Though Jørn Utzon isn’t exactly a household name outside of Denmark, you are almost certainly familiar with his work. He is the architect behind one of the twentieth century’s most iconic buildings, the Sydney Opera House.

The late Utzon was born in Copenhagen, but he spent most of his childhood in Ålborg, which is now home to the Utzon Center, a museum of modern architecture and art designed by the man himself, in cooperation with Finnish architect Alvar Aalto. Ålborg is also home to the ambitious Søgaards Brewery, whose range encompasses a variety of international styles and includes some unusual experiments. The Søgaards brewmasters have taken inspiration from the places that inspired Utzon’s architecture to brew two beers for the Utzon Center: Blond and Dark. The label on Utzon Blond explains:

This beer follows Utzon’s footsteps from Australia, where we have gathered the herb lemon myrtle; across Asia for the refreshing character of kaffir lime leaves and ginger; to Spain, where we have selected an orange flower honey to round off the beer and add a light floral flavor. The noble conclusion comes from the Middle East’s delicate and luxurious spice saffron.

Pretty neat. These ingredients may sound weird, but remember that before hops came into favor around the turn of the fifteenth century, bouquets of herbs and flowers called gruits were used to add flavor and bitterness to beer. Dandelion, heather, ginger, burdock, nutmeg, juniper and spruce were common. So while this beer is cosmopolitan and contemporary in its selection of international ingredients, this method of flavoring also recalls ancient brewing traditions. Especially interesting is the inclusion of honey, since the vikings were fond of a sort of mead-beer hybrid that was also flavored with odd spices and herbs.

Utzon Blond is an amber-gold ale with a pillowy white head, and it actually does hit all the notes described on the label: Australian lemon myrtle and kaffir lime leaf provide a pleasantly soapy, citric top note, while the honey gives the beer a sweet foundation. Floral, savory saffron floats by in the background. All around it is very fruity, slightly tangy and rather robust – probably not as arresting as Utzon’s designs, but just as intriguing and unique!

Chocolate stouts are some of the most sublime drinks on planet earth. They are ever so decadent, so sweet and yet so sophisticated. If memory serves, I’ve never met a chocolate stout I didn’t like – I adore the offerings from Young’s, Rogue, Stone, Ommegang, Amber, Sanktgallen, and now Svaneke.

It smells of malted milk, toffee, butterscotch, vanilla, figs, and chocolate chip cookies. I tastes of espresso, dark chocolate, grapefruit, and caramel. It is sweet but well-bittered with burnt grain and hops; it is exquisite!

Beer geeks often recommend chocolate stouts, or any rich, sweet stouts, as a pairing for chocolate. Personally, I think this convention ought to be called into question. Sometimes the pairing works beautifully, but in my experience, more often that not the chocolate in the beer and the chocolate in the dessert cancel each other out, interrupting the overall impact of both food and drink. It’s akin to Pollock’s turbulent masterpiece, “Choko Convergence.”

Just like our sense of sight, our sense of taste responds to contrasts and struggles with similitudes. When you pit chocolate against chocolate, they lose focus, they get all muddled up and sometimes even clash. So I tend to avoid pairing chocolate stouts with actual chocolate. Instead, I pair them with foods that are quite different but still complementary, like desserts based on vanilla, nuts, berries, or caramel, or even strong cheeses. Tonight, I’m drinking Svaneke Choko Stout with Danish marzipan, and the match is superb! The sweetness in the marzipan contrasts with the beer to emphasize its bitter cocoa and coffee notes, while the beer somehow makes the marzipan taste more nutty, more like actual almonds. The taste sensation is something like Klimt’s classic “Choko Kiss.”

(With apologies to Pollock and Klimt.)

Wow, what a month it’s been. My entire August was gobbled up by the wedding – which was a rousing success, by the way! And now I can (hopefully) get my visa. Yaaaaay!

But I’ve neglected the blog, and indeed, I’ve neglected the sort of activities for which the blog exists. A lack of both time and money has precluded extravagances in culinary tourism, not to mention any creative endeavors aside from making invitations and placecards. Even so, August has seen several newsworthy discoveries and exploits on the viking front. Before I recommence posting proper, here is a recap of the past four weeks’ more interesting items:

• August began with the Great British Beer Festival, where I sampled a dozen or so excellent and almost-excellent ales from around the UK and around the world. I also tried the East London specialty, jellied eels, which sound, look, and taste like something from a Roald Dahl story.But the real revelation was the selection of beers from Italy, of all places. Like the brewers of Japan and America, whose beer cultures aren’t mired in “traditions” like those of England, Belgium, and Germany, Italian brewers adopt a playful, experimental attitude and a love of the local. I am convinced that Italy is the next frontier in craft brewing. Consider the three bottles I picked up at the festival: Shangrila Fumé, a strong amber ale brewed with spices and peat-smoked whisky malts; Barley BB10, a barleywine made from the reduction of a prized local wine; and Verdi Imperial Stout, infused with the heat of chili peppers. I plan to crack these open soon and have them with Italian cheese – stay tuned for tasting notes.
  
• I am a professional food writer! I’ve now reviewed two restaurants and one pub for View London, and I will be writing more for them in the future.
• Speaking of restaurants, I’ve been to a few recently that I must recommend. Head to Abeno or Abeno Too for perfect Osaka-style okonomiyaki and miscellaneous izakaya fare that’s only slightly overpriced. Sakura and Tokyo Diner are also wonderfully Japanese, both embracing the whole universe of Japanese cooking from katsukarē to mentaiko. Tokyo Diner in particular is fantastic – modest yet superlative, and dirt cheap. Cans of Kirin and Asahi are only £1.90!A bit further into Chinatown is Leong’s Legends, a Taiwanese-Chinese joint where the service is brusque but the food is special. You must try the xiao long bao (soup dumplings), but let them cool a bit before tucking in or you’ll scald your mouth something awful. Finally, we were pleasantly surprised with Anatolian Flame, a place we hungrily stumbled into after viewing some flats in northwest London. The service was charming and the charcoal-grilled Turkish food was excellent, such as the relentlessly juicy and flavorful  lamb kebab with tomatoes served on a whole grilled eggplant with dill cream.
• I’m still going to the awesome, free life study sessions at Beach Blanket Babylon Shoreditch, and I wrote about it for a contest (which I lost) on Trazzler. If you’re in London and even a little bit arty, check it out. And if you’re not sure about the whole drawing thing, you can still enjoy a cocktail or two.
• I just finished reading Hops and Glory, a surprisingly non-geeky (alright, it’s a little geeky) book about the history of India Pale Ale. Author Pete Brown weaves meticulous historical research together with a spirited personal travelogue as he drags a keg of IPA on a journey from England to India that approximates the sea route along which the original ales were shipped. The book is peppered with sharp gastropolitical commentary and enlightening factoids, and in some places is actually suspenseful – not what I expected from a book about beer. Highly recommended to beer geeks, history buffs, or fans of good travel writing.

And now I’m off to the motherland for six weeks, where I will fork over nearly a grand to the British consulate in order to get my visa. Blogging shall continue while I’m there, and before long I’ll be able to post about trips around the UK and the rest of Europe!

I found this disgusting little monster stuffed and safely caged behind class at the charmingly out-of-date Horniman Museum the other day. I tried my best to draw it accurately because I thought it was so weird. It is called a tenrec, and it is an ACTUAL ANIMAL that EXISTS on PLANET EARTH! Ugh!

In the Wikipedia entry, the tenrec isn’t so bad looking. It’s actually kind of cute, in a pitifully ugly kind of way. But the real thing that I beheld at the Horniman (which actually may have been a different species) was utterly demonic. Why oh why would God – whoop, I mean why would an intelligent designer ever think to make something so hideous?! There are two explanations:

1. The creator of all life on earth is cruel, disturbed, and/or artistically impaired.
2. There is no creator of all life on earth.

Take your pick!

Just in case some of you were not totally conviced that I am a gigantic dweeb, let me tell you my idea for a video game: a job-based RPG in which skills are learned based on majors at a university. In the above illustration, we see an American Studies major weilding a baseball bat and a Colt .45, an East Asian Studies major citing “Amaterasu,” and a Zoology major using the skill “Falconry.”

This is an Art major and a Psychology major. Character details, including skills, weaponry, knowledge, plot points, stats, and clothes are determined by their major.

Here we see the Central Quadrangle, an important section of campus where many violent debates take place.

Finally, here is an American Studies major brandishing a Cherokee spear and citing “Benjamin Franklin,” who attacks a Level-2 Football Player with a lighting-charged kite.

Moving on, I did some storyboards for my friend Angeline Gragasin, whose creative output is akin to a volcano, or a bottle of champagne opened with a saber. She’s working on an abstract dance video of neo-animistic feminist satire (or some such thing) called “Skinemax.”

I, for one, am looking forward to the finished product.

It was a productive spring, art-wise. I have been working on some cleanup animation for a London studio, I did some storyboarding for a friend (to be featured in my next post), and I also made some concept art for an idea for a video game that originally came to me five and a half years ago. On top of all of this, the swanky and stylish Shoreditch bar Beach Blanket Babylon has been hosting life drawing sessions every Tuesday… for FREE! For an out-of-work amateur illustrator like myself, this is fantastic. It’s quite professional, too – the crowd isn’t just a bunch of yuppies sipping mojitos, gabbing loudly and attempting the occasional doodle (as I feared it would be). Nope, it’s just like a proper art class, with all the earnest, brow-furrowing geeks that entails. It just happens to be in a bar.

The models have been great, too. So far three sessions have featured three very different body types – and the instructor said that next week it will be a pregnant woman! Crazy!

Another awesome way to practice drawing is to take advantage of London’s many free museums. Here are a couple sketches from the Wellcome Collection, a fascinating museum of art and artifacts related to medicine:

This glass flask struck me as very cartoonish.

And these wax busts display unusual folding of the flesh at the back of the head; apparently, this was one way that psychiatrists diagnosed people with learning disabilities back in the day. Neat, huh?

November sucks (and pardon my northern hemisphere/temperate climate-centrism here) because that’s when winter really hits. You can feel winter coming in October, but there are still leaves on the trees, the days are reasonably long, and it isn’t too cold just yet. But when November rolls around, it’s full-on winter: all grey skies, lifeless landscapes, and unpleasant wetness. But it is a month of adjustment; by December, I’m used to it. By February, however, I’m sick of it; it is the nadir of the year. February isn’t the darkest month of the year, and in most of the places I’ve lived, it isn’t the coldest and it isn’t the wettest, but it sure does feel like it (surprisingly, in London February is actually the least wet month on average). Even sunny Los Angeles is not immune to the climatological ills of February:

(Color altered for effect.)

So what to do to cope with February, Old Man Winter’s loathsome last hurrah? I offer three solutions:

1. Draw anthropomorphic squirrels ad nauseam. Works for me!
2. Celebrate St. Valentine’s Day. If you’re single, just take it as an excuse to drink Scotch and eat chocolate.
3. Try your hand at baking. I don’t bake very often, but now that I’m unemployed and have easy access to a convection oven, I have no excuse not to. Baking is meditative, time-consuming, and fun, and it fills the kitchen with delightful smells and warm air. And did I mention that when you’ve finished, you get baked goods?

Here are a couple of easy recipes I made last week for a party. And I say they’re easy because even I, a complete novice to baking, made them without any trouble. The main inspiration behind them both was the always delightful Borough Market.

Red Currant, Pine Nut, and Cardamom Oatmeal Cookies

In the United States, currants are eaten rarely and almost exclusively dried. I don’t know why – it’s not like we can’t grow them there. In England, and I think in much of central Europe, both black and red currants are a favorite flavor in baked goods, candies, alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages as well as savory dishes. The red ones are perky and sharp, with a cranberry-like sourness, while the black ones have a richer, plummy, pruney taste. This recipe would work well with both; red is what I found, so red is what I used.

I liked the way the fresh berries popped open in the oven; when they came out, the heat had turned them into little patches of sweet red goo. They still hung on to their tartness, which complemented the buttery pine nuts and spicy, aromatic cardamom nicely.

If you can’t get fresh currants, you can use chopped cranberries or cherries, or you can try it with dried currants. This is based on a recipe from Bon Apétit.

2 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2/3 cup fresh currants
1/3 cup pine nuts, toasted
1 2/3 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cups (packed) dark brown sugar
2 cups oats

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Whisk eggs and vanilla in small bowl to blend. Stir in currants.
3. Sift flour, baking soda, salt, and spices into medium bowl.
4. Using an electric mixer, beat butter in large bowl until fluffy. Add sugar and beat until smooth.
5. Add currant and egg mixture and whisk to blend.
6. Stir in flour mixture, then oats.
7. Butter and flour baking sheets. Drop batter by spoonfuls onto sheets, spacing 1 1/2 inches apart. Using moistened fingertips, flatten cookies slightly.
8. Bake one sheet at a time until cookies are golden brown, about 13 minutes. Cool on sheets.

Chestnut and Ginger Brownies with Kinako Frosting

Cravings for Japanese junk food, rediscovering one of my favorite blogs, and my inability to leave recipes alone led to this recipe. Laura has a Marie Claire cookbook with a good brownie recipe in it, but I knew I wanted to tweak it somehow – originally I was thinking mochi brownies with black beans and kinako frosting, but I wasn’t sure how it would turn out, and besides, we were out of mochi.

Enter Borough Market, where I happened to stumble upon a pack of prepared chestnuts. Later I spotted a bit of ginger chocolate at Sainsbury’s, and I had my new recipe (I’m rewriting it here with simply ginger and chocolate). The kinako frosting recipe is from Delicious Coma, which has always been my favorite Japanese food blog, and it’s becoming one of my favorite Los Angeles food blogs since the author moved there last year. The frosting is amazing, by the way.

150 grams butter
250 grams dark chocolate
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1/2 tablespoon baking soda
1 cup prepared chestnuts or marrons glaces, chopped
1 tablespoon grated ginger
2 generous tablespoons sesame seeds, toasted

1. Preheat oven to 350ºF.
2. Melt 150 grams of chocolate and butter together in a double boiler or in the microwave. Stir until smooth.
3. Beat eggs and sugar together until mixture is pale and thick.
4. Fold in chocolate mixture, followed by sifted flour and baking soda, ginger, chestnuts, and remaining chocolate, chopped.
5. Butter an 8″x8″ square baking pan and pour in batter. Bake for 30 minutes or until brownies are set.
6. Allow brownies to cool for at least 30 minutes, then spread evenly with kinako frosting and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Cut into squares and serve.

I don’t have a photo of the brownies, but please enjoy this picture of what I made for lunch on Valentine’s day instead:

Mmmmmmm.

So it’s finally happened. After three weeks complaining about my trip, diverting myself with powerful Asian alcohol, pining for England and all those wonderful English people and things therein, hoping and secretly dreading this would happen, it’s happened:

I’ve come to a place so beautiful, so awesome, it’s countered all my complaints and redeemed the entire trip: Bagan.

The cold shadow of the government can still be felt here – they uprooted a huge population of farmers to turn Bagan into a World Heritage site – but it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Yes, there are temples (and I thought I was sick of temples), but these are different: the red bricks set stark against the chartreuse fields of lentils and sesame, more than eight hundred years old and absolutely stunning. Pictures can’t do it justice – and neither can words like stunning, mysterious, breathtaking, or Indiana Jonesy. You’ve really just got to see it for yourself.

And if you can afford it (I can’t – being a travel agent had it’s perks!), you absolutely must book a $250 trip with Balloons Over Bagan.

As it turns out, Bagan has more to offer than just gorgeous vistas and thrilling balloon rides. There are also palm trees. Okay, the sight of palm trees probably won’t excite most of you, but how about the taste of palm trees? In Bagan you can visit little palm-farming communities, taste the toffee-like palm sugar they produce, quaff the “sky beer” they ferment, and sip the palm rum they distill.

The sky beer is like a cross between traditional cider and traditional lambic – its wild, fruity sourness makes it exceptionally refreshing, and really good with a plate of Yangon Restaurant’s fried chicken, smoldering in the heat of pulverized garlic and chilies.

Remember how I said Bagan redeemed the entire trip? Okay, well, I lied. After visiting the palm farm we drove for two nauseating hours to an equally nauseating mountain, Mt. Popa. After climbing Mt. Popa’s 777 steps, each one of them covered in unpredictable macaques along with copious amounts of their piss and shit, you are rewarded with an ugly temple and a shrug-worthy view of the surrounding area (you can’t even see Bagan). Oh, and did I mention you have to do this barefoot, since the whole mountain is considered part of the temple? Give me a break. Nope – no break. After Mt. Popa it’s another two-hour drive to Salay, site of an equally unimpressive wooden monastery and a hideous, gilded, twelve-foot lacquered Buddha. And the dirt-road drive back to Bagan? Please – don’t remind me.

I left Bagan suspecting that nothing would top it in the next five weeks of my trip – and nothing did, but that doesn’t mean that Mandalay wasn’t really cool, too. The workshops here are incredible – this is the destination for Oriental knick-knacks to decorate your dining room/body: bronze, gold, silver, jewels, woodwork, puppets, embroidery, tapestries, silk, cotton, lacquer – Mandalay has all of it in spades.

And while you’re there, make sure you take a trip to Amarapura to see the world’s longest teak bridge – cooler than it sounds.

Whatever goodwill this trip earned in Bagan, it totally squandered in our next destination: Kyaing Tong. Kyaing Tong is probably a fine place to visit if you like rat-infested hotels without enough hot water and extremely awkward encounters with impoverished tribal villagers; but otherwise, steer clear. I suppose there are some deluded tourists who think it will be fun to “discover” these people, but at this point most of the villagers, including the children, are accustomed to being objectified and whatever little interest they have in interacting with tourists quickly dissipates once you’ve handed over the candies and medicines that Lonely Planet has instructed you to bring. Phooey to visiting hill tribes – but the treks did offer some nice views.

Then again, they aren’t as nice as some of the views to come: next week it’s off to Pindaya, Inle Lake, and Ngapali Beach – the best beach I’ve ever been to.