...or your corn flakes or over your sausages or through your pie or whatever. Beer in cooking is just plain smart. So smart that David Jensen at beer47.com picked it for this month's edition of The Session:

Since the topic of Cooking with Beer is broad, I invite you to share any experience that you have had with beer as an ingredient in food or for cooking. I only ask that you be sure to include other dishes besides (or in addition to) dessert, the reason being that we have already discussed Beer Desserts for The Session #30. You don’t need to exclude dessert, just please do not limit your discussion to dessert only.

I could go one but I am going to keep this short and sweet. My favorite thing? Odyssey by Allagash in Maine is the greatest beer for making mushroom dishes. The trouble is it is so good, rich, malty...errr... what did I write about it? Oh, yeah: "...sort of like a brown sugared baseball glove that was on fire but put out with a good soaking of Belgian ale." I have one in the stash still. I think about it from time to time.

You are going to have to be strong to part with something that sounds so good but it is worth it. Drink a quarter of the bottle as you sizzle up bacon, sausage and chicken thighs in a big wide pan. Add shallots, onions, leeks, and other stuff. Maybe butter. Maybe some white beans. Add about 157% again in volume of mushroom. More than you think is smart. Let it reduce well to this side of chunky glom. Pour in a quarter of the bottle in the pan, cover and simmer until it is slightly more glomtastic. Get a big honking end of rough country bread. Eat what's in the pan while drinking what is left in the bottle.

That thing on your face? It's a smile.