Would you ever think that Chimay Blue—the dark Belgian ale brewed at a Trappist monastery—could be used as an ingredient in a grilled cheese sandwich? Alex Brown and Evan George, the duo behind the cheeky DIY food blog Hot Knives, thought so when they conceived the Beer-Onion Soup Sandwich, a savory mixture of onions that have been simmered in a mixture of Chimay Blue, mushroom stock, margarine, bay leaf and thyme, enveloped between gooey, melted Gruyère cheese and two slices of grilled sourdough bread. “Of the five trophies we’ve taken the Grilled Cheese Invitational over the years, our favorite is the only one with booze in it—no surprise there,” George explains.
The Beer-Onion Soup Sandwich represents the outside-the-box thinking that has earned Hot Knives a cult following (their blog garners 60,000 readers a month). In addition to their blog, Hot Knives has also produced a number of local foodie affairs, such as the Great L.A. Beer Run, during which participants picked up the finest craft beers while riding around the city on their bikes, as well as the Craft Beer Fest.
This summer, Brown and George released their second cookbook, Lust for Leaf: Vegetarian Noshes, Bashes and Everyday Great Eats—The Hot Knives Way. Their first cookbook Salad Daze , was released in 2011 and featured vegetarian recipes for homemade kimchi and cast-iron mushrooms, whereas Lust for Leaf features recipes for DIY wieners and patties, and booze you can eat (think pumpkin beer muffins, gin holes and Manhattan pop tarts).
Brown and George met more than a decade ago, at Occidental College in Los Angeles Brown spotted George after freshman orientation. He knew it was friendship at first sight. “We found each other smoking cigarettes,” says Brown. “I tracked Evan down because he was wearing a Joy Division T-shirt.”
They became fast friends and soon found themselves working together as line cooks in the school’s dining hall. “We were making 50 gallons of Alfredo sauce in steam cauldrons,” says Brown. George, who was studying history, and Brown, who had taken up philosophy, would goof around in the kitchen, putting blood-colored handprints on their T-shirts while re-filling the salad bar.
After graduating in 2004, Brown and George found themselves in the same predicament as many graduates of their generation: They were unable to find full-time professional jobs. So they returned to the kitchen. “I flipped burgers and worked at a cafe making salads,” says George. “Alex worked first at a bakery that did high-end breakfasts, and then in a French café.”
Eventually George, after juggling cooking with various newspaper gigs, found a full-time job at a now-defunct alternative weekly called L.A. Alternative, and Brown found work at a fine cheese distributor. Brown weaseled his way into writing a food column with George, where they would do things like discuss vegetarian recipes they were developing and review beer before the whole craft beer craze. “We thought we were doing a good service by letting people know there was good beer out there to pair with the food,” says Brown.
When the newspaper collapsed in 2005, Brown and George decided to keep their column on the web, and Hot Knives was born. The two have a guy’s guy DIY ethos with their blog—it’s never too formal and they like to have fun with it. They play around until they figure out something they like. The pair comb L.A green markets—Atwater Village, Silver Lake and Hollywood are their favorites— looking for fresh produce and other ingredients to use in recipes like Thanksgiving pop Tarts, a pocket filled with all your favorite Turkey Day dishes; Peaches and Scream, a Habañero peach jam; and Hot Kniveçoise, their version of salade Niçoise.
The Hot Knives duo have come a long way from their college days, when they would try to make the most screwed-up cheap snack they could think of by staring at the contents of a bare fridge—an egg sandwich made with eggs poached in Pabst Blue Ribbon and stale bread, for example.
Despite still having full-time jobs, the two manage to find time to meet and discuss recipes, cook meals for their friends and families and work on cookbooks. Just don’t ever call them chefs. “We don’t call ourselves chefs,” says Brown. “We say it as a joking term. We’re cooks; we’re having a good time.”
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