Thursday's Activities Include: Snow Day

We had a snow day today. I slept in. That was kind of awesome. I took a shower. I puttered around online. Eventually, A. insisted I help her get dressed for the day.

T. has been wanting to change a lot of his room around lately. Today, I moved my old thunderbolt display into his room to satisfy his desire for something with a big screen to watch movies on. We're still waiting on some pieces of this solution, but we moved the display, connected his wireless keyboard and figured out why his computer was having trouble accessing all the movies.

In order to get one of the beautiful new displays, I need to upgrade my laptop; A. will be getting the old one. So we ordered her a computer desk and chair, emptied out the dresser that we will be removing from her room to make space for the desk and chair, and also ordered her a keyboard cover, case and trackpad skin, all in hot pink. She's pretty excited (yes, the desk and chair are also pink). Since she was into the decluttering, we also went through her shirt drawer and some of her shoes. Conveniently, the people we send her hand me downs to are coming over for a play date tomorrow.

I did some vacuuming. M. came for a visit. The sitter came and got T. after we went out to lunch at the extraordinarily busy Julie's Place.

I made appointments for the kids' physicals this summer, now that I know their schedules for this summer.

PDT book review

I know, you’re like, What Does PDT stand for? I read the book and had a decent sense of the position that book currently holds in Bar Culture and _still_ didn’t know. Please Don’t Tell. As in, (P)lease (D)on’t (T)ell. The actual bar that the book is named for is entered via a secret phone booth at the back of Crif Dogs, a hot dog stand in NYC.

PDT was recommended to me by a very kind server at New City Microcreamery’s speakeasy, Less Than Greater Than. The entrance there is a plain door with a sign next to it saying, “Turn on the light and wait for delight”. It’s next to the loo. Kinda cool. The windows on the street have curtains, and all the indications are that what lies within is an old skool cobbler, of course, no such thing exists in real life any more so that’s kind of a giveaway right there. It’s our favorite bar, our preferred date night, and the place we send all our friends to try to convince them that even tho we are middle aged, we are still actually With It.

PDT is an all-in-one book. It has drink recipes, and unlike a lot of bar books, it gives the source / origin of the drink recipes. But it has a lot more. It has the story of Crif Dogs / PDT. It has a lot of detail on how to physically set up and stock a bar, right down to picking the bottles to support your program, and a range of ideas on how to update the cocktail menu over time to keep up with trends without wiping out your budget and annoying patrons by removing currently popular drinks from the menu.

All bar books — like all cultural artifacts — represent a moment in the river. They also reflect the idiosyncrasies of the author. In this case, the author really has a Thing for the absinthe rinse that is otherwise really only present in Sazeracs done right. And he didn’t just stick to absinthe rinses. There are a ton of drinks in this books that call for rinsing with one thing and then mixing a drink that does not otherwise contain that thing. I mean, I get it. But still. It has that kind of precious feel to it. Better that than Everything Is a Martini, which was about two trends earlier. And honestly, probably better than everything is a Mule served in a copper mug. (Altho I do get that that mug is charming.)

I was a little bummed to discover that PDT’s Vanderbilt is not the Vanderbilt I loved at Less Than Greater Than, but it wasn’t hard to find another recipe elsewhere, so I can’t really complain. And because I am Me, I further changed the recipe anyway. I bought PDT as an e-book and I read it on an iPad, which means I _think_ I got the correct flavor of the pictures, but you just never know. It justifiably belongs in Every Bar. And while I can’t say that I think it was really worth it to read every single page of the thing, the bibliography _is_ annotated, so even that was worthy (altho, as always, when reading an annotated bibliography on a subject of current interest, probably hide your wallet or otherwise make it hard to order things).

One of the most worthwhile sections, potentially useful even to people who are mostly non-drinkers, is the section that explains what various categories of alcoholic beverages are, how they are made, a bit about their history, and representative brands that PDT the bar stocks. I learned a lot, and I already knew a lot about the subject. I can only imagine how much someone who, for example, likes to marinade, or infuse interesting things into baked goodies or smoothies and so forth might get out of that section. Basically, if you’ve ever yearned for something to substitute for vanilla to be Even More Fun, you might want to peruse this section of the book.

ETA: Number 11

ETAYA: There is a whole section of the book which is recipes from the Crif Dogs side of the house -- really. A whole section of the book is hot dog recipes. Some of them look sort of interesting, altho there are enough milk products involved in a lot of them to make me just sort of give up. But if you are into dogs, and want a fancier / different version, PDT has you covered.