The Moon Family was traveling through Spain a few years back and I somehow became obsessed with the nuances of different brands of canned Spanish olives. I could really become an expert of this, I thought. It didn’t happen.
I couple months ago I posted a thread seeking the all-time greatest feel-good song (“Higher & Higher” by Jackie Wilson, if you care to know, but “Sweet Caroline” by Neil Diamond could make an argument for the top spot.). Became obsessed with it. Am I connoisseur now? I think I am.
I have long considered myself a connoisseur of Slam Dunk Contest-style dunks. I was even a consultant for the NBA at one point (some years ago). The best contest-style dunk is a 540 by a 5’9" guy named TDub. Or a 720 by a guy named The Air Up There. (They’re on YouTube.)
What could you become a connoisseur of? What do you presently consider yourself a connoisseur of? If you care to share any tidbits on the subject matters, all the better.
My apologies for ending so many sentences in prepositions.
A couple of years ago my son and I started a tradition of “Friday night is steak night.”
Since then we’ve had just about every cut imaginable and tried a truckload of different recipes.
And we’re still not tired of steak yet!!
The good news is my son and I have become so good at cooking steaks, we can cook them to perfection sans thermometers and sans cutting into the steak to check for doneness.
My 3-year-old son and I have made pancakes together about twice a week for the past five months, so improbably we seem to be becoming connoisseurs of pancakes (we vary the formula to avoid ennui.)
I’m a connoisseur of beer, and pretty knowledgeable. Between homebrewing, reading all the brewing literature I can get my hands on, and trying every new and interesting beer and beer styles I can find, I can tell you which styles I like, and which beers in that style are the best in my opinion.
The funny thing is that my tastes run kind of counter to the majority of self-anointed beer connoisseurs in that while I like American pale ales and the various stripes of IPA just fine, my real favorite styles are bohemian pilsners and English bitters/pale ales, neither style of which is in fashion at the moment among craft brewers.
Wine’s probably the one I know most about, but I like learning details about all of my hobbies. I just like learning, period, and connoisseurship, for me, is being able to sense distinctions that you didn’t notice at first. Learning helps with that.
At the risk of sidetracking the thread, which, IYO, are your top five bohemian-style pilsners and top five ESBs? Looking for some new beers to try. I am a big fan of Sudwerk’s Pilsner, but I readily admit it doesn’t taste much like, say, Pilsner Urquell or Budvar. Richer, and doesn’t have the almost icy crispness of the Bohemians. Still great though. For ESB’s, hard to top Fuller’s, for me, but I’ve been really impressed with Community’s (a new brewery in the Dallas area) version.
The American craft brew scene in particular feels like an arms race, and while I enjoy a mouth-destroying, 11% ABV Double IPA of Death as much as the next guy, my favorite style is actually Bohemian Pils as well.
Luckily, there’s a local craft brewery here in SLC called, fittingly enough, Bohemian. They make three beers: a Bohemian pils, a Vienna-style amber lager, and a Schwarzbier. Their beers are great (and they come in cans, which I love!), and their restaurant is great - just 100% heavy-ass German and Czech food.
I get to work around sunrise at least part of the year, and I always stop to note the celestial phenomena before I have to go in and deal with idiots and push paper around all day.
I don’t brew these days (live in a small flat), but if I could only ever brew one style of beer, it would be English bitter. I don’t give a rats what’s in fashion or not.
