Ever since I first had Guinness stew at The Ginger Man I’ve wanted to know how to make it. Recently I’ve pursued this goal in earnest, and I’ve come close enough to invite some friends over for a tasting. With the stew we’ll be serving fresh bread made with beer and gruyére cheese (baked by my lovely and talented wife, Lysa), and of course Guinness Draught. To help pique the anticipation of tomorrow’s dinner, I’m posting an image of a recipe test I did this week. The Ginger Man version I’ll be attempting has much more liquid, but the ingredients won’t change; the test version was also a bit light on the beer as Lysa favors Guinness not so much as I.

Nearing the close of our first year in our new house, we’ve grown a bit wiser in the ways of energy costs, so when the time came to purchase holiday decorations, I didn’t hesitate to get something I’ve been wanting for some time: LED Christmas lights. Whereas the traditional strings of 50 mini lights consume 20-25 watts and last roughly 2,500 hours, our strings of 60 LED lights consume only one watt and should last for 50,000 hours. In fact, because our indoor tree is not near an electric outlet, we will be using only LED lights this year: our white Christmas shall be green. I’d like to eventually add more lights, but so far we have two strings of 60 LED lights along the top of our porch, and two strings of 60 pine cone LED lights around the tree. Lysa has mentioned that she likes those animated deer lights, but I’m not sure that’s the direction we want; I’m finding it tough to fight the urge to string enough lights to blind passing planes. One thing that I hadn’t realized until after stringing up the lights and viewing them from down the street– LED lights produce brighter, more intense color than minis.