Winter Cooking: Beer & Beef Stew

This article can also be found at The Yorker here.

Note, and Disclaimer: Standard cooking is really not my style - I feel that knowing some basic cooking theory (how to bake, how to season, how not to burn things) will supersede the need to follow very rigid instructions. To that end, I don't have precise measurements for this recipe. Go hog wild with different ratios - and if you have any alternate ingredients, I'd love to hear them!

This recipe was inspired by a visit to Trembling Madness, a fancy booze shop with a restaurant upstairs, the place is as quaint and rustic as one comes to expect from York's unique eateries, and the food they serve is hearty, warming and full of carbs. Just what you want on a winter's day. When I first visited there, I tried the Belgian Beer & Beef Stew. It was so rich I couldn't finish it, but it was delicious. I thought to myself "I have to try and make this myself!"

You Will Need (Serves a dinner party of 12, or all your meals for a week):

• Dark Beer. I used 2 bottles of Dark Arts Surreal Stout.
• Beef stock.
• A Leek.
• Butternut Squash (Pumpkin would be better, but that's a bit harder to get old of post-October)
• Sweet Potato (Or potato if you're boring)
• Carrots and Parsnips
• Chestnuts
• Barbecue Sauce/Marinade (Trust me.)
• Spicy seasoning! I used Ginger, Black Pepper and Chilli Powder
• Diced Beef. You could use Diced Pork instead - or both at once! I sure did.
• Cooking Oil and flour. You should already have these.
• Coconut Milk

• A large stew pot. Y'know, to keep the stew in.
• A frying pan. If you're a stir-fry addict and have a wok, even better.

The Fun Part First, you're gonna have to do some preparation. The most time consuming are the Chestnuts - they normally come shelled, and the shell is... rather inedible. What's worse, is that they're a pain to remove. However! If you take a knife to each one, putting clear grooves through each chestnut in an 'X' shape, then leave them to boil in simmering water for 20 minutes, the shells will soften and become much easier to peel off. Be sure to peel them the moment you take them out of the water - once they cool down the shells will harden again, and all your work will have gone to waste.

During the boiling feel free to chop up your veggies. Chop them up chunky and irregular pieces, but feel free to finely chop the leek. Dump it all in the stew pot once done. Also take the time to prepare your meat (heh), and roll it around in the flour. Get a frying pan on, oil it up, and proceed to fry your floured-up meat. You only need to get the outside looking cooked, the majority of the cooking will happen when it starts stewing. Once you're satisfied, dump that in the pot too.

Are your Chestnuts done and peeled? Great, add them to the stew pot! With all your big ingredients in there, it's time to give them a Beer Bath. Crack open the bottles (or cans? I wouldn't try this with Stella), and pour them into the pan with reckless abandon. Soak all those vegetables, they've been naughty.

Ahem. Follow that up with Coconut milk to taste. Less is better than more here - too much and it'll obscure the taste of the beer. Boil some water, and add it to the pot until everything is submerged. Put the stew pot on a very low heat, and get to stirring.

The boiling process is very finicky here. Leave the heat on too low, and hell will have frozen over by the time things start cooking properly. On the other hand, the coconut milk and beer will froth and burn if the heat gets too high. Keep an eye on the heat and keep stirring. Once the whole concoction has heated up, you can relax on the stirring - just keep the heat low and check every 20 minutes to half-hour.

During the stirring process, you can start to add your spices, stock and sauce. This is in no way a science, add as much as you like to round out the flavour of the beer, and to get it as spicy as you can tolerate. Even if you're not a fan of spicy foods, you'll thank me once you come home on a freezing evening and have this stew to warm you up. Bear in mind that the flavour will get stronger as the water boils off.

After an hour, the stew will be edible, but I wouldn't call it 'done'. The longer the stew cooks for the heartier it gets (and the easier it is for it to burn! Don't forget to stir if you have it on the burner!) If you're the kind of person to do forward planning, making the stew the day before, but leaving it to sit overnight will give the ingredients the chance to soften up and take in the flavour. Having the sweet potato and beef chunks melt in your mouth is incredible.

Men's Lifestyle: Surviving Christmas Shopping

This article can also be found at The Yorker.


So it's December and the customary need to buy gifts for others has arrived. While going shopping isn't something alien to you (or at least, it shouldn't be), the idea of having to deal with increased crowds and the fear that you're going to be judged and scrutinised by your family and friends for not knowing anything about their interests is a scary thought.

But it's okay, you've been told by your friends that you're not expected to like or be good at shopping. After all, you're male and us lads don't know how to shop, right? Ha ha ha.

Congratulations, you have lazy and poisonous friends.

I don't think I'm a particularly special case when I say I get a kick out of going shopping. Maybe it's because I'm an urbanite, and I take pleasure from being part of the hustle and bustle; maybe it's because being the neurotic, task-driven sort, I get a warm sense of accomplishment from finding what I set out for, and getting a good bargain; or maybe I'm just a consumerist bourgeoisie pig - but the bottom line is that I have some solid hints for getting over your stumbling blocks when it comes to shopping - male or not. If you absolutely must bring up gender stereotypes, men are supposed to be good at getting a plan together - so let's all be Modern Men here, and scheme our way to an easier shopping experience.

Actually Know About Who You're Buying For
This seems obvious, but it's something that needs saying. If you're going to be parting with your hard-earned cash (or Student Finance's hard-earned cash) to buy presents for people you could arguably have bought for them at any other time of the year; then it stands to reason that you actually like them, and know something about 'em. By knowing some basic questions (something my experience in retail at GAME has made me start dubbing as 'Invite' questions), you can start to form a pretty good idea of what they'd like. These are questions like:

• Do they have any hobbies? (This question makes nerds incredibly easy to buy for)
• What colours do they normally wear? (Clothes shopping has now become much simpler)
• Is there an author/artist/genre they follow? (They like Tim Burton movies? That's a huge clue... Defriend them.)
• Are they in need of specialist tools? (Cooking, sports goods, audio equipment...)

If you can't actually answer these questions, then you probably don't know them well enough for you to be buying them gifts. Awkward if that's a family member or your significant other, but don't let a holiday custom force you to spend money.

Research, Research, Research
Even if you don't intend to do your shopping on the internet, it's more valuable than just access to Facebook. Almost every magazine-site and blog that cover some form of merchandise are putting out Christmas lists of suggested purchases; you're spoilt for ideas. Amazon and similar sites have customer reviews, so you can get a rough idea if that pair of headphones you're getting will crumble into pieces in under a month.

Furthermore, if you're going clothes shopping, checking out the website of the brand is going to save you a lot of wandering around to see if they have a blouse with the correct colour and neckline your housemate wanted. Knowing what you want and where you can get it will save you the embarrassing moments where you stand stock-still looking confused and scared. The other customers will judge you if you do that - goodness knows you don't want the ire of people you will never meet.

When To Put Your Plan in Motion
Ideally, as far away from Christmas as possible, but you already knew that. Your most sensible bet would be when you know the shops you visit receive new stock; it lowers the odds of your target gift being sold-out.

If crowds aren't your thing, you're going to have to go shopping at either the very start or very end of the shopping day. People don't get the idea of getting up early for Retail Therapy until January Sales, so you'll be relatively safe. If you're lucky enough to be in York this December, the high road shops will be open until 8pm every Thursday up until Christmas.

And of course, if you really hate crowds, shop online. Don't be a hero.

Other Hints and Tips

• Accessory/Lingerie Shopping isn't Mandatory! - One concern/complaint I've heard regards dudes who are terrified and lost when it comes to buying certain items for their ladyfriends. I can sympathise with that, La Senza, Claires, and their ilk are some of the very few places where catering to men aren't at the top of their list. But think for a minute - were you expressly asked to get someone earrings or underwear? Mightn't they have some other interest that you can cater to without sticking out like a sore thumb? Getting a thong for your girlfriend might not go so well; and getting a thong for someone who isn't your partner definitely isn't going to go well.

• Don't be afraid to just ask what people want - Let's face it; for a lot of the people on your Christmas list, you wouldn't be spending money on them at any other time of the year; let's not have illusions of undue benevolence. Asking about what they want sounds taboo; but giving someone something they don't want will bruise that ego of yours far more. If they are also under the illusion of benevolence, they may even say "I don't want anything", at which point you've got it made.

Have You Played: SSX Tricky

This article was done as part of The Yorker's Advent Calendar.

I don't like sport much. Or at all, really. Blame it on the cliché of being bad at football in primary school, getting stick for it, and the ensuing negative feedback loop resulting in me rather staying indoors reading, or maybe, shoving hot needles into my eyes, than running around on a muddy field.

That blind, irrational dislike of physical past times is reflected in my video game habits, too. I won't give FIFA the time of day, I still don't understand how we've managed to shift so many copies of Rugby World Cup 2011 at the GAME I part-time at, and the NBA has only ever been interesting if it precedes the word 'Street'.

But snowboarding? Snowboarding was cool Maybe it was the exotic factor, maybe it was the pictures and videos of people essentially flying through the air, or maybe it was just the cool reflective goggles that everyone wore, but I was totally into the idea of shredding and powder in junior school. I had Snowboard Kids for the N64, and although it was a great multiplayer title (that I may well gush about some other time), it wasn't capturing that level of sick air and kickin' rad attitude that I wanted. Then in 2001, my best friend had a copy of SSX Tricky for Playstation 2.

And swearing on the deity of your choice, it was awesome.

Aesthetically, the title oozed cool. The player characters were realistically proportioned, but the attention paid to how real life works stopped there. Every inch of every mountain slope in the game was designed to give you the biggest airtime, the fastest grinds, and the most ridiculous setpieces. The very first jump you encounter in the game is a massive free-fall off a cliff that would turn any mere mortal into a fine paste - but in SSX Tricky, you're controlling a snowboarding GOD.

Speaking of the people you're controlling, EA Sports BIG took the time to make them all solidly distinct. True, there's the designated eye-candy female lead, and a hyper-excitable Japanese girl, but taking on the slopes as the disco-obsessed Eddie, or chronically chill faux-hippy Brodi (my personal favourite) were far more interesting. As you played the game, you formed friendships and rivalries with the other racers, who trash-talk before and after matches to give way more character depth.

The sound design was also something special. While many of the songs were taken wholesale from the prequel, SSX, the game had a clever trick of fading the audio levels in and out as you went off jumps, leaving only the bass behind as you aimed for the stratosphere. Audio cues were synced up to the beat, so doing enough tricks to fill up your boost bar all the way layered in a riff from It's Tricky (SSX Tricky's theme song, natch) in a perfectly natural manner, signifying it was time to let loose an Uber Trick.

The Uber Trick is what elevates Tricky over its predecessor - the ability to let fly super stylish and entirely impossible stunts. Each character had five Uber Tricks at their disposal, along with a signature move unique to them. Working up to performing one of these, landing it, and watching all the points pile in was the game's main joy.

Though, that's not to say such payoffs were easily handed out. SSX Tricky was a hard game to master. The surreal architecture of the courses meant that you needed to know the levels well - very well - to have optimum routes for speed or score. Shortcuts were everywhere, surrounded by pits and hazards for a palpable risk/reward factor. Aside from that, knowing when you have the height and the time to land the bigger moves took practice and precision, which honestly, I'm still not very good at.

The imposing level design and somewhat complicated controls mean that SSX Tricky may be a mite too technical for some, and frustrating for people who want to be able to do the biggest and best stunts right from the get-go. But there were few games at the time that made you feel the thrill of the spectacle in every aspect of its design.