Strawberries! And kiwis!

When I planted my strawberries I had this bizarre impression that I was going to have enough berries to make tarts and shortcake. This would be true, but instead every morning I go out to water them and I pick the one or two ripe berries and eat them right there.


They are incredibly delicious.

This was the best decision.

Speaking of Fruit Decisions, my boyfriend went insane a few weeks ago and came back from Home Depot with two thornless blackberry bushes, two blueberry bushes, and a male and female kiwi.

Okay. I can get behind blackberries. I *love* blackberries. And blueberries are good in pancakes and muffins. But kiwis? "Do those even grow here?" I asked him.

"Sure! They grow in New Zealand and we're at a comparable latitude!"

"...You're full of shit."

"Yes but this will work! Now help me build a trellis!"

So we built a kiwi trellis, which was basically a 5' high box without a lid that he plans to string wires across. This entire time a little sandpiper who decided to lay her eggs in the old garden was cheeping and flopping about like she had a broken wing to get our attention away from her eggs. Go away, dumb little sandpiper. We do not care about your eggs. Of course, because we wanted to put the blueberries in a place even nearer to her next, we were unable to put those in the ground. But we did manage to plant the blackberries and build a serviceable trellis for the kiwis (really).

He's going to have a much more badass garden than I am. But that's because I'm trying to move out and mom and dad don't want me to wreck the yard with a tiller. Of course if we get the apartment in B-More that we're looking at...

THERE WILL BE CHERRY TREES.

Sofia blanc de blancs

Many wine bars/restaurants in my area end up feeling stodgy, aiming at a middle-aged upper-middle class clientelle. I can't really blame them, that's the group that has all the money. Still, my early-twenties broke-ass self would really appreciate a place that takes itself less seriously. Of course, that can be another trap for wine bars: becoming so trendy that they drive away older patrons.

Victoria Gastro Pub has all of the trimmings of a proper, high class wine bar and restaurant. It looks rich, but there's something about it that puts you at ease. After a while I realized that it was the radio. They were not playing the standard "top hits from the 1820's 30's and 40's" like many upscale places seem to do. It was playing alt rock intermixed with some top 40s, which took the edge off of the pretension.

One of the best things about Victoria is the food. And I am not just saying that because my direct supervisor is married to the chef. Okay, maybe that's a part of it, but not a big part. The duck fat fries specifically are the tastiest things I have ever put into my mouth, being smothered in duck gravy, gruyere cheese, and little awesome bits of ducky goodness. The tuna tartare is fabulous, with delightfully rich tuna and little pieces of apple that provide a really interesting contrast. The Boyfriend was a big fan of the banana chips that came on the side, but I am still convinced that all bananas contain spider eggs, and will not eat them.

We also had a bowl of asparagus, lemon and goat cheese soup which was possibly the best thing ever on a spring night, and a plate of frogs legs. I'm not a huge fan of frogs legs, I think they're too fiddly and the taste vs texture thing throws me a bit. Of course I won't turn up my nose at the little amphibians, but They're not my fave.

What really stole the show for me was the wine, which you knew I had to get to at some point. I was craving bubbles, so I ordered whatever sparkling came by the glass without really paying attention to it. It turned out to be Francis Coppola Sofia Blanc de Blanc, a California sparkling wine that comes in a can.

You heard me.

In a can.

With a straw.

This really blew my mind for some reason, and I was barely able to focus for long enough to actually taste the wine inside. It was sweet, with apricot notes on the nose, but tart, with a bit more lemon than apple and very little of the yeasty flavor that one finds in some sparkling wines. I blame the Muscat. Still, it was not cloyingly sweet nor was it aggressively tart. It was clean, bright, and balanced, and it went REALLY well with that asparagus soup I mentioned earlier. I would definitely order it again.

The can, though. I still have it because it was kind of adorable. It really didn't change the taste of the wine at all, and, as the Boyfriend pointed out, it is a brilliant marketing strategy. It's a perfect club sparkling, light, easy to drink, and more important for bartenders, easy to store and easy to open. In a restaurant it's lacking a bit, I kind of like the pomp of the wine opening display, but you usually don't get that when ordering by the glass anyway. I recommend this highly!

Not dead, still drinking

well, shit, this Blogging thing looks like it crapped out on me a bit. Oops. The issue is that every time I start writing Rising Mind like a good little author I stop updating the blog. Also I now work a 9 to 6 job and rarely want to compute when I get home.

These are bad excuses.

I would like to apologize by telling you all to go to 13.5% wine bar. It is wicked awesome, the waiters will snark at you, and the wine is FABULOUS. I had a glass of rose cava that tasted like raspberry-lemon bars, except without any sweetness with a nicoise salad and it was heavenly. BeerSnob got a beer that involved evolution somehow. Survival of the drunkest? I don't know. Also some slow cooked short ribs that tasted like jesus, except he stripped the fat off of them. Dude won't eat fat. Crazy.

Anyway. I'm going to try to get back into the swing of this blag nonsense, provided that my brain doesn't strangle me in the meantime with story arc ideas.

Cazbar and Sparkling Wine!

On Thursday I had the very good luck to go to Cazbar, a delightful Afghani place in Baltimore that I have no idea how to get back to because DesignBroad took Rt. 40 into the city and I never go that way. I'm going to have to figure it out at some point though, because holy crap, what great food. I got these little tender dumplings, covered in yogurt and some kind of spicy sauce and some wicked tasty cigar pastries. Oh god, so delicious. Go there like right now if you live anywhere near Baltimore.

I also got a glass of Peared Champagne, one of Cazbar's signature cocktails. It was recommended to me by the waiter, and was, at 10 dollars, the most expensive drink on that menu. It was a mixture of Champagne and Grey Goose pear vodka, and I think a drop of pear liqueur. Luckily for me, I am pretty sure I can recreate it using delightfully cheap materials!

Last nights dinner was something less epic. Take out Chinese food paired with Gloria Ferrer Sonoma Brut sparkling wine. That's actually a pretty great pairing, the MSG and hot pepper laden General Tso's chicken brings out the tartness of the wine in a way you wouldn't expect, and the happy fizzy bubbles remove some of that sickly sweet aftertaste you get from cheap Chinese.

Also it's just a really nice bottle of wine. Sparkling anything on a Friday night is just delightful, whether it's at a bar or in your own home.

This weekend is a weekend of No Plans, which could be nice or could make me go completely mad. We'll find out which later!

9001 Times Better Than Farmville

It's getting on summertime, and that means Mojitos. But mint is so freaking expensive... how can I enjoy my delightfully refreshing Rum Drinks without breaking the bank on herbs?

PLANT A GARDEN!

But Stark, you may whine. I do not live in a nice area for gardens/I don't want to wreck my lawn with a tiller/I'm about to move out of my house and don't want to leave all my plants behind with my parents! I cannot have a garden for fabulous fresh herbs, fruits, and vegetables!

START A CONTAINER GARDEN AND QUIT BITCHING ABOUT IT!

Of course, if you're like me and broke most of the time, it's good to start small. I was lucky in that we owned all of those pots beforehand, and so didn't break the bank on containment devices. The only container I bought was the horse trough up there that the herbs are in, and that was about 25 bucks from Home Depot. The Garden Center is a dangerous place for me to be, because I LOVE plants even though I know jack about them. The Boyfriend (who helped with the garden and even bought me that lovely basil plant) had to talk me away from acquiring a dwarf peach tree.

But seriously, how awesome would it be to have peaches in an apartment?! SO AWESOME.

Anyway, no fruit trees. Here's what I've got:

 MINT! For mojitos, iced tea, schnapps, deserts, and just chewing on while mowing the lawn!

ROSEMARY! For all of the things one needs rosemary for! Rosemary has this tendency to get HUGE, and will inevitably need to be moved out of the horse trough planter and into its own pot. However, while it is small and happily in sunlight, I'm going to keep it where it is.

CHIVES! Which make a great garnish as well as being a fine ingredient.

BASIL! For PESTO. As well as more PESTO and some extra PESTO and did I mention PESTO?

I guess you could put it in tomato sauce too.

This plant looked kind of sad right after we put it in a pot, but after a brief rain shower this morning he perked up nicely. Probably just some transplanting unhappiness.

TOMATO! Specifically Red Beefsteak Heirloom tomato. I bought it mostly for Mom, and selected this specific variety because "beefsteak" made me giggle. I am kind of a tool. This guy got some recycled potting soil, so we'll see how well he does. It looked like fine, dense soil still, unlike the dusty stuff we found in one of the bags, so I figured he should be okay with it.

Oh yeah. You know what that's about. STRAWBERRIES. Who doesn't love strawberries? Nobody, that's who. I've got two of these babies in pots that are probably a leeetle small for them, but they'll do until I can afford another one of those long horse planters. When they start fruiting I'm going to cover them in bird mesh to avoid avian attacks. Freakin' birds.

And finally: LETTUCE!

LETTUCE!

MOAR LETTUCE!

Good lord that's a lot of lettuce. Romaine is a great salad veg, and it tastes awesome all the time. I don't expect much from the Four-In-A-Pot plants, due to overcrowding and the sub-par potting soil we had to use (ran out of the good stuff). The two in their own pots have already gained half again their original size! What awesome plants!




Now, we'll see whether or not these things survive longer than about a month, which is my standard "oops, forgot to water them!" time frame. Hopefully they will thrive and provide me with delicious fruit, leaves, and herbs for the rest of the summer until I move out!

The Lord is Risen! Now Let's Drink! Hallelujah!

Easter was... epic this year. Truly epic. It was a feast of gigantic proportions, and I am larger for it. Our menu was as follows:

Chili sambal shrimp, made by The Boyfriend
Jalepeno Popper Dip, made by The Smalls
Raw Oysters, served by Dad, The Boyfriend, and Mr. Small
Grilled Foie Gras, made by Dad and Mr. B
Antipasta Salad, made by The Smalls
Grilled/Smoked lamb, Small Potatoes, and Asparagus with Hollandaise, made by Dad
Cheeses selected by Me
Irish Cake Bombs, made by Me.

Oh god. So much food. The Boyfriend is a mighty fine cook, which is part of why I like him so much. Unfortunately, he also has the tendency to say things like "Hey, you know what would taste great with this? CAIPIRINHAS."

A capirinha is a wonderfully refreshing drink made with cachacas, a sort of un-clarified sugarcane rum from Brazil. The recipe on the back of the bottle calls for using raw sugar, but we substituted simple syrup, because we didn't want to spill a crapton of sugar all over the floor. Our recipe was as follows

3-4 pieces of lime
1 measure cachaca
simple syrup
lime wedge garnish
sugarcane juice (optional)

Muddle the lime in a lowball glass. Fill with ice. Add cachaca and syrup. If using it, splash a bit of sugarcane juice in. Stir. Taste. Decide it's too strong and squeeze your garnish into it. Realize that you can no longer taste the alcohol. Drink three. Make a bad decision.

You don't *need* the sugarcane juice, which really just tastes like sweetened hearts of palm, but it adds a really nice green aroma to the drink that makes it especially nice on a hot day. I'd caution against using more than a splash, though, as you want the cachaca flavor to come through too.

After a caipirinha, I had a glass of sparkling Merlot. You heard me right. The Pugliese Vinyards 2003 Sparkling Merlot, hailing from the North Fork of Long Island. It is a deep purple-red sparkling wine, that fizzed up in a way that reminded me of that scene in Fantasia where Bacchus visits the centaurs and gets everyone drunk and wine gets sloshed about pinkly. It was actually pretty good, very different. Sparkling wine is such a pleasure, and when you get something that weird that tastes that good, you've just got to go for it. I recommend it highly.

There were other wines, but I found that after a few handfulls of shrimp, a dozen oysters, a caipirinha and a few flutes of sparkling wine that I could not recall much about any of them. In all honesty though, the rum drinks and sparkling Merlot were the highlights of the alcoholic reverie. I cannot recommend these enough. Seriously, go out and get yourself some cachaca and some limes and make yourself one of these, because it's The Best.

A More Different Rose

Sometimes I drink rose wines that are NOT Marques de Caceres! I know, crazy, right?

To begin with, today is the perfect pink wine day. It's sunny, warm, light breeze... and it's been a miserable ass winter. A month ago our lawn was butt deep in snow. Right now our tulip tree is in bloom and the grass is getting taller than I think I can really conscience, despite my totally reasonable hatred of mowing the lawn.

Work was delightful, just enough tables to make money and keep busy, and all of them disappeared exactly at 2:00. So much win. While resetting the dining room, one of the managers asked me if I wanted to try some tongue.

Now, my first thought was "why Jessica, are you coming on to me?" but I don't say things like that at work, because I'm kind of a goodie-two-shoes when I'm not swearing my head off. I had never eaten beef tongue before, offal just rarely shows up on my table. My other coworkers had refused to eat it, and the fact that I agreed to try it made Chef laugh. "Stark will eat ANYTHING!" It's true. I'll pretty much eat anything he puts in front of me. Except tomatoes. I freaking hate tomatoes.

This was nothing like tomatoes, however. It was sliced very thin and served with a really great gravy and little pickles. The texture is kind of weird, it being a totally different type of muscle than regular type beef. It's grainy and... stretchy. But it tastes like good lunchmeat, and with the tart little pickles it was awesome. I'm down with tongue.

Speaking of offal... I also had the opportunity to taste Chef's faux fois gras. He handed me this bread with stuff on it and said "TRY EET." I really didn't know what else to do. It had the silky texture of foie gras, but there was something... off. It didn't taste livery. It didn't taste like meat. It was also very pale. After I finished he told me that it was Monkfish liver.  Huh. How about that? I really didn't even ever think of Monkfish as having livers, but I guess they'd have to have them. Learn something new every day.

Moving on. After work today I bought a bottle of Mouton Cadet rose. Mouton Cadet is the "affordable" wing of Baron de Rothschild wineries, the oldest brand name in wine. I really love Bordeauxs, apparently. Red, white, or pink, they're all delicious. Normally these bottles retail for somewhere between 13 and 15 bucks, which make them a great wine for the broke-ass wine drinker. The rose has a really lovely sweet raspberry nose, and when it hits the tongue it's like a squeeze of fresh lemon juice. It mellows into a light, early summer fresh berry taste that makes it a perfect wine to sip on a warm day. It is quite dry, and not heavily tannic, and is a great idea next time you're at the liquor store.

My boys in the Outback!

No, no I really got nothing to say today, except that you REALLY should check out ANDREW AND WILLIE'S VAN-TASTIC ADVENTURE.

Click HERE and watch Andrew and Willie set off on their excursion from Adelaide to Darwin, all videotaped for  your viewing pleasure.

What? A Job?

I got one of those! Woo! Starting on the 12th of April! WIN!

This makes me especially happy because it lets me have Easter Monday off, so I'll actually be able to hang out with The Boyfriend, who will be coming down for the ANIMAL CRUELTY CELEBRATION.

Why do I call it that? Mostly because we'll be eating foie gras and raw oysters. Personally, I don't think oysters count as animals, but bajillions of taxonomists and biologists disagree with me. Still, what oysters really are, are delicious.

Does that comma look right to you? Grammatically it's correct... but it never looks right to me. Grammatically speaking that ellipsis I just used is also crap, but then again I never claimed to be an English Major.

...wait.

ANYway. Additional Good News is that I saw my cousin's production of RENT down in Charlottesville, VA the other day. Great cast, great voices for everyone. Frankly I have no idea when my cousin developed a singing voice. Apparently he's been doing stuff like this for a long time and I'm just a really terrible family member for not noticing. That's probably accurate.

None of this has anything to do with wine or other bits of alcoholism. That's because I drank so unwisely that I do not properly remember anything I drank over that weekend. I am a moron. Still, I was introduced to a lovely wine bar called Siips (oh yeah, two "i's" is how you know it's good) in the pedestrian zone of C-ville where I had a really great glass of... something. It was French and expensive and tasted like smoke and seaweed. Heavenly. Too bad I don't remember a dang thing about the name, thus making this wine journal thing pretty useless.

St. Patrick's Day, Recipes, Pictures, and an Experience with Fermentation

WOOO ST. PATRICKS DAY KISS ME IM IRISH WOO SHOTS

No, not really. Don't kiss me, I'll hurt you. Also you're not Irish unless it says so on your passport, you nasty drunkard.

I began the day with Bulmer's, because it's delicious. Don't mind the fact that I have no chin, I donated it to help the sober kids in India. The drinking was necessary because I was engaged in making something suspiciously delicious: Irish Cake Bombs.

 Irish Cake Bombs are Guinness cupcakes filled with Jameson ganache and topped with Bailey's frosting. They are also King of Delicious, partially because they are alcoholic, but mostly because it involves nearly an entire pound of butter. Eat your heart out, Paula Deen, but first put a little butter on it. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to hide this behind some sort of cut tag, so just scroll through if you're not interested. Here's the recipe:
___________________________________________
For the Guinness Chocolate Cupcakes
1 cup stout (such as Guinness)
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (preferably Dutch-process)
2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
2/3 cup sour cream

Ganache Filling (Updated to double it, based on many commenters suggestions — thanks!)
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate
2/3 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons butter, room temperature
1 to 2 teaspoons Irish whiskey (optional)

Baileys Frosting (see Recipe Notes)
3 to 4 cups confections sugar
1 stick (1/2 cup or 4 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperatue
3 to 4 tablespoons Baileys (or milk, or heavy cream, or a combination thereof)

Special equipment: 1-inch round cookie cutter or an apple corer and a piping bag (though a plastic bag with the corner snipped off will also work)

Make the cupcakes: Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 24 cupcake cups with liners. Bring 1 cup stout and 1 cup butter to simmer in heavy large saucepan over medium heat. Add cocoa powder and whisk until mixture is smooth. Cool slightly.

Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda, and 3/4 teaspoon salt in large bowl to blend. Using electric mixer, beat eggs and sour cream in another large bowl to blend. Add stout-chocolate mixture to egg mixture and beat just to combine. Add flour mixture and beat briefly on slow speed. Using rubber spatula, fold batter until completely combined. Divide batter among cupcake liners, filling them 2/3 to 3/4 of the way. Bake cake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, rotating them once front to back if your oven bakes unevenly, about 17 minutes. Cool cupcakes on a rack completely.

Make the filling: Chop the chocolate and transfer it to a heatproof bowl. Heat the cream until simmering and pour it over the chocolate. Let it sit for one minute and then stir until smooth. (If this has not sufficiently melted the chocolate, you can return it to a double-boiler to gently melt what remains. 20 seconds in the microwave, watching carefully, will also work.) Add the butter and whiskey (if you’re using it) and stir until combined.

Fill the cupcakes: Let the ganache cool until thick but still soft enough to be piped (the fridge will speed this along but you must stir it every 10 minutes). Meanwhile, using your 1-inch round cookie cutter or an apple corer, cut the centers out of the cooled cupcakes. You want to go most of the way down the cupcake but not cut through the bottom — aim for 2/3 of the way. A slim spoon or grapefruit knife will help you get the center out. Those are your “tasters”. Put the ganache into a piping bag with a wide tip and fill the holes in each cupcake to the top.

Make the frosting: Whip the butter in the bowl of an electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, for several minutes. You want to get it very light and fluffy. Slowly add the powdered sugar, a few tablespoons at a time.
______________________________________________________

Now, I did a silly thing and thought "hurr bittersweet chocolate they don't have that here unsweetened is like the same thing rite hurr." It is not the same thing and I shame the baking gods. There was improvisation and a lot of powdered sugar, but in the end I made an awesome, slightly-too-thick filling. I should have saved some of it to make truffles with, as it probably had enough sugar and chocolate in it to keep from melting... oh well.

Oh yeah baby. That is cupcake porn. Seriously you guys, you have to make these. Don't get scared by the word "ganache," it's just about the easiest damn thing in the world to make (heat milk, pour on chocolate, stir).

I brought these fine offerings to the bar, where they were appreciated by many. It is time for more Embarrassing Pictures of People I Love.

 

There were also plenty of Suspicious Drinks. Such as the standard Green Beer:

And the ever-present Irish Car Bomb. AngryGinger was not pleased with the development of Irish Car Bombs.

PictureTaker McDrunksalot on the other hand was thrilled:

I hate Irish Car Bombs. Can't chug fast enough. Blurgh.

Moving away from the St. Patrick's Day festivities (including the wicked awesome party in Middle Basement), today I had an Experience with Fermentation. You see, At Birthday Ball we filled up a resealable container with orange juice for mixers. We then never used it and I left the box in Captain Class's dorm room. That was a month ago. This morning I opened it in order to wash it out, so that I could put something else delicious in it.

I do  not think I have experienced that level of energy in a fruity beverage before. It exploded like a poorly maneuvered bottle of champagne. If I had not had the sense to point it away from me, I'd be drenched in fizzy orange bits. Holy science, that was unpleasant. At least it doesn't smell like rotting oranges... probably because botulism is odorless... My god.