The Death of Imagination

It worked so well making a list of leftovers the last time we entertained on a holiday that I've done it again. Here's what we have in our refrigerator following our New Year's Day Open House:

ham (chunk & slices)
[roast] turkey breast
sauerbraten
cassoulet
caponata
sausages [smoked & garlic thueringer]
sauerkraut
gingerbread trifle
black cake
hoppin' john
spätzle
half & half
zucchini
heavy cream
greens (lettuce, herbs)
red cabbage

Obviously, not all of this was served to our guests. The sauerbraten, cassoulet, spätzle, and red cabbage I've written about before. The thueringer are leftover cassoulet fixings; we'll probably serve them with the sauerkraut for a quick meal some night.

"Sauerkraut", incidentally, hardly does that dish justice. A few days back, Miss Cleveland asked if it would be alright to bring some cheeses sent by his brother. (He and his partner both had heart scares this past year and have cut way back on the animal fats.) I said, "Of course" and told the Old Man not to buy any more. A couple days after that, he informed me that the housekeeper and the contractor had gifted him with sauerkraut and sausages, so would it be okay if he brought those too? I don't know that I've even once denied a request to bring pork products to my house, so I readily assented.

Little did I know he apparently thought he was cooking for a regiment of Hessians. I didn't realise that Calphalon even made pots that size. It was a popular dish, and now all we have left is roughly the amount monshu or I would fix if we were cooking up enough for ourselves for a week. (I think I see bigos in our near future.) They threw in potatoes, too, which could be retrieved to form the nucleus of some other dish. Perhaps the soup we plan to make with the hambone and/or turkey carcass?

By contrast, the remnants of innerdoggie's hoppin' john were modest enough to fill a single-serving container. There wasn't much more of the GWO's Da-friendly caponata (i.e. no olives or capers). But barely half of the gingerbread trifle got eaten, meaning there's now a bowl of whipped cream, lemon curd, and Scottish gingerbread bigger than your head dominating the back of the top shelf. Makes one wish there were another party to go to still. The hunk of West Indian black cake (three months in the making) may look small, but that's before you take into account that it is what happens when an ordinary cake collapses into upon itself until light has difficulty escaping. I don't know what this nonsense is about "sacramental wine" in its makeup; it's the "burnt sugar essence" the comes through most for me.

I didn't move a lot of liquor this time. There was some love for the paw paw liqueur and both kinds of ginger (the Koval and the Massenez). his_regard had a good idea for the first but ran low on sparkling wine before he could execute it properly; definitely something to keep in mind for future. There were also some interesting suggestions for the horseradish vodka brought by lhn and prilicla. "Bloody mary" is the natural candidate, but I think it could be the basis for an interesting martini. I actually convinced five fellows to down a shot of it, and it was generally deemed less intense than you would've thought. (Makes sense; horseradish, like onions, develops its bite upon exposure to air, which isn't really possible once it's been infused.)

"Let's ask them to do 'Irish Rover'."
"'The Wild Rover'? That's one of me favourite songs. She likes it, too."

I made that tongue-in-cheek suggestion even before I knew that the diminutive leader of the amateurish lederhosen-clad three-man combo would end up plopping down next to me to ask, "What next?" And it turns out that they did know "Wild Rover" though--as I suspected--not under that name. When my initial request drew blank looks from the burly man with the squeezebox, I said, "'Auf der Nordseeküste'!"

"Wie heisst das Lied?"
"'Auf der Nordseeküste'. Kennen Sie das?"

They conferred a bit and launched into a completely unfamiliar tune. But as I kept listening to it, it mutated and eventually the faces of the Irishman and Italian woman we were sitting with broke into smiles of recognition. And then, almost as soon as they had verbal confirmation from me that that was indeed the song I had in mind, they stopped playing it.

I can't remember if this was before or after I bet your woman a pizza that the etymology of "wizard" was, in fact, Old English and not, as she insisted, Old Irish. (Naturally she lost--that's what happens when you go up against the language nerd who's spent the last thirty years compulsively reading dictionaries!) It hardly matters; I doubt I'll see the payoff, but who knows? Your man took innerdoggie's card because he was interested in a Python users' group she told him about. Of course, no second meeting could measure up to the joy of grabbing the first empty bench available only to discover you're across from a stylish Milanese professional translator and a computer programmer with school Irish and an interest in jazz. Nuphy's gregariousness and knack for serendipity come through again!

Afterwards, he predictably hustled me over to the Gage and introduced me to their resident mixologist. I was sorely disappointed that I couldn't allow myself more than a sip of his wares (the Aviation was decent--I prefer Sapphire to the Nolet's he went for--but I would love to return for a full dose of one of his Last Words), and he consoled me with a dash of Jerry Thomas Own Decanter Bitters in my tonic. Mmm, spicy! All in all, things turned out much better than I expected about five hours earlier, when I was fighting off a cold and wondering how on earth I was going to rendezvous with everyone with my phone dying and unable to get a signal in the middle of fucking Chicago.

If this does turn out to be my last visit to the Christkindlmarket this year--and it's looking that way, given that Nuphy would rather do Italian before Elisir d'amore--then I can say I left it on a high note. I didn't even need the Glühwein to put me in a mood where I could ignore the heat, the noise, the press of people around me; pork, sweets, and good companionship were enough to do that.

Tonight's dinner: my most successful meatloaf ever. It was a grand synthesis. I got ideas on ingredients and proportions from monshu and Bittman, then I added some twists of my own. For instance, instead of raw carrot and parsley root, I drained the pot vegetables from last week and pureed them instead. I think Bittman's advice to up the bread crumbs (which the GWO tends not to use) in order to compensate for the liquid from the green vegetables was crucial, but instead of tearing up the multigrain loaf I crumbled some sesame flatbread instead.

I wasn't entirely happy with the seasoning (our sage seems to be falling victim to powdery mildew, so there were few usable leaves, and I forgot the rosemary entirely, although I did make good use of our neighbour's lovage) but the consistency could not have been better. I went with a 60/40 mix of pork and chicken barded with bacon, but I think parcooking the spinach in the microwave and squeezing out as much water as I could was crucial when it came to giving the dish looseness without making it soggy. And (in a rare burst of competence which was compensated for by forgetting out the side salad until the last second) it was done right on time.

As a side, I roasted parsnips and parsley root, but there wasn't much room alongside the loaf, so the chunks I tossed in a separate casserole came out much better. As a special treat, monshu brought home the Koval walnut liqueur. Disappointing: the vanillin in it pushes the nuttiness well into the background. We're thinking it would mix well (particularly as a substitute for the Vana Tallinn in the Baltec) but it's not worth drinking on its own. For comparison, I gave the Old Man some Haus Alpenz Nux Alpina, and its complex taste really brought home the shortcomings of the Koval. To quote Billy Bob Thorton in Bad Santa, "They can't all be winners."

So last night I was at a couple of friends' silver anniversary party. I meant to be only GST-late, but ended up overshooting a bit, so I arrived to a crowded room and a line for the bar that was getting longer rather than shorter. They had engaged a "bartender" for the evening. (I use quotes because--as will soon become evident--we're talking about a "bartender" in the gay tradition, i.e. a guy who takes his shirt off and can add one ingredient to a glass of vodka.) I ordered a manhattan, he asked me what sort of whisk(e)y I wanted in it, then this happened:

"I usually have it with bourbon or rye."
"I don't have any bourbon."
"In that case make it a Rob Roy."
[adds a measure of scotch to a cup of ice and sets it in front of me]
"So now, ginger ale?"
*expression of utter horror*
"What else goes into a Rob Roy? It's a long time since I've made one."
"It's like a manhattan made with scotch."
*deer in headlights*
"So, sweet vermouth."
[starts hunting through liquor cart]
"I don't seem to have any vermouth."
"That's okay, forget about it."
"Do you want some tonic?"
"No, that's fine." *self-consciously eyes queue behind him*
"You sure? A little more whisky?"
*grabs drink before he can find some way to ruin it*

As it happened, I--knowing my hosts were manhattan fans--had brought a bottle of Carpano Antica style for them. So I set off to find where they had set it. I had no joy locating either the bottle or them, but by now the ice had melted enough that the scotch was sippable. I was just finishing it up a while later when one of them came by and asked:

"So, did you get your manhattan?"
"No, he said he didn't have any vermouth."
*look of surprise* "I'll make you a manhattan."
"No really, don't worry about it."
*waves me off*

He was gone for a while, and when he returned it was with an actual martini glass rather than the disposable plastic cups everyone else had. Half an hour later, when I was almost to the bottom, he swept by again with the shaker and I topped myself off.

I'm pretty chuffed with my baking skills right now. It helps to start with pretty foolproof recipes. Move over, Mark; Mimi's bread pudding blows yours out of the water. There's a lot less milk and a lot more bread, so you end up with the consistency you're supposed to have. To keep things interesting, I added not only black walnuts and dried cherries reconstituted in kirschwasser but also a nice big hunk of Callebaut. I also started with multigrain bread. I think I've gone from being crust-neutral to being anti-crust, but the Old Man likes them so I'll keep leaving them in.

When he asked me what I wanted for dinner tonight, I said, "Pancakes!" Half as a joke, really, but then it reminded me how much I've lamented the lack of good savoury German-style pancakes around here. So I Googled a recipe and it turned out fabulously. I did my best imitation of a Walker Brothers Danish Garden by topping it with a sautée of garlic, portobellos, zucchini, green onion, bell pepper, and spinach. Plus, to ramp up the savoury element, I put cheese and sofregit in the batter and replaced some of the butter in the skillet with the oil it was cooked in. Oh, and of course I couldn't resist substituting a little buckwheat flour. Deee-lish!

At dinner I had a glass of Maiwein, but beforehand I wanted to reward myself for killing off Bovary with a Calvados-based cocktail, so I went for the Royal Union. Very interesting! First you get the nut (not Nux Alpina in the house, so I substituted amaretto), then the amari take over with apple notes in the background, and you finished with the taste of the chocolate bitters. At first monshu thought it was too desserty, but it grew on both of us. I dearly wanted another, but I feared it would do me in, so instead I made a stripped-down version with only the Nonino, amaretto, and chocolate bitters.

We may not have gone out on Saturday, but that didn't stop us from partying a bit. The GWO mentioned "having a cocktail" in the front room, which inspired me to look through the book and select a couple of tasty-sounding preparations with Calvados. I haven't made many of these before since all we've had in the house is the Chauffe-Cœur Hors d'Age which is far too good to be adulterated. Alas, it's still unavailable around here but Nuphy did find some VSOP which he kindly brought over for Easter.

I couldn't decide between the Bentley (equal parts Calvados and Dubonnet rouge) and the Coronation (equal parts Calvados, sweet vermouth, dry vermouth, and a touch of apricot brandy) so I made both. Neither one knocked my socks off but the second seemed particularly bland given the variety of ingredients. One thing they were not, however, was weak; I'd barely had a sip of the Coronation when I began to feel myself getting light-headed. So that was it for my experimentation!

It's a shame because if I'd persevered, I might've hit upon something more interesting. Like the Tulip Cocktail, which is quite similar to the Coronation but without the dry vermouth and with half measures respectively of the apricot brandy and some lemon juice. Or the Royal Union, which weds Calvados to three kinds of amari and chocolate bitters to boot! And then there's the Bitter Maestro, which I was forced to make a counterfeit version of at a previous party. We've since acquired everything we need for it (rye, Dubonnet) so, come this Saturday, look out!

As I was telling a colleague this morning, there are no proper windows in the Vault, only one narrow strip of clouded glass, so I had no idea it was raining until the moment I was about to step outside. I say raining; actually it was a mix of rain and wet snow. Great big clumps of it. All melting as it struck the ground, not sticking even on tree branches or stone outcroppings.

A conversation about sausage rolls on FB had left me hungry for some, and an irritating morning of searching for materials that are simply unlocatable in our current chaos convinced me that a beer would not be too much of an indulgence, which is how I ended up at my local Irish pub. As usual, I came during the part of the day where the owners are running around trying to see to back-office matters before the evening rush. J. was nevertheless more chatty than usual, and we talked about cider and facial hair. Meanwhile, the proportions of the wintry mix shifted even more toward snow and flakes were falling in such tremendous aggregations it was almost cartoonishly unreal.

I thought I recognised a man sitting in the window as a former opera singer who'd once bought me a whiskey, but I wasn't 100% until I'd asked J. for confirmation. I offered to buy him a pint, but he politely declined. A while later, after I'd decided one sausage roll and Guinness does not a lunch make and was laying into some brown bread with cheddar and bleu, he came over and we chatted again. To jog his memory, I quickly steered the convo to opera once more, and he concluded by calling Sandy Rad one of the most "underappreciated" singers in the biz.

At that point, my lunch had lasted far longer than I'd intended and I knew I should be leaving myself, but I overheard J. discussing union membership with a friend and had to make mention of my years in the Teamsters. She was even more in a mood to talk away than your man R. and it was with some difficulty that I finally extracted myself. Sadly, the snow had ceased almost completely and I had to hustle back through a cold heavy drizzle--"Irish weather", as I called it on my way out.

Once again, monshu asked me to make him a drink with the apricot brandy, this time specifying "something where the taste of the apricot comes through". My cocktail bible is pretty played out on this ingredient, so I turned to the Internet and found this:

Albarisco

2 oz. Pisco
½ oz. apricot brandy
½ oz. lime juice (juice of approx. ½ lime)
1 dash of Angostura bitters

Shake with ice and strain into a martini glass. Garnish with lime slice if desired.

I got a little lazy and used the bottled key lime juice, forgetting it was tarter than regular, an error I fixed by doubling the apricot brandy. I also accidentally doubled the recipe, which was a bit much for our martini glasses but not nearly enough for two, so if I made this again I'd probably use 1½ times these proportions. And I probably will make it again because the GWO found it very tasty. He didn't remark on the colour, but I thought it was rather pretty if a bit on the brown side. Using a different bitters (such as Angostura orange or Peychaud) would improve that, and it would be interesting to taste their effect on the flavour profile.

(The name--a blend of "Pisco" with a Spanish word for "apricot"--is my own invention, as I found those floating around on the net pretty lame.)

Apologies for the delay (particularly to mollyqc, who I know has been waiting patiently for her food porn), but yesterday, in a development which was met with grim resignation, we once again lost connectivity at home. It was diagnosed as a DNS server error and, weakened as we were by days of soft living and self-indulgence, neither of us could summon the will to go on a customer help line for some indefinite length of time. As a result, I'll be doing this from memory, without monshu's composed bill of fare to refer to.

The Guests We had 35 guests from a field of about 80 invitees. No one who hadn't RSVPed with an "Ay" made it (though a couple did put off responding to the literally last possible moment), and even a few of those went unaccountably missing. As much as I might've enjoyed seeing those others, I felt like this year--more so than most--I actually had a chance to chat with almost every person who walked through the door. Some I was even able to take into the study and peruse monshu's extensive art collection with. I credit this not only to the numbers but also to a better spread; we never had a crush and we never had a rush to the door.

There was an amusing moment when, having made the rounds, I was able to reflect on how people had self-segregated by room: the Old Man's work friends occupied the parlour, the UofC crowd had taken strategic positions at the head of the groaning board, and the bears held the kitchen (although with nothing like the unchallenged authority they'd exerted the year previously). But I also witnessed one of my old Hyde Park friends talking to monshu's, zompist's Peruvian wife at long last meeting Diego's Ecuadorian boyfriend, and one of the lawyers happily holding court with whoever he could buttonhole, regardless of provenance. All in all, I felt we had obtained the happy balance we'd aimed for.

The Eats Similarly, although we may have overbought (there's half an unserved turkey breast at home waiting to become Tetrazzini for tonight), we managed to put out almost exactly the right amount of food. (With only two exceptions: Now I know that my friends are no more fond of beets than I and considerably less of dark rye.) monshu kept it simple and made only three salads: Waldorf with curry mayonnaise (nut-free in order not to kill no-show welcomerain), roasted beet with walnut and bleu, and a simple mixed green. Besides the roast turkey breast, there was a spiral cut ham and assorted breads (dark rye, light rye, and duelling multigrains from Bemiston's and Breadman).

The Old Man adjudged his gingerbread loaves not up to his minimum standards of presentation, so he bought some whipping cream and turned them into a trifle. But his show-stopper was a pie filled with homemade mincemeat--an additional month of aging was very good to it indeed. All my faith in the sophisticated tastes of my guests was confirmed when I saw that not a slice remained at the end; I had to scoop up crumbs just in order to get a taste myself! innerdoggie contributed the dish without which no New Year's is complete (hoppin' john, for those among you who didn't know) and ʾUmm ʿAṭāʾ Allāh took my dithering between the twin delights of figgy pudding and rum-brandy cake as an invitation to bring both.

It was partly with her in mind that I picked up a container of herring in cream from Erikson's in Andersonville (which--the feisty white-haired owner will have you know--is far from being closed, has been there for 86 years, and "will probably outlast most businesses on the street"). The cheese board was modest this year: only sage Derby, a figgy chèvre, and a goat cheese brie. (Our guests will have to forgive us for keeping for ourselves the Maytag blue brought by one of the Iowan invitees).

The Drinks At the eleventh hour, worried that we hadn't enough offerings for the non-tipplers in the crowd, I started mulling some cider on the stove; it was a runaway hit. So was the homemade glögg gifted by a friend. (Next year I'll be sure to order a second bottle!) For once, I didn't have anything I was particularly pushing, unless you count the Spanish sipping vermouth I was cleverly sold on at Vinic's. Instead, my guests pushed me. "Okay, I'm ready for something unusual" at least two of them told me at least two different times.

Believe it or not, someone actually left with the professed intention of buying a bottle of the Zirbenz Stone Pine Liqueur. (Of course, this was Abū ʿAṭāʾ Allāh, so one cannot discount the possibility of pure perversity at play.) I wish I could remember rpg's description of Farigoule; I remember only the mention of "an old man's socks". Speaking of which, I was able to give lhn the rare pleasure of giving me an exotic liquor which I had not actually had before. (Batavia-Arrack, another from the Haus Alpenz stable.)

Whenever I appeared in the kitchen, there was a whole like a sniffing going on. That was probably the greatest pleasure for me as a host: introducing friends to flavours which amused, intrigued, and sometimes delighted. Woodruff candy was passed around while I babbled excitedly about the FDA's attempts to keep us all safe from coumarin poisoning. We even trotted out monshu's half-forgotten rhubarb pickles. Near the end of the evening, a guest expressed interest in the mead left from a previous cocktail party and so I insisted he open it; before he left he announced that he was tipsy for the first time in two decades.

That, I've only now realised, is my resolution for the new year: Open it. Drink it down. Eat it up. Getting ready for the party, we threw out a depressing amount of neglected food. Some of it was stored and forgotten, some was saved for a "special occasion" that failed to materialise before the expiration date. Not this year. I will finish up all the Christmas cookies, imported marzipan, and filled chocolate if it kills me. I will dip into the various bottles and jars which the Old Man's relatives lovingly packed for us. I will remember that these things, like good friends, are there to be enjoyed, and enjoyed often and without regret.

When it comes to DST, I am a total hipster: I was on it half a day before the rest of you. Fifteen minutes before our dinner guests were scheduled to arrive, I was still dicking around on the computer while monshu was busily trying to get his art collection into a presentable state. Then a little LED went on above my head and I asked him, "Wait, did you tell them five o'clock for drinks and six o'clock for dinner?"

Fortunately I don't take long to clean up. I was too late to meet our former lodger at the door, but I was there for his new boss, monshu's old friend. I must've made quite the impression, since he thought he was meeting me for the first time despite the fact that I remember meeting him for drinks at Buddies on one occasion and dinner at Cornelia's on another. (He expressed recognition when I recounted both of these encountres to him in detail, but it's anyone's guess whether he was only being polite.)

It was a simple, satisfying fall dinner: roast butternut squash soup with fried sage, pork tenderloin braised in apple juice, sweet potato-chestnut mash with honey (because I stupidly forgot to tell the GWO I used up the last of the brown sugar for the parkin), green beans, homemade apple sauce, and French apple cake. We're now just about at the end of the apples I brought back from northern Door. (I think the Old Man said we have two or three Empires left in the fridge.) The last of the smoked fish died tonight in a whitefish-spread sandwich accompanying the reheated soup we had for dinner.

The older of the two guests entertained us with his natterings about his own unique blend of Christianity--call it "Roman Congregationalic"--and did his best to wind up monshu by pressing him for details of his dissatisfaction with work. The planned visit by justmatt sadly never materialised, so this went on right up through the arrival of the first pre-Touché cocktail guests a bit before nine.

The surprise arrival of Diego, Uncle Betty, Mr Cleveland, and his big-boned partner helped compensate for the lack of Matt and the disco-napping clintswan. Plus we were rolling in sweets: in addition to the apple cake and the parkin (which a couple people gamely tried but only Mr Cleveland praised), Scruffy M brought a big jar of toffee and Diego his famous Mormon brownie cake. Scruffy M also indulged my mixmastery by letting me make him a Czarina, which went over better than the Manhattan I made for a first-timer from San Antonio. (Who ever heard of a bourbon Manhattan being described as not sweet enough? Maybe I should've gone with the Martinez after all.)

Touché was hopping--apparently there were a couple events going on this weekend in addition to International Mr Rubber--and I saw a stream of friendly faces, including one or two I only really placed afterwards. At one point, I was completely surrounded by Texas: clintswan was there with his Dallas-based buddy sacredjade, plus the San Antonian, and some ceiling-scraping buck I was never properly introduced to. It would've been nice to stay longer, but I've been feeling the effects of too many nights of zinc-induced reflux.

Rather than make the two-hour journey back home (he lives neer my stepsister and didn't have money for a cab), our San Antonian crashed out in the guest room. He was a sweetheart of a guest, leaving everything as close to how he found it as possible (even to the point of carefully folding his wet towel and washcloth and putting them back on the bed). But still I was happy to push him out the door after brunch so I could take a nap and then do some more reading in peace. Hopefully he'll get his housing situation sorted out so we'll be able to see a bit more of him in future.

Now that we've entred the days of darkness before dinner, it's dawning on me just how little time there is left before the holidays. We accepted an invitation from Mr Cleveland and Big Bones for Thanksgiving dinner, which unfortunately makes putting in an appearance at welcomerain's and spookyfruit's a non-starter. I guess it means we just have to set something up with them ourselves.