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Find a flask, we're playing fast and loose
I did not have very high hopes for today when I woke up. Sleep was what they call around here an epic fail. I stared at Robert Holdstock's Lavondyss (1988) on the bus and generally felt like one of the brain-dead.
And I spent the afternoon with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rushthatspeaks learning how to make samosas out of their amazing dumpling book. With the exception of the last batch where the unavoidable substitution of olive for canola oil caused the wrappers to soften and fall apart in the frying, they came out looking remarkably like actual street food and tasting as samosa-like as the addition of hard-boiled egg and seitan to the potato, pea, ginger, and shallot filling allowed, which was considerable. Nobody burnt themselves with hot oil. (I didn't really expect anyone would, but after the ginger tea incident, I wasn't going to bet against it.) Andrea Nguyen's recipe for simple flaky pastry is going to become a staple around the kitchen. We needed something sweet to send along with the savory, so we invented chocolate lemon brulée bars. Quite gratifyingly, I have since heard that both were well-received by their intended consumers.
And after their particular contingent of Sassafrass got on the road, I had dinner withderspatchel and audioboy and his wife whose livejournal handle I don't know (if she has one) at Magoun's Saloon, where if Rob didn't accidentally order a cider, I have discovered an actual beer I like. Flemish red ale. I'm as surprised as anybody. I'm guessing from the taste it's some relative of lambic, but I know nothing from Belgian. I honestly think the Reuben I ordered to go with it might have been bigger than my head if I had not dissected it in self-defense, which my tablemates kindly did not comment on. The fried triangles of mac and cheese were ridiculous.
And after dinner, I took Rob to Backbar, where the absinthe-specializing bartender remembered me from Sunday and made me the best Corpse Reviver #2 I have ever tasted. It got the woman next to me at the bar to order one. For Rob, he did a Bunny Hug and after we described the problem with the Moxie Mule, an astonishing change-ring that was so good we didn't even fight over it, substituting Amaro Nonino for the Fernet Branca and thereby fixing the entire drink. (It needs a name. We haven't got one yet. Ideally it should be riffing on "moxie," but "attitude" isn't going to cut it.strange_selkie, inventor of the Very Pleasant Pineapple—help?) I seem to have been the test case for a variant on my erstwhile favorite cocktail which he called a Dark & Moody, with ginger liqueur and clove bitters ("like sniffing a pack of Djarums"). I'd like to see it on the drinks board one of these weeks, so I'd call it a success. And he set absinthe on fire for us.
Apparently the reason I wasn't very interested in alcohol for years was simply the lack of speakeasies in my life?
And now I am home, I am going to curl up with Willie Sutton's Where the Money Was: The Memoirs of a Bank Robber (1976), and I am not getting up tomorrow until I actually wake up. Any telemarketers will be redirected to the newly created circle of hell.
And I spent the afternoon with
rushthatspeaks learning how to make samosas out of their amazing dumpling book. With the exception of the last batch where the unavoidable substitution of olive for canola oil caused the wrappers to soften and fall apart in the frying, they came out looking remarkably like actual street food and tasting as samosa-like as the addition of hard-boiled egg and seitan to the potato, pea, ginger, and shallot filling allowed, which was considerable. Nobody burnt themselves with hot oil. (I didn't really expect anyone would, but after the ginger tea incident, I wasn't going to bet against it.) Andrea Nguyen's recipe for simple flaky pastry is going to become a staple around the kitchen. We needed something sweet to send along with the savory, so we invented chocolate lemon brulée bars. Quite gratifyingly, I have since heard that both were well-received by their intended consumers.And after their particular contingent of Sassafrass got on the road, I had dinner with
derspatchel and audioboy and his wife whose livejournal handle I don't know (if she has one) at Magoun's Saloon, where if Rob didn't accidentally order a cider, I have discovered an actual beer I like. Flemish red ale. I'm as surprised as anybody. I'm guessing from the taste it's some relative of lambic, but I know nothing from Belgian. I honestly think the Reuben I ordered to go with it might have been bigger than my head if I had not dissected it in self-defense, which my tablemates kindly did not comment on. The fried triangles of mac and cheese were ridiculous.And after dinner, I took Rob to Backbar, where the absinthe-specializing bartender remembered me from Sunday and made me the best Corpse Reviver #2 I have ever tasted. It got the woman next to me at the bar to order one. For Rob, he did a Bunny Hug and after we described the problem with the Moxie Mule, an astonishing change-ring that was so good we didn't even fight over it, substituting Amaro Nonino for the Fernet Branca and thereby fixing the entire drink. (It needs a name. We haven't got one yet. Ideally it should be riffing on "moxie," but "attitude" isn't going to cut it.
strange_selkie, inventor of the Very Pleasant Pineapple—help?) I seem to have been the test case for a variant on my erstwhile favorite cocktail which he called a Dark & Moody, with ginger liqueur and clove bitters ("like sniffing a pack of Djarums"). I'd like to see it on the drinks board one of these weeks, so I'd call it a success. And he set absinthe on fire for us.Apparently the reason I wasn't very interested in alcohol for years was simply the lack of speakeasies in my life?
And now I am home, I am going to curl up with Willie Sutton's Where the Money Was: The Memoirs of a Bank Robber (1976), and I am not getting up tomorrow until I actually wake up. Any telemarketers will be redirected to the newly created circle of hell.
no subject
The samosas sound good, and the bars as well. I'm glad no-one was burnt. I hope all goes well on the road for Sassafrass.
Flemish red ale. I'm as surprised as anybody.
I'm not really surprised. There are a number of Belgian beers that tend to go over better with people who generally don't like beer. It's especially the case with the ones that use sour cultures in place of conventional yeast.
Was it a Rodenbach? It's been a while, but I remember one of theirs that was intensely tart and delicious. I don't know which lambics you've had, but if you've had, say, Lindemans or Boon and didn't care for it you might like one of the more traditional ones. I remember a Cantillon framboise that surprised and enthralled me with its complex sharpness. I'd had Lindemans and Boon gueuze and kriek before, and knew I liked lambic, but I'd no notion how much more extreme, for want of a better word, the traditional variety was. Then again, I like beer.*
I'm glad for the pleasing cocktails.
I hope Willie Sutton's book has been pleasnt reading, and that the telemarketers stay far away. I wish you sleep and comfort.
*Understood, of course to mean beer, as opposed to industrial lager made from maize and rice and formulated to have as little flavour as possible.
no subject
Neh. The rest of the weekend made it up.
no subject
I'm glad to hear that.