The moving finger rants

I promised I was going to make the chilli Vesper work and by Eris I've done it. On the third try. The first one didn't count, because I was using tequila. Tonight: success.

Did my research first, and turned up the useful factoid that you can buy quinine powder (although not, apparently, any more from the company linked from the Esquire article), which can be used to requinify Lillet back to a reasonable simulacrum of the 1953 recipe. This I have to try. But not today. Today is for habanero gin.

Yes, habaneros. I know I promised Scotch bonnets last time, but they're significantly harder to buy dried. Habaneros are basically exactly the same thing but from a different part of the world, and spelled differently. They have the same light zinginess and all the tropical fruit pineapple-mango-papaya freshness on the approach. They're also spicy as all fuck, so do not attempt the following unless you habitually gargle Tabasco for fun.

Turns out that the whole problem with buying them dried was completely pointless anyway, because doing it with dried chillies doesn't work. (That was the second failed attempt.) It worked perfectly well with the Arbol chillies in the tequila, but a Vesper requires more subtlety. Buy fresh. Hell, that means you could use Scotch bonnets after all. You can get them in Sainsburys now for cheap.

Utterly fuckin amazing habanero Vesper, I'm not even kidding this drink will eviscerate you with pleasure, you will literally BLEED to death AND YOU WILL THANK ME

• Decant 300ml of gin into a glass container. Glass, because I dread even to speculate what this stuff would do to plastic.
  • I used Colonel Fox's gin, because the balance of flavours would go well with the fruitiness from the chillies, but frankly the chillies are powerful enough that you could use any old antifreeze as long as it's 40%ABV or more.
• Chop two (fresh!) habaneros (or Scotch bonnets, like we discussed) into quarters and drop them in. Screw the bottle up tight.
• Infuse for an hour. Give it a gentle shake half way through.
• Since this drink requires preparation, you have adequate time to a) chill down your martini glass and b) ponder what it is you're about to do to yourself.
• Seriously, NO MORE THAN AN HOUR. Strain out the chillies.
• For the love of God, Mary, Jesus and all the little cherubim and seraphim, label the bottle with the gin in it. It still looks like water and when you wake up tomorrow you're going to be wanting some of that. You might also not be thinking particularly clearly. Preparation saves lives.
• Showtime. Combine in a cocktail shaker:
  • two measures chillified gin;
  • one measure regular, unchillified, gin (no need to get crazy, now);
  • one measure vodka;
  • half a measure Lillet Blanc;
  • dash Peychauds bitters.
• Top up with ice and shake like a motherfucker.
• Double-strain into your suitably chilled martini glass.
• Add a large, thin slice of lime peel. Lime, because it's got chilli in it; also, because I firmly believe that there is no single application of lemon that cannot be immediately, infinitely improved by the substitution of lime.^[0]
• Drink until you can't feel your nipples.
• Don't even think about touching your dick until you've washed your hands twice.

Yes, it's pink. It is so pink in fact that I have a new life goal: one day, I shall run a classy cocktail bar, and when a gaggle of irritating young women come in who've seen Sex And The City too many times^[1] and think they're being sophisticated, I shall serve them one of these garnished with a cherry. It looks exactly like a Cosmo and then I shall laugh and laugh and laugh as they die. Remember, this cocktail started from Bond's recipe, to which I added chillies. This is a man's pink.

Also, it tastes bloody fantastic.

The photo above is photoshopped all to hell because I inadvertently shot it at ISO800; the choices were employing stormsearch for her 'shop expertise or making another one to take another picture of it. If I did that, I'd have to drink it, and there's only so much unadulterated joy that one can experience in a single evening.

While we were in 'shop, she clone-stamped out the rather obvious tandoori sauce stain that was visible on the counter. I wish cleaning the actual counter were that easy.

ObSafetyNote: chillies, so wear safety goggles. (Getting that wrong is a mistake you make exactly once in your life, and I have a permanent note on my medical record to say so.) Also, there is a mild-to-severe risk of botulism from using uncooked chillies: C. Botulinum lives in soil and reproduces anaerobically, so the gin won't kill it. I am still researching methods to alleviate this risk without boiling the chillies in vinegar, which works but makes them taste of vinegar. When I sort that out I'll let you know. Meantime, if I wake up paralyzed tomorrow morning, I want you all to know that it was totally worth it.

You may commence the statue-building now.

The shirt I'm wearing has gone out at the elbows. That's okay, though, because I wear suits these days. Suit jackets cover up a multitude of sins.

I don't even have to iron any more. You can get away with being reasonably shabby as long as you own a suit while doing so.

~

Last night I was beset by terrible dreams about my time in Iraq. That time we were holed up in a massive stone cathedral when the Americans deployed their terrifying new petrification weapon on a bunch of insurgents. The screams. Being invalided home on a commercial airliner. It took me a good few hours after I woke up before I realized: hang on, I never actually served in Iraq. But it made for a very interesting morning at work. You weren't there, man, you couldn't know. You weren't there.

~

I currently have all the influenzas but I am in the process of defeating them with whisky, soup, a steak this thick, the Cure For The Common Cold (Pat. Pending), and more whisky. I have to be well again by 3pm tomorrow or my duty manager doesn't get to go home. And that would be bad.

At the market on Sunday someone was cooking bolognese sauce at the pasta stall. Slow-cooked in red wine, she said, offering me a taste. I don't taste stuff at markets unless there's a vague chance I'm going to buy something, which is a bizarre new rule of etiquette that I seem to have adopted for myself, and I had no cash that day. But the smell was enough. I wanted bolognese.

I research these things, I'm thorough. Read a bunch of recipes and then deliberately ignored all of them. The vast majority of bolognese recipes, I am still astounded to note, don't specify red wine. Many of them insist on white wine, but I don't care what Dr B says, this is a bolognese and it's having red wine in it. To do else would be madness.

Celery is another one of those things. Apparently you need celery to make a soffrito. I've never eaten celery and I'm not about to start now. I did consider buying some today, but I'm not about to buy a gigantic pack of the stuff in order to add a tiny amount of it to a soffrito. Until celery is available in individual sticks I shall remain unabashedly free of its pernicious apiceatic influence.

So. Read a bunch of recipes, ignored all of them. Ended up with this:

And lo, it was delicious.

(There was also whisky, which it's possible you may determine from the content of this post.)

Tomorrow: minced-meat pies. Rowr.

So this is me walking through Newington on my way between the organic food market and the artisan vintners & victuallers, carrying my organic jute tote bag—emblazoned with the logo of the local specialist American/Mexican delicatessen—currently stuffed with Polish honey-flavoured Wódka Żołądkowa Gorzka and copious quantities of sopocka. Carefree I stroll along, my second-best girl at my side and my mind on a double mocha latte with three sugars, when a mad bearded Scotsman runs up, addresses me by name and thrusts a script into my hand.

This happens more often than you might think.

To be strictly accurate: it was a mad bearded Scotsman with whom I'd already worked a few times, and he took my email address so he could send me a script. He'd just been running a casting session and had apparently had a poor turnout. By the time I got home, his production assistant had emailed the script across.

If I were to attempt a summary of this script in one line of dialogue, it would go something like this:

COME WITH ME IF YOU WANT TO LIVE, likesay ken ya wee dos radge, Grasshopper.

It's brilliant. I would be an idiot to turn this gig down, despite the fact that I can't do the accent he wants. I've got a better idea for the accent. This is going to be awesome.

A good day.

I have to cancel the bwiefing. I can't even say bwiefing.

(ObLink: Awesome CJ is awesome.

Wasn't as bad as I thought, actually. Mouth full of blood and iodine. Not allowed any booze until tomorrow, but that's okay, because my entire mouth tastes like a rather interesting single Islay malt.

Now bring me the iced cream.

Chocolate and peanut butter.

Have ever two diverse flavours been so deliciously juxtaposed? Apart from maybe beef and cheese. Or bacon and maple syrup. It would seem that this is something the Yanks do really well: putting together two things that, on paper, should become an abomination unto all the laws of god and man, only to discover: dude, this is awesome.

Actually, it transpires that there is one thing better yet than even chocolate and peanut butter. Chocolate and peanut butter and bourbon. In a milkshake.

It's like everything that is good about America in a cup. It's the Liquid of the Free and the Hooch of the Brave.

In addition, and this point may be vital to full enjoyment of such a beverage: it looks like regular milkshake, and thus can be drunk at work.

I have been doing some experimentation, and my first conclusion is this: before you do anything else, before you even finish reading this post, go and buy chocolate syrup. I know you have drinking-chocolate powder in the cupboard. It is insufficient. If you don't have the finest American-themed grocery in the land just around the corner from you, and I'm guessing that most of you don't, then you can get it online.

The best goddamn milkshake in the universe, I'm not even joking

• Four or five scoops of vanilla iced cream.
• About a shot of chocolate syrup. If you've run out of chocolate syrup, three teaspoons of drinking chocolate forms a barely-acceptable substitute, but seriously, go and get some chocolate syrup.
• One shot of milk. That's if the iced cream is sufficiently soft. If the iced cream came directly from the freezer, use two shots of milk.
• Blend into a brown-ish paste. (Tip: pulse the blender. If you let the blender run, all the iced cream piles up on the sides and it won't get blent. Pulsing gives it chance to collapse down into the middle again.)
• Pour a little over half into a glass and give it to your peanut-allergic girlfriend. If you don't have a peanut-allergic girlfriend, you can probably order one online.
• Add a shot of bourbon and a level teaspoon of peanut butter. Smooth peanut butter, for Cthulhu's sake. And be careful with the amount. Ever tried eating peanut butter off the spoon?... you don't want that. Be stingy.
• Blend until it is blent. Then blend a bit more for luck. Peanut butter has a tendency to form hidden lumps.
• If you can control yourself, pour into a glass and enjoy. If not, drink it straight out of the blender. Nobody's watching, I promise.

Best served with a straw and a rousing chorus of something from Assassins.

I don't do Christmas. I don't. But if we must have Christmas specials, let's have them be like that one.

In summary, then: EEEEEeeeeeEEEEEEE.

~

I totally owned this pheasant that I roasted today. I was expecting problems, but there weren't any. Pheasant is supposed to be a difficult bird—dry, traditionally—but this was the moistest, most delicious pheasant that you lot have never eaten. Not bad for a first try.

That's right, I'm cooking pheasant now. Pheasants. Are. Cool.

Last night a well-known Edinburgh bistro reopened as a tapas-style Scottish restaurant. I was invited along for free food and booze.

Tapas has become a big thing lately. Spanish restaurants started it, then the Indian places and, later, the Chinese places started moving in. I think the business case is that you can serve tiny portions for almost the same price as a regular main course, and get everybody to order six of them. So in this case they're doing a Scottish menu, local ingredients, all done as small portions for sharing.

For the Grand Reopeningapalooza, all the portion sizes were reduced further to canapé-scale, usually served on spoons, as a sort of tasting menu. You got one mouthful, went oh or eh or occasionally even bleh but more usually oh or even ooh!, and then waited twenty minutes for the next mouthful to come round. In the meantime, the drinks were flowing. They had a good selection of Scottish ales and ciders—none of which I bothered trying since I already know them all very well—and a very competent bartender selling local-ingredient cocktails. Example: there was a Tom Collins on the menu made with Scottish (Hendrick's) gin. They call it a Tam Collins.

On booze and bragging rights

The special cocktails of the day were a local daiquiri and some kind of rhubarb martini. Both looked fascinathing, but I pride myself on my daiquiris, so out of professional interest I'm going for one of those first.

Waitress: It's made with apple juice from the local farm.
Yr. corresp.: Which local farm? Belhaven, Laprig...?
Waitress: ...um. It's a nice man called Peter.
Yr. corresp.: Oh, that's Belhaven Fruit Farm.

Turns out actually it's Thistly Cross, which is associated with Belhaven Fruit Farm but not actually the same thing, but I knew what I meant. I was at least correct enough to impress the shit out of the waitress, which is what counts.

On shellfish and squeamishness

The first course came round on individual spoons, and the waitstaff were very careful to ask do you eat black pudding? Of course I eat black pudding. Black pudding is delicious. The second course was oysters. Nobody asked if I eat ciliated bivalves. Jehane demurred, but I subscribe to the except-sodomy-and-Morris-Dancing principle of trying things once.

Based on extensive research, then, this is what oysters are like.

You're presented with a grey, fleshy, mucosal mass wallowing in a pearlescent shell. Drizzle over it the red wine and onion sauce and squeeze over it the wedge of lemon. The lemon juice will squirt skywards first, making a desperate bid for your eye: this is a natural law, like gravity but in reverse. Turn the lemon around and try again.

Raise the shell to your mouth and try not to think too hard about what you're doing. Down the hatch.

The oyster will remain stubbornly in the shell and you'll get a mouthful of red wine (which I can't drink), onion (which I loathe), and lemon juice (which nobody drinks). Quickly, now—because every moment gives you more time to think twice about what you're going to put in your mouth—poke the mollusc a bit until it comes free. Swig. Oh, God, it's huge and you have to chew! It's got the consistency of chunky snot and it tastes of onion and the fishy smell you get at the end of a dilapidated pier. Swallow as soon as possible. Resolve never to do that again.

Spend the next 24 hours with a debilitating migraine. Once you've regained the power of sight, spend another hour reading up on Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning.

Oysters, it would appear, aren't really my thing. Fortunately there was a fantastic rhubarb-and-ginger martini on hand to take the taste away and to take my mind off it.

(Apparently drinking vodka with oysters isn't a good idea, even if it is Blackwoods (Scottish!), but it was an emergency.)

On selective hearing and second helpings

I wave the waiter away when he comes round with a tray of something we've had before: a breadcrumbed bauble nestled on a bed of tomatoey stuff, which I remember being delicious. Alas, we're tasting canapés, not pigging out at the restaurant's expense. Nonetheless, a mouthful every ten minutes isn't exactly providing me with adequate sustenance—especially not with all these cocktails.

J stops the waiter and asks what it is, then takes two.

J: We haven't had the lemon sole yet.
I: He said lamb rissole.

Oh well. Bonus food!

Afterwards, we went out for quesadillas, because we were still hungry. All in all, a fantastic evening, modulo the minor shellfish poisoning. I'm told it's only rarely fatal.

The consensus in the comments on my epic coffee post seems to be that I take more sugar than is considered usual. This is probably true: I have an inordinately sweet tooth. Comes of bringing oneself up.

Still not sure that constitutes epic though. A coffee constitutes 3% of my average weekly expenditure (quoth the Spreadsheet), and I'm damned if I'm not going to get it made the way I want it.

The foregoing is presented by way of a somewhat clumsy segue into a discussion of my fat intake. There will be pictures, but not those sorts of pictures, so it's okay.

The other weekend, stormsearch and I went to Berwick for a Special Farmers' Market, organized between the people at Piperfield (who make awesome pork products that I can't afford) and the Slow Food people (who have an annual subscription roughly equivalent to three months' bacon budget; I prefer to practise slow food rather than be a member of a club that simply says I do). It was basically like the Farmers' Market, but in another country.

Next time, I might even do something other than pork.

Large mocha please, full fat milk, four sugars.

Every Saturday morning it's the same order, to the extent that I don't even have to make the order now, because the staff at the coffee stall know me. I just have to walk up to the counter and say, yes please.

I always remember yours, they tell me, because it's so unusual. What? It's a coffee. They have mocha there on the menu. They ask me how many sugars I want and I tell them. They ask me what kind of milk I want, and I tell them that, too. They ask me if I want sprinkles. I tell them nutmeg. How is this special? Specifically, how is this special to a girl (or a boy) who makes coffee all day?

There was a different girl on the stall today. Large mocha please, full fat milk, four sugars. I felt like pushing the boat out a bit today, and got amaretto syrup. She said: That's an epic coffee. Epic? Really?

(Sidenote: quotation from an unrelated message board in reference to Kamikaze Cookery—I'm gonna be Paul for Halloween. He's pretty epic. You're damn right I put that on my CV.)

Later on, after pig sammich, I felt like having another. A smaller one this time. Regular size, no syrup. I admire your fortitude, quoth Coffee Girl, so much caffeine this early. Really? Nobody else has ever had two coffees before two pm?

Or am I simply the only one who's ever ordered a coffee while wearing a big black cloak?