The Death of Imagination

It's a good thing Father's Day fell when it did or we might have had even less advance warning that the 'rents would be here this weekend. It also helps that, after much trial-and-error, we've figured out that they will always assuming telling something to one of their sons in Chicago is the same as telling both of them, so the only way to retaliate is to always assume that the other knows nothing and inform him immediately. There's never cause to regret doing this.

monshu is a hero. Despite the fact that house is still a disaster of boxes, bags, sacks, and envelopes of all my worldly possessions, he volunteered to have Dad over for dinner tonight. bunj is also a hero, since he volunteered to spend the day with Dad at the Garfield Park Conservatory and so buy us the time to get all those boxes, bags, sacks, and envelopes out of the dining room so it was actually possible to eat a meal there.

Me, I got off easy: I had to run down to North and Halsted for medical tests and took advantage of the proximity to Sam's to stock up on overstrength rum for the Rumtopf. 110 proof is recommended to prevent fermentation, so if you mix two parts 80 proof to one part 151, you're close enough for government work. Without the restraining hand of monshu, however, I came back with much more than that.

I'd decided to get two litres of Bacardi 151, but then on a whim I decided to swap out one bottle of Gosling's Black Seal. The Stroh 80 (that's percent, not proof!) was too expensive for the Rumtopf despite being the most authentic. It's an Austrian Inländer-Rum, an attempt to counterfeit the liquor by a country without West Indian colonies that became a beloved local specialty. Rounding out the excess was a bottle of Plymouth Sloe Gin (something which has proved surprisingly difficult to find) and a bottle of St. Elizabeth Allspice Dram.

And we drank everything.

In small amounts, mind you. Before dinner, I made sloe gin fizzes for me and my dad. Afterwards, I lined up all four rums along with ordinary Bacardi Gold for a tasting. Despite Bacardi's reputation as the gold standard of smoothness, Nuphy thought it "medicinal". His impression of the 151 was that it was the same, only with more burning. (We were all amused by the bold red warnings of flammability festooning the bottle. There's even a "flame arrester" over the top. Apparently, other manufactures don't care if their clients burn to death.)

We both much preferred the Black Seal. Still perhaps too strong to drink straight, but a more complex taste overall; it would totally out-Myers Myers for any cooking purposes. Same goes for the Stroh 80, although it has quite a different taste. Butterscotch is what it reminded us of. My first exposure to it was in orange marmalade, of all things (Café Meinl has a limited supply of which--thanks to Dad--I now have two more jars), and it's mighty tasty.

The pimento dram was a pleasant surprise: The nose is so powerful, you're prepared for an overwhelming amount of spice in each sip, but actually it's reasonable strength for a liqueur. Nuphy wouldn't drink it straight, but I would. Oh, and speaking of overwhelming Haus Alpenz liqueurs, Nuphy had an idea for disposing of the Zirbenz (a.k.a. "Austrian Pine-Sol"): marinade. Use it for cooking something that you would flavour with juniper berries, like a sauerbraten. So crazy it just might work!

Incidentally, the most heartening aspect of the Sam's visit was finding them back to their old selves. I had a nice chat with the manager, who muttered about how the equity partners seemed to be back to their senses after trying about everything they could to kill off the business. He agreed that it was "pretty bad" at the time of our last visit in January, but it's recovering nicely. Not only do they have the entire Haus Alpenz line, but oude jenever is back (one brand at least). Still no Barbadillo, sadly.

Those who know my drinking habits know that, in general, I'm not much for vodka. This probably has something to do with the fact that I first encountred it in college, when no one could afford really good vodka. So my mates tended to place a premium on smoothness, i.e. lack of character, and would mask the unpleasant burn of lesser distillations with strong flavours such as fruit jello or Kahlua.

So I probably never would've developed a taste for the stuff at all if Nuphy hadn't introduced me to Okhotnichya, a.k.a "hunter's vodka". This is a traditional flavoured vodka which is steeped with mountain herbs and sweetened with honey, but for all that you'd never mistake it for any monastic herbal liqueur; it still tastes very much like vodka. This was right before the market for flavoured vodka really exploded in this country, a development which paradoxically pushed Okhotnichya off the shelves to make room for concoctions with everything from vanilla to watermelon. Around this time, a Polish co-worker told me about Żubrówka, which takes its name from a Polish word for its chief aromatic, buffalo grass (Hierochloe odorata). I was intrigued, but since the FDA had banned true Żubrówka due to the presence of coumarin, I couldn't get my hands on the real stuff.

Flash forward to last Christmas, when lhn handed me a bottle of buffalo grass vodka. I didn't even realise until looking at the label to write this entry that it's not actually Polish, but a Lithuanian brand (Stumbras, from the Lithuanian name for the same plant, stumbražolė). I joyfully hoisted it home, put it in the liquor cabinet, and basically ignored it for half a year until my eyes fell on it last night and I resolved to give it a try this afternoon, when I would have plenty of time for the alcohol to work its way out before bedtime.

It has--as one might expect--a pleasant grassy scent and I initially decided to give it my usual treatment for new-fangled flavoured vodkas, i.e. tall with tonic. But the subtle taste was completely overwhelmed by quinine, so I followed this up with a shot of it room temperature and neat. Verdict: I could get used to it. It's neither as sweet nor as herbal as the Okhotnichya, but burns a little less. Certainly, it's more interesting than straight Stoli or Absolute.

Last week, I called Pasticcheria Natalina to reserve the cassata I've been dreaming about all these past six weeks of deprivation. "At this point," her boyfriend told me, "we're on a first-come first-served basis. We open at noon on Saturday." Which is how I found myself standing outside their door at 11:30 today as they bustled about filling the cases with ricotta pies, filled chocolate eggs, and candied fruits.

Of course, my resolution is still in effect until tomorrow, which would've made surveying all those sweets a trying experience if not for the out I discovered: Take the most sugary, creamy, indulgent dessert you can imagine, stick a couple pieces of bacon next to it, and suddenly it's "breakfast". Just across the street from the pâtisserie is Taste of Heaven, and we had arrived in plenty of time to grab some brunch. In my case, that was "authentic" (whatever that means) French toast with peach compote and sweetened whipped cream cheese and it was To. Die. Four.

By the time Natalina let us in, there were a half dozen queued behind me, so it was with no small sense of smugness that I strode up to the counter, pointed to one of the gorgeous green marzipan-encased mounds on display, and said, "I'll take one of those." Somehow, despite being a simple exchange of money for goods, it felt like a sort of coup. (Speaking of money, I'm embarrassed to say how much of mine that woman now has, but goodness knows she earned every penny with sweat and strain.) We marched up the street with my holding out my white box like a precious child.

In Fine Spirits was on the same block, and its owned by friends of friends, so we figured it was the least we could do to stick our heads in. I have to say, the amount we dropped on sherry-cask aged Laphroaig would put the cassata's price tage in perspective if not for the fact that a good bottle of single malt will last for months in our house. Now content with that, we brought home a bottle of "apple icewine" from the Canadian Domaine Pinnacle. New concept on us, but quite a pleasing one. Very sweet and fruity, but with a lovely tart taste which keeps that from getting out of hand.

Of course, it would've been unforgivable to stock up on luxury goods for ourselves and completely neglect "monshu's other pet", so we brought him home new sparkly balls (the old ones so worse for wear that they hardly resemble balls any more), some mouse thing with a feathered tail, and jerky treats from the pet store up the street. I think he might've preferred a couple newborn chicks or perhaps a tender baby bunny, but, alas, neither was to be had.

Stanhope

• 3 parts dry gin
• 1½ parts apricot brandy
• 1 part passionfruit juice
• 1 part orange juice
• dash of peach bitters [subtitute: Regans' Orange Bitters]
• dash of grenadine

Despite the surface resemblance to the Carla, this turned out a more interesting drink. Every one of the main ingredients came through in sequence in a single sip. This would be a lovely on a warm afternoon; must try it tall sometime.

Austrian Martini

• 3 parts Tanqueray [substitute: Bombay Sapphire]
• 1 part Zirbenschnaps

Stick to the recipe. The chief effect of the Zirbenz in this drink is to amplify the juniper in the gin. With a very smooth gin like Tanqueray, I think the effect might be rather pleasant, but Bombay Sapphire has plenty of junipery goodness as it is, so the end result with this combination is too much of a good thing.

If you're not already a massive fan of retsina (not to mention Pine-Sol), I would give Zirbenz a miss. Both monshu and I found it undrinkable straight and I think it'll be a struggle to find mixed drinks to use it up in. Most of those on the website (mint juleps made with Zirbenz and rye?) aren't very appealing, though there is another Austrian Martini recipe which calls for half as much of it and 1 part dry vermouth, a dilution which just might render it innocuous. Stay tuned...

Knowing how groggy I was from the one-two punch of my long night of theatre and DST, monshu gave me but two tasks for today: Do my taxes (we're seeing a CPA on Wednesday) and come up with a new cocktail for him. Last weekend, I bought pulp-free orange juice specifically for use in drinks and then Uncle Betty and I ended up drinking Manhattans all evening. So I went hunting through my books for a way to put it to good use today. Here's what I came up with:

• Paradise 2 parts gin, 1 part apricot brandy, 1 part orange juice, dash of lemon juice.
  
  Lovely. The lemon juice cuts the sweetness and the top-notch apricot brandy monshu bought me gives this a wonderful fruitiness.


• Damn the Weather 2 parts gin, 1 part sweet vermouth, 1 part oj, ½ part triple sec.
  
  Quite appropriate given the on-again off-again rain and generally grayness outside. Not as dry as the Paradise, but possessed of a refreshing coolness. I like the taste of these 20s cocktails, I just wish they weren't so damn strong.

There's a chicken roasting in the oven, kitty is hiding out downstairs (perhaps napping on the bed, perhaps napping under it), and the Old Man has moved on to mother's milk. In short, all is right with the world.

I see a chill rainy day like this and think how utterly perfect it would be to spend it at the new place, reading in a quiet corner and sipping tea while listening to droplets pattering off the trees outside. That is, if not for the worry about what so much water coming down is going to do to our seepage problem. We have an estimate for the work, and it's not as steep as I expected, which is good, but it involves construction in common areas, which is less good, as it slows down the entire process and I want to finish moving in now.

Moreover, the only tea we have in the new place is Bosnian hawthorn tea, and I'm already sick of it. I thought it would be rather pleasantly floral, but it's mostly the mint leaves that you taste. That's not bad--I like mint and all--except that there's enough of an aftertaste I'm beginning to wonder if the mint isn't there more to cover up the hawthorn than the hawthorn is there to accent the mint. The translation on the label goes on and on about how good the tea is for your "hart", so I wonder if I haven't picked up something medicinal by mistake. So now I'm kicking myself for not (a) picking up something new at Meinl on Saturday or (b) bringing something over from my old place on Sunday.

At least the reading I can't complain about. I've got a bilingual book of Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill's poetry, which is exquisite, and the English versions are different enough from the originals that I feel compelled to read them both thoroughly, dictionary in hand.

Ever noticed how a sudden change in your routine can make the most familiar locales seem foreign? At the end of a long, crazy afternoon of showings, we met our agent's husband and took the them up the street to Big Chicks for cocktails. monshu had promised her a drink if his place sold and we were feeling so expansive after our voyage of discovery that we included her spouse for good measure.

The first alienating element was approaching the bar from Ainslie after being inside an apartment there. The second was a bartender and a crowd which I (with one exception) did not recognise. The third was...Michelle. No, not the owner, but a completely stranger who waltzed up to agent's hubby with such a familiar air, for a moment I thought they'd met. We were at the four-top near the front window and my first thought was that she coveted it and was attempting to establish a beachhead in the hopes of monopolising it when we left.

monshu's chair was vacant at the time and she attempted to commandeer it, but I warned her that "he gets grumpy if he finds someone else sitting his chair" and told her she'd be better off pulling up a stool. (This became grounds later on for the agent's accusing me of having "invited" her to join us.) The Old Man was nonplussed by her presence at his elbow but did his best to follow our example of taking it in stride.

Whether through well-polished Southern etiquette or general cluelessness (not that there's mutual exclusion there), the agent's better half was the master of this. How else to explain his composure as our new friend proceeded to ADJUST HERSELF and JIGGLE HER BOSOMS in his specific direction while continued with our talk of real estate, studiously ignoring her in the hopes of driving the beast back whence she came. Mind you, not four minutes earlier, he has quite clearly introduced the only other woman at the table as his wife.

To the relief of all, she moved on a moment later and we had a laugh over her introductory outburst at being happy to find "intelligent people" since she "went to Harvard". ("That's typical of Ivy League graduates" quipped our man when teased about all the targeted boobery.) I confessed to having been impressed by her ability to zoom in on probably the only heterosexual male in the entire joint, but this was severely undermined by what happened later on.

The smokers were out having a puff and I was struggling to order a new round from the semi-useless bartender. (I ordered a Negroni and he dutifully wandered off only to return a moment later and inform me, "We don't have Negroni. We have Peroni." Yes, thank you for playing, Mr My Looks Are My Qualifications; don't you have some cosmos to squirt out?) Then she returned, even less inclined to take a hint not applied with a pneumatic drill.

The first butt pat I let pass without mention--after all, I was tipsy, wired, and high on two-and-a-half baths with jacuzzi tubs--but the second lingered just long enough to tell me it was time to give her the business. "Please don't do that," elicited a reply of "You need to be spanked," which led to, "You need to keep your hands to yourself NOW. Move away from me." "Okay, I get it," she said while still standing close enough to count my freckles. No, I don't think you do. Otherwise why would you be trying to pick up men in a GAY BAR?

Whether through my actions or those of someone even more fed up and less shy about saying, she left minutes later. We watched her through the glass making a beeline to her car. "Oh my god, is she going to drive now?" asked our agent. Well, how else is she going to make it to @mosphere in time to work her way through the gay male softball teams?

Kudos to bunj and e. on another wildly successful Christmas party. All their suffering through construction this past summer (and fall) paid off grandly. Three hours in, e. confided to me that she hadn't had to leave the kitchen yet: The party kept coming to her. The dining nook in the expanded kitchen really is ridiculously inviting. If not for the necessity of retiring to living room for the Great Unenveloping, I might never have left it either. After all, the view of the snow sifting over backyards was enchanting, the cool kids (i.e. the smokers) were all hanging out there, and the bar was less than a yard away.

The surprise favourites for the night were the Santa Clara brand rompope I brought--ladysophis2k8 showed the way by drinking it diluted to half with Bacardi and it was almost completely demolished by the end of the evening--and an incredibly girly near-kir royal (made with syrup rather than crème de cassis--kir réginal anyone?) Later, I switched to sprinkling cassis syrup into Persephone vodka tonics and then gradually eliminated the vodka after I got as messed up as I wanted to be.

That point came rapidly after I inaugurated a drinking game based on one of my new gifts, a picture books of 70s and 80s hunks given me by spookyfruit. I held up each page as I read aloud the names; if it was a pinup you fancied back in the day, you had to take a sip. I liked the fact that the hunks came in pairs, so the world will never need know if took that gulp for Donny Osmond rather than Patrick Duffy. There were some criminal omissions, however; bunj was as outraged as I over the lack of Gil Gerard and I don't have to have had a whit of interest in Leif Garrett or John Stamos to agree that no such compilation can call itself complete without them.

Because we're all men and women d'un certain âge, the festivities broke up before 11, but of course I was awake for another couple hours after that, still bathing in the lingering warmth of so much good food, drink, and company. I'm guessing lhn must've been somewhat sleepless, too, since the photos he took were up in his Flickr set (with captions!) before the night was over. (Hoffentlich findet der nibadi das Foto von mir und monshu so niedlich als ich.) Oh, and ladysophis2k8 didn't want links to the short films I told her about, so I'll just give the titles: No Béarla and Yu Ming is ainm dom. Bain sult astu!

It's hard not to look back over a three-day weekend without feeling like I've wasted oodles of time. Oh, well--that's not always a bag thing, is it? But what else did I actually do besides get myself sweaty, muddy, mosquito-bitten, and worn-out trying to wrestle a light craft overland and keep it from capsizing on the water? Apparently, I drank a lot--for me, that is. Normally, I don't have more than one or two drinks a week. Saturday night, though, I had four bourbon-and-sodas at Bear Night (which probably amounts to at most one-and-a-half real drinks at home), Sunday I had a couple of glasses of red wine with dinner, and then Monday afternoon I knocked back three beers at a barbecue followed by some Chinese Riesling at home.

Chinese Riesling? Yeah, I know, that was our reaction when we saw it at Foremost Liquors on Argyle. But we figured it would give us a preview of what we'd find in China. The label is Huadong, a winery with an interesting history and, apparently, a growing rep. However, it was only after we drank some that we noticed the vintage is 1992, which is long in the tooth for a Riesling and early in the day for Huadong, which was only founded in 1985. Hopefully, there more recent stuff will be more palatable. I wonder if it will have the same "Chinesy" quality. The moment we sniffed the bouquet, both monshu and I had the same thought: This smells like Shaoxing! We wondered if they might have finished it in Shaoxing casks in order to make it easier for Chinese tipplers to accept. (Huadong's production is almost entirely consumed domestically.)

The Leinenkugle Berryweiss' that we drank at the BBQ were probably the tastiest alcohol I had all weekend, but they didn't seem to have much effect. Maybe between the bleariness from my stupid sleeping and the languidness of relaxing on the warm deck I simply didn't notice. Unfortunately, I was too out-of-it to visit much with people that I don't see enough of and instead hunkered down with my steady buddies. I was a little more outgoing at Bear Night, where I spent much of my time talking to a really sweet guy sitting up front, knocking back straight tequila on the rocks, and snapping photos of everyone. I also finally met the Scoutmaster's boyfriend and got to chat a bit with a crushette who unfortunately found the lure of a roach more intoxicating than my honeyed words.

Let me tell you about the guy who tried to take me home last night.

I decided to swing by Big Chicks for dinner in order to support my favourite bartender. I may have mentioned before that all the bartenders get to bring their own music; David just plugs in his iPod and puts it on shuffle. Thanks to him, I may have no choice but to buy the new Ladytron single.

I figured it would be a slow night, what with everyone recovering from Mem Day weekend and all, but it was actually pretty busy. The sign on the door said "DIVA DATE" and I soon discovered that many of the new faces at the bar were there for the lesbian speed dating. (The second person to point out that that is a contradiction in terms will be smacked down.) I parked myself next to one of the old faces, my bar buddy DB, and ate rare beef. A few stools away was a cute wittle candy striper who looked like he was being hit upon by a lipstick lesbian in cooter cut-offs.

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