The Brookston Family Blog
• • • • •

Last night Anchor Brewery held their annual invitation only Christmas party. As usual, it was a great time with good friends, good food and, of course, great beer. While the potato wedges were the most welcome addition to the evening’s food, the best combination was an all-meat chili made with Anchor Steam beer to which I added crumbled Maytag Blue Cheese and paired with Old Foghorn Barleywine Style Ale.

The leading lights at Anchor: Fritz Maytag, John Dannerbeck and Mark Carpenter.

Guests at Anchor’s annual Christmas party.

A self-portrait with my good friend Bruce Joseph, who does the distilling at Anchor Distilling.

Former Publican Judy Ashworth and Christian Kazakoff, head brewer from Triple Rock.

Celebrator publisher Tom Dalldorf and beer writer Angie Wagner.

Staff and writers of the Celebrator Beer News.

The beautiful, supportive and tolerant Sarah and me.

The lovely Jen Garris looking even more lovely than usual.

The gleaming copper kettles.

Caught enjoying the yummy frittes.

R.J. Trent, former brewer, who just opened the newest BevMo on Van Ness Boulevard and Jeremy Cowan of He’Brew, whose newest beers lately have been wonderful, especially the 10 Monumental Jewbelation and Bittersweet Lenny’s R.I.P.A. (a rye-based Imperial IPA).

Happy Thanksgiving from the Brookston family. It’s been a while since my last post, but one of these days I’ll catch up. In the emantime, enjoy some photos and a movie from the kids’ Montessori Thanksgiving feast that took place on Wednesday.

The kids, all dressed up for Thankgiving.

The Montessori Thanksgiving table set out for all of the kids.

The kids sang a little song of Thanksgiving.

Porter and a friend chow down.

Alice in her white dress at the table.

Many times Alice’s teachers put her hair in pigtails or a ponytail, but today they really outdid themselves.

Her hair was an elaborate series of rubber bands.

Wow, how did they get her to keep still so long?

But it sure looked good.

And seemed to make Alice happy, too.

I already love Jon Stewart, but here’s one more reason. He’s hosting a live benefit show on Comedy Central called The Night of Too Many Stars, which is a benefit for autism education. I’m not sure why Jon Stewart or someone at Comedy Central chose autism as their charity, but I’m certainly pleased they did.

The show is this Sunday night, October 15, at 8 p.m Pacific (7 p.m. Central). It’s Jon Stewart, Elvis COstello is performing, and it’s for a good cause. Join us in watching the show.

Here’s what the website has to say about the show:

Comedy Central’s first live, on-air and online special event, Night of Too Many Stars: An Overbooked Benefit for Autism Education will be held at New York City’s Beacon Theatre on Sunday, October 15. The comedians will perform to raise money to benefit education and research programs for autistic children and adults.

Here is the complete list of comedians and performers:

Hosted by: Jon Stewart

Will Arnett
Jack Black
Steve Carell
Kristin Chenoweth
Stephen Colbert
Elvis Costello
Jimmy Fallon
Will Ferrell
Will Forte
Fred Armisen
Ricky Gervais
Norm Macdonald
Christopher Meloni
Moby
Oscar Nunez
Mike Myers
Bob Odenkirk & David Cross
Amy Poehler
Paul Rudd
Borat Sagdiyev
Adam Sandler
Amy Sedaris
Martin Short
Tony Sirico
Ben Stiller
Triumph the Insult Comic Dog
Brian Williams

The last three or four days Porter has gone to school wearing the top half of his superman costume, including the cape, with a jacket keeping his disguise intact. He’s also been taking a pair of my reading glasses to complete his Clark Kent transformation. But to his teachers at Montessori, he looked more like Harry Potter, so they started calling him Harry Porter. And apparently it stuck and all the kids called him that for the rest of the day.

Alice and Harry Porter.

The Wizard Porter.

Here you can see his jacket with the blue of his Superman suit peeking out of the top.

Not much of a story here, just some phtos of Alice in pigtails now that her hair is getting long enough that we can do that.

The teachers at Alice’s Montessori do a much beter job with Alice’s hair than I ever could.

Back home with her lunchbox.

Waiting for me on the stairs.

Giving me smile.

Last night, when Porter and Alice got back from their afternoon with Grandpa, Porter was in something of a funk. According to Lyman, he had been in an odd mood the entire day. Porter sat down on the concrete parking lot with his back up against a cement support and refused to come inside. Nothing would coax him from the parking lot. Eventually, he told me the reason was that he wanted a pumpkin to make a jack-o-lantern, and he wanted it now.

So Grandpa, me, Porter and Alice strapped ourselves in the car and off we went in search of pumpkins. Problem was, it was nearing 7 o’clock at night and darkness was on its way. The pumpkin patch closest to our house, two exits north near St. Vincent’s was closed. Porter was beside himself and very upset. Next we tried Safeway but they didn’t have any pumpkins yet. More tears. I was running out of ideas, but though there was a slim chance that either one of the drug stores of the craft store, Michael’s, might have pumpkins. Luckily, Rite-Aid did have a small selection of pumpkins in front of the store.

As depressed and upset as Porter was before we found the pumpkins, that’s how happy and elated he was when we did find them. He ran down the aisle of pumpkins, excitedly trying to choose the perfect one. He knew wanted he wanted. It took a surprisingly short amount of time for him to choose his pumpkin. We were in and out in exactly the time it took Grandpa to get Alice out of her car seat.

Porter quickly determined that this pumpkin was the most perfect one there.

Then back at the house, Sarah gutted the pumpkin and carved it to Porter’s exacting specifications: triangle eyes, square nose and a jagged mouth. Once the candle was in place and the lights were out, Porter was a very happy, satisfied boy. We then carried the jack-o-lantern up to his room to use as a nite-light. Here Alice instinctively tries to blow out the candle, causing Porter no small amount of consternation.

Even after all the lights were turned off, Alice remained fascinated by the pumpkin’s glow.

Alice first noticed the ghost at her preschool.

Look! A ghost!

I said look! A ghost!

Run away!

It was rainy this week in Marin, and the kids wanted to take their umbrellas (which Porter pronounces “um-ber-ella“) even though it was really just a very light drizzle.

Arriving at school, Porter taunts the rain with his Buzz Lightyear umbrella.

While Alice “dancing in the rain” with her Elmo umbrella.

A boy and his umbrella.

“Umbrella! I don’t need no stinkin’ umbrella!“

Today is our friend Mike R.’s birthday, too. He’s Sheldon’s main man and sadly, we don’t see either of them as often as we’d like in part because Irvine seems so far away. As a result, all of the photos I have of Mike are from Michelle and John’s wedding. Happy birthday Mike.

Mike, Kristine and Sheldon.

The Sheldon clan: George, Sheldon, Jenny and Mike.

Mike, Michelle and Sheldon.

Sarah, John Smith, Mike, Kristine, Katherine and Chris.

Today is our friend Corey’s fifty-something birthday. All that’s important is that there is someone among our friends who is older than me and Corey nicely stepped in to fill that role when he married our friend Nikki. Thanks for that Corey. Corey and Nikki also recently had a baby girl, Gianna. Happy birthday, old man … er Corey.

Corey and his son Tom at his Eagle Board of Review.

Corey and Nikki at home with Gianna.

Corey and Nikki with Kristine during a visit to Idaho.

Suzanne, Sarah, Corey, Nikki and Steven, at Suzanne’s housewarming party.

Alice “the Fearless” was wrestling with Porter in the kitchen and, despite being half his side managed to take him down and pin him to the floor. That’s out grrl.

“You’re coming down with me.”

“On the floor, wussie brother.”

“Victorious!“

On Sunday, we went up to see GP’s and also hook up their new DVD player. Afterwards, we stopped by Target to pick up supplies. When the kids came upon this modern sofa, they plopped themselves right down and didn’t want to get back up again.

Our little couch potatoes.

Alice had an early bath and was in her pajamas, but Porter was still in the bath. Alice snuck in and made off with some of his bubbles.

“I’ve got bubbles.”

“Bubbles on my hands.”

“Of course, now I don’t know what to do with them.”

“Perhaps some magic tricks?”

“I bet I can make them disappear.”

Saturday afternoon and evening were two more sold-out crowds for the third, fourth and final sessions of the 25th Great American Beer Festival. Even though the space for the hall was expanded, it still felt pretty crowded. Believe it or not, there were even scalpers on the street selling the $45 tickets for as much as $150!

Saturday morning for as long as I can remember, Samuel Adams has been having a brunch for the media at a nice restaurant before the award ceremonies begin. This is Jim Koch and me at this year’s brunch.

Then it’s off to the awards ceremony at the afternoon tasting session. It’s the equivilent of beer’s Oscars. The awards go on for over an hour, and it’s especially nice when friends win awards. Case in point, nabbing four medals, Bear Republic Brewing Co. of Healdsburg, California, with Rich Norgrove, won a well-deserved Small Brewery Company and Small Brewing Company Brewer of the Year. When I ran over to where Rich was coming off the stage to take a picture, I congratulated him and stuck out my hand to shake his but he pulled me in to ggive me a big hug. It was obvious he was very excited to have won the big award and I couldn’t have been more thrilled for him.

From left: Ralph Olson, from HopUnion, Dave Keene, fom the Toronado in San Francisco, California, Natalie’s cousin Inga, Natalie Cilruzo, from Russian River Brewing, Chris Black, from the Falling Rock in Denver, Colorado, and Ralph Woodall, also from HopUnion.

Michael Jackson and fellow beer writer Carolyn Smagalski, who writes on BellaOnline.

Tom Peters, from Monk’s Cafe in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Rob Tod, from Allagash in Portland, Maine.

From left: Vinnie and Natalie Cilurzo, from Russian River Brewing, Matt Brynildson and his wife, from Firestone Walker Brewing, and Rob Tod, from Allagash in Portland, Maine.

A last look at me bigger than life-size. Hey, how often does that happen?

My booth, with Tom Dalldorf, Celebrator publisher and Chris Black, co-owner of the Falling Rock across from me, with Stephen Beaumont out of sight to their left.

While next to me Michael Jackson and Carolyn Smagalski toasted with some rare beers Chris pulled out his cellar.

And Michael and I discussed films and books well into the night. Now I need to add the works of A.J. Liebling to my ever-growing reading list.