OH GOD THERE IS SNOW WHAT DO WE DO

OH GOD IT WILL SNOW HERE

IT IS TIME FOR PANIC!

Seriously, ladies. There might be two feet of snow. It will get plowed, don't worry. You don't need to buy out the entire Cost-Co of bread and toilet paper. It will be okay.

...That said I'm planning on going out tomorrow and acquiring the important things in life. Since I am not living in a den of heathens prone to panic attacks, we are adequately stocked on all the little things, and will be able to eat and poop without fear. No, I am thinking of something much more important.

Alcohol.

Yes, we are tragically low at the moment on wine. The Boyfriend and I did pick up a twelve pack of Sam Adams Winter Ale and a six of the Noble Pils after skiing left us a deep craving for beer. I've got to say, the Noble Pils is really worth it. It's light and citrusy, very limey without that bitter fake taste that the +LIME lite beers tend to get. It's not what I really want in the winter, though maybe I don't know WHAT I want, because I sucked down three bottles of it within two hours of buying the six pack, leaving The Boyfriend and Mother to fight for the other three. The Boyfriend won by distracting Mother with a Sarah Palin book.

I have also had the opportunity to taste a really great Sauvignon Blanc. I've been hating on Sauvignon Blanc a fair bit on this blog. There's a taste in the grape, sort of ammoniac, that I'm just not digging. This wine, called Angelique or something equally precious, did not have that "off" taste at all. It was very good, very refreshing. I intend to buy a couple bottles of that on Operation: PANIC BUY, along with the C2H3M.

Tonight, while watching Iron Chef (Top Gear wasn't on), I was drinking Chateau L'Ermitage, a red rhone wine comprised of Syrah, Mourvedre and Grenache. It's a toasty wine, if that makes sense. It has an almost burned smell and taste to it that I really kind of like.

It was not the best thing to pair with my re-heated leek and potato soup, which was a disaster in its own right. I (and Bitches) LOVE soup, I love making it and I love eating it, and I usually do an okay job at vegetable soups. However, I made the mistake every novice cook makes when they do potato soup: I put the damn thing through a blender.

For some SCIENCE here: putting taters and other starchy things through a blender, especially the crazy rocket-powered one my dad bought, crushes the cell walls and releases a lot of water. What you end up with is a gooey mess flavored vaguely like watered-down potato. I knew this, but thought "oh how bad can it be?" and went ahead and did it anyway. This is why I'm an idiot and Chef doesn't allow me to do anything in the kitchen. This failure was only heightened by my complete lack of leek knowledge. I had never worked with this particular oniony thing before and had no idea what the right sizes were, so I ended up buy a bunch of *really tiny* leeks and not using all of them that I could, since I had no idea where to stop chopping them.

 It was the worst kind of cooking failure: the edible kind. No, seriously put that eyebrow down. When you truly cock something up in the kitchen, you can at least throw your hands in the air dramatically while pitching it into the woods and call out for pizza. When it's edible, just not good... you feel almost obligated to eat it. Luckily, the Boyfriend swooped in and saved the mess with some Old Bay, which is a staple of every Maryland kitchen.

Cooks Illustrated Magazine solved the science struggle of leek and potato soup in a recent issue. They also have a recipe for brownies with the texture of box mix and the flavor of homemade. My god. It's the best magazine ever.

Oh god why am I not updating anymore

...Blame NaNoWriMo. I'm nearly 35 thousand words in and holy balls I just can't stop writing. Any time I sit at my computer I'm probably typing Rising Mind, and not these blog posts. I'll definitely return to this in December, when I have the chance to think about something other than crazy people and graduate school.

But here is a catch-up post. Let's talk about my last excursion to Max's Tap House with BeerSnob and The Irish.

BeerSnob is snobbish about beer, and has a hard on for stouts of all varieties. I like pilsners, because they are refreshing and pleasant and do all the things a beer should do, i.e., get you drunk but not make you sick. Irish will drink anything you put in front of him because he is poor.

I started out with the Reider Maerzen. Nobody pronounces the umlaut correctly, you linguistically uncultured bastards. Either way, I'd ordered the pilsner, but the bartender misunderstood me. Still, this was everything I want in a beer. It was light enough that I could drink it without feeling overfull, and it had a clean, malty flavor that consistently made me want more.

Irish got the house beer that night, which was a kind of gross Belgian blonde. It had the kind of fruity sweetness that I enjoy in wine, but is totally out of place in a beer. I don't know what was going on there. Very sad.

BeerSnob bought snobby beer: the Brewdog Zeitgeist dark lager, to be specific. It was DELICIOUS. It was sort of tart up front, the way a just-underripe cherry is, and had a very light cafe-au-lait flavor and texture at the back. It was smooth and delicious. /he also got a taste of the Thirsty Dog Stud Service Stoud, probably because it had the silliest name on the menu. It was lightly bodied, tasted of burnt coffee with a clean finish. Smooth, but not what I wanted. I blame it on the fact of it being a stout.

For our second round, TheIrish acquired a beer called the MAXIMATOR. Because when there is a beer with a name like MAXIMATOR someone has to try it. Here is what my notes say about that:
"Holy fuck spices. Holy crap let me wash out my mouth now jesus why did I drink that there can be no loving god in a universe where there is this beer." It was not very good.

I got the Reider Pilsner this time, which was the strangest thing I ever tasted. It was clean and bubbly the way I like it, but it had this strange vegetable aftertaste... like peas and asparagus. The boys didn't believe me, but when Irish drank some he immediately sputtered: "IT'S HEALTH BEER!" It was, too.

BeerSnob's second round was a glass of Hitachino Redrice, a rice beer, and he wished it hadn't been. This was all about fruit. It was apricots and cinnamon and ginger all over the place. We all agreed that this would be a FABULOUS beer to cook with, but it was not a pleasant pint.

Much later in the week I had a couple glasses of unexceptional pinot grigio. They were both clean and tart, though one had a bitter hint of lemon rind that I didn't like all that much. Pinot Grigio is wine for people who don't like wine very much, or so says the guy who orders the wine for our restaurant. But it's a fabulous wine to sip while writing, because the gentle flavor doesn't distract you!

I have also set up a bunch of infusions in a series of one and a half liter bell-jars that I bought for the purpose. The reason there are no pictures up or descriptions is that they are all to become Christmas presents and I don't want to ruin the surprise, so there.

And now I'm going to go back to writing my terrible urban fantasy. Rock on y'all.

The Hogfather and Incas

Sunday was a good day all around, but mostly for the way it ended: a bottle of wine, a Boyfriend, and a BBC adaptation of Terry Pratchett's The Hogfather. If you're looking for a three-hour long movie to waste an evening with, this is pretty much it. The special effects are awful, but the sets, costumes, and acting are all so awesome you can't even complain.

For the wine we selected a bottle of Inca torrontes/chardonnay blend. It cost about 9 bucks, but Boyfriend insisted that it was pretty good. When first uncorked it smelled exactly like orange juice. When poured... well, it still pretty much smelled like orange juice, but maybe a bit sweeter. When consumed... Tang. It was Tang-flavored wine. That is a lot better than it sounds. It was a very easy drinking wine, clean and light and enjoyably sweet, but not syrupy. For nine bucks a bottle? Sure. I'd buy it again.

Boyfriend also had a bottle of pumpkin ale, which, naturally, I can't recall the name of. Most pumpkin beers have this weird, sugary smell and a bizarre aftertaste. This... not so much. It smelled like spiced beer and tasted like pumpkin bread. Not a Starbucks pumpkin muffin sugarbomb, but like pumpkin bread. It was roast pumpkin and spices. No sugar. The cinnamon and nutmeg aftertaste actually ended up being nice and clean, not cloying at all.

Of course, I only had one sip of it. The Boyfriend's father tasted some and said "That wasn't bad. I don't want any more than that sip, but it wasn't bad." I've got to agree with him there.

In other news, I am so far behind in my NaNoWriMo project it ain't even funny. There's a guy at my school almost halfway done already. I'm seven thousand words in and feeling accomplished, then I see that. Holy crap. he must be a machine.

Weekend Wangst and Renfest Ranting

I am not a romantic person. I used to be, but I am not any longer. I do not believe in true love, painless relationships, or fairytale endings. I do my best not to get soppy about idle things like boyfriends.

I am in a long distance relationship with a guy I met in college. We first met when his roommate drunkenly cartwheeled through my locked and dead-bolted dormroom door. He assured me, looming and loud, that he was not drunk at all, that he was just keeping Roomie from killing himself. Yeah, okay large bearded man. You smell like a distillery. Get out of my doorway.

Our relationship in college was just about perfect. We had our own groups of friends, we could go hang out with others and return to one another in the evening. It's harder now that he's three hours away. He visits me on weekends, or I visit him, when I have weekends off. I work in a restaurant, I don't usually have weekends free. He works in publishing. He only has weekends free. Badass, huh?

"Oh to hell with you, Stark." some would say. "Three hours? Only on weekends? What about the folks with family in the military? What about the people whose loved ones are journalists halfway around the globe?" to these people I say "oh screw off. Just because other people have it worse doesn't mean it suddenly doesn't suck."

These issues now addressed I feel that I have kvetched sufficiently and shall immediately return to my topic.

The Maryland Renaissance Festival may be best treated like a giant outdoor theme pub with a heinous cover charge. That's how I like it, at least. One goes to drink the cheap beer (or hardcore cider in my case. I loves me the cider) and socialize. The Boyfriend always gets sulky at the renfest, because they have not had a new act there in decades and all my friends want to do is see Hack and Slash for the millionth time. I do not exaggerate. They see every show at every time slot every time they go. They recite the lines along with the actors. I know it's ritual and all, but god damn, Fight School is on at the same time, and they actually do good improv! And they have that one cute guy in a kilt!

So instead of sitting through the same four acts, BeerSnob, Boyfriend and I sat in the various pubs, singing along with the meandering minstrels (they don't really travel, the entire park is only a kilometer squared), and discussed with rising horror the travesties of cleavage that surrounded us. Boobs should not look like tiny, flabby shelves! Ladies, if you want to wear psuedo renaissance gear, you are probably already spending a couple hundred dollars! Do not spend those dollars on gear that makes you look thirty years older (boob-squeezer tops) or like a low class whore (horse tails or fox tails).

Also, if pregnant, please do not wear nothing but a bra and booty short leather armor set. While I understand that motherhood is beautiful and all that nonsense, when you're eight and a half months along... you make BeerSnob cry.

It is also a fact that any drink tastes better coming from a proper mug instead of a plastic cup. So I bought a proper, stoneware quaffing mug. Because if I don't spend money on something idiotic at the renfest I feel I have not had the true experience.

I also got a chance to do a quick wine tasting from a Maryland vineyard. Wow those were some sugary wines. The only one that did not taste like a cordial was the sangria. I have not had a whole lot of experience with my local wineries, there seems to be some kind of prejudice against them right now since they are all so new. It is something I'd like to get more into, there must be someone out there making less syrupy wines.

Morning blech.

It is the morning. I am a morning person. This is a blessing and a curse, as it means I am never late to work. It also means that I cannot luxuriate in bed when I don't have work. Dammit. The TV is assuring me that when I am thinking Chevy, I'm thinking Koons.com. I wonder how they know?

moving on.

Wednesday was a great day for the drink. I am a strong proponent of going out on Wednesday nights. You know you have work the next morning so you won't overextend yourself, and the bar is rarely crowded. Anyway, the evening began at my friend TheIrish's house, where we were setting up characters for a Shadowrun game run by one of these guys. I made a Dwarvish trauma surgeon. Rock on. To this session I brought a bottle of Spanish rose I'd purchased from the Wine Bin. I've mentioned my fanatical love of rose wine before, and this particular bottle was why. Marques de Caceres 2008 Rioja wine. It was clear and very pink, we drank it warmer than we should have. It was very dry as advertised, and it tasted like eating an english muffin with cherry jam. It was tart, buttery, and smooth. Holy crap it was good. Even TheIrish, not normally a wine fan, thought it was good.

After the session, TheIrish and I headed up to Baltimore to meet our friend BeerSnob and go to Max's Tap House. We managed to avoid getting mugged in Fayette Square, even though I gave a guy some crack money. Here is the list of beers I tried.

Spaten Pils
I like a German pilsner. This tasted the way you wish your Game Day case tasted. It was clear, light, refreshing, and gently hoppy. I don't like super hoppy beer because I am a pansy. Boyfriend *loves* himself an IPA though.

Brew Dog Paradox Speyside Scottish Imperial Stout
What a name! Christ, with a moniker like that (and the price it had) this had better be nirvana in a glass. I'm not big on imperial stouts, because if you drink too much stout you become so. I stole tastes from BeerSnob. It smelled like candied walnuts, which is apparently pretty normal. It tasted like letting a chocolate espresso bean melt on your tongue: first sweet, then bitter, then fruity sweet. Okay maybe I'm eating a very strange brand of chocolate espresso beans. I *liked* it,  but for 10 dollars? I'll stick with my pilsner. Thanks.

Original Sin cider
I love cider. While I was in Ireland I was introduced to Bulmers hard cider and it was good. In the states I learned that it's called Magners, and it is still amazing. So I try whatever ciders I can every time I can in the hopes that I'll find something even better. Unfortunately, the best part of Original Sin was the price: 4.00 a bottle as opposed to the insane prices of the More Regular Type Beers. It was sweet like apple juice. There was no pleasing, refreshing dryness. It was a juice box for adults. Disappointing but drinkable. I have still never tasted anything better than Magners for cider.

Del ducato verdi
BeerSnob saw that this beer was listed as an Italian chili stout and went a little crazy. He was raving over how bizarre that is and how much he loved chili-chocolate and all sorts of other madness. I was pretty focused on my buffalo wings and didn't pay him much attention. But *damn* was he right. It was a lot less sweet than the previous stout, with only a hint of chili spice. There was a lot of pepper smell, like bell pepper smell, when you had it in your mouth. The aftertaste lasted for a full minute, changing constantly. One minute it was sweet, then peppery, then bitter, then sugared coffee, then chocolate... It was an experience. A nice one. But again, I don't think I could have had an entire pint of this. It was too intense.

I also tend to be taken aback by the texture of stouts. I want them to be fuller bodied, like a big jammy red wine. I want them to have more carbonated texture. I always am left wanting something else from stouts, they are tasty but not refreshing. To each his own, I suppose.

Anyway, it is Pirate Weekend at the Maryland Renaissance festival. Flask of grog, anyone? Oh hell yeah.

Beer Garden! Hooray!

This blog is devoted mainly to wine. This is because I grew up in a vineyard in Germany and I am more aware of the varieties of wine than I am of the varieties of beer. I won't go so far as to say that wine has more variety, 'cause that would be stupid. I'm just more familiar with wine and I drink it more often.

There are times, though, when wine will not cut it. I was at a Phi Delta Theta crab feast on the Eastern Shore a few days ago, accompanying The Boyfriend. The crabs were barely legal (like, seriously barely 5 inches across), and the beer was Miller Lite.

Christ on a matza, I thought. When The Boyfriend was in charge of things there was Sierra Nevada. Screw that. So I cracked my way through a pile of blue crabs, managed not to rub Old Bay into any cuts (a triumph, as any from my fine state are aware of) and had a fine old time. Somewhere around the 8th crab I realized that it was time for beer. ANY beer. So I paid my two dollars for a cup of nasty beer, and it was perfect. It was awful, watery swill, but it was perfect just the same.

This is a long preamble to a simple fact. There is a beer garden at the Fall Festival for my town. BEER GARDEN.

Now, I know this will not be like the beer gardens of my youth. It will not be a shady grove with tetanus-inducing playground equipment. Nor will it be like the beer gardens I went to in Ireland, where local brewers showed off their wares (Easter beer market at the Franciscan Well was the GREATEST DAY EVER). It will likely be a tent sponsored by the EC Brewery, which is still awesome because they make great beer. I'm covering this event for a magazine, so I will have to post a less formal trip report here.

NASTY

On the list of Things That Are Nasty, I am adding Soda Fountains.

I had the fun task of cleaning the soda fountains at work today. Oh sweet science... the amount of black nasty-nast turned the stomach.  I think it's the first time that thing had been cleaned in a month. Holy shit.

That right there? THAT is why I prefer alcohol. It sterilizes what it is contained in! Of course, one of these days I'm going to have to clean out a beer tap, and that entire theory is going to go up in smoke... but beer is made of friendly delicious bacteria, right? So it's okay!

Also, crap. I left the bottle I was going to put my pumpkin pie infusion in at the restaurant. CURSE YOU CRUEL FATE! Oh well, I needed to buy the liquor for that anyway. Here is my current recipe plan.

750 ml vodka (kutskova again if I can find it. Smirnoff if I can't)
500 mg roasted pumpkin
Steep 3 weeks.
Add 1 vanilla bean
Half stick cinnamon
1 sealed teabag with pumpkin pie spice.
Steep  1 week

Open, taste, sweeten, and age until my halloween party. Give to plebian friends who will not appreciate my genius. Bastards. I'll remember to take pictures of this one, though, as well as the strawberry stuff I plan on opening and sweetening tomorrow. Hooray booze!