Glibertarians.com 2017 Archive

Category: Food & Drink

  • How to Get Laid Every Sunday Morning

    By But I like cocktails and lurking

    Sauces and stocks are the foundation of good cooking. For any quality construction a good, solid foundation is necessary. In French cooking there are five basic sauces and from those countless other sauces are made. They are called Mother Sauces. One of those is unique in that it is a stand-alone sauce. I am talking about Hollandaise sauce. It is considered the most difficult sauce to master, by far. It requires lots of practice, a double boiler, time, careful timing, and lots of attention.

    Except it doesn’t.

    You can easily whip up a perfect Hollandaise in under ten minutes with almost no equipment. Five if you are practiced.

    Place one half of a stick of salted butter (4 tablespoons) in a 2-cup glass measuring cup. Put in the microwave and heat on high for 15 seconds. You should be able to see some of the butter has melted, usually leaving a hole in the base of the stick. If some of the butter is still cool place back in the microwave on high for five seconds. Continue doing this at 5 second intervals until the butter is about half melted and half soft-solid. Swish it around and mash it up a bit with a small whisk. If the bottom of the glass measuring cup feels warm – around body temperature or just above – you did it right. If it feels hot, even slightly, you have heated too much, in which case you can let it cool.

    Place two raw egg yolks, one tablespoon of lemon juice, a pinch of cayenne pepper, and a pinch of allspice in with the butter. Whisk vigorously. After a few minutes the mixture should start to look a bit lumpy. Don’t worry. Ordinarily this would mean you have ‘broken’ the sauce, which means your butter was too hot and has cooked the egg yolk. If you heated the butter to body temp or just above, the mixture will look this way but will not be broken. Keep whisking. After a minute or two it will suddenly go from slightly lumpy to creamy smooth. It should cling generously to your whisk when you lift it.

    Congratulations – you have made a perfect Hollandaise in less time than it takes to brush your teeth. It should have a very tangy, buttery, delightful taste. This will be enough sauce for four eggs. I start my eggs in a skillet, make the hollandaise and set it aside, and then start microwaving the bacon. I put the English muffins in the toaster, and go back to flip the eggs. It should all be ready about the same time with the sauce waiting – 15 minutes start to finish.

    For a Sunday morning breakfast, spoon the hollandaise generously onto a toasted half of an English muffin. Place one fried (or poached) egg on top of that. Salt and pepper the egg. Serve with bacon or sausage and orange juice. You have whipped up a fancy Eggs Benedict breakfast for your significant other. I promise they will appreciate it.

    *Hollandaise is an excellent sauce for putting on cooked vegetables, particularly for asparagus. Cook your asparagus in chicken stock until tender, top with the sauce and pepper to taste.

  • Once You Go Black…

    By But I like cocktails and lurking

    I am not a big fan of beans, or at least I didn’t used to be. Then I discovered black beans. I never cook with any other bean. They are less grainy, more flavorful, and heartier than other beans. They just have more substance. They can make a stand alone meal, a side dish, or compliment any main dish. Let us explore the magic of this under appreciated hero of the bean world.

    Black Bean Dip

    Not as tasty as this recipe.

    1 15oz can of unseasoned black beans
    3 strips of bacon microwaved just short of crispy (3 minutes on high then 30 second intervals until done)
    1/3 sweet onion
    2 chicken boullion cubes
    ½ teaspoon crushed garlic
    ½ teaspoon ground cayenne pepper

    Pre-grated cheddar cheese
    Fresh chopped tomato
    Sliced pickled jalepeno

    Put all ingredients into a blender or food processor. Blend on high until it has a smooth consistency. Use a silicone spatula or spoon to scrape into a small oven-safe dish. Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes or until you see bubbling. It is essentially re-fried black beans made in ¼ the time.

    Top with grated cheese, chopped tomato, chopped fresh red onion, and a few jalepeno slices. Dip with corn chips.

    This is a recipe for two people. Double if you have more people. My wife and I will whip this up, usually on a Sunday evening, sit in front of the TV and watch a movie while we eat. It makes quite a satisfying meal.

    Bean Dip As A Compliment

    If I make a taco salad, enchiladas, tacos, nachos, or any similar dish, I use the black bean dip as a foundation for all of the other ingredients. I simply spoon it onto the shell/tortilla before putting the meat on. It is a wonderful complimentary flavor.

    Black Bean Soup or Black Beans and Rice

    Put all of the same ingredients into a pot. No processor this time. You can put one pork neck bone instead of the bacon if you like, otherwise slice the bacon into 1 inch sections and toss in raw. Chop the onions yourself. Toss a few slices of jalepeno in. Thin with 1-2 cups of water. Bring to a boil, turn down to simmer, and cover. When the meat comes off of the neckbone easily, it is done (about one hour). Pull the meat off of the bone with your fingers and put back in the pot. Toss the bone to the dog. Serve over rice. If you thinned it down with water to a soup, serve over rice in a bowl. If no rice, then with Ritz crackers or corn chips. If you left it thick enough, you can spoon over rice on a plate. This can also be served as a nice complimentary side dish to any non-soup main dish.

    Very little effort and time is required for these recipes and the payoff is sweet.

  • Moonshine and Communism

     

    So I wanted to try the whole guest post business on this fair website, and decided to go for something with local, well… flavour, if you will. A bit on the always popular booze with a little bit of commentary on government. And here it is.

    Romanians enjoy the local hooch, to the surprise of nobody, which some translate plum brandy (although brandy comes from wine, but you can have plum wine as well, I suppose), but locals call it ţuica (the diacritic t is actually a pronounced like the ending of ants) and variations thereof are fairly common round the east of Europe and variously called palinka, slivovitz, or rakia. You get the idea.

    Tuica Still

    Like many a Romanian, I occasionally partake of the stuff, though my taste generally goes for Islay malts. And I can assure you, fellow libertarians, that it is proper moonshine made in an unlicensed still with no business of the government in the making. Some of the more skittish western folk think this dangerous or unwise. It is not. I have yet to know people having trouble from this. More often, cheap knockoff vodka causes issue, but tuica makers often are skilled and proud of their craft. Is there no bad stuff? Of course there is, but not if you know the people making it or what to buy.

    Making decent plum moonshine is surprisingly easy, in fact. My grandma used to make some on a small still on the stove in a small Bucharest apartment kitchen. My parents occasionally make some on a small still in their yard. I took part in some of that myself, and I buy it from people who make larger quantities. It’s about 5 of your American dollar per litre (yes, litre, like civilised folk measure things).

    My grandfather was from the Pitesti region of Romania, one of the famous tuica producing regions. My family still has some land there with a couple hundred or so plum trees, hence the predilection of my family to make tuica. When we visit the area in autumn, we pick some of the plums and distill them, more for the sake of it really, based on the effort it would be easier just to buy.

    This region produces a lower alcoholic version, which many prefer, because you can drink a higher quantity of liquid for the same drunkenness level. People spend time talking and drinking, so the glasses add up. In Transylvania or Moldova, people are partial to 40, 50, or sometimes even 60 abv. But I usually drink the 25 – 30 abv stuff from Pitesti, mostly mulled in winter (with a bit of sugar, pepper, cinnamon, and whatever else you want to throw in it).

    Plums. Obviously

    My grandpa’s family had a bigger plum orchard before the glorious regime of the proletariat. They also had a pub in the city of Pitesti. Those days, most common folk that drank in pubs drank tuica as their spirit of choice or country wine. Other spirits were for the fancy people with high incomes, and beer was not as common as today. My grandfather’s pub sold their own tuica and barter wine.

    Many poor people these days drink cheap, counterfeit plonk called “whiskey like alcoholic beverage,” or “tequila flavour beverage,” or just grain alcohol, cheap vodka, and there are people who blame this for bad health and alcoholism. They speak of the good old days when people drank tuica and wine and were more healthy, although this has a tinge of nostalgia for Merry Old Romania and bucolic fantasy.

    There was not much wine being made in the immediate region, but reasonably close were some wine regions. So every autumn, the family would load the oxcarts (trucks were more expensive and the roads not great in 30s Romania) with barrels of tuica and started slowly for the wine areas, and bartered it for wine. The wine areas themselves made a cheaper moonshine from pomace left over from wine grapes, but most preferred the plum stuff.

    The reason Pitesti is a tuica area, well one of the reasons besides people drinking lots, is the fact that it is a high plain or low plateau that is fairly dry and has permeable rock strata, so the water aquifer is pretty deep. That and poor soil meant agriculture was not efficient for many crops. But plum trees, for some reason, thrived in the area. That worked from time immemorial (which is anything more than 100 years give or take) until the great planned economy of Mr. Ceausescu kicked in.

    You see the area, on maps at least, is sometimes called the high plains of Pitesti. And when communist officials read a map they thought, like all reasonable people would think, plain means growing wheat. And as such, after collectivisation of the land into the fabulous agricultural cooperatives, a lot of plum trees were taken out in order to plant wheat. As the savvy reader may imagine based on the story, wheat did not exactly thrive there. But communists were nothing if not perseverant in their folly. So it went on for a while. This is one of those situations where the good ideas of communism were improperly applied, or something.

    Look, if you can’t tell the difference between plum blossoms and cherry blossoms…

    After regime change, communism was replaced with the faux social-democratic-kleptocracy that is characteristic of the present. The plum trees were replanted and tuica came back; although it never fully left, just decreased in quantity and quality. As you could not find much in stores, there was quite the demand for alcohol during communism. There were stories of drinking medicinal alcohol – filtered in various ways to get rid of the vivid blue colouring and eventual toxic components. A bottle of imported Whiskey was better than money. Much better.

    After grandpa got the land back, he replanted plum trees. He was living in Bucharest by then, and never did much with the orchard, so I think it was more nostalgia than anything else. After he died, the orchard was less maintained by us Bucharest dwellers, we just payed a local to do some basic maintenance. But I still have a couple of hundred “family” plum trees somewhere, should I choose to ditch the day job and get in the tuica making business. I can then smuggle it in the US, and sell it to make my fortune.

  • Belly Up To The Bar

    Summer Wines Make Me Feel Fine by OMWC

    As the days get longer, the green shoots peep through the layer of accumulated dogshit left when the snow melts, and my grill beckons for rust removal, my fancy turns from big, heavy red wines to wines which are a bit lighter, more agile, more suited for warm breezes and sunshine. Riven recommended a rhubarb wine she gets locally. Don’t be like Riven. Let’s consider a few nice bottles that might not be on your radar screen. There’s many, many more possibilities, but these are what’s for dinner chez OMWC/SP.

    First and foremost, SP and I have an unnatural love for Bugey Cerdon, the greatest summer wine in existence. Bugey Cerdon is lightly carbonated, pink, slightly sweet, and more than slightly earthy. It’s made from Gamay (the grape used for Beaujolais) and Ploussard (you never heard of it) grapes grown in the Ain region of France, which is tucked between Lyon and Geneva, and within a radioactive whiff of the Large Hadron Collider. The alcohol levels tend to be low (8% is typical), and there’s a crispness and snap which elevates it above most other off-dry pink wines. The method used is an old one – the wine is partially fermented, then bottled to finish fermentation. Unlike Champagne, there’s no added sugar, so the bubbliness is more subtle and muted. This is my safest recommendation – EVERYONE loves this shit, and it goes great with food or can be a warm-up before doing serious drinking. Our favorites are Renardat-Fache and (easier to find) Bottex “La Cueille.”

    Next up, Beaujolais. Yeah, yeah, you think you know about that one. You don’t. The market is dominated by Georges duBoeuf, and his industrial product defines “mediocre.” And they tend to smell like bananas because of the particular cultured yeast strain used. Fuck that, take a walk on the wild side. What you want is a single-producer wine, one made by a guy with big, rough, hands and who doesn’t own a suit. There are a bunch of these (Michel Tete, Alain Coudert, Jean Foillard, Louis Desvignes, to name some that we love), but the primus inter pares is Jean-Paul Brun’s fabulous Terres Dorees. The reds are, as required, made exclusively from Gamay grapes, wild yeasts, and minimal processing. It’s the opposite of an industrial product. If we see any of the l’Ancien or Cote de Brouilly, we max out our credit cards. But you can’t go wrong with any of the names I mentioned. Keep your eyes open for the rarely seen but eminently wonderful Beaujolais Blanc from one of the farmers – this is what Chardonnay would be like if only it were more interesting. Racy acidity, stony minerality, none of that heavy, oaky crap that California spews.

    And lest I run on too long, I’ll tout what reputedly is the best seafood raw bar wine on the planet: Muscadet. And of all Muscadet, Domaine de la Pépière is what I’d want to be drinking tonight, at least if I were out of Luneau-Papin. Domaine de la Pépière makes an array of them at prices ranging from friendly to oh my, but you can’t go wrong here. Stony, steely, a hint of almost saltiness, and an acidity that just begs you to put some deep fried food into your whore mouth. This is serious wine, but so delightfully refreshing as the sun gets low in the sky and the food on the grill crackles and crusts.

    Too long, so I won’t mention Gruener Veltliner Federspiel except to mention it. You know what to do.

    Derpetologist’s Spot the Not: Maine Governor Paul LePage

    1. What I think we ought to do is bring the guillotine back. We could have public executions.

    2. The traffickers … these are guys by the name D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty. These type of guys that come from Connecticut, New York. They come up here, they sell their heroin, then they go back home.

    3. They never admit it, but most women like it when a strong man takes control and slaps them when they get out of line.

    4. Sen. Jackson claims to be for the people, but he’s the first one to give it to the people without providing Vaseline.

    5. If you take a plastic bottle and put it in the microwave and you heat it up, it gives off a chemical similar to estrogen. And so the worst case is some women might have little beards.

    6. Everybody looks at the negative effects of global warming, but with the ice melting, the Northern Passage has opened up.

    Bonus: Bill O’Reilly

    1. It’s discipline that begets love.

    2. You don’t have free will when you have lung cancer.

    3. Americans will respect your beliefs if you just keep them private.

  • Do You Even Lift? The Deadlift

    To reiterate:

    If you aren’t strength training already, I highly encourage it. The benefits are many: increased physical attractiveness and general physical health, potential rehabilitation of old injuries or addressing impairments, increased performance (possibly as it relates to “sports”), and finally, it’s just a damn good time and feels great.

    I don’t care if you’re a bodybuilder, a weightlifter, a strongman, a crossfitter, or a couch potato; you need strength training in your life.*

    I’m not going to get into a really involved post about which program you should follow, how many sets or reps  you should do, or how often you should do cardio. You can make progress following just about any program, and any program worth the time it takes to read will tell you all of those details. I have made good progress with 5/3/1, and Mr. Riven is excelling under Starting Strength. I’d recommend either, but obviously Starting Strength is the way to go if you’re new to the barbell.

    There are four main barbell lifts: the overhead press, the bench press, the back squat, and the deadlift.

    Bending bars, amiright?

    Last time we covered the overhead press; today, we’re going to discuss the deadlift.

    So, I know I said before that the overhead press is pretty approachable and that’s not wrong; however, the deadlift is right up there, too. What could be simpler than looking at a weighted barbell on the ground, bending down, and lifting it with straight arms? There’s nothing better than the feeling of a solidly good deadlift. (Well, maybe some things.) I guess you could say this about any barbell lift, but mechanically they’re all very simple because they must be. When you execute a lift well, it should feel great.

    You know I’m going to have to link to the Art of Manliness video in which Rippetoe‘s mustache instructs the other guy’s mustache how to make the sack of meat that carries him around deadlift properly.

    I’m also going to link Alan Thrall’s samey video–though I should point out that this time it’s a full beard instructing instead of a mustache. If these two videos sound similar, it’s because they’re both operating on this set of knowledge. There is a wealth of articles and information on the deadlift just on startingstrength.com alone, and both Thrall and (obviously) Rippetoe draw on that for their videos.

    Sigh. But not me.

    I like pulling information from different folks on the same material. In particular, I like to listen for different cues since some will resonate with you and some won’t. For instance: I’d been improperly interpreting the “proud chest” cue in both the deadlift and the low bar squat, leading to poor torso-hip angles on my lifts. It wasn’t until I heard the alternative cue “tight back” that I realized I’d been focusing on the wrong things. “Ooooh, it’s not that I need to keep my chest up, necessarily; it’s that I need to keep my back, lats, etc., tight. This will keep my back straight throughout the lift, and raising the chest is only a mechanical effect of that.” What a spaz, right? So listen for different cues. And use a hook grip or you’re dead to me. I know it’s uncomfortable; deal.

    Having read the comments in the last section (but, of course, being too busy playing Horizon and the NieR demo in my underwear to participate), I noticed a few folks mentioning wanting to get into better shape but having various (valid) excuses: older, injured, don’t have the equipment, don’t want to join a gym, and more. Here is a link to a what I’ve found to be the most comprehensive, grounded, and even-handed approach to dieting–and that includes both dropping and gaining weight. I used to be pretty heavy, and one day I’d just had enough of looking at myself in the mirror and wishing it was different. Wishing doesn’t make it so. I ignorantly crash dieted down to a meager 120 pounds, but I still looked like hell–just a scant, paltry hell instead of a pudgy, chubby hell. I used the advice in the above forum to slowly put on another 30 pounds while lifting (forever bulk!), slowly lose 10-15 of those pounds without any of this nonsense, and I’ve been slowly, slowly, soooo slowly recomping in the 135-140 range ever since. All this to say I’m much happier with how I look now at 135-and-change than I was when I was lighter. It’s crazy what a little muscle-mass can do. The first time I sat on my actual ass in an office chair (y’know, instead of a pad of fat) was revelatory and over-all just awesome. You, too, can sit on your ass.

    Bonus: some burly cheesecake for you (hat-tip to LT_Fish) from the last article’s comment section. That’s a real nice jerk on the beach in #8, just sayin’!

     

    *Disclaimer: always consult a physician before starting a new fitness routine.

  • Seafood Bisque in 20 Minutes

    By But I like cocktails and lurking

    Not all roux’s are created equally. Despite the unique, delicious flavor of a flour/oil roux, it isn’t suitable for all dishes. You can make a roux from flour/butter and though the process is the same the resulting taste is quite different. A proper bisque requires a creamier base, usually seafood stock with milk or cream, and can require a fair amount of preparation. Since we are concerned with shortening time and effort, we will take a few shortcuts and still end up with a gourmet quality soup. It is a little more effort than the other recipes but well worth it. At least a dozen times every year people call me requesting that I prepare this.

    12oz – 16oz frozen cooked and prepared seafood (crawfish is my favorite but shrimp or lobster is fine)
    1 can of chipped crab meat (the cheap stuff, not the expensive lump meat)
    2/3 stick of butter
    ½ of a medium sweet onion – chopped
    ¼ cup of white flour
    1 pint of heavy whipping cream
    1 to 1-1/2 quarts of whole milk
    6 chicken boullion cubes
    1 capfull of Zataran’s liquid crab boil
    1 teaspoon of ground cayenne pepper
    1 tablespoon of chopped garlic or 1 teaspoon of powdered garlic

    Melt the butter in a stock pot over medium heat. Toss in the chopped onion and garlic, then stir. Make sure the onion/garlic is well coated in butter and stir occasionally until the onion starts to become clear.

    Sprinkle the flour over the butter/onion with your hand. Swish around with your spoon until the flour is saturated with butter and evenly mixed in. Keep stirring and cooking until you see your butter going from yellow to a light tan. Don’t let the flour stick to the pot or darken too much. You have just made a blonde roux with onions and garlic.

    Quickly pour in the pint of heavy whipping cream that you had open and sitting in easy reach. Swish around with a whisk and scrape the bottom of the pot until all of the roux is evenly mixed. Pour in your milk. Toss in the chicken boullion, cayenne, liquid crab boil, and the can of crab meat. Note that the crab meat has a small piece of paper in it. Don’t put the paper in your soup, but make sure you do put the liquid from the can in with the meat.

    Homemade Seafood Bisque with Cream and Parsley

    Stir this well and turn the heat up to medium high. Bring it to a boil and keep stirring constantly. After it begins to boil count slowly to 30 while you stir, making sure nothing sticks to the bottom of the pot, and watch carefully that the pot doesn’t boil over. If it appears that the pot may boil over simply remove from heat and turn heat down before putting the pot back on. After you have counted to 30 with the pot boiling, turn the heat down to simmer, and stir in your seafood meat. Make sure you put all of the liquid from the seafood in with the meat. The bisque should thicken as it cools.

    If you want to fancy it up serve in a bowl and sprinkle with fresh chopped green onion or chives and some garlic bread. Otherwise just serve in a bowl.

    *Some people like whole kernel corn in their seafood bisque. If you are one of those people, simply add a can of whole kernel corn after you have completed the process. If you want it creamier still or to add a slightly different flavor you can add in a half-cup of sour cream or cream cheese.

    This is NOT a low carb dish but is so creamy and delicious that it will become a favorite. If you have all of your ingredients out and a relatively clean kitchen, a pot, knife, and whisk handy you can whip this up in under twenty minutes.

  • Making Cooking Easy and Your Day Better – Louisiana Gumbo Edition

    By But I like cocktails and lurking

    I have had a few requests for some of the recipes that I have posted in comments over the years so I thought putting them up here would be easier for any interested parties to find. After hearing about some of the cooking mistakes from the inexperienced and how some people are pressed for time, I thought it would be handy if I compressed/condensed the recipes and methods so that anyone can eat gourmet quality food with very little effort and time. I hope you all enjoy these immensely. Really good food can only make your life better. This is gourmet food for the non-gourmet chef.

    Justin Wilson, the Cajun chef, was famous for beginning his recipes with “First, you make a roux.” Justin knew what he was talking about.

    I am going to give instructions on how to make a basic roux but I recommend buying your roux ready made from the grocery store. They are identical in taste and quality. The only disadvantage in buying roux is that the pre-made roux tends to settle on their way to your kitchen and can take some effort and time to stir back into a homogenous consistency. The only reason you should make your roux is if you can’t find any to buy or if you want a special roux made differently.

    Practicing making a roux is easy, cheap, and doesn’t take long to master. Start with a warm skillet, a good whisk, and a pot set aside to put the roux in. Put equal parts white flour and oil into the skillet and whisk until there are no lumps. I have tried various flours and found that the best, by far, is plain bleached wheat flour. Any good vegetable oil will do. A quarter cup of flour and a quarter cup of oil will make plenty of roux for any large pot of whatever dish you are making.

    Turn the heat up to medium-high and stir occasionally until you see the oil-flour mixture begin to boil. Begin whisking constantly. If it begins to smoke you have the heat too high. The constant stirring keeps any of the oil-flour mixture from sitting on the hot pan surface long enough to burn. Continue doing this until you see the flour start to brown. When it gets to the color of caramel you have made a light roux. You can remove the skillet from the heat now if a light roux was your goal. Because the pan and oil are still hot, it will continue to cook the flour for a short time and possibly brown it further. To prevent this, empty the pan into the cool pot you have set aside.

    If you want a darker roux continue to cook and stir the roux until it reaches the color of milk chocolate. If you are really adventurous you can cook it to the color of dark chocolate but you run the risk of burning your roux.

    The light roux will have less flavor and will thicken your dish, the darker roux will flavor your dish more and not thicken as much.

    For taste you can experiment with different oils. I find that peanut and sesame oils have a much nuttier taste, lard is more hearty, and the various other vegetable oils are more generic but still satisfactory.

    If you are worried about calorie counts, don’t be. A little roux goes a long way. The oil coats the flour granules and makes them more difficult to digest. The darker you make the roux, the more you cook it, the fewer calories there are to be digested.

    Again, unless you are shooting for something unique like a sesame roux, it is much easier to buy your roux ready made. There are numerous brands of ready-made roux; they are all identical and as good as what you can make yourself. It only takes a few minutes to make a roux but having it ready made is a real time saver. Buy your roux. It is usually found in the ethnic foods section of your grocery store and is economical.


    How to throw together a first class meal in fifteen minutes

    1/4 – 1/3 cup of prepared dark roux. A light roux will do but a dark one is preferred
    1 12oz to 16oz bag of frozen seasoning blend (onion, bell pepper, celery mixture)
    6-8 chicken bouillon cubes
    1 cap-full of Zataran’s liquid crab boil
    1 teaspoon (less if you are a wimp) Cayenne pepper
    1 tablespoon crushed garlic or 1 teaspoon powdered garlic
    Dark chicken (8 boneless, skinless thighs or 4 leg quarters)
    About 2 lbs of cajun sausage, sliced ¼ inch thick
    6-8 cups of water – to cover the meats

    If you are in a hurry you can simply throw all of these ingredients into a large stock pot cold, adding the water last to just cover the meats. Cover your pot and bring to a low boil for about one hour. There is no need to precook or mix anything. The boiling will do all of that for you. While it is boiling, an occasional poke with a spoon isn’t a bad idea. After you have turned the heat on you can start the rice, put away all of your ingredients, wash any dishes if there are any. (There shouldn’t be aside from the measuring spoons. All you needed to do was open packages, the pot is on the stove, and the stirring spoon is next to the pot on a trivet or spoon-rest.) When your significant other/others arrive all they will see is a clean kitchen, a boiling pot, and the air will be filled with the most delicious smell. Serve over rice.

    – Get yourself a microwave rice cooker. It is a simple plastic pot with a snap-on lid and a vent. It only costs a couple of bucks. To make your rice, put two cups of water, one cup of rice (basmati is best), two chicken bouillon cubes, one and a half tablespoons of butter, and about one tablespoon of dried, sweet basil in the pot. Microwave on high for 15 minutes.
    You can taste the rice but don’t let anyone else taste it before serving the meal. They will eat all of your rice right out of the cooker.

    Lastly, while you are in the Cajun food section of the grocery store, keep your eyes peeled for gumbo file’. It is dried and finely ground sassafras leaves. After you have served your gumbo over rice you can sprinkle this over the top of your dish.

    This is a perfect recipe for anyone who wants really good, authentic home-cooked meals but doesn’t have a lot of time. It is easy, fast, and doesn’t take a master chef. I am looking at you Commodius Spittoon. It is also a perfect recipe for any restaurant because it can be made in bulk in minimal time and sold by the bowl for a good profit. It will draw a large, hungry crowd, especially in cold weather. Trust me, they will keep coming back.

  • Belly Up to the Bar

    The Good Stuff

    By RC Dean

    I can tell this crowd has its fair share of folks who like their liquor straight up, with none of that faggy “mixology” or “artisanal” bullshit [mental note: must Google to see if “Artisanal Bullshit” is a cocktail already]. So, this week’s post is for you lot.

    Liquor that’s enjoyable straight out of the bottle is the Good Stuff; at some level, cocktails are what you do to make liquor that isn’t as palatable more drinkable. You can use the Good Stuff in cocktails and it will often make a better cocktail – although we use Casa Noble for margaritas due to Mrs. Dean’s unfortunate reaction to other tequilas, it is plenty good enough to drink straight up.

    For me, mixed drinks are more social – I just associate them and generally drink them in groups when there is a lot of chatter and whatnot. Drinking liquor neat is more contemplative for me – I’ve done some of my best thinking with a glass of Scotch, a cigar, and a sunset. As Timothy Leary taught us way back in the day, set and setting are important when monkeying with your brain chemistry, and those are the sets and settings I use/associate with different kinds of drinking.

    Ice? Water? Hey, de gustibus. I don’t drink the Good Stuff on the rocks, but I put a splash of water in my Scotch. Do what thou wilt, I say.

    Things about the Good Stuff to keep in mind:

    There is a deliriously huge number of brands and varieties. No matter how hard you try, there will always be a ton of things you haven’t tried yet. I always try to have two or three bottles of sippin’ likker in the cabinet, and not just Scotch (I’m a Scotch guy, not a Bourbon guy, when it comes to drinking neat). I always have a good Scotch and tend to rotate rum, mescal/tequila, and Armagnac. I am a creature of habit; I typically get the same booze for mixing, but the variety of the Good Stuff on offer practically demands that I try different ones. The good news is that it’s hard to go far wrong, so that $50 bet you just made on a new bottle is likely to pay off. Worst case – you can use it for making cocktails.

    Unfortunately, it’s the Good Stuff, and it is priced accordingly. While my palate for wine runs out around $20/bottle (retail, not restaurant, pricing), in that I just don’t taste what’s “better” about more expensive wines, my palate for liquor hardly ever runs out as the price goes up. Sure, there are bottles that cost $60 that are as good as bottles that cost $100, but by and large the older, more expensive stuff tastes better, sometimes a lot better. That said, anything that is the latest, hottest booze is probably going to be overpriced – I’ve never had Whistle Pig or Balcones because I figure the hype on these has run the price too high. My personal price cap for stuff I drink neat is around $60/bottle (subject to moments of weakness); I’ve never paid much more than $80/bottle for anything but a gift.

    So, a few recommendations:

    Scotch: I’m an Islay guy. Laphroiag Quarter Cask is a regular visitor to the liquor cabinet, and their 18 year old bottling is reliably divine (I’ve never had the 25 year old). One of these years I hope to make it to the Islay Festival. Caol Ila (thanks to Ron for the recommendation over at TSTSNBN) is excellent, not as peaty/oily/smoky as Laphroiag. Honestly, the problem isn’t finding excellent Scotch, it’s affording excellent Scotch. Personally, I blame hipsters.

    Mezcal: The Del Maguey Single Village line-up is excellent. They have contacts with OG local distillers, and some of it is amazing (and priced accordingly – the spendy Chichicapa tastes like the love child of an excellent Scotch and a very naughty tequila). I tend to have a bottle of the more affordable Vida available for those evenings when the world needs that particular mescal vibe.

    Rum: The Ron Zacapa Solera 23 has to be tried to be believed. They age it like brandy, and, well, just try it. Honestly, I’ve never even tried another rum for drinking neat. I sprung for a bottle of their XO once, but that was one of the few times when I just couldn’t quite taste the extra money.

    Armagnac: Basically, Cognac’s country cousin – I think the only real difference is that each is grown in a particular region (yeah, I’m sure the terroir is totes different, but whatev). I have the vague impression that Armagnac is a little more affordable. This one is more occasional, but I’ve enjoyed the Dartigalongue XO and Hors d’Age, which are both affordable(ish) and not a bad place to start if you are curious.

    Derpetologist’s Spot the Not:  Thomas Piketty

    1. My premise is not to tax to destroy the wealth of the wealthy; it’s to increase the wealth of the bottom and the middle class.

    2. I draw my inspiration from Sweden, not the Soviet Union. I have never advocated a centrally-planned economy.

    3. I am not political. It is not my job. But I would be happy if politicians could read my work and draw some conclusions from it.

    4. One way to have broader access to wealth is to reduce the tax on the large group and increase the tax on the very top so concentration of wealth doesn’t get to extreme levels.

    5. I loved American universities. In many ways, they are better organized – certainly than French universities.

    6. To put it bluntly, the discipline of economics has yet to get over its childish passion for mathematics.

  • Belly Up to the Bar

    Gearing Up for Cocktails 

    By RC Dean

    Last week’s post on the Dark and Stormy dabbled in the equipment and supplies that can be put to good use by the home bartender. This week we will survey the Casa Dean’s loadout for cocktailing, which by its nature invites a plethora of tools and ingredients.

    Casa Dean Gear

    In addition to the cocktail measuring glass and soda syphon mentioned last week for the Dark and Stormy (ginger beer syrup edition), and the eyedropper the week before (to dose Pernod properly for a Monkey Gland), there’s also a few other items that we use:

    • Shaker. There are some variations on this, and a lot of [real] bartenders use a Boston shaker (two stainless steel containers, the top of one fitting inside the top of the other) or a variation with a pint glass and a stainless container. These are tricky to pour out of and prone to accidents, so I use a pretty standard shaker, the kind with a cap that has a strainer.

    Shaking your drink does a couple of things, in addition to mixing the ingredients: it chills the drink, and it dilutes the drink a little (remember: a proper shake is 10 – 15 seconds). Both of these are Good Things – water is one of the unacknowledged ingredients of many cocktails, which just taste better a little diluted. Hell, it’s acceptable, even expected, to add a splash of water to even the finest single malts.

    • Spherical ice makers. This is a recent addition to our setup, and we’ve started using them almost exclusively for “rocks” drinks. Highballs still get the usual cubes from our icemaker. The spheres have a couple of advantages; they just look cool, and they melt more slowly, so your drink doesn’t get as watery. The 1 ½ inch size seems pretty standard. It does take them a little longer to cool the drink, if it started at room temperature.

    I’ve been using this SVERES Jumbo Ice Ball Tray, which makes six at a time. A little more labor intensive than just pushing the lever on the front of the fridge, but worth it, IMO. I’ve also got a pair of these Tovolo Sphere Clear makers, but they’re kind of a pain in the ass to use. I think they make somewhat better spheres than the tray.

    • Glasses. For highballs, we just use whatever. For rocks drinks, I’ve been using these Bodum double wall glasses. They slow the melting of the ice balls even more and look pretty cool. These used to be pretty fragile, but they’ve been beefed up enough we haven’t had any problems.

    Casa Dean Supplies

    Confession time: I don’t fresh squeeze my citrus juices; I get good lime, lemon, and orange juice in bottles and just use that. I also don’t generally garnish. When I’m thirsty, I get lazy, OK?

    For liqueurs, we have the following:

    • Pernod, for Monkey Glands. I haven’t found another use for it that I liked, so that’s about it. Its basically licorice concentrate, to my palate.

    • Amaretto, mostly for Polar Vortexes (to be written up one of these weeks). It’s a sweetener, mainly, but even in small amounts it changes up the drink.

    • Salerno, for margaritas, sangria, anything that calls for orange liqueur. I’ve got some Grand Marnier, but just don’t really use it much since I found Salerno, which isn’t as sweet and “heavy” as most orange liqueurs.

    • Luxardo Maraschino Liqueur. I pretty much just use this to make my own maraschino cherries, which are completely different than the dyed candied cherries passed off as such in the grocery store. Real maraschino cherries on chocolate ice cream is just divine, BTW, and justifies making your own all by itself.

    • Drambuie. For the occasional Rusty Nail. Mrs. Dean also likes it sometimes just over ice.

    • We also have Rivata sweet and dry vermouth. I mostly use the sweet to make Rob Roys and Manhattans. I’ve tried olde schoole martinis, but just don’t come back to them.

    For bitters and mixers, there’s a few standards and a lot of interesting stuff to try. As mentioned last week, Pickett’s Ginger Beer Syrup is excellent. The Jack Rudy Classic Tonic syrup gets a real workout in hot weather, as well – it produces a vastly more flavorful gin and tonic than what you get in the store. You need a soda syphon to use these, or you can just crack open a soda water or club soda and pour in. But the soda syphon’s more fun.

    I like the Bittermilk lineup, and use several of their mixers off and on (the Charred Grapefruit with light rum is way too easy to drink in hot weather). Others make their way in and out of the pantry from time to time as experiments (I have this Maple-Bacon Syrup going through testing right now), and it is remarkable how many smaller companies are putting out good stuff. These will get called out as needed in future recipes.

     

    Derpetologist’s Spot the Not: Leonard Peikoff (a famous Randroid)

    1. [Regarding the so-called Ground Zero Mosque] Any way possible permission should be refused and if they go ahead and build it, the government should bomb it out of existence, evacuating it first, with no compensation to any of the property owners involved in this monstrosity.

    2. Responsible parenthood involves decades devoted to the child’s proper nurture. To sentence a woman to bear a child against her will is an unspeakable violation of her rights: her right to liberty (to the functions of her body), her right to the pursuit of happiness, and, sometimes, her right to life itself, even as a serf.

    3. Every argument for God and every attribute ascribed to Him rests on a false metaphysical premise. None can survive for a moment on a correct metaphysics.

    4. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon facts.

    5. Statism and the advocacy of reason are philosophical opposites. They cannot coexist—neither in a philosophic system nor in a nation.

    6. What is is. Perceive It. Integrate it. Act on it. Idealize it.