Saturday, November 16, 2013

1st Annual Fairfield County Beer Advent Calendar (2013)

Sunday December 1: De Struise, Svea IPA 4
Monday December 2: BrewDog, 5 A.M. Saint Red Ale 3.5
Tuesday December 3: Founders, Pale Ale 3.5
Wednesday December 4: Lagunitas, Maximus IPA 3.5
Thursday December 5: Captain Lawrence, Winter Ale 3
Friday December 6: Emelisse, Double IPA 3.5
Saturday December 7: Great Divide, Colette Farmhouse Ale 2.5

Sunday December 8: Flying Dog, In-Heat Wheat 3.5
Monday December 9: Dogfish Head, 60 Minute IPA 2.5
Tuesday December 10: Paulaner, Salvator Doppel Bock 3.5
Wednesday December 11: BrewDog, Libertine Black Ale 4
Thursday December 12: North Coast, Old Stock Ale 2013 3.5
Friday December 13: Heavy Seas, Peg leg Imperial Stout 4
Saturday December 14: Great Divide, Yeti Imperial Stout 3

Sunday December 15: Caulier, Blonde Belgian Ale 2.5
Monday December 16: Weisses, Tap 7 Original 3.5
Tuesday December 17: Lagunitas, Censored Rich Copper Ale 3
Wednesday December 18: Petrus, Aged Pale 0
Thursday December 19: Ithaca, Dark Vine Black IPA 3.5
Friday December 20: La Rulles, Triple 3.5
Saturday December 21: Flying Dog, Gonzo Imperial Porter 4

Sunday December 22: Troegs, Mad Elf Ale 1
Monday December 23: North Coast, Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout 4
Tuesday December 24: De Struise, Pannepot 2011 4.5

Total cost: $96.05
Source: DeCicco's of Brewster, NY

Saturday, October 19, 2013

Granola Bars


  • 2 cups rolled oats
  • 1/4 cup wheat germ
  • 3/4 cup sunflower seeds
  • 1 cup of peanuts, crushed
  • 1/3 cup brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup honey
  • 4 tbsp unsalted butter
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1/2 tsp kosher salt
  • 8 oz  dried fruit (raisins, dried cranberries, etc)
Preheat the oven to 400.

Mix the oats, wheat germ, sunflower seeds, and peanuts on a baking sheet and bake for about 10 minutes, stirring every few minutes. I usually put the wheat germ in after the first time I stir because it seems to brown faster than everything else and the flavor becomes too strong for my tastes.

Prepare a glass baking dish or similar container about 11x13 by lining it with wax paper. You may want to spray it lightly with Pam or oil.

Put the brown sugar, honey, butter, vanilla extract, salt into a small saucepan and warm on simmer until it melts together, stirring constantly.

Put the baked mixed together with the liquid mix in a large bowl and stir well. Pour that mixture into the lined glass baking dish and press hard somehow to compress it together. I use a 9x9 glass baking dish. Let it sit 2-3 hours to cool and cut into bars.

Tinker with the recipe to your liking. This originally contained more wheat germ and brown sugar, but I toned it down over time.

Sunday, August 11, 2013

Convert JavaScript Epoch Milliseconds to C# DateTime

// Passed into the service; this example is UTC 1/1/2012, so it'll end up being 5:00am Eastern
string millisecondsFromEpochJavaScript = "1325394000000";

// Start at 1/1/1970 since that is considered the epoch date.
// Multiply by 10000 to convert milliseconds to "ticks", which are 100 nanoseconds.
DateTime converted = new DateTime(1970, 1, 1).AddTicks(Convert.ToInt64(millisecondsFromEpochJavaScript) * 10000);

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

JSON Date UTC Formatting for iOS to Web API Communication

Noob, but I have an iOS app POSTing data to a .NET Web API service and I want to keep the date/time data in UTC, so here's what I'm doing when I serialize my JSON.
NSDateFormatter *dateFormatter = [[NSDateFormatter alloc] init];
[dateFormatter setDateFormat:@"yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss"];
[dateFormatter setTimeZone:[NSTimeZone timeZoneWithAbbreviation:@"GMT"]]; // Keeps time in UTC.
NSDate *myDate = [NSDate date];
NSString *myDateString = [dateFormatter stringFromDate:myDate];