For a truly spectacular apple pie, California is your destination. Or at least, my friend Anna makes the best one I’ve had the pleasure to devour, and she lives in Los Angeles. We made it out to the West Coast a few years back, and our hostess had an evening of sushi, tequila (well, actually mescal), and an apple pie planned. And before you assume the alcohol augmented the taste of the pie, don’t worry, we didn’t consume it all that night. It was just as good or better the next day when we got up around 1:00 in the afternoon. So if you’d like to become a better hostess…
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Charles' Pork Chops
Put one to two pounds of pork chops into a marinade that consists of 1 cup of oil, 2 cloves of garlic and a tablespoon of salt. Marinade for 2 hours. Put 1 can of Guinness into a baking dish. Place your pork chops into the dish. Bake at 350 for one hour (or until the internal temperature hits 160, whichever comes first). Drain out the remaining Guinness and serve.
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Cooking: Sweet and Sassy Brussels Sprouts
Here’s my recipe for brussels sprouts. I know you don’t like them, but just try this before you write them off… First, soak your brussels sprouts in cold water for about an hour. Then, cut them in half and pull off all those nasty dark leaves. Next, saute up about 4 tablespoons of butter. Toss the green meanies in there and saute on medium until you can just put a fork through them. Important, don’t over cook these things. Remove from heat and top them off with just a little brown sugar. Serve hot.
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Cooking: Beets
Beets are usually just cooked wrong. They’re typically these boiled nasty things. Until my wife talked me into trying them at Lucia’s in Minneapolis I despised them. I still don’t love them, but I do like them well enough to cook from time to time. To cook them, take your beets and wash them off. Cut off the stalks so you’re just left with the beets themselves. Then take those and wrap them in foil, sprinkle a few tablespoons of oil in the foil and some balsamic vinegar. Throw them into a 400 degree oven for about 60 minutes. The smaller the beet the less time you can bake, but…