Shanisty Ireland, Home Chef, Foodie, & Lifestyle Influencer on Summer Beer & Snack Pairings

We're also celebrating National Plantain Day today, and this is a really good opportunity to talk about pairings, about maybe pairings of some of our favorite summer snacks, maybe plantains, maybe some offerings from some of our great local breweries, whatever it's going to take for you to make a really good and enjoyable and fun summer. And my guest who's joining me here at the RNJ Morning Program, and when I say she is my favorite home chef, foodie, and lifestyle influencer, I really mean it, and not just because she's on the phone right now. Shanesty Ireland is with me this morning. You know I'm sincere about that. Of course I am. Shanesty Ireland. What I was waiting for you to say is she's our only one. Only, of course. How foolish of me. Yes, my only one, of course. Welcome back to RNJ Radio, Shanesty. Good to have you back here. Summer off to a good start? It is. Thanks for having me, Bert. It's just chaotic. It's so busy, and you know, it's already almost July, which blows my mind. I feel like before we know it, kids are going to already be going back to school. So summer is really going quickly, so I feel like we just got to celebrate those little moments and try to make those memories when we can. Doesn't it feel like Easter was like just three weeks ago or something? Yeah, and we're already halfway through the year before we know it's going to be Christmas, and then it's Happy New Year again. Exactly. Right, right, exactly. So today we're going to be talking about putting some snack food pairings together. Maybe we're having a summer get-together, a barbecue, a cookout, you know, maybe people gathering for Fourth of July next week, of course, which is happening on Tuesday. And when it comes to putting these together, Shanesty, do you look for salty plus sweets? Do you look for, is that a rule that you follow? What kind of rulings or rules do you follow when it comes to pairing snack foods and beverages? That's a great question. You know, actually, speaking of Fourth of July, it's the number one beer-drinking holiday of the entire year, even over the Super Bowl and some of those playoff games. So the Fourth of July is just a great time to enjoy a nice cold beer, especially if you're thinking about an adult beverage, and pairing some of the snack foods with it, there's a couple of ways we can go about it. We can pair with contrasting flavors. For example, you take a beer that has a commanding flavor profile and pair it with a milder dish, or vice versa. Or you can do complementary flavors, meaning you have a lighter flavoring of a dish with perhaps a Shandy or a light Pilsner. And then, of course, matching strength for strength. And what I mean by that is a bold beer, like a Stout, would go really great with a big plate of barbecue ribs. That's an example of a strength for strength when you're coming to come into some of these beer tastings and flavorings with some of your favorite snack foods. So it's okay to go big on both if you're in that situation. Go big on the flavor with the food and go big on the beverage to complement it and just bring these two behemoths of flavor together. That's not a bad thing. I like that word, behemoth. Yeah, exactly. You can use that, by the way, on your social. Go right ahead. Oh, I will. I will. And I'm going to give you credit for it. Yeah. I just don't think there's really any wrong way to go about it. I mean, the Fourth of July in particular is just a great time to celebrate with some of these snack foods. You know, one of my favorite dishes to serve along with, you know, the barbecue ribs or the chicken or whatever you're going to have on the grill, it's kind of a grilled corn salsa. And when we were talking about plantains, they're really delicious, crispy, flavorful snack foods. And it pairs really well with something like a grilled corn salsa. It's got a nice little flavor profile to it. They've got the brand that I love. It's called Salula. They have a variety of different flavors. They have a lime flavor. They have a cracked pepper and salt flavor. And they're just really perfect to serve with a salsa that's going to give it a little additional crisp and a little bit more flavor than your traditional tortilla chip. Very nice. You know, I blame my parents, Shanesty. Shanesty Ireland is my guest here. I blame my parents because they allowed me to get away as a kid with anything I didn't try. It was okay for me to say I didn't like it. So I think maybe that's carried into my adulthood a little bit. And it took me a while to really warm up to things like plantains and tostones and things. Now I tried some of the ones, including the one you mentioned there, and now I ate a whole bag of them yesterday watching TV when I was home yesterday afternoon. So you don't know how good something is going to be until you try it. And that's how I really discovered a whole bunch of different types of snacks and different foods and things. Just open your mind and give it a try. It could be something that you'll like and enjoy for years and years. I mean, you're not even kidding when you say you opened the package and you ate the entire thing because I did the exact same thing. These were sent to me. And like I said, they have a variety of different flavors. We're talking about salula. They have a sea salt, Caribbean lime, and roasted garlic. I opened that roasted garlic package, and I'll say there aren't a ton in the package. So I will give myself a little bit of a break. I'm going to try to get a little bit of a taste of it. I'm going to try to get a little bit of a taste of it. 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