Eeyore's Requiem

Toby Maloney's ode to the donkey with the blues is one of my favorite drinks. Pleasantly bitter, just like it's namesake, with Cynar tying in the thistles he loves (as long as they're not broken). The recipe I had when I first tried this called for 2 oz Campari and no gin but all of the more recent versions I've seen are as below. It's tasty either way in my opinion.



1 1/2 oz Campari
1 oz Martini Bianco vermouth (the recipe calls for Dolin but that's not available where I live)
1/2 oz Tanqueray gin
1/2 oz Cynar
1/4 oz Fernet Branca
15 drops orange bitters (I used Twisted & Bitter)

Stir with ice, strain into glass, twist 3 pieces orange peel over glass.

Nelson's Blood

The recipe...

2 oz dark rum
1/4 lemon, squeezed
1/4 orange, squeezed
1/4 oz lemon juice
1/4 oz blood orange juice
1/4 oz brandy
1/4 oz falernum
2 oz ginger beer


What I did...

2 oz Doorly's XO rum
3/4 oz blood orange juice
1/2 oz lemon juice
1/4 oz E&J VSOP brandy
1/4 oz falernum
2 oz ginger beer

So basically I just went with all blood orange, which isn't specified in the recipe, because that made more sense to me than squeezing a little juice out of two oranges. Correct or not, it was tasty.

MxMo LXIV February 20, 2012: Tiki!

This is my first time participating in an MxMo event but I've followed many of them and I hope it won't be my last time joining in. This month's round is brought to us by Doug Winship at the Pegu blog and the theme is tiki.

"Cracking Jenny's teacup" is said to be pirate-speak for a night spent in a house of ill repute. True or not, it's easy to imagine it being tossed about on the boat after a night ashore... so I went with it. This is my first serious attempt at creating a drink so I hope I haven't angered the tiki gods or (perhaps worse) the tiki faithful. I suspect the tea aspect may be taking liberties so toss me in the volcano bowl to appease them if necessary.



Crackin' Jenny's Teacup

1 oz Kraken Black Spiced rum
1 oz Appleton Estate Extra rum
3/4 oz lime juice
3/4 oz tea syrup (1:1 strong black tea and sugar)
1/2 oz pineapple juice
1/4 oz ginger syrup (1:1 syrup infused with fresh ginger)
1 dash roasted pineapple bitters
1 dash chai tea bitters

Shake with ice, strain over crushed ice.

The roasted pineapple and chai tea bitters are from the Canadian company House Made. A cottage business and I don't know if they're interested in growing larger but the bitters are really nice. I used them mainly to reinforce the pineapple and tea in the drink and to enhance the spice notes from the Kraken. Also, as is evident in the picture, I have a lot to learn about garnish but I had fun and enjoyed the result.

Anyway, if you try it, or even if you don't, let me know what you think. I have a lot to learn about creating drinks and feedback from those who know what they're doing is one of the best tools I can think of for helping with that.

Wake up time.

I admit it, I'm a horrible blogger. I put this blog to bed a long time ago due to lack of content and updates. I'll go ahead and state for the record that that's probably not going to change much. The posts will probably be few and far between and very unlikely to be seen by anybody. That's okay, I can live with that.

The truth is, sometimes I need this as a vehicle for other things I want to do. Participating in online food and, hopefully for the future, drink challenges is something I enjoy. Those challenges usually require some way of providing access to what you do to those who are participating and this blog is a way of providing that access. There will almost certainly be posts not related to online challenges when there's something I want to share but they are not likely to appear often enough to sustain any sort of interest.

In case this sounds like I'm saying "get off my lawn", I'm not. I enjoy the world of sharing made possible by the internet. I just don't want to give any false impressions that this is ever going to be a fountain of entertainment. That said, glad you stopped by...

A new interest...

Cocktails have never really been my thing. Maybe the occasional gin and tonic or bourbon and coke on a night out but that's about it. I don't drink much to begin with and when I do it's usually beer. For some reason I began browsing the cocktail-related discussions on eGullet and something occured to me. Cocktails are an excellent lesson in balancing tastes and combining flavors because there's nothing to hide behind. There are also some cool techniques being used by modern bartenders (mixologists if you insist) that, once I learned about, I had to try. It appeals to my need-to-learn. That little corner of curiosity that keeps me in the kitchen half the night when I should be sleeping after hearing about some cool new cooking technique. This particular cocktail involves a couple of techniques (infusion and fat washing) to produce Don Lee's twist on the classic rum and coke... The Cinema Highball.


butter and popcorn infused rum - coca cola

Royal Foodie Joust: Fish, Nutmeg and Coconut

Another really cool Royal Foodie Joust hosted by the Leftover Queen blog. I missed a couple rounds, the deadlines came and went faster than I realized, but I managed to get this one done a whole day early. I didn't shoot for unique (I think Rob already cornered that category with his really cool entry) or particularly modern this time. It's dedicated to the cuisine of Jamaica and I stayed pretty much traditional with the ingredients and cooking methods with only a few minor changes to allow for the challenge ingredients and what is available locally this time of year.


escovitch cod - coconut milk rundown - green banana porridge - pickled red onion - nutmeg

TGRWT #20: Pumpkin and Cooked Chicken

pumpkin noodles - fried chicken - walnut sauce - parsley puree - olive oil

This months TGRWT (they go really well together), hosted by Docsconz, is pumpkin and cooked chicken. Cooked chicken, in this case, refers to chicken cooked any way other than roasting. I don't have actual recipes to share for this round because I was running late on getting my entry together and was pretty much winging it. The noodles are roasted pumpkin puree, water, a little sugar, salt, pepper, cayenne and agar. The chicken was simply cut into cubes, brined, very lightly breaded and pan fried in a little olive oil. The walnut sauce is chicken stock, toasted walnuts, toasted bread, roasted garlic and pecorino romano that was pureed, sieved, seasoned with walnut oil, salt and pepper then thickened with ultratex. Parsley puree and olive oil are pretty much self-explanatory. The goal was to get all of the components of a traditional pasta noci on the plate with the pumpkin and chicken. I enjoyed the combination and may even take the time to refine this dish a bit for future use. Mainly by making actual pumpkin pasta rather than the agar noodles. They were really pure in flavor which was appropriate for the purposes of this challenge, keeping the key ingredients forward, but I missed the texture of a traditional noodle.