The return of the Sunday Afternoon Cocktail

Wow, what a weekend. It's the first time in months that all four of us have been home at the same time on a weekend. We cleaned out the basement and garage in preparation for a big-ass garage sale in two weeks: a telescope, lots of books, electronics, and all the flotsam and jetsam of our cluttered lives will all be up for grabs.

I'm sitting here typing this in a quiet moment while I wait for dinner to cook. The farmer's market is still a few weeks away. We've got broccoli tossed with panko, basil and Romano cheese roasting in the oven. There are potatoes in there too, roasting away. Costco had a sale on these little steaks wrapped in bacon, and those will go in last. Our youngest is sitting in the ornamental crab apple tree outside the front window, singing. MizBubs is icing her elbow and enjoying the first Sunday Afternoon Cocktail of the season: the Sazerac.

• Pour a few drops of absinthe (or Absente, or Herbsaint) into a rocks glass, and swirl to coat
• Mix 2 oz rye whiskey (or bourbon in a pinch), 1/2 oz of bar syrup, and 3 drops of Peychaud's Bitters
• Pour into the glass, and rub the rim of the glass with a lemon peel
• Drink and enjoy
  

I did a short self-defense class for a group of 13 year old girl scouts earlier this afternoon, and that was fun. It's a great feeling to teach a few simple things to a young woman and see her confidence grow a little.

There was some type of police standoff a couple blocks behind our house involving a suicidal subject on the roof of his house. It's strange seeing cops from other towns blocking intersections in your neighborhood. I'm assuming it worked out ok, since they were all gone when I returned home at 6pm.

There's lots on the agenda this week folks. Hope y'all had a great weekend.

What a weekend

What a weekend.

On Saturday MizBubs and I visited the Midwest Fiber & Folk Art Fair at McHenry College. She bought some wool, I bought some hiking socks made from alpaca, and we met some interesting people who run small goat farms. We've been stepping up the research into learning what it will take to get out of where we're at, and into that rural compound we've been dreaming of. It was great talking with some people who've actually done it and are making a living at small sustainable farming. The event was livened up by the presence of the Barehand Jug Band. You know I was happy when I turned a corner and heard the magic combination of tuba and spoons. I turned to an older gent who was enjoying the show, and we mentioned that the only thing missing was a washboard. 10 minutes later I walked by and sure enough, they had an adorable girl playing a washboard. Nice kids, good music.

After the fair we headed out to Grayslake and spent the next few hours catching up with some good friends who (I'm almost ashamed to say this) we haven't seen in a couple of years. It was like we'd just visited last week, and next thing it was 1 am and time to go home. We drove home through a beautiful thunderstorm and collapsed into bed happy.

On Sunday we got to meet Katy aka Dino and her man Grumpy, who stopped by while they were in town for a wedding. The visit was good, but too short. I realized too late that I was a horrible host--I thought it would be nice to sit out in the screen house, and it didn't occur to me until over an hour later that it was too hot and humid to comfortably sit outside. The swamp dweller in me was oblivious to the discomfort of our guests until it was almost time for them to go. Please come back Katy, I promise we can sit in the air conditioning next time.

Later that afternoon we were visited by jet-setting expatriate Lulu. Back on her winter vacation Lulu gifted us with a bottle of Thai whisky, so I invented a drink for the occasion:

The Muay Thai Fizz

-2 shots of unknown Thai whiskey



-2 shots of lime juice

Pour in a tall glass full of ice, top with tonic water and garnish with a sprig of mint. Fizzy and refreshing, and if you drink more than two you'll feel like you climbed in the ring and got kicked in the head. Invigorating.

Later we chowed down on pork and pie. Pork tenderloin wrapped in herbs and bacon, steamed new potatoes with fresh pesto, and a lemon chess pie, with black raspberry compote whipped up by MizBubs.



Mmmmm. Pie.

Tomorrow it's jury duty for my better half, and a physical exam and back to work for me. Happy trails!

I wouldn't live there if you paid me...or would I?

We just got done cleaning off the dinner dishes, and the Tom Waits that my youngest played at dinner is over (Alice and Blood Money). Out of nowhere, MizBubs, sentimental fool, puts on More Songs About Buildings and Food by Talking Heads. I was listening to the song "Big Country", something of an anthem of anti-suburban anger when I was a kid:

I see the shapes, I remember from maps.
I see the shoreline. I see the whitecaps.
A baseball diamond, nice weather down there.
I see the school and the houses where the kids are.
Places to park by the factories and buildings.
Restaurants and bars for later in the evening.
Then we come to the farmlands, and the undeveloped areas. And I have learned how these things work together.
I see the parkway that passes through them all.
And I have learned how to look at these things and I say,
I wouldn't live there if you paid me.
I couldn't live there, well no siree!
I couldn't do the things that, that those people do.
I wouldn't live there if you paid me to.

And then it hit me like a ton of bricks: but I do live there! I've been living there for years! How the hell did that happen?

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I got this bright idea today to cook this big dinner. MizBubs had to work at the library today, and I decided to cook a couple recipes out of a cookbook I bought her for Valentine's Day--Food of Love, from Rosemary's Restaurant, where we had possibly the best meal of our lives when we were in Las Vegas last December. I was going to make Hugo's BBQ shrimp with blue cheese slaw, and pan-seared scallops with parsnip creamed potatoes. There were sauces involved, and I started out great. Then somewhere along the way my apple cider reduction turned into a caramelized crust, and my blue cheese mayonnaise was a disaster, a soupy mess. Next thing I know, I was standing there with a bourbon in hand, not doing anything, and wondering how it all went south.

MizBubs got home a little later. I tried to act as adorable as possible, and in no time at all she made a new, perfect mayonnaise, and she rescued my apple cider reduction too, making a beautiful apple cider butter sauce for the scallops. I got out the fry daddy and made some deep-fried parsnips and crispy prosciutto to garnish the scallops. Here is the end result:

Now, closeups.

Here's the crispy fried parsnips and prosciutto

And here's how they looked on top of some pan seared scallops, served on a mound of parsnip creamed potatoes and an apple cider butter sauce


There was no cocktail, but there was beer: we paired the meal with some tasty Belgian ales:

And there you have it.

I have a wicked case of procrastination, and haven't been able to finish the project I'm supposed to do for the side job I landed, and I go back to work tomorrow. Shit, I didn't even get all the laundry and housecleaning I planned on done, and now it's Sunday night, with Monday morning looming ahead. Oh well. I may be a lazy slacker, but I'm a well-fed slacker with a woman who loves me and a couple of great kids. So screw everything else, right? Right.

Hope everyone had a good weekend. See you later, alligators.

Sunday afternoon cocktails

Today's Sunday Afternoon Cocktail is the Suffering Bastard:

The Suffering Bastard (for two)

2 shots of bourbon
2 shots of gin
2 oz fresh lime juice
2 dashes Angostura bitters
Ginger ale or ginger beer

• -Mix the bourbon, gin, bitters and lime juice in a cocktail shaker
• -Pour over ice
• -Top with ginger ale
• -Garnish with a sprig of mint and a maraschino cherry (and a fresh orange slice if you've got one.)

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For dinner tonight I kind of outdid myself in the swine-eatin' shiftless hillbilly department. The Emeril Lagasse recipe I started with was called "Pork Roulades", but here's what it really was:

Pork rolls wrapped in bacon.

Yes. Forget carbo-loading, I've made pork-loading an essential part of my marathon training. I think maybe I could get even more pork into this recipe if, instead of stuffing the roulade with ground pecans, parmesan cheese and garlic, I stuffed it with more ground pork. YEAH, AND SOME EXTRA PORK CRACKLINS' ON THE SIDE!!! WOOOOO HOOO!


Whew. Back in control now. That little green smear you see in the upper left of that picture is a grilled pattypan squash, with fresh pesto made by MizBubs. MizBubs hacked her way into the garden with her machete to harvest a bumper crop of basil, which is now engaged in a UFC-style brawl with the mint. It is good (but not necessary) to have one bacon-free part of a meal, after all, and the squash was a tasty companion to the pork rolls.

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I'm full of bright ideas this week: a BIG multiple choice "Germany or Florida", a reprise of The Future the Way it Used to Be, some good freak and weenie-waver news, and some other stuff I've gleefully lifted from other blogs. I'll probably get distracted and not do any of them. We'll see.

Hope everyone had a good weekend.

Sunday dinner

I got nothing. I'd post adorable pictures of cats , but I don't have any. I've always had a hard time balancing competing desires to spout off, to entertain with oddball stories, and to keep some family members who read this kind of up-to-date on what's going on in our lives. I worry about being boring. I worry about being a blowhard. I worry about turning into a blog that becomes a laundry list of random observations and daily events.

Maybe I'll fall back on blogging about food and drink. With pictures.

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The weekend was great--we went to see The Knitters at the Chicago Folk & Roots Festival, accompanied by the lovely Kim. The festival was great. It was the first time we've been, and I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the food and beer. Here's a bonus--I got to see a white trash dude wearing an American flag bandanna do-rag punch out an obnoxious drunk who was bothering flag-man's family. It was f*cking righteous, man.

Oh, and I realized something else, too. One of the great pleasures of summer, especially at places like carnivals and street fairs, is the abundance of side-boob. Sadly, though, I realized that there is a downside--if it's hot enough for there to be plenty of side-boob, there's probably going to be a lot of side man-boob. Hairy side man-boob. Granted, with the crowd consisting mainly of aging NPR listeners, hipsters, hippies and old punk rockers, there weren't too many guys wearing sleeveless gym shirts with the arm holes stretched down to the waist...but still. One is too many.

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So...now for the food blogging. With a picture. I did the booze blogging part earlier today.



We loves us some Sunday dinners here at the compound. If I'm not working it's usually a great time to cook up something that takes a little while, and wash down the grub with some good booze. Here's tonight's menu:

• Horseradish-crusted pork loin, cooked on a cedar plank
• Sugar snap peas, sauteed in olive oil and garlic, tossed with basil and parsley from our garden
  
• Steamed, buttered new potatoes tossed with dill and parsley from our garden, and a little sour cream
  
• A chilled fruit salad of musk melon and blueberries with a sauce of orange liqueur, honey and lemon juice, tossed with mint and Thai basil from our garden
• Dessert (not shown) blueberry peach cobbler
  

The glass is filled with some sangria MizBubs, my favorite enabler, whipped up this afternoon. It used white wine, berries, some of the melon and some triple sec. I'm finishing my last glass now.

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This week is shaping up to be busy at work. I finished out last week pretty angry at mankind. It was a combination of working some cases involving elderly people getting ripped off, and then that story about the crackpots disrupting the Senate invocation.

I'm feeling better now, helped in no small part by the news that on Saturday one of my detectives arrested a guy who had forged his own elderly mother's name and gotten $20,000 in fraudulent loans in her name. On Friday afternoon, after we left work, one of my other detectives stopped for a haircut, and while he was there saw a suspect in a burglary he was working on. He stopped the suspect, who had been drinking, and ended up getting a confession and recovering a bunch of stolen property. So, good guys 2, bad guys 0.

Ah, one more thing, on a personal note--I found out Saturday I've been accepted into the MBA program I applied for. I start classes in September.

Hope everyone had a decent weekend, and has a good week ahead.