. She showed up wearing them, and I was like, “Oh my god, those are Haider Ackermann!” and she was like, “I’m so impressed you know what brand these are!” And I bought them off her feet for $200. I have only worn them a handful of times, and I bring them in their little bag to my destination and then put them on because they are that precious. But if you look at these shoes they look like they were made for me.

What are your favorite shoes you've designed?

Actually the ones I’m wearing now! I wish they were in better condition. They never ended up making it to production. These the factory specially made for me. You might design thousands and thousands of shoes and only a small number actually make it to production and then to stores. They just go through so many rounds of edits. It’s very rare that your concept ends up being what is in the store. They want it, but $30 cheaper, or without all the ornaments, and with only three buckles instead of four. It goes through all those processes, the buyers want to feel confident in their choice. You can’t stray too far from what’s already selling or people get scared. I love the weird stuff, because I look at shoes all day, and I’ve seen everything that’s for sale today 3 years ago. My favorite changes all the time, but if I like them, then they are probably too weird for your standard customer. But that’s how it goes.

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How did you originally become interested in origami?

When I was six years old, I saw this book on my mom’s bookshelf in Meyerland, TX, and it was an origami book. I was like what is this, and I’ve been doing origami ever since.

What book was it?

It was a classical origami book, I’ve since bought a hardcover version at an auction. It has diagrams. There are all kinds of art house books now, but historically origami books are diagram books and you fold from them.

What was the first pattern that you ever folded?

The first pattern I was really into and made a thousand times was a butterfly.

Origami has become a lot of things for me. It’s what has influenced me to become a designer, without which I wouldn’t have moved to New York. It also is a personal thing, I really enjoy the practice of folding. It’s very meditative, like how some people find knitting really relaxing, I find folding very soothing. I really like the process, but I also really like making things and at some point I got bored of paper because I had been using it for 25 years and I began making accessories and combining the two in more interesting ways. So I play around a lot with origami crease patterns. The jewelry I make is the crease patterns — which is what you get when you unfold something and you see a bunch of lines, that’s the crease pattern — and I play around with those crease patterns and get them 3D printed and cast in Long Island City.

I very facetiously, tongue-in-cheek call it post-paper origami. There are all kinds of people making origami. There are the purists who are not remotely interested in what I’m doing, and then there are other people who like it and are exploring in a similar way.

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Tell us more about your jewelry.

This is a new project! I’ve always liked jewelry, and I took these 3D modeling classes at CUNY City Tech, and then I started making jewelry through Shapeways, which is really easy. For me, the hard part is modeling. You can spend years and still be a basic modeler. I’ve done other kinds of CAD, like Adobe Suite, which I learned quickly, but this is hard. I use Rhino for the jewelry, and sometimes I do things in Illustrator and import it because there are still little things I haven’t figured out yet.

How do you decide what metals to use?

Some of it is instinct and some of it is cost, and some of it is what is available and I like. But there are things like the rings which would have been much more affordable to do in brass and bronze, which turn your hands green so I decided to go with nicer metals. A lot of people think that “cheap jewelry” turns their hands green which is true, but it’s also because of the metal. I was thinking, "Oh this is poorly made, it’s turning me green" — no, it’s just brass. So I decided to go with sterling silver, rose gold, and gold plated brass. Rose gold is my favorite.

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What do you miss most about Texas?

My first knee jerk reaction to that question is Tex Mex. QUESO. If it had to be one thing, it would be queso. I can make flour tortillas on my own, I’ve done this a number of times (editor’s note: Teach us how to do this!). They will never be as good as the little abuelitas’ in Houston, but honestly queso I haven’t attempted to make. I’ve never aspired to greater heights than Rotel and Velveeta. I say that to people here and they’re like “isn’t that just cheese?” It’s SO much more than cheese. I certainly miss the people… I miss queso, and then people, and people includes family.

Greenpoint, we will always love you...

Well folks, BKTX headquarters has relocated across Brooklyn. We might be off exploring new BK locations and their special links to Texas (which was always our plan), but Greenpoint is the neighborhood that inspired BKTX and it will always feel like our home. Here are a few of our favorite spots in Greenpoint, places that we’ll be sure to return to and places that are frequented by many Texan Brooklynites!

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1. Word
A tiny bookstore with a great staff. Let them know what you like and they’ll recommend something great.

2. Littleneck Outpost
Feel transported to New England with one of their lobster rolls and huge bay windows.

3. Homecoming
Stop in for a fancy coffee or flowers for a special occasion. We love everything here but the price. 

4. Budin
Being on a nordic kick, we love this Northern European coffee spot (they also have nordic beer!). If you are feeling bold, giver their $7 Black Gold (a licorice latte) a try! 

5. Brouerwij Lane
The best selection of beer around! Pick up a six-pack to take home, or sit down and have a drink with friends. 

6. In God We Trust 
In God We Trust is pricy but very cool. They make all their clothes by hand in the back of their store. *Bonus Points* for having Texas employees!

7. Paulie Gee’s
Go early on the weekend or late on a weeknight to avoid their crazy lines! Paulie Gee's is our favorite pizza in town (even over the coveted Roberta's!). If you are lucky, Paulie Gee himself might stop by your table with shots of their homemade limoncello! *Bonus Points* for having Texas employees! 

8. Ovenly
Get the pistachio cardamom bread. Just do it. They have a morning stand on the India St. Pier too, if you want a snack while you wait for the East River Ferry.

9. River Styx
BRUNCH (make sure to try one of their cinnamon buns—oh so good)!

10. Transmitter Park
The most special park in New York City. Nowhere else competes with that view. There’s also yoga on the pier in summertime.

11. Kennaland
Somehow Amy manages to give the best haircuts for both the frizziest hair and the stick straight.

12. Ramona
Ramona's is always there to pick us up when we are down. This is the place to go for a seriously good cocktail.

13. Duke’s Liquor Box
The owner, Patrick is originally from Texas and wraps their bottles in butcher paper from a farm in the Hill Country. Note the Texan flag out front! *BKTX*

14. Wolves Within
We can not walk past this store without going in — it is dangerous. We always buy something. 

15. Dandelion Wine
Dandelion is probably our most frequented establishment in Greenpoint. It is a true neighborhood staple. They have wine tastings with cheese from Eastern District. If you don't know about them already, you should check them out. 

16. Moonlight Mile 
Oh how we love Gary, the groovy owner of this rock and roll bar. He is always down to talk about music or watch a an old school live video of Jim Morrison on their projector. With an awesome selection of American whiskey (including whiskeys straight from Texas) and always filled with lovely people, Moonlight Mile is one of our go-to neighborhood spots! *BKTX*

17. J&C Shoe Repair
SERIOUSLY THE BEST SHOE MAN. We will pilgrimage to him.

18. Propeller
Owned and operated by some lovely ladies, Propeller is our go to spot for people watching through their big front windows and for iced coffee on the go.

19. Franklin Corner Cafe (internet cafe)
Open 24 hours! The BEST bodega sandwiches around — we recommend the BLAT.

20. East River Ferry
While in Greenpoint, we always opted to take the East River Ferry whenever possible! It is the best way to travel in New York City (and the only way to arrive at your destination feeling remotely clean)!

21. Achilles Heel
This is one of our favorite spots. Part of the restaurant empire that includes Marlow & Sons, Diner, Roman's and many others, Achilles Heel is our favorite place to drink a Pastis and day dream about adventures to come. 

22. Alameda 
Our favorite place for a light dinner and a fancy cocktail. Their food is farm to table and cocktails change seasonally. A little pricy, but well worth it. This is our favorite Greenpoint bar. If you're not feeling fancy, get the cheeseburger, it's amazing.

23. Troost
Troost has a great garden and prosecco on tap! 

24. Eng Farm Market
This bodega is open 24 hours! They always have a wide and fresh selection of flowers. A great resource if you have are doing some late night cooking and forgot to get that one integral ingredient! 

25. Bakeri
Covered in floral wall paper, with bakers decked out in blue overalls, we are so happy to have this Williamsburg coffee outpost that makes us feel like Alice in Wonderland.

26. Eastern District
Fancy beer, fancy cheese, fancy meat — so good. Pick up a growler on the way to your next rooftop party!

27. Milk and Roses 
Owned by the nicest Italian man. Sometimes, if you are there alone, he will give you free champagne and chocolate cake! The real draw is the gorgeous rose garden in the back.

28. Glasserie
Glasserie is probably our favorite restaurant in all of New York. If you have not been, it is seriously worth the trek (for any meal any time of day)! If you are there for brunch, be sure to try the Mezze Plate. 

Bagels. Everything Bagels.

We like to think of ourselves as carbohydrate queens. However, as two Texan gals in New York, there was one carb particularly intimidating for us to bake: the bagel. True, there is no logical reason for us to make bagels in a neighborhood so oversaturated with delis and bagels shops that we can hop between them every weekend with shameless regularity, without repeating ourselves for months. Armed with a few long-weekend hours and courage inspired by Sunday Suppers, we worked up the guts to make a baker's dozen of everything bagels. You'll want to set aside a few hours to make these, but we promise they aren't as difficult as they seem.

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3 1/2 cups bread flour

2 teaspoons sugar

2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast

2 teaspoons kosher salt

1 1/2 cups warm water

Olive Oil

1 egg yolk

1 teaspoon water

1 tablespoon sesame seeds

1 tablespoon poppy seeeds

1 teaspoon coarse sea salts

1 teaspoon dried garlic

Mix together flour, sugar, yeast, and kosher salt. With a stand up mixer on low (or by hand, like we did), slowly add the warm water, and mix until the dough comes together. This takes about 5 minutes

Increase the speed to medium-high and knead for 8 to 12 minutes, until the dough is smooth. Oil a large bowl, add the dough, and cover with a towel. et the dough rise in a warm lace until doubled in size. This takes about 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Gently punch down the dough and let rest for 10 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 425F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Bring a large pot of water to a boil, and then lower to a simmer.

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Divide the dough into 12 pieces. press each piece to get rid of any air bubbles. Form them into smooth balls by rolling them between your palms. Coat a finger with flour and press it through each ball to form a ring, stretching the hole to about 1/3 of the bagel's diameter. Place the bagels on the baking sheet and cover with a towel. Let rest for 10 minutes.

Bring the water back to a full boil and gently lower the bagels into the water. Boil uncovered for about 1 minute, then flip and boil for another minute. Remove the bagels, drain, and return to the baking sheet.

Whisk the egg yolk with the 1 teaspoon of water to make an egg wash. Coat the tops of the bagels with the egg wash. Sprinkle with the sesame seeds, poppy seeds, salt, and garlic. Bake for 15-25 minutes, until golden. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. We recommend covering these with massive amounts of schmear, chives, and smoked fish.

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Beer! Round 2: Sam's Picks

We love beer. We also love design. So we went on a mission to find the beers with the best design, and determine whether or not they quality holds up to the label. For our second round? Our friend Sam, person of fine taste, selected his favorites to put to the test.

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Sam summed up the purpose of the exercise profoundly: Your experience with a beer is not like what we just had with a blind tasting, your experience involves the packaging and how it looks and how the beer itself looks and your knowledge of the brewery of the place you’re in when you’re drinking it.

The rest of the night was slightly less profound, but rather than condensing it we thought we’d share the conversations as they were.

The DESIGN:

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Nomad (blind taste test number 3):

EN, EG, OS: That’s my favorite.

EN: I love the colors and the car.

OS: I love the typography, it feels very vintage.

EG: I love the typography.

SB: It does a good job of helping me understand what the flavor of the beer is going to be just by looking at the packaging

EN: How? because it’s yellow?!

SB: It’s like for drinking in hot weather.

EG: It looks like the beach boys.

OS: Except that it’s nordic and nordic I do not associate with beach.

SB: I associate that car with the beach.

EG: Yeah that car is beachy.

OS: I get the color, but It looks more like a limo to me.

EN: Yeah you’d never strap your surfboard to the top of that car

JB: It makes me think Las Vegas, like ‘50s sleazy. I like it but I didn’t vote for it as my favorite because I hate the superscript, and I don’t like the placement of the brewery name with the beer right under it, that looks off balance.

OS: I really like the type

SB: The style is like a berliner wiesse, but it’s a pun because it’s nomader weisse — I think that’s why it’s a super script.

JB: The label looks very approachable and kind of nursery to me, way more than the beer tastes.

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Westbrook (blind taste test number 4):

JB: This was my favorite and the other Westbrook was my least favorite last time. I really like the gold and the black and how it looks kind of like a mess.

EN: “Gose” looks biblical.

JB: Or compton.

EG: I really like it but I don’t want my beer to look that crazy. It looks like it’s going to give me a headache.

SB: I think it’s a really challenging beer to drink and I think that the artwork makes it look that way. I think these are supposed to be salt. Gose is really salty, and these things look like salt and also an atomic explosion.

EG: it’s nice but it kind of looks like bad tapestry art to me.

JB: I like the gold the white and the black. There’s another beer that does orange black and white that’s similar but not this good. Sixpoint crisp lager?

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Apex (blind taste test number 1):

EG: This little mouse is so cute. It really pushed it for me.

OS: Oh and it’s silver!

JB: I am not usually a fan of hand illustration on a beer. It’s not really whimsical, it doesn’t really give a fuck.

OS: It feels genuine, not like it’s trying too hard.

EG: Also I love the font.

OS: This isn’t too “done.”

SB: This isn’t put through a hand-drawn filter.

EG: I like the all caps on APEX

EN: I also like that there’s a secret techniques section on the description

Moody (blind taste test number 2):

EG: Wow, so my favorite beer was my least favorite design.

EN: This looks like a hotel bar.

EG: Yes, I definitely have seen Moody written that way before.

OS: This is really interesting because this was a lot of our favorite beers but no one likes the design.

EG: I don’t like how mild the colors are.

JB: It’s such a blah label.

OS: It’s so sad.

EG: It’s terrible.

JB: And the tongue is so bad.

EN: Wait … is it bad for good designed label, or bad in general?

OS: Put it next to PBR and that’s bad. PBR is great looking, it’s iconic.

EG: I really don’t like the color scheme.

OS: It’s very submissive

EN: IT’S A TONGUE YOU GUYS.

JB: Yeah it’s a tongue but its recessive.

EG: I thought it was a bean.

OS: It’s so timid and so...

EG: I think it would do better as a can.

[we all agree]

EN: Well, it tastes really good.

[we taste it again]

SB: I feel like I’m drinking grandma’s perfume.

OS: I love that though.

SB: If that’s what you’re going for, that’s what you got.

EN: Moody tongue, what a terrible name.

OS: I think it’s generally unappealing.

EN: I’ll put it this way: it’s better looking than Bud Light Lime.

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THE TASTING:

JB: 1 was least flavorful

EG: It was the least flavorful but most drinkable

SB: It hardly smells like anything to be except maybe a urinal cake  

EN: There were way other beers that were way more urinal tasting, when I got number 3 [Nomad] even close to my face I thought THAT is like pee. I am about to drink some pee. 

JB: You wish

SB: Pee is not that sour, I think you’re saying sour is pee.

EG: It’s hard to say because some of these are interesting to taste but I would not want to drink an entire beer.

OS: That is why this became my number 2 [Moody].

EN: Yes I thought I would drink that whole beer.

OS: I feel like I couldn’t sit and drink a whole sour beer and enjoy my way the whole through. I really enjoy drinking a few sips of it and would maybe enjoy a small size, but I could not drink a pint.

SB: 4 is a very straightforward clean sour. there’s very little going on there other than sour.

OS: I thought 3 [Nomad] was cleaner than 4 [Westbrook].

EG: I liked 3 [Nomad] more but I thought 4 [Westbrook] was more mild. I tasted it and I thought I was drinking apple cider vinegar.

EN: These were my comments: 4 [Westbrook] yuck! This is too sour and bitter! 3 [Nomad], this is like sweet vinegar, it smells acidic and makes you pucker and laugh.

JB: I liked that though.

OS: I liked 3 [Nomad].

SB: I really like 3 [Nomad].

EN: Yes me too, for a sip but I wouldn’t want to drink the whole thing.

JB: Yeah I think I’d get one pint of 3 [Nomad] or 4 [Westbrook] and then switch, but I wouldn’t switch to any of the other beers we tried because 1 was just so boring.

OS: I only thought it was boring in comparison.

JB: Yeah I might just be skewed.

EN: 1 felt like a relief

EG: I had 1 [Apex] first, I really liked it because it was nice.

EN: When I returned to 1 [Apex] I felt like THANK GOD THIS TASTES LIKE BEER.

OS: Yeah.

EG: I really liked 2 [Moody] it was kind of woody.

JB: 2 [Moody] was like perfume.

EN: I loved 2 [Moody]!

OS: 2 [Moody] was my favorite.

EN: Yum! This is a sweet sour and peppery and bright.

OS: I said it tasted peppery, spicy, sweet, flowery, dish soap. I thought it was super floral.

SB: I think 2 [Moody] was very herbal and spicy.

JB: It’s SOAPY.

SB: It is.

OS: It’s very soapy.

JB: But it like tastes like soap, not like floral, just soap.

EN: I didn’t get a soapy taste.

OS: Oh it totally tastes like soap.

EG: I got a woody herbal thing

SB: Yeah, it smells like herbal tea.

OS: I really liked it, it was my favorite, but I really like floral fragrance.

EN: It’s kind of rosy.

OS: I don’t think it’s rosy, and I’ve eaten a lot of flowers. It’s good though. It’s like if arugula was a flower and tasted like a beer.

JB: What?

SB: I think 3 [Nomad] is awesome. It’’s not a beer I would drink a lot of but I think it’s puckery and challenging and funky.

EN: it’s definitely challenging and funky.

JB: I like the funk I wanna lick the funk.

SB: I think it’s awesome. It really stops you in your face.

EN: I felt like I got slapped, and I wasn’t sure if I liked it.

OS: I was trying to decide between putting 3 [Nomad] or 1 [Apex] as second.

EN: Me too but then I thought that I would never drink 3 [Nomad].*

EG: That’s what I did too.  

OS: But I get really excited when I have sour beer because I never buy sour beer so its kind of a novelty.

EG: Well, that’s like when I bought a 6 pack of Mike’s Hard Lemonade last week and had two sips and was like now I have a 6 pack of this to finish, that sucks.

JB: Yeah but you could drink a whole sour beer, false comparison.

SB: I can drink a lot more of any of these beers than Mike’s Hard Lemonade.

EN: I agree. Actually, I would prefer Mike’s Hard Lemonade over number 4 [Westbrook].

SB: Number 4 [Westbrook] was a rough beer, that one also wakes you up.

JB: That takes you for a ride.

EN: So dank.

EG: So lemony!

EN: It’s like the first juice in your juice cleanse.

SB: If it was hotter outside, I would like both of those sour beers more. They are like a really tart lemonade on a hot summer day.

OS: On a hot summer day I want beer that tastes like water.

SB: On a hot summer day I want a beer that’s like a shandy but just a beer.

OS: But this doesn’t take like beer mixed with lemonade, it tastes like beer mixed with lemon drops.

EN: Or Warheads.

EG: Yes it’s like warheads.

JB: That’s fun though.

EN: It’s fun in the way that you feel like you’re maybe going to die for a second.

SB: I think that’s kind of true for 4 [Westbrook]. This will give you the jim jams!

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*EN: Number 3 [Nomad], number 3 [Nomad] is what I just gagged on! It tastes like beer that someone peed in! And then dropped a jolly rancher into!

OS: I don’t think pee is sour.

EN: It’s not the sourness, it’s the puckeryness. It’s the pungent acidicness. I’ve never tried pee, but I feel like it would make your mouth go … like persimmons. No?

EG: I see that.

OS: This is not what I feel like when I think of pee. When I think of pee I think of Bud Light.

JB: And like a fun time.

EN: No, Bud Light is like water.

EG: This is like if you’re a dehydrated person.

SB: It’s not healthy person pee.

EN: OK, we are just talking about a range of pee-like beers now. There is a spectrum of pee-like beer.

EG: This is like really yellow pee.

SB: I think this smells like yogurt.

OS: I get yogurt before pee.

EN: I think there’s a top note of yogurt but the rest is pee. It’s like if you didn’t drink water for three days and then you peed and then put some fresh yogurt on top and then mixed it up.

OS: It sounds like you don’t like it very much.

EN: I DONT LIKE IT AT ALL. I wrote YUCK. And I do like sour beer i just don’t like this. It does taste like pee.

EG: Secret: this was actually my pee.

JB: OMG I could drink a whole pint of this.

Happy America's Birthday

Happy early 4th of July and belated Canada Day! We hope your weekend is full of watermelon, fireworks, and pie. Emily will be celebrating from the Bahamas (sorry 'merica) and Olivia will be in the Catskills, but we will both be waving our pencil flags high. Let us know if you make one yourself!

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Summer Strawberry

Is anything more summery than strawberries and rhubarb? More than watermelon, more than hotdogs, more than water balloons: as soon as rhubarb starts poking up each spring, we reach for our sundresses and big floppy hats because we know summer's coming. Usually, for us, it means strawberry rhubarb pie, but to celebrate this summer solstice we headed upstate and churned some ice cream in the Catskills.

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This recipe uses less sugar than most -- we only added about 2/3s of a cup of sugar to the mound of strawberries and rhubarb reducing on the stove. We wanted the tangy fruit taste to really shine, and this version ended up being a little less sweet and scrumptiously creamy.

Strawberry and Rhubarb Ice Cream

1 1/2 cups strawberries, hulled

1 1/2 cups rhubarb, chopped

2/3 cup of sugar

2 cup heavy cream

1/2 cup of half and half

splash of milk

pinch of salt

Combine berries, rhubarb, sugar, and salt on a stove and cook over medium heat, stirring, until mixture boils and berries soften, about 10 minutes.

Remove mixture from stove and add to blender. Blend until smooth. Add heavy cream and pulse to combine.

Pour the mixture into a bowl and refrigerate. It should be thoroughly chilled (we left ours in overnight). Then freeze in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions. Scoop into a bowl or cone, top with fresh chamomile flowers, and garnish with extra strawberries.

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Things We Love: Paulie Gee's Hometown Brisket Pizza

We've discovered something beautiful: Paulie Gee’s Hometown Brisket Pizza, a gorgeous collision of the two quintessential cuisines of our home locales.

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No, Paulie Gee did not invent the concept of putting barbecue on pizza. There are lower forms of this art, the kind of chicken-barbecue-goo on top of Domino’s or California Pizza Kitchen’s floppy pizza. Those are fine. But when we saw that Paulie Gee’s, one of our top three favorite pizza joints of all time, in all of New York City, teamed up with Hometown Barbecue, our hearts began to flutter. We already loved Paulie Gee’s for their perfectly bubbly crusts, wood-fired to burntish perfection, as well as their toppings just creative enough to satisfy both pizza traditionalists and more adventurous eaters alike. That, paired with Red Hook’s Hometown Barbecue, one of the exceptional smokehouses lauded by Texas Monthly’s Barbecue Editor as rivaling some of Texas’ own, is the stuff of our dreams.

Hometown sends over the delectable caramelized flavor of southern style smoked brisket, so tender and sweet it could be candy, as well as the perky, spicy barbecue sauce that’s drizzled over the top. The copious heap of pickled onions is not overpowering at all — the onions add the perfect amount of crunch and brightness to the pie, adding a satisfying sweet-salty layer that isn’t briny or sour at all. It’s the perfect combination of sweet, salty, and spicy that Paulie Gee’s pizzas are known for, but with a Texan flair.

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While we might have a few other favorites on the Paulie Gee’s menu, this is hands down the best barbecue pizza we have ever chewed on. About halfway through our meal, Janis Joplin started blasting through the speakers and Paulie Gee himself stopped by to chat — it felt so close to home, we might as well have been in Texas.

Barbecue is clearly being established as one of New York’s trendiest new cuisines; these days, it seems like every girl in Brooklyn has her favorite barbecue joint, from Fette Sau to Mighty Quinn’s to Mabel’s. But sticking some brisket so expertly smoked it could be straight out of Austin, on top of pizza? Well, we may be Texan, but we're not purists. The way to our hearts is through our bellies, and this is the best of both worlds in a single dish.

Beer! Round 1: IPAs

We love beer. We also love design. So we went on a mission to find the beers with the best design, and determine whether or not they quality holds up to the label. First up? IPAs.

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For the first installment of the beer design challenge, we decided to limit our selection to IPAs. We wanted to see which IPA stood out most in both design and flavor, and thought it was interesting that so many IPA bottles and cans had green accents (which makes sense: hops are green!). We stopped by Brouwerij Lane to pick out four delightful looking beers —  an Almanac, Boulevard, Westbrook, and Mikkeller — and grabbed our most beer-savvy friends to begin our highly scientific data collection process.

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Mikkeller Simcoe Single Hop IPA

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Almanac IPA

In the design category, all four testers were pretty united on the design front. Nearly everyone voted the Mikkeller with the best design (who can resist a blocky looking man with hops for brains, a mysterious toe tag, and a cute little face sticking out over the barcode). The Boulevard was voted the least interesting design, looking a bit too much like other labels with its curlicue, chalkboard-style type. The Westbrook was fresh looking, but someone thought it was too cutesy, and while most of us enjoyed the Almanac’s type, some of us felt that the barcode detracted from its gothic-mod vibe. Someone said it looked inspired by Lord of the Rings, and we all concurred.

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Westbrook IPA

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Boulevard Calling IPA

After a willing friend poured all four beers into unmarked cups for the testers to try and each had been sipped, we were surprised when we shared our rankings: almost no one agreed which beer tasted the best and which tasted the worst. Given how closely aligned our design preferences were, our tastes were completely scattered. Only two of us overlapped — two voted the boulevard for 3rd place and two voted the Westbrook for fourth place — though it was difficult to rank them because all the beers tasted very alike. Some of the most colorful observations of the evening had to do with the flavors of each IPA. Comments were made that the Almanac tasted “resiny,” “danker,” and “funky;” the Westbrook tasted “pungent,” “watered down,” and “like wet cardboard;” the Mikkeller tasted “like cedar,” “peppery and not exciting;” and the Boulevard tasted “cleaner,” “piney,” and “spicy.”

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While there was no clear winner for best design and taste, we did see a little correspondence between a beer's design and its flavor: there were four cases where the two matched up. It turns out that Emily’s least favorite design ended up being her favorite beer, but Sam’s favorite design was actually his favorite beer too. The strongest conclusions of the evening? IPAs are really as consistent as you always thought they were, and you can only get so far by judging a beer by its label … but that won’t stop us from trying again.