Transplanting a Seattleite

R. showed me the NYT article about Aperol spritzers being The Thing.

https://jezebel.com/dont-let-campari-ruin-your-alcoholic-beverages-this-sum-1827699300

That’s pretty funny. I like one of the commenters who argues that Boulevardiers are the one true Campari drink, altho I like ‘em even better with Aperol.

In unrelated boozy commentary, I made a modified Little Italy with Koval Rye, Punt e Mes and Cynar (1 oz, .5 oz, .5 oz). I stirred the heck out of it to make it extra cold and dilute, and served it with 2 luxardo cherries. It was super yum, and may be my new favorite drink.

In the morning, T.'s new dresser was delivered. It is beautiful! I'm sort of amazed. He had been looking on Wayfair, but I pointed him at Circle Furniture instead, and I'm so happy I did.

I got a nice walk with M.

R. and I cooked the last of the meal kits from this week: chicken breasts with green harissa, with spiced carrots and snap peas. No bread or grain, so we toasted some ciabatta rolls from Costco. I chopped up a whole bunch of little packets of pre-peeled garlic cloves that had accumulated from various meal kits and put some in oil in the fridge and used some to make bruschetta with the scallions that I did not include because R. can't have allium. The chicken and veg were tasty.

When T. got home, R. and T. went shopping for a leather jacket for T. Then they went to the motor skills track activity. And after that, they got some dinner and went to the Breeders concert at House of Blues.

Meanwhile, A. and I had a very quiet evening at home. I pulled the last of the bag of yellow potatoes out of the garage, where it _had_ been cool and dry but lately was neither cool nor particularly dry. Of course they were starting to sprout, but they weren't completely limp so I got rid of all the sprouting parts (and the skin in general), mixed the cubes with a chopped red onion (more of that meal kit allium), tossed them in olive oil, looked at the result and said, yeah, I'm looking for carbs but that is way too much. I froze about two thirds and air fryered the rest. I had a couple eggs, too. Very tasty.

ETA:

I opened up the strega and made a 1:1:1 Rittenhouse, Antica, Strega, calling it "A Witch in Manhattan". I loved it, and then I completely lost my mind making up a list of drinks to try with Strega. I entirely disapprove of most mixing strategies with Strega -- people are afraid to do anything with it, much like chartreuse, so I figure I'll just try all my favorite classics with Strega swapped in. And while I like the "witch" naming convention, I played around with it to stretch it a bit. So my proposed "Asterisk" modified to swap in the Strega for the Chartreuse would be a "Pentagram". And a Sidecar with Strega in place of the Cognac is a "Broomstick". I have no idea if these are going to be any good but I am super excited to try them. (I have over a dozen planned.)

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.

The horse was canceled due to rain. I took both kids to track. A. lasted to 10:15; T. a few minutes longer (ends at 10:30, so almost the whole way through). I’m really happy to have an activity that both of them really like. This is not the one I would have expected, but R.’s whole family runs, so maybe I should have.

T. and I went to Julie’s Place for lunch. We also did some decluttering in the playroom, and ran the results of that and some earlier efforts over to Savers. We stopped at Donelan’s for groceries on the way home.

I _really_ thought that we were in the clear for the vomiting on weekends trend, but no. Around 6 p.m., once again, T. in the bathroom and definitely not going to school on Monday. This time, I saw blue in the bucket and asked him just how much gum was he chewing and did he swallow it all. It is Peppermint Cobalt gum, and has 2 sugar alcohols per stick. He is apparently going through more than one 15 stick pack per weekend day, but generally has no more than two sticks of sugar free gum (variable types) on weekdays. 30 g of sugar alcohol strikes me as a lot. It certainly would leave me in the bathroom in a lot of pain (and yes, both ends, if you were wondering. Which you were trying really hard not to do, I feel sure).

So we discussed not swallowing gum, but rather spitting it out, and I made sure he had a pack of tissue because he was worried about what if he wasn’t near a trash can. (He _used_ to spit out gum; it got stuck to all kinds of things and I’m wondering if R. complaining about gum stuck to things led to the swallowing). But ultimately, I took the package to research the ingredients and concluded that a week of no gum at all was called for. If that takes care of the vomiting and diarrhea, then we can discuss whether and how much he can have going forward. I suspect that there’s some kind of negative lactose intolerance / sugar alcohol thing going on, because his lactose intolerance has gotten worse, too. We’d already had him stop using the petroleum jelly around his mouth (he was definitely ingesting some of that, which can also cause problems) and cut way back on dairy over the weekend, thinking those were the problem. Fingers crossed I finally have found the real problem. (I’m sure the combination was worse than each individually — he had problems on Saturday last week, and this weekend it wasn’t until Sunday evening).

I handed him a fidget spinner that he already had and told him to start spinning it. He wanted to know why. I told him it was supposed to help with anxiety, so he gave it a try. When I asked him later, he said it was as good as chewing gum. I also got out some other sensory toys for him (the ramps toy and the bead roller coaster — I find those really calming), and a cloth napkin to chew on since all his chew toys were decluttered (not my idea) a while ago. Seriously, this is why I don’t like to displace anxiety activities — they get replaced, and sometimes the replacements are worse. In this case, I think the first stick of gum (or two) was boredom driven, caused gas, and then the rest was a cycle of chew gum to reduce gas driven anxiety, causes more gas, causes more anxiety, chew more gum, etc.

I got some of the blank, off white easel paper out that had already been scrawled on on one side and set up a neutral background to take a picture of a drink in front of. I have been working on drink recipe pages for my cookbook for my Year of Mixology, and wanted a consistent photographic style for these where I didn’t have to groom the kitchen before taking the picture. I did the Vanderbilt, and am really happy with how it turned out. I’ll try to get one of the Rosy Drink variations today, and do others over the next few days. I’m going to look around for a large-ish shoe box and see if I can use that for the picture taking, so I don’t have to set up and take down the background.

T. started throwing up yesterday evening and continued through this afternoon so there will be no school for him on Monday.

The horse was canceled due to icy footing; when I told A. on Saturday night, she said, “So, track?” And I was like, “Sure!” Altho I hadn’t thought of that on my own at all. So we went to track, and she had a good time, but there didn’t seem to be quite as many volunteers so I wound up shepherding her through drills and relay which meant non-running, already a little sore from yesterday’s martial arts lesson me did more running on a hard surface (I would ordinarily only run at all on a treadmill) than I had in perhaps forever. Ack. R. got A. lunch at McDonald’s because she was having trouble deciding among a variety of options. I had a blueberry pancake for lunch. We also ate more of yesterday’s chocolate cake (mix cake with prepared frosting — used up the open jar in the fridge after R. turned it light pink).

After lunch, I just was tired and sore, so I just got into bed. I played a game for a while, but mostly I just lay there and didn’t do much of anything. A. came up after a while and joined me, and then I had a long text chat with High Priestess which was nice.

Today’s drink was yesterday’s drink, only with the Crema by del maguey instead of the vodka (everything else the same). Really, really good that way. R. liked it even better than yesterday’s and it is the same lovely purple / pink rosy color. Tomorrow will be the crema version but no simple syrup, no crushed ice and served in an up glass to see if it still works correctly as an up drink as well as a rocks drink.

When I had dinner, I had left my devices upstairs, so I asked R. for the cocktail books that we keep in the bar. _Cocktail Genius_ is mine — I bought it at Chapters on our honeymoon in 2004. And it is delightfully awful, a real blast from the past. I’m going to try to put together something (probably NOT just a blog post) about how cocktail generations are about the same length as pop music generations, and, much like pop music, there are simultaneously elements of bringing back something from the more distant past and condemning one’s immediate predecessors for Doing It Wrong.

I’m also working on a theory that a really good cocktail should be forgiving of a wide variety of mixing styles, a wide variety of glasses, and should have a defined rocks version and a defined up version. Where Really Good is actually a massive understatement. The idea isn’t to make something that people love love love, but rather to make something that will survive the inevitable changes in fashion because it tolerates modification well and is still tasty. You know. Like pancakes.

R. and I went to El Huipil in Acton for lunch. I wore my Husky jacket from the 2014 visit to Seattle. On the way in, someone said, “Go Huskies” to me, and we chatted. He was class of ‘92 in ceramic engineering, and went on to get his other degrees elsewhere and then work on transparent ceramics (which is not glass). Kind of cool, altho I can imagine that his job might make it a little tricky socially. It occurs to me, very, very belatedly, that my habit of never wearing anything with a logo, that in recent years I have finally broken myself of (mostly) has made a lot of random social interaction that people who DO wear logo stuff get to have. Every time I wear something that has a logo (Disney, UW, Mt Rainier, etc.), people have started conversations with me based on what I was wearing, and it is always very pleasant.

I had the mole at El Huipil. It is really good.

R. and I went for a walk after, the 3 mile loop. M. and I had previously attempted the 1 mile loop, but Tuttle was iced over pretty bad so we gave up. I wore my ice bugs for the long loop, and I’m glad I did. The downhill from West Acton was sheet ice.

I was reminded by High Priestess R. last night of my earlier plan to make microdrinks using teaspoons or possibly tablespoons instead of ounces / jiggers / shots. I decided to merge that previous endeavor with the current new drink a month for the year plan, to experiment with a Pink or Rosy colored drink. I had already decided that I wasn’t going to do a month of Cosmos, so cranberry juice was mostly out. But I was perfectly happy using Cherry Heering or Creme de Cassis. The previous night’s experiment had been overwhelmed by the (really tasty, really smoky) mezcal I used, so I was switching to vodka for tonight. But I had a bunch of different proportions to try out; the tiny portions let me do that without getting completely wasted, or wasting a bunch of alcohol.

1 ounce vodka (I was using grey goose because that’s what we had)
1 ounce cherry herring
.5 ounce triple sec (Cointreau)
.5 ounce Creme de Cassis

If you stop here, you have Adult Cough Syrup, if you are into that sort of thing. But I added a generous splash of chocolate bitters, so it isn’t Adult Cough Syrup any more but a dark rose and super tasty, with a lot of complexity for a vodka drink.

Equal parts vodka, cherry herring and Cointreau, with the chocolate bitters, is also pretty tasty, altho a meaningfully different drink.

I also read a large chunk of _PDT_. If I had never been to Less Than Greater Than, I would be sooooo enchanted by the idea of going to a hot dog restaurant, stepping through a phone booth and winding up in a Cool Bar. But having been to Less Than Greater Than, entering through an ice cream shop is actually even cooler, so the impact is thus reduced. No slam at anyone here — <> has managed to improve on a super cool idea.

In other drinking: R. opened a can of Lasercat from Medusa. That is a seriously odd IPA. Not _bad_. Just weird.