J’ai jeté dans le noble feu
Que je transporte et que j’adore
De vives mains et même feu
Ce Passé ces têtes de morts
Flamme je fais ce que tu veux
I have cast into the noble fire
Which I convey and which I worship
Hands that are living and even dead
This Past these death’s heads
Flame I do what you wish
I’ve had an interest in brewing, fermentation, and distillation for a while now. My experience with the subject began a few years ago when I experimented with making mead, a fermented honey-wine, since then I’ve made a few more batches, each one better than the last. With each new experiment I can learn more about the way the process works, and refine my technique so as to make the product a little bit better each time.
Recently I’ve started two batches of liqueur starter: one is an herb based liqueur much like the French Chartreuse, made from herbs soaked in grain alcohol. The herbs I’m using are lemon balm (or melissa in French) hyssop, star anise, coriander, mace, cinnamon, fennel, and sweet basil, the grain alchohol is Gem Clear.
The second batch I’ve started is for Creme de Menthe which is basically a few hand-fulls of mint leaves left to soak in vodka.
Both of these starters are left to blend for two weeks then mixed with simple syrup and water and left for another few days before straining and bottling. The entire process is a simple one, and I hope to complicate it one day by distilling my own spirits to add to the mix.
Ta-ta for now,
Brandon
Last night was my night to cook dinner, which is normally a happy time for me but this week I was a little sad because I couldn’t afford to go out and buy a bunch of yummy ingredients as I hadn’t been payed yet.
So, after discovering a pre-made pie-crust in the freezer, I decided to make quiche, which is really just leftover bits of veggies and egg plopped into a crust. I decided to use the mushrooms leftover from mushroom marinara the other night, caramelized in a bit of butter then deglazed with whiskey. This went on the bottom of the crust, with the egg and heavy cream on top.
After 35 minutes the quiche was a puffy and wonderful testament to my “cooking yummy food while being poor” skills. It turned into a lovely dinner with the addition of herb roasted potatoes and a lemon-whiskey sauce to go on top.
Ta-ta for now me lovely quiches,
Brandon
Life is pretty miserable when it’s too hot to travel anywhere. Frown.
For as long as I can remember I’ve loved cabbage, well, my dad’s cabbage. He cuts up the leafy green and sautees it in butter. This is really the only way I like it to be prepared, I’ve never had boiled cabbage but I imagine it would be mushy and gross.
I had a couple friends of mine over the other night for dinner. I was planning on cooking herb roasted potatoes, cabbage, and soda bread (a nice Irish meal, well, minus the potatoes which are a new world crop only introduced to Ireland in the 17th century, an Irish meal for Lammas day). When I told my friend David what I was going to be cooking he gave me a funny look, “Cabbage?” He said.
“Yeah, what about it?” I replied.
“I don’t really like cabbage.”
“Well, you probably haven’t had any good cabbage.”
Yes, I admit that this is a bold statement but it’s still one that I stand by. I’ve met several professed cabbage-haters who after tasting the way I cook the leaf have become cabbage converts, so, I have reason to back up this claim.
So David agreed to at least try my cabbage and that night at dinner he did, AND HE LOVED IT. Another point in my favor as yummy cabbage cooker. The key is not overcooking cabbage, the longer you cook it the more it starts to resemble phlegm.
Ta-ta for now cabbage eaters,
Brandon
Last night’s dinner was a success in some ways and a bit of a disappointment in others. First off, I made a wonderful mushroom marinara served over angel-hair pasta. Basically I caramelized onions in a little olive oil (I would have used butter but we were having vegan dinner guests, grr vegans), and once they were starting to turn brown I added the chopped mushrooms (I just used button but any firm mushroom would work) basil, garlic, and thyme and let the whole mess cook down for another 20 minutes or so. I ended this stage of the cooking by deglazing the pan with some red port wine. After this I added chopped tomatoes and a little boiling water and let it simmer covered for about 30 minutes and uncovered for another 20 or until most of the water had cooked out.
The pasta was quite amazing, or at least I thought so. That’s one of the great worries I have with cooking; that I’m going to like the food and no one else will. But in this case I think everyone else enjoyed it as well. Served with the pasta was homemade bread (also made with oil instead of butter, sigh) and a grilled salad that I attempted for the first time. One of my roommates decided to make the salad for the meal, prior to leaving for work she had cooked what looked like caramelized red onions with red wine vinegar. I walked out of my room at one point and was met with such an amazing smell that I almost swooned, yes, swooned! I thought to myself, “I don’t know what she’s cooking but I love it already.” As it turns out she was cooking this onion topping for the salad. So all I really had to do was grill the halved romaine head, um, grill? Yes, grill. So this is a new one for me! I heated up the grill pan on the stove, threw the two romaine halves on the surface and waited. All I accomplished was wilting (and slightly charring) a head of lettuce. Sigh. As it turns out my roommate had left instructions for me, but I failed to see them. I might have worked better if I had brushed the lettuce with olive oil like she had mentioned. Oh well, with the onion topping, balsamic dressing, feta, and homemade croutons, it was still a wonderful salad.
Our dinner guests had offered to bring dessert which I was very glad about because I always forget to make anything, then I’m left after the meal craving something sweet and usually just end up stuffing my face with another piece of bread or something. But this time we had dessert! One of our guests is a baker, and so he provided a lovely tray of baklava, like, um, 30 pieces of homemade baklava for 5 people. It was buttery sweet heaven.
In all it was a wonderful evening, there’s nothing better than good food and great company to make one sit in a big comfy chair with a cat and say “Ahhh”.
Ta-ta for now,
Brandon
I’m still recovering from our food group (CPG) meeting last night. The theme was a midsummer feast (not quite on the midsummer but I’ll let it go) consisting of 10 courses, and by the end of the meal at about 11ish I was ready to curl up and die, happily that is, as I had just eaten my own body weight in delicious and varied foods.
Hey ya’ll, enjoy reading the rantings of a crazy person? Well you should follow my newly created blog Satre’s Supple Teat for your daily dose of foul mouthed philosophical nonsense n’ shit.
Ta-ta,
Brandon
Wendell Berry is perhaps my favorite poet slash essayist slash economic critic slash farmer, his poems reflect the same sort of ideal that I have, that working the land is good for the spirit and can serve as a great source of poetic inspiration. A favorite poem of his is called “Prayer after Eating.” For me it invokes mindfulness, being aware of the world around, most especially while cooking and eating. Both activities are nourishment for the body and spirit and are the few daily rituals that I still hold in high importance in my life.
Prayer After Eating
I have taken in the light
that quickened eye and leaf.
May my brain be bright with praise
or what I eat, in the brief blaze
of motion and of thought.
May I be worthy of my meat.
Ta-ta for now,
Brandon
Today is Thursday, which means that tonight le Club des Plaisirs Gourmands is meeting! CPG, as we call it, is the food group I started last year to basically force myself to cook something good at least once a week. I’m a lot better these days about cooking and I have CPG to thank for that.
Anyway, I’ll write up a post about CPG another time, but for now let’s talk about what’s for dinner. The theme tonight is pub food, amazing right? There are these moments in life where one can foresee something good coming and welcomes it with open arms, this is one of those times. I’m making one of my favorite foods of all time, fish n’ chips. I’ll be providing the beer battered swai (look it up fool), and my friend and roomie Marisa will be making the homemade chips, yum yum.
With other dishes to include maple-bacon chex mix, curried chicken nachos, and chocolate/beer pudding, this should prove to be quite the amazing evening.
Ta-ta for now,
Brandon
