The Cocktailian. In today's edition of Gary Regan's fortnightly column, The Professor, our cocktailian bartender, makes a cocktail good enough for Gatsby to love -- the Seelbach Cocktail. I love this drink. Anything that has fourteen dashes of bitters in it (Angostura and Peychaud's!) has got to be worth a look! Quote of the week. This is the judge in the case of Ahmed Ressam, the "Millennium Bomber" who planned to set off a bomb at Los Angeles International Airport but was caught at the Canadian border before he could do any harm. He was convicted and sentenced to 22 years in prison.
This is a real American, as distinct from those assholes who are currently in power. [ Link to today's entries ]
New cocktailian weblog. Well, it's not brand-sparkling new -- it's already been around for two whole months now -- but new to me and maybe to you too. Paul Clarke in Seattle, who was kind enough to leave some nice comments 'round these parts of late, has a site called The Cocktail Chronicles, tracing his own journey through the delightful alchemy of mixing spirits, liqueurs, wines, bitters and juices. Check it out daily -- there's great stuff in there. Cocktail of the day. From the aforementioned weblog, and one of Paul's original creations. He was responding to a challenge on the eGullet Fine Spirits & Cocktails Forum to come up with a good drink containing limoncello. While it's a fine digestivo by itself, it seems to have been neglected as a potential ingredient in classic cocktails. Paul came up with this one, named because it took him so long to post his drink at the forum (yeesh, sounds like me). It's mighty tasty, and a relative of a Dr. Cocktail creation called the Lemony Snicket Cocktail, also containing limoncello. It kicked our butts, too. "Jeez, hang onto the handrail going down the stairs!".
I didn't have a spare dasher bottle handy, so I did a tiny splash of Chartreuse into the shaker for two drinks. I'm not sure if this is more than what Paul would have used, but it tasted pretty darn good to us. The downward spiral continues. Lots of great contributions from Wes today, beginning with this ... declassified memos (.pdf) show that there were objections by military Judge Advocate Generals to extreme interrogation methods. Here are articles from The Washington Post and The New York Times.
The fact that we now have military lawyers objection to a policy of abuse wrought by civilian leaders is a depressing indication of how far we've sunk. No administration to date has disgraced our country before the whole world quite like this, have they? Oh yeah, he's conservative. Or so finds the New York Times, regarding John Roberts. (Via Wes.) Imagine our surprise.
Read on, it gets worse when you start looking at his opinions. If he's confirmed, and if Bush puts another one like him on the court after Rehnquist, get ready to step fifty years back in time. Energy flap. Why delay an EPA report covering things like automobile fuel efficiency? Maybe because it makes your energy bill look bad.
Fishy indeed. I despise these people. [ Link to today's entries ]
Cocktail of the day. Promoted from the comments section, this was contributed by cocktailian bartender extraordinaire Murray Stenson, of the Zig Zag Cafe in Seattle. Murray said, "Monday you mentioned Chartreuse, Tuesday you mentioned rye ... why not try this one? It has become popular at the Zig Zag." We did. Wow!
This was really, really good; complex, sublime, beautifully balanced. Wes said that he found it a very summery cocktail, much to his surprise, given the ingredients. I loved it, and was immediately curious to try it again with yellow Chartreuse. Murray said in other topic's comments section that they've tried a Green Diamondback, Yellow Diamondback and even a green/yellow combination with success. "'Sublime' is a perfect description," he said. Why thank you; 'twas the first word that popped into my head. And thanks for sending the recipe, too! In Search of John Roberts. Via Wes, an interesting op-ed piece in yesterday's New York Times.
True, and potentially encouraging. Still, Roberts is personally quite conservative, and this worries me, especially with wingnuts like Orrin Hatch saying that Roberts should refuse to answer all questions, and then comparing him to Jesus Christ. (What the f---?) Senators, it's quite possible to ask him very pointed questions on judicial philosophy without asking how he'd rule in a specific case, so do it. Quote of the day. Also via Wes ... "... I think the current crop of Cadillacs is an ill-conceived combination of warped planes and clumsy proportions, but due to the juvenile preferences of the average automotive market, they are selling well." Boy, when I was a kid, the Cadillac was considered to be the apotheosis of cardom; everyone seemed to aspire to that, if you had the money. Now I don't know anyone who drives one, even though, as Syd said, they seem to be selling well. Until the proliferation of all those odious SUVs, though, it always seemed that Cadillacs were the absolute scourge of the highways; slow, lumbering and apparently being driven by people with the brains of a gibbon. (Late '50s/early '60s Caddies with fins excepted, of course; fins are fabulous.) [ Link to today's entries ]
One to beam up. Last night we watched "Relics", the episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation featuring a return appearance by legendary engineer Scotty, trapped in a crashed starship's transporter system for 75 years. There were several lump-in-the-throat moments, and we enjoyed it immensely. Drams of Scotch were consumed (not to mention a little chocolate as well), and a toast was made to Jimmy Doohan's memory. Dinner wasn't bad, either. Baked Catfish, simply prepared with olive oil, salt, pepper and Creole seasoning, atop some Maquechoux, the crawfish variation although I made ours with frozen, nicely sweet langoustines from Trader Joe's. Yum. Vintage Cocktails in the news. Our friend Dan Reichert got a nice mention in today's Los Angeles Times Calendar Weekend section. His business, Vintage Cocktails, provides classic cocktail catering services for private parties, and is a pretty hot ticket. Hey, nice work if you can get it! Good job, Dan! Drink Cognac like the French. Gary Regan, sans The Professor today, contributes an article to the San Francisco Chronicle with some authentic pointers for that most French of spirits.
How about an old, old New Orleans classic?
Count Louis Philippe Joseph de Roffignac was Mayor of New Orleans from 1820 to 1828, and was famous and beloved for, among other things, introducing street lighting to the city and laying the first cobblestones in the French Quarter. He also lent his name to this favorite concoction, sort of an early 19th Century highball. The original sweetening agent in New Orleans at the time was something called Red Hembarig. I haven't the slightest idea what this was, but nowadays we make do with raspberry syrup (not grenadine, if you can help it, unless it's the real thing made of real pomegranates). I'll still use my VS stuff for drinks like this, but for that $60-per-bottle Pierre Ferrand 20-year-old stuff ... well, I still like sippin' that stuff neat. What the f---?! "Treaty gives CIA powers over Irish citizens" From the Irish Examiner, via Kos, it appears that the Irish Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell (already a not-well-liked figure in Ireland from what I've been reading), has signed a treaty allowing US investigators and CIA agents astonishing and unprecedented powers over Irish citizens, allowing them to force testimony and search and seize property even if what the suspect is accused of is not a crime in Ireland.
Is there nothing this government won't do, justifying it by claiming it to be part of their ineffectual "war on terra"? The appalling thing about this is that it was done, as far as I can tell, without a vote from the Irish Oireachtas (legislature), and without the voice of the Irish people being heard. Also, do you think for a moment that the US government would allow a foreign government to have such jurisdiction over American citizens? Remember the flap over ShrubCo refusing to become a part of the International Criminal Court? [ Link to today's entries ]
The word is given. Warp speed. James Doohan, a.k.a. Montgomery "Scotty" Scott, Chief Engineer of the starship U.S.S. Enterprise, died this morning at the age of 85, from pneumonia and complications of Alzheimer's Disease. 
Besides his long acting career, for which he will be long remembered in his role as Scotty, he also stormed Juno Beach in Normandy on D-Day (taking six machine gun bullets and getting one of his fingers shot off in the process), was the original inventor of the Klingon language for the first Trek movie (later refined and greatly expanded by linguist Marc Okrand), and fathered his latest child at the age of 80. (Nice going.) While I wasn't one of the people he inspired to take up engineering by his portrayal of Scotty in three seasons of "Star Trek", seven ST movies and a thoroughly enjoyable episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation", I'm very affectionately grateful to him for helping capture my imagination since I was seven years old. Thank you, Jimmy, so very much. As soon as I heard the sad news, I felt the need to write a tribute, and dashed over to my keyboard ... Keyboard? How quaint. I recently picked up some whisky called Hedonism, from the Compass Box company, and from what I hear 'tis truly a fine bottle of Scotch. Tonight we'll raise a glass to Scotty, along with a dram of something else. What else? Well, it's from Ganeroo ... Ganimer ... nee ... well, it's green. 
Godspeed, Scotty. That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind. It's worth noting that James "Scotty" Doohan passed away on the 36th anniversary of humankind's first landing on the moon. Here's NASA's historical page on the mission, with images and video, to get you started. 
You can now Google the moon, too. Take a look at the Apollo 11 landing site, and make sure you zoom all the way in. Everyone who was surprised he nominated a white male conservative, raise your hand. Right. I didn't think so. In the midst of a flurry of emails amongst all our liberal friends, Rick came up with the best stuff. Here's the press release he'd put out if he were head of the Democratic Party:
As for what we should do now, here's Rick again, who has a tendency to nail things right on the head:
Option 2 is really the only viable option for the Democrats. As Armando at dKos put it, "The burden is on Roberts to prove his worthiness, not on us to prove his unworthiness. As I wrote last night, he must provide full information and answer fully and frankly on a number of key issues, especially Roe." From Harry Reid:
Here's why he needs to be very thorougly questioned:
Roberts will probably still be confirmed, so if we're going to raise a true stink about something, we need to raise a stink about something we can actually win, such as getting rid of Karl Rove, and watching the dominoes fall after him. Observation of the day. From Glenn "DVD Savant" Erickson's review of the DVD reissue of the 1956 film "The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit" (via Wes):
Amen. The endless parade of commercials that we all have to pay to see is, along with incredibly rude theatregoers, making me not want to go to the movies anymore, and instead to save for a home theatre setup. That would be a shame, because there's a lot to be said for seeing a big, crowd-pleasing movie with a big crowd, but when the crowd has no consideration for their fellow human beings, and the theatres and movie companies have no consideration for us either, it might be time to stay at home. And as Glenn has pointed out, there's not even an escape there anymore. Sigh. [ Link to today's entries ]
Big anniversaries today. July nineteenth ... celebrating the 10,233rd anniversary of the end of the ice age. (Also, the day Galway was liberated from Indians, and Marathon bars finally became Snickers in Europe.) Hooray! Cocktail of the day. Nothin' fancy, just a variation on a classic with interesting, delicious results. Make an Old Fashioned (the right way, in my cocky opinion: no effin' soda, and no effin' fruit other than a cherry garnish). Whiskey (we went for 101 proof Wild Turkey rye this time), teaspoon sugar syrup, and for the bitters ... use ONE dash Angostura, and THREE dashes of Regans' Orange Bitters No. 6. That ... was good. There are notes of cardamom and ginger in those orange bitters that add a really wonderful spiciness to a drink like this. This really shows off one of the amazing things about bitters, which can take a quality (although not superpremium) whiskey and elevate it to far higher levels in a cocktail. Give it a try. I'm looking forward to trying a Manhattan with Regans' too. Pond scum ethics. Well, are we surprised? Y'know, it was funny in "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" ...
Of course, winning or losing wasn't the point of the test; it was to see how one reacted in that scenario. It was actually despicable of him to change the conditions. Now, in real life, we have this scenario, via Kos:
Despicable. Yet sadly typical. Waxman calls bullshit. Rep. Henry Waxman, our hero in the House, sent a letter (.pdf) to the President yesterday. Here it is (follow the link for footnotes, etc.; also via Kos):
Will he obey his own executive order? (No, I thought not.) [ Link to today's entries ]
Weekend's gustation. Well, so much for the idea of eating like a rabbit for a few weeks before going back to New Orleans, to compensate for the weight I'll inevitably put on there. Sigh. I was a big lazy bastard and didn't bring my camera along (or drag it from the bedroom to the kitchen, even) for the weekend's culinary delights, so I'm afraid a simple, unadorned prose description will have to do. Saturday lunch was at a little neighborhood Mexican food joint in Eagle Rock called York's Burgers (yep, they make great burgers too) for an enormous, steaming bowl of pozole, a pork and hominy stew typical of the state of Jalisco in Mexico. Bright red broth (lots of chiles), huge chunks of costillas de puerco (pork ribs), tender as you can imagine, and a lot of white hominy. It comes with a plate of accoutrements on the side: chopped onions and cilantro, shredded cabbage, extra chiles, chopped tomato and lime wedges which you add to the soup as you go along. Absolutely delicious, hearty and very filling. And five bucks. Sunday was Big Experiment Day. (As if we didn't already know how it was going to turn out.) Simply enough, we took our Nueske's Applewood-Smoked Wieners and wrapped them each with a slice of Nueske's Applewood-Smoked Bacon (just about the best bacon I've ever had). Those went on the griddle, and into some freshly-baked whole-wheat bolillos from the panaderia several blocks away. Ketchup, and about a half a dozen mustards to choose from (French's Yellow, Beaver's Hot/Sweet and Cranberry Mustards, Woebel's Jalapeño, Silver Spring "Beer 'n Brat" Horseradish Mustard, Zatarain's Chow Chow), and that was all we needed. Holy crapola. Best. Dogs. Ever. Blasphemous as it may sound, I think I'll have another dog tonight, baconless, with nuttin' on it but a little mustard. I want to taste that dog just for what it is -- a hot dog with a really wonderful flavor (a relative rarity). Sorry, Hebrew National, but these dogs kick y'all's butts, higher authority or not. We had friends over to help us eat all this, and they brought along a dish I'd never had before -- piadine, which is a flat, pizza dough-like round of bread cooked in an oiled skillet or grilled, and topped with a mixture of leafy greens and other salady toppings, or even just roasted garlic paste and cheese. We did one of the former category, Piadini with Apples, Honey and Blue Cheese. (NB - Even though this recipe calls for pre-made, frozen pizza dough, screw that. Make your own. It's easy, even for the dough-challenged like me.) After the dough was browned on one side and flipped, we drizzled it with a tablespoon or so of honey (we used an Italian chestnut honey from Whole Foods that had an incredible flavor), an ounce or so of crumbled (fabulously smelly) blue cheese, then covered it so the cheese got a bit melty. That warm, honeyed, stinkycheesy bread was immediately topped with the cold apple and frisée salad that had been tossed with a lemon vinaigrette; to eat it, you just fold up the whole thing and eat it like a big taco. Outfrackinstanding. Just as I was about to break out the Chartreuse, the boys had to go; early risers, alas. I decided to forgo a digestivo myself, and instead stayed up too late finishing Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. (*tear rolls down cheek*) [ Link to today's entries ]
The Cocktailian. In today's edition of Gary Regan's fortnightly column about the Professor, our favorite cocktailian bartender, they're doing the cancan for Bastille Day with some more French cocktails. Shoulda posted this yesterday, actually, but I forgot. Oh well. Hey, we can make it Bastille Weekend! Harry Potter Day tomorrow. Say what you will, but it's always fun when another book in this series is released. We're going to go see a late movie tonight, then head over to Vroman's, which is staying open past midnight for the offical release at 12:01am. They're encouraging people to dress up, and although you won't see me dressed up as a character from the novels, I will be attired somewhat appropriately for the occasion, in this t-shirt: 
I love the looks I get when I wear this shirt, primarily from people who don't get the joke right away. My favorite encounter was in Trader Joe's a while back; an older lady wheeled her cart past me, saw my t-shirt and gave me the stinkeye. Unsurprising, considering I was in a Trader Joe's in our heavily Democratic neighborhood. I smiled. Then after she passed me she stopped, and I heard her say, "Voldemort?!" "Um, yeah ... see, it's a joke--" "Voldemort from Harry Potter?" she said. "That's the only Voldemort I know," I replied. A smile slowly spread across her face. "That's ... brilliant." Well yes, I like it too. As they said in the original Goats.com comic that inspired the shirt, the thing I find refreshing about Voldemort as a candidate for Muggle public office is that there's finally a candidate without a hidden agenda. Bewitched, uncorked. (Via Martini Republic) Someone with far, far too much time in his hands, has chronicled every single occasion in which someone had a drink on the television series "Bewitched." What makes this site truly silly (and not just merely silly) is that they document when (episode number) and where each drink was taken, but not what the drink was! (Given the era, I imagine there were a lot of Martinis.) And what, no mention of Uncle Arthur?! [ Link to today's entries ]
Joyeux Jour de la Bastille! Liberté! Égalité! Fraternité! Alors, aujourd'hui un petit peu de cuisine française, peut-être? Here's plenty from Epicurious. When I was in eighth grade, my French teacher Mr. Crosby made us promise that on our first trip to France, our first meal would be escargot. Nineteen years later, I kept my promise. Here's a recipe for classic Escargots à la Bourguignonne, snails in garlic butter. Heavenly. Try making a Croque Monsieur, the classic grilled ham and Gruyère cheese sandwich; it's easy and delicious. (For a Croque Madame, add an egg.) Oh, and even though they're really Belgian, eat some goddamn French fries, too. Cocktails of the day. All French, of course (due either to their ingredients or their origin).
And of course, what could be more French than a chilly glass of pastis -- Ricard, Pernod, Granier, Henri Bardouin, et al. One part pastis with 4-5 parts chilled mineral water, and you're in Provence. Cartoon of the day. By Tom Toles, received from Steve in today's email: 
Oh, and there's 'betrayed' and 'national' and 'security' and quite a few more ... [ Link to today's entries ]
Cocktail of the day. This one was not entirely successful, but shows potential. Wes dug this one out of Gary Regan's New Classic Cocktails:
It had a fairly unsophisticated flavor, and the Campari was too predominant -- not enough orange. We're going to re-tool this one, and we'll start by dumping the Stoli (not one of the better brands) for Charbay Blood Orange Vodka, lower the proportion to 3:1 and adding a couple dashes of Regans' Orange Bitters No. 6. I wouldn't rule out a half-ounce of blood orange juice too, since they're still in season. We'll let y'all know. Delivery! The nice UPS man brought a package today, sent by Nueske's. It contained two pounds of their amazing, astonishing, fabulous applewood-smoked bacon (one thick-sliced, one thin-sliced) and two pounds of applewood-smoked weiners (!) My my my. What in the world shall I do with these? I just can't imagine. Exposing more Republican lies. There's been a flurry of Republicans, right-wingers and their various pundits and toadies going on television of late and spouting the most egregious lies regarding the Karl "Evil Incarnate" Rove / Valerie Plame case. Perhaps the worst of all is that Valerie Plame wasn't an undercover CIA operative, that she was just a "desk jockey" whose exposure was trivial. Some asshole on Fox "News" -- someone they actually allow to be an anchor, apparently -- declared on air that he thought Karl Rove "deserved a medal" if he had indeed outed Valerie Plame. Or, as Oliver Willis put it, said asshole "believes that we ought to expose our covert government agents and harm national security, as long as it benefits Republicans." The Wall Street Journal ran a similarly absurd editorial this morning. And as some |
