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Sometimes a freak snow storm comes through your neighborhood long after both that stupid Pennsylvania rodent and the Spring Equinox have indicated that winter is supposed to be waaaaaaay over.
So you need something to keep you warm and happy and NOT running around screaming and shaking your fists at the sky in rage.
Red bean and vegetable chili with black rice & fried egg. Not pictured: margaritas, because that goes without saying. You want a drink that ain’t never gonna give you up or let you down? Well the Rickey ain’t no stranger to love. Not to mention the fact that it can be made with various kinds of booze, so even if you run out of one kind, the Rickey ain’t gonna desert you. It was originally made with bourbon, but gin is the most popular version. And considering how it is both highly smooth drinkin’ AND easy to make, it ain’t never gonna make you cry or say goodbye either.  Featured left: gin.
BOOM. Rickeys. All you need is a booze of your choice, half a lime and some sparkling water.  Now left: bourbon.
BOOM. Again. Just combine your spirit with the lime and top it with bubbles. Done. No lie. Normally when I see a recipe or ingredient list if the first thought that crosses my mind is “that sounds really weird” then it’s a good bet that the second thought will be “I bet it’s either really good or really bad.” The third thought is, of course, “I kind of want to try it.” Now more often than not, things that come across as weird in the culinary world actually do have some sort of taste-bud based reasoning behind them. Just because we didn’t know it when we were growing up doesn’t mean it’s gross. Every now and then though, something comes along and we can’t figure out what it’s after, something that we just don’t fully understand. Enter (in a mysterious cloud of smoke and light): The Cocky Rooster.  No, that’s not just a blurry cell phone picture, you jerk. It’s obviously distorted by the mysterious smoke and light. Sheesh. So what is this thing, this strange and unknown concoction, you ask? Where did it come from? And how do you make it? It’s a variant on the Michelada that gives the popular Mexican beer cocktail a Southeast-Asian/German twist. (Yes, you read correctly. I’ll explain in a bit.) As for how to make it, here you go: pour 1oz lime juice into a tall, salt rimmed glass. Add ice. Add a hefty squirt of sriracha (SE Asia). Add 3 dashes Maggi (Germany). Pour a cold lager over the top. Garnish with a couple slices of jalapeño. Now look at it. So dark and mysterious on the bottom, with a deep, reddish color that rises from blood to gold as you approach the top of the glass. Now smell it. It doesn’t smell like something to drink, does it? It smells like food. Spicy and herby and really kind of good. It makes you want to order a drink to go with the meal you’ve already got in front of you. Except, wait—the thing in front of you is the drink. Yes, that’s right, put your fork away and grab a crazy straw instead. Because crazy is where things are about to go with a quickness. You see, due to the way it’s made, the drink’s flavor changes in stages as you near the bottom. The top third is dominated by saltiness and the smell of jalapeño, which eventually gives way to a beery, limey middle portion (my favorite part) before plunging into the darkest depths, an abyss where light cannot penetrate, a midnight realm where the sriracha-maggi tag team is lurking, waiting, anticipating with dark delight the moment in which the unsuspecting taste buds draw near, the moment when it can strike and deliver unto your tongue a thrashing the likes of which you may never forget. And what happens on the other side? Well, that my friends, is a question that only YOU can answer, for spiritual journeys can be understood only by those who take them. This was one of those dishes that looked better than it tasted.  Aroo! Needs more rocket. To me? Rosemary spelt pasta (from Ohio City Pasta!), with wilted arugula, pork tenderloin and parmesan. Don’t be like me and forget the garlic. Just don’t do it.  Let’s drive Cameros and eat tacos! Roasted pork tenderloin tacos, corn tortillas, guacamole, fresh salsa and cilantro. The pork had a chili/cumin/coriander rub on the outside, and was roasted at 400 degrees until internal temp was at 147 degrees (and I’m still not dead!). Also implicated: jargaritas.
This is swai, over quinoa and wilted rocket, fresh salsa.  It’s a thing! Sure it’s a trash-fish. But that doesn’t mean it has to look bad or taste bad. In fact, it’s surprisingly delightful. Just not firm like ocean fish. But healthy and rockin’, especially for the price! I’ve been a bit busy lately, and I suspect my fellow cohorts in things gastronomic have similar issues. Thus, I bring onto you a new series: Quickies! Essentially it’s an excuse for me, and any of us eHos to get busy posting, or get busy dyin’. I’d love to keep delivering hugely, in-depth coverage of everything I do, but I still have to work my day job. Anywho, I plan to use this category/tag like a Twitter of Tumblr: quick bursts of enlightenment, photos, idiocy. Or all of the above. Just less pressure for us all to have to come up with full, competent thoughts. I encourage everyone to do the same: quick posts, quick photos, quick…everything! Inspired by Falquan’s enthusiasm over the CSA he had joined (and doubly inspired after he brought some delicious sausages over for dinner last summer), the Gastrognome and I began a search for CSAs in our neck of the woods. This search ended happily last fall when we were able to join Fair Shares and partake in some of the St. Louis area’s freshest foods. We purchased a half-share, meaning pickup every other week, and it was good. Some of the highlights included (but are not limited to): Geisert Farms: braunschweiger and breakfast sausage: Not to steal a phrase made famous by someone else, but OH MY DAMN. No offense to 5 Guys bacon, but this is how pork is supposed to be. Growing up in Toledo meant that pork products came from Kilgus Meats (which is an incredibly awesome place if you’re in the NW Ohio/SE Michigan area), and I’ve been lamenting the fact that I couldn’t find anything to measure up to that level of quality in my new home. But at last piggy salvation is at hand! And I couldn’t be happier. Goshen Coffee: I have always considered myself a coffee drinker but not a coffee connoisseur. I was fine with buying pre-ground coffee and was quite sure that buying a coffee grinder of my own would be a waste of time and money. The Gastrognome, being more of a tea drinker to begin with seemed to agree. Then, one week we got this Goshen coffee in our share. Now we own a coffee grinder. Fresh eggs all the time: It’s almost disturbing how much better fresh eggs are than grocery store eggs. Even aside from the fact that they’re not dipped in bleach baths to turn them pure white, fresh eggs have an intensity of flavor and color that your standard off-the-shelf egg cannot match. Fresh eggs are super freakin’ sweet. Being able to get them all the time (okay, once a week, but still!) is incredible. Fun New Stuff: Have you ever seen watermelon radishes or sunflower shoots in a major grocery store? If yes, then you are far luckier than we are.  Not only do we look super cool, we also taste delicious. Being a part of the CSA gave us the chance to try these (and many other things) out for the first time though. And they are great. So great, in fact that we’ve decided to increase our share to a full, weekly one starting this spring. It’ll mean that we’re getting enough food this way that we’ll be forced to come up with creative, new ways to use it all, which is an adventure that we’re both looking forward too and which we hope (well, barring excessive laziness/procrastination) to further document here! So stay tuned! So, it turns out my personal hero (by that I mean I’m super jeals I didn’t get this idea first) Hannah Hart, what with the My Drunk Kitchen show, is putting on a tour/show/tourshow. I’d thoroughly enjoy that she would show up either here in Cleveland, or at an inconspicuous location in St. Louis where some other people I may know may reside. Frankly, I just want to see her show up in kitchens across the world. Ideally, I could visit. Thus, please do what you can do to make the tourshow even more of a reality than it is. Next time I’ll bring you food. SRSLY. Over the summer, the Gastrognome and I were lucky enough to make a short trip out to visit ye ol’ Bay Area. The first stop on our journey, however, was unfortunately nowhere near our final destination. Indeed, there was more potential for us to be stranded in a dank and odious wasteland, struggling desperately against boredom and madness than there was for, well, much of anything else. Yea, those who have been there know of what I speak: a nearly 5-hour layover in the Dallas/Fort Worth airport! Fortunately, there is an oasis in the midst of that blasted landscape and it comes in the form of the international terminal. Here one can find shopping and entertainment of various sorts, but much more interestingly for us, one can also find tequila.  How about a margarita? The beverages were cool and refreshing and quite good, even if a bit on the sweet side. They made us hungry for tacos, which were eaten before pictures could be taken of them. And yet, time still remained before we could continue our voyage, so while other travelers around us shouted at the soccer match being played on the big TV, we decided to go adventuring. And by adventuring, I mean MOAR TEQUILA!  Left to right: Gran Centenario Reposado, Patrón Reposado, Don Julio Añejo. Yes, the prices had experienced typical airport levels of inflation (you know—somewhere hovering just under movie theater or hospital cafeteria levels of inflation), but as you can probably already guess from the picture above, there was a delightfully surprising breadth of selection to choose from. We opted for the premium tequila flight, which allowed us to pick three from a list of eight. I opted for the Patrón because everyone talks about it like it’s really good and I wanted to see what the hype was about, the Gran Centenario because it has a really epic name, and the Don Julio because the only people who I’ve heard talk about it are the sort who take their tequila drinking very seriously. (You may have encountered the sort: older gentlemen with hard, dark eyes, grey-flecked mustaches, sun-browned skin and the ability to let you know just by the slightest change in the degree that their eyes narrow in disapproval or their head dips ever so briefly in respect what they think of your character. And of course they possess the natural ability to learn everything they need to know about you as a human being from a single glance at your drink order. Now, I’ve not reached that venerable age yet, and the system surely has nuances that I don’t yet comprehend, but I gather the basics go something like this: If you ordered your tequila in the form of [A] then you are [B]. a margarita = you are a woman silver tequila = you are a sissy a bunch of shots = you are a stupid gringo some fruity cocktail = you are a godless savage and should probably be beaten for your own good tequila reposado = you are a man tequila añejo = you are a man of wealth and taste These can of course be combined. If, for example, you ordered a bunch of silver tequila shots, then you would be a stupid, sissy gringo. Or if you order a margarita with tequila reposado, then you are probably a drag queen.) The samples arrived shortly, each resting merrily in its own little salt-rimmed vessel and accompanied by a sprightly slice of lime. I assume this presentation was to facilitate shot-taking, but the Gastrognome and I were keen to ensure that we would not be falsely judged, since it was entirely possible that one of the TV-watchers was also a Serious Tequila Drinker. Besides, we still had two hours to kill and figured it would be better to take our time and sample than pound the drinks and then spend the next hundred minutes trying not to puke in our carry-ons. And thus the tasting did commence and the results were that we fell asleep right after boarding the plane and woke up somewhere over the Sierra Nevada. Well, while that last part is true, I expect you want some sort of report on the tequilas as well. Oh, alright then, pushy-pants, here you go: Round 1—Patrón Reposado: This is (in the US at least) by far the most well-known of the tequilas that we tried and it was (in my mouth at least) by far the least interesting. Very smooth, very mild, with a light, translucently pale, gold-ish color. It left me wondering why it is A) so popular and B) so expensive, but then again, most Americans probably don’t want their tequila to taste like much so it’s easier to do more shots, and if it’s expensive, and it says premium in the ad, then it must be good, right? Also, rappers sing about it! So if you want to hand out a lot of money for a gold tequila that pretends to be a silver tequila and possibly attracts ladies/dudes of the sort who are more interested in the amount of money you’re handing out than what your name is, then I think this one should be near the top of your list. Round 2—Gran Centenario Reposado: If tequilas were Mike Tyson (and we’re talking Punch Out! era Mike Tyson here, not post-rape era Mike Tyson), then the Patrón would be his voice and the Gran Centenario would be his fist. Seriously, this thing is pretty much the opposite of the Patrón in every way, with a deep, amber color and a powerful, herbal smell that at least gives you a slight—though not quite sufficient—warning that you are about to be jackhammered in the face with magnitude. Yes, magnitude. Now this is not to say that this is a bad thing. There’s a certain beauty to raw, unadulterated power being skillfully employed, and the Gran Centenario definitely knows what it’s doing. The intensity really comes from the taste itself—this isn’t some gruesome throat scorching of the sort you can get from any cheap booze—it has real substance to it. Of course, in this case the question becomes how often you want to take what the Gran Centenario is dishing out. Round 3—Don Julio Añejo: It would be easy to say that Don Julio Añejo is something in between the two previously discussed tequilas, but that would be rather like describing gold as being something in between chalk and iron. It would actually be much easier, I think, to not compare the Don Julio to the other tequilas at all and just watch this video of Plácido Domingo singing Granada instead. |
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