Sweet Treat Beans

Our buddy Kevin looks like a frugal dude. We were fooled. When Kevin, a small Pasadena craft beer distributor, was up in Portland he splurged on an unrivaled flute of aged brews from one of his connections, Hair of the Dog Brewing. He purchased one bottle …

Texas Tea

Our tinted Suburban pulled into the reputed ghost town of Terlingua, Texas at 4:20 on Super Bowl Sunday, which did not explain why the faded general store offered one long row of shaded, splintered benches occupied by sleeping dogs and old ranchers gripping …

Pickled Sunn

Contrary to our belief, the Jerusalem Artichoke has absolutely nothing to do with the contested city home to various peoples of the book. It's actually an American o.g. : a tuber that finds its roots from Nova Scotia all the way to Georgia. First eaten by a …

Hot Knive

We've said it before and we'll say it again: composed salads are probably our favorite thing to make, even more favored to eat. This one is a bit of a mish mash of components; but they all reconcile in your mouth in a really radical way. Like the port city …

(Scorched) Earth's Finest

Drive south along the San Diego shoreline in fall, spin inland toward the breweries of San Marcos and Escondido, grab a pint of double-hopped West Coast IPA at a beach-front pizzeria in Carlsbad and you'll deeply comprehend why Southern California beer …

Booze Infused

Like discoveries in other experimental fields, the ones that happen in the kitchen are often rooted in mistakes. When way too many black peppercorns got dumped into hot oil for a pre-bean fry, it seemed they were lost. What to do with a pile of soggy …

The Beet & Pickle

Peanut butter and pickle sandwiches make some people squirm. Not we! In fact, we're always looking for other non-traditional applications for the succulent salty cylinders. This week we found one in real way!

We'd heard tell of a hipster taqueria here in …

Best Beer in the World (?)

Hot Knives: Some people consider this the best beer in the world, what do you think about that?
Belgian roommate: It's just a beer.

If 2007 was the year we fell madly for Belgian beers -- where we idealized the stuff righteously and it could do no wrong …

Holy Mole, Choco-Tomatoes

New Year's Eve eats at the Hot Knives hearth means stuff you can easily dip or grab in between sweaty, whiskey-spitzed brit-dance hits and afro-beat freak-out jams where every partygoer in the house grabs a metal bowl and slotted spoon and starts banging. …

Nog-Champa

Eggs, cream and rum are a tricky equation and can make for a dangerous proposition. It's like volunteering to bring a hollandaise sauce to a potluck. But done well, warm, spiced liquor can be the ultimate crowd pleaser. We kept this in mind a few weeks ago …

LA Grand Crew: Road to Joy

"65 bike riders, 10 dollars, 6 freeway overpasses, 4 beer stores, 3 winter warmers, 3 kinds of hot nuts and a partridge in a pear tree." Coal and whips be damned, we have begotten enough resounding joy from this weekend's second annual LA Grand Crew to last …

LA Grand Crew '08 Rolls Out!

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Holy Christ! It's like Christmas Eve here at Hot Knives HQ because our second annual LA Grand Crew beer-bike ride goes down tomorrow. Tomorrow! We have oak barrel fairies dancing in our heads.

WARNING WARNING: The after-party booked up days …

Ramirez Liquor

Where exactly the tip came from, we don't remember. But a few long blocks from Mariachi Plaza, on a potholed stretch between 7th Street and Whitter Blvd. in East Los Angeles, there's an impressive tequila wonderland that more than minors in beer. Just look …

Act Now!

We're 5 days away from the second coming of LA Grand Crew...

According to the weather service, the rain will be gone in two days time, meaning Saturday will be a sweet and swell day for biking and merrymaking: sunny skies, clean streets and a pack of 40 …

The Recession Porter

As the stock market ping-pongs lamely around this season and the financial doom-and-gloom casts shadows even on a good old fashioned night of heavy drinking, we see but one quick fix: beer that's strong, dark and cheap. Easier said then done, right? Some …

LA Grand Crew '08

What happened, where did the time go? It's been nearly 18 months since the smashing, first-ever annual LA Grand Crew beer-bike ride and we at Hot Knives HQ completely slacked on organizing our second event. But we've got it together now. We've really done …

Post-Thanks

Freshly arisen from a snoozed-out weekend, we dug through the video snippets of our Thanksgiving meal and smooshed 'em together like a leftover cranberry and mash sammich. Like most years, we cooked all day, but instead of setting our own table this time we …

Haps Thanks: A Last Minute Primer

Panic!! You're off from work/school. Brother/mom/in-laws are coming into town tonight. The lines at your local, thieving Whole Foods are curling closer to the juice station every minute you procrastinate. Stage fright!

This year, we too felt brief, …

Stuff-ash with Cran-Beer Sauce

We prefer to roll deep when it comes to Thanksgiving menus. Mash and roasted root vegetables? No problem. Two different batches of stuffing? Why not? Seitan meatloaf wrapped in seitan bacon... sure, we've considered it. In fact, it is rare to find an inch of …

Stone... Again!

It's been two and a half years now, since we first played hooky from jobs and hightailed it south on the I-5 to tour the still-squeaky-new brewery and bistro at Stone Brewing in Escondido. That was our man-cation in the vein of the movie "Sideways" but not …