So I lit my kitchen on fire..

So I lit my kitchen on fire. 

I hadn’t cooked at home in a while and I felt like it was time to perform one of those activities that used to make me feel healthy and happy. For many reasons, I just stopped doing a lot of those. I went and bought fresh clams, parsley, and a new bottle of olive oil. I boiled some water and cooked my pasta al dente and then put my 1/2 cup of olive oil in a saucepan to heat up before I added my garlic and shallots. All was prepped and I thought I would give it some time so I put a few socks away and then came back to a smoky kitchen and a pan of olive oil that then right on cue, burst into flames.

Apparently, I had missed the class that tells you not to put water on a grease fire so I watched flames leap up over my sink and up to the ceiling. I proceeded to run through my kitchen to the front door of my apartment sloshing hot flaming oil all over my carpet. Don’t ask me what I thought I was doing. Apparently, my mind was detached from my body and I thought that if I made it outside, it would all go away. I did make it to my front door and it all did miraculously go away. I don’t know how or why but I won’t ask the gods about that.

The next thing I remember is standing outside on my balcony looking into my screen door at a smoked out apartment. With the sound of the fire alarm in the background, I held my burnt pan in my one burnt hand and my phone in the other breathing heavily for what seemed like twenty minutes.

At this point, I couldn’t even walk into my apartment without some minor suffocation so I made sure that nothing was slowly burning and all fire was out, I put the pan slowly back on a non-lit burner and grabbed my bag and left to go find dinner.

This would be a scene for anyone. For me, this was it. This was the final punch in the face after three months or maybe more of dealing with silly financial struggles, writer’s block, break-ups of all kinds, professional fall-outs, job adjustments, and health scares. I had this fantastic idea that I would cook an amazing meal on my night off and it would help me to climb out of this hole I felt I was in. Then, someone just took a match, lit it, and threw it down there in that hole with me.

Since then, I've cleaned up my oil-laden walls and floors, I’ve gotten out of town to be taken care of by my parents, and spent time with amazing and supportive friends. I feel a bit more rational, a lot less crazy, and slowly but surely, reemerging out on the other side.. and writing about it.

My stubborn personality gave me the determination to try these damn linguine and clams again. I remade it for the sole purpose of proving to myself that I could-igniting a different sort of fire. 

Ingredients
1 pound dried linguine
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 shallots, thinly sliced
5-7 cloves of garlic, chopped
2 pounds Littleneck clams, scrubbed
1/2 cup fresh parsley, chopped
1/2 cup dry white wine
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cubed
Sea salt and fresh ground pepper
1 lemon, zested, for garnish

Directions
In a large pot, bring to a boil 6 quarts of salted water. Add pasta, stirring constantly in the beginning to prevent it from sticking together. Cook until al dente, about 8 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a large saute pan. When almost smoking, add shallots and garlic and saute until soft and translucent, about 3 to 4 minutes, being careful not to burn the garlic. Add the clams and wine. Cover and simmer for 6 to 8 minutes or until most clams have opened.

Add 2 tablespoons chopped parsley. Whisk in butter to thicken sauce slightly.

Drain pasta in a colander. Place pasta into the clam saute pan and mix thoroughly. Check seasoning.

Pour pasta into large serving bowl. Zest lemon over the dish. Garnish with remaining parsley. Serve immediately.

adapted from Giada DeLaurentiis

So You Want To Be a Bartender?

I’ve been missing in action for a lot longer than I wanted to be because I’ve been head down into my job juggle. I recently left my job as a spirits representative in order to cut more teeth on the other side of the bar. I found that I’d rather be using spirits than selling them and I’ve been waiting for the dust to settle. I’ve been bartending a bit at a few places around town and I can tell you that bartending is not just some gig that you can decide to take one day and prosper. If that’s what you really think it is, here are my warnings to you:

1. You will bruise--above the knees where your rail is located and on the palm of your hand if you haven’t learned a proper way to pop a shaker (or you continue to put them on too tight). 

2. You will wake up in the morning (I mean afternoon) wondering where your morning went. You will also go to get up and realize you can’t move your biceps or thighs.

3. You’ll have more appreciation for evolution and your opposable thumbs. They hurt especially on small hands when wrapped around Boston shakers. 

4. You better learn your difference between a French 75, 76, and 77. Your classic cocktail repertoire better consist of an Aviation, Blood & Sand, Last Word, Vieux Carre, and a Sazerac. If you don’t know what an Old Fashioned is and a proper one at that, you should probably think about doing something else. Oh and yes you’ll be asked for a Mojito or Cosmopolitan on the regular but it’s totally okay if you never remember those recipes.

5. Learn how to like Fernet and beer and learn how to hold it. Two items that I would never have ordered at a bar but you will be offered multiple Fernet shots and sometimes it serves the same purpose as a coffee so you won’t deny it. You also better like beer because you sure as hell will want a drink when you’re done and it sure as hell won’t be wine or a cocktail. 

6. Learn how to survive on cold food and snacks but if you don’t even have that, learn how to survive on Fernet and beer. 

7. Ladies, manicured nails are done forever. Don’t wear tube tops because reaching for tall glassware causes for inappropriate mishaps. Don’t wear white-you will ruin your favorite lace, white top when you accidentally spray yourself with Peychaud’s mist and not your cocktail. 

8. Also ladies, if you’re offended by sexual innuendos or conversations about women’s panties or even the possibility of witnessing blatant pornography through a gap in a wooden fence on the patio of the bar you work in (thank you East 6th street), this might not be the job for you.

On a more serious note, I’m a lucky girl to be surrounded by bartenders who are happy and doing a job they love for a living, who devote themselves to creativity and authenticity, and don’t really care what those around them have to say about their choice to live an alternative lifestyle. I appreciate their dedication to bringing people an experience and I’m happy to be surrounded by my people.

Weather Up Tribeca

I lived in New York for six years and cannot think of a time I spent in Tribeca. I had no reason to. I lived on the Upper West Side and then Brooklyn, spent a lot of late nights out in the East or West Village, a lot of working on the Upper East Side and well, a lot of shopping and eating in between. I did go to a lot of movies in the quiet theatre of Battery Park and well, Tribeca just got lost. My one memory of Tribeca was a long walk from the Financial District to a diner on West 8th and I ran into people I knew standing outside at a bar there and preceded to smoke with said company on the stoop.

Now two years later, I’m walking from the West Village to Tribeca to purposely find an unassuming bar off of West Broadway. I’m looking for Weather Up, the offshoot of the Prospect Heights-located bar opened up by Kathryn Weatherup. For a Friday night, it’s not crowded. Signage doesn’t exist and when you’re this tucked away in Tribeca, this is certainly speakeasy style. You have to know where you’re going in order to get here. There’s no elbowing, pushing, or fighting for a bartender’s attention. The host greets you at the door and gets you your booth for five within fifteen minutes. The staff is approachable and sweet but can obviously handle their bar crowd and did I mention extremely good-looking?

The back bar is admirable and I’m mesmerized by the cracking of large cubes of ice and the tiny girl in their prep corner spot cutting fresh mint at 8:30pm on a Friday. The interior is made to look the inside of a subway station but the ambiance is far from cold. I’m taking a token of singed hair with me from their well-placed bar candles. Words of advice: it’s not poetic to admire an ice program while your hair’s on fire.

Weather Up pays homage to pre-prohibition and does it without taking any shortcuts. What this place does is take classic recipes, most a little lesser known, with quality ingredients and handles them with care. Recipes are measured, products bought are well-made, and the most admired ice doesn’t bruise the final product. It enhances it with clear color and perfect shape.

Weather Up is known for its intense ice program using a Clinebell machine that produces 300 pound slabs of ice every three to four days. The bar then has someone in the basement chiseling away for the final product.

barbados swizzle- gosling rum, lime, simple syrup, angostura bitters

I don’t know about you but it was exciting to see what they did in Tribeca and Brooklyn. I’m just as excited and curious to see what they can do here in Austin and how these New Yorkers will be received when they open up in just a short time.

Absinthe

There has undoubtedly been a resurgence in eating weird and bizarre foods. Everyone that has dreamed of world tours alongside Andrew Zimmern and Anthony Bourdain wants to be able to eat pig intestine, duck embryos, and cow’s blood without a wince. I applaud your adventurous nature while I skate the line myself between sparing my own gag reflex and preaching my own sentiment by being as fearless an eater as possible.

Why are these types of foods considered so out there? Why do we have aversions to these in the first place? Taste aversion or having a simple association between a certain food and one singular nauseous experience is circumstantial. It’s not a fear. Is it just simply stepping out of our comfort zones? Why is it the same with alcohol? We have aversions but why are we simply afraid of certain spirits? Why does absinthe get a “bizarre” spirit reputation?

We are just as likely to get sick from an E. Coli breakout in spinach than we are a grasshopper. We’re just as likely to get the same drunk hangover from too many navy-strength rums or gin than we are absinthe. Is it merely the society we live in? Possibly. With so much of today’s society obsessed with the idea of a counterculture or this adventurous foodie syndrome, why are drinks taking a back burner? Why do we dive right into beef tongue and brains while absinthe still gets drunk in bar spoons, dashes, and in a general fear of the green fairy?

The original absinthe recipe was based on green anise and fennel flavors and used for medicinal purposes. This was done very similarly to juniper concoctions that eventually translated into our contemporary genevers and gins. In the middle of the 1800’s, French troops were given absinthe to subside malaria poisoning and then brought the taste for it back to their home country. It was drunk by all classes as it proved to be a cheap spirit and at one point, more liters were drunk than wine in France. Absinthe was in popular culture to be the drink of choice to bohemians and artists including Edgar Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, and most famously, Ernest Hemingway. Absinthe eventually made its way to the US and gained a place in its own Belle Epoque in the city of New Orleans. This time period famously instituted The Old Absinthe House and the classic cocktail, the Sazerac.

rye whiskey, peychaud's bitters, sugar cube, absinthe or herbsaint.

Where did all these bans and bad raps come from? Similar to prohibition in the U.S. in the 1920’s, Europe found their own temperance movements taking form at the end of the 1800’s where radical conservatives outcried against drunken debauchery. Hallucinogenic portrayals of the drink in art as well as certain scientific studies on rats perpetuated the arguments. In a scientific study, it was concluded that wormwood, a major ingredient in absinthe, had a chemical called thujone and when ingested in large amounts caused absinthe’s undesired effects. The tipping point occurred when a Swiss farmer named Jean Lafray murdered his wife and two children in 1905 after a heavy day of drinking. Although seven glasses of wine, six glasses of cognac, two glasses of creme de menthe, and two coffees laced with brandy were involved, the two glasses of absinthe got the blame. What ensued were formal petitions and the banning of absinthe in Switzerland and then the other European countries followed suit.

In 1912, the US banned any import of absinthe and close to 100 years later lifted the ban in 2007 to allow the distillation and import of absinthe. The FDA will only allow absinthes with a thujone level of 10 mg/kg or lower but it allows some lenience for a lot of imported absinthes.

Officially, the ban has been lifted and we can now import another interesting and bizarre spirit to the market but how do you lift the certain stigma it’s carried?

Luckily for us, we have dedicated scientists and fellow spirits nerds searching for what all the fuss used to be about. People like Ted Breaux who have used their knowledge of science and spirits have compared older obscure absinthes to the kinds that tainted absinthe’s reputation. There were many laced with chemical tastes and the others were full, well-crafted, herbal, and balanced. Nowadays, the absinthes among us are made more with care rather than with older crude techniques. The art of “louching” is what we’ve seen in vintage posters. This is where water drips over sugar cubes placed on a slotted spoon over a glass of absinthe to create a milky effect. Because of better crafted-spirits, this is less needed nowadays as absinthe has become more approachable. St. George in California has even begun distilling their own absinthe here in the U.S. and Tenneyson brings their proof down to 100 to compete with gins and more popular spirits.

chrysanthemum- benedictine, french vermouth, absinthe

In order to begin dispelling your fear, know that drinking a couple bottles of absinthe is just as bad as a couple bottles of cognac. Know that you’re enjoying a spirit of authenticity, history, and a flavor profile that rivals very few other spirits. To be fairly honest, I live in hallucinations of sipping on absinthe at a tiny French cafe in 1890’s with writers and painters of the time but those hallucinations aren’t absinthe-induced, I promise. You might actually have to use your imagination and step out of your comfort zone. For those of you interested in the bizarre, the strange, and drinking alongside the counterculture, this spirit is for you. With all the flannel and thick-rimmed glasses I see, I don’t see why this drink isn’t more popular.

New York and Philadelphia

We always tend to take for granted the space we live in. I had a friend recently talk to me about being entitled to the space you’re in, the space around you, and your entitlement to expanding that space. We tend to be a little mundane in our everyday and comfortable routines. I’ve already created one here in Austin. I write and drink coffee at Houndstooth, work at Fino, shop in the same malls, and eat at the same restaurants.

Then someone reminds you you’re from the East Coast and living somewhere else can still be traveling when you think about it or you venture into an area of Austin uncomfortable and unfamiliar and then you’re reminded that you don’t know as much as you think you do. You entitle yourself to one space but not much more than that.

Why can’t the same go for your hometown? When you realize that a vacation to New York is in the top 3 destinations of friends of yours and you go, “Huh?”.  Going home to New Jersey, I tend to entitle myself to my parents’ couch and maybe if I can get off that couch, go and relive my old comfortable and familiar route that I had when I lived in New York. My Christmas trip was an experiment in entitling myself to more space. I treated it as travel and took advantage of my close vicinity to the two largest metropolitan cities and attempted to fuse the life I live now and the life I had:

Philadelphia

Oyster House:

I have been obsessed over Find. Eat. Drink.’s travel guides and when I found out that Michael Vetri’s Osteria was not open when I needed it to be, I referred myself to these guides and found Oyster House.

The ambiance is relaxing and the décor cooling and when you want to enjoy a no-fuss, all-around good experience, this isn’t a bad place to do it. The oysters are savory and the tables set up with horseradish and crackers made them even more fun to slurp down. I had heard some murmurings of punch here so I ordered the Gunpowder Punch, cardamom, white pepper, rye, blue lady tea, and citrus. I'm just going to say that large cubes of ice make me erotically excited so you can imagine my disappointment with some small rocks in my mason jar. As far as the rest of the drink, it paired well with oysters and stayed nice and light but was a bit heavy on the pepper and spice. I’m going to just go ahead and call myself spoiled and move on.

Elixr:

A fun and wood-paneled coffee shop where my cousin, Taylor pointed out that everyone in there had beanies and Apple computers. Ah, hipsterdom. I had a Finca Kilimanjaro pourover from PT’s coffee and Taylor had a pretty impressive hot chocolate.

Franklin Mortgage & Investment Company:

Franklin Mortgage & Investment Company was one of my favorite drinking experiences and I could have spent all night tasting drink after drink here just because of their unapologetic combinations. The vibe was everything I imagined it to be. It was low-key, unpretentious, creative, and mind-blowing. They should also be credited with changing my mind about Batavia Arrack.

I think my favorite part of this place are the names of the cocktails. Is there a job that I can have where I can just create names for cocktails?

  

1. Husker Hail Mary- Landy VS Cognac, Laird's Applejack, Cynar, Carpano Antica, Hidalgo PX, Angostura, Aromatic Bitters, Clove Tincture

2. El Presidente- El Dorado rum, Grand Marnier, Dolin Blanc Vermouth, Grenadine

3. Philadephia- Batavia Arrack, Amaro Montenegro, Cocchi Americano, Falernum Bitters

The waitress described the latter as funky and I describe it as funky mind-blowing. Who thought of that and how did they make it work?

New York

Stumptown:

I thought it should be appropriate to make it to Stumptown- New York and Brooklyn’s mecca baby of coffee roasters. I thought I should give it a fair shot now knowing what I know and treated myself to a cappuccino made with some serious love and Hair Bender from my barista. It was quite a nice respite to sip on while at the bar looking out on a New York City street through the rain. How poetic.

Maison Premiere

Speaking of poetic, Maison Premiere inspired my New Year’s costume. When I walked through the tiny, unmarked door, I felt like I should have been wearing fake eyelashes, bright red lipstick, and lace which yes, I did then wear on New Year’s. You walk right into the Belle Epoque and for that, I’m in love. Marble bar tops and wooden shelves are filled with premium liquors, waiters are dressed in vests and mustaches, and absinthe is the specialty. I wish I could have drank here a bit longer but along with our massive seafood platter of lobster, crab legs, shrimp, raw oysters and clams were juleps- Winter Absinthe Julep tasting like anisette and allspice and the Champagne Julep. I was in the right place with the right lipstick, right libations, and right people.

Dram Bar

Then when you snap back to reality and walk out to a dirty Williamsburg city street, you turn the corner and end up at Dram. It’s a tiki-esque and friendly bar and again, completely unpretentious but right on. The “Loose Noose” was perfectly wise and straightforward- a blend of white sand beach bum and New York street smart. Then they busted out a bartender’s choice white dog old-fashioned without a hitch.

I definitely tried to claim a little bit more space in my old stomping grounds and entitle myself to a little bit more in the world. I felt like I expanded greatly but my favorite dishes on this trip included farfalle and salmon in a light pink cream sauce, bruschetta, tartufo, cannoli, more linguini and more seafood in a light pink cream sauce, and well, what I’ve missed most of all- bodega coffee and a bagel.

Enhance

I went back home to New Jersey for Christmas and when I go back to my childhood home, I can’t help but to revert back to childhood dreams, memories, and desires. My bookshelf in my room is full of Lonely Planet guides, memoirs of people curing infectious diseases, how to teach yourself guitar, how to get into college theatre programs, guides to human rights law, and environmental essays. In my brain, all of these eventually led to work in a non-profit organization visiting children in Africa with AIDS or creating programs to mentor young women. I was going to change the culture whether I was a lawyer or a famous musician.

Now I visit home for Christmas from Austin, Texas and when I get back, I am about to embark on a new job in the new year. In a blink of the eye, I’ve scored a job as a spirits representative in Austin and San Antonio and my focus on the bar community has gotten me further in a career than any other of these lavish human rights campaigns. Not only do I feel like something's working but I feel so at home with my bar brethren. I find myself alone on this vacation craving Idido pourovers and finding my sparkling water in need of a dash of bitters. I also jumped a little too quickly on the Oban 14 year in my cousins’ basement in a desperate attempt to feel high off of pears, honey, and wood. Now that I'm back, I'm ready to kick it in to high gear and start selling some obscure liqueurs but reflecting on my trip home and my bookshelf of past dreams has had me thinking, what am I doing now for the greater good? We try so hard to convert people from their dirty vodka martinis, their Grey Goose and sodas, and their Crown and Cokes. We want to change the culture one vodka-cranberry at a time but really- what am I and others in the field trying to do here?

I found this definition:

To enhance:

1. To heighten; to increase or improve in value, quality, desirability, or attractiveness.

2. To make greater, as in value, beauty, or effectiveness; augment.

To provide with improved, advanced, or sophisticated features.

I don’t think you need statistics to realize that drinking is part of our American lives whether it’s the coffee we drink in the morning, the afternoon tea, your happy hour cocktail, and wine nightcaps. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again that our eating and drinking habits are our most treasured interactions that we have with our planet. When we are drinking coffee, we are drinking from roasted beans from Ethiopia, Guatemala, and Indonesia. When we’re at the bar, we’re drinking barley from Scotland, agave from Mexico, herbs from the base of the Alps, and grapes from Sicily. We drink coffee for our morning buzz, tea for our peaceful release, and alcohol in order to lose our inhibitions and say what we really feel. We’re engaging all of our senses in bitterness, tannin, sweet, sour, flowers, cedar, leather, and vanilla from plants all over our world and all the while affecting the land, the coffee farmers, and the jimadors.

If I can make your buzz stronger and your calm more peaceful all by showing you that you are also enhancing the lives of those halfway around the world, I’ve done a good job. If I can replace your ethanol experience with an Old Tom Gin Martinez and blow away your senses with sweet, cherry, herbs, and roses that you’ll remember five years from now, I’ve done a good job. If I can get you to step out of your comfort zone and try something you have never even heard of before, I’ve done a good job.

I know I may be waxing poetic or stretching it here. I could possibly be full of it or it might not be that big of a deal. Maybe I’m just selling vermouth but what I do know is that all of my personal conversations, experiences, and thoughtful moments by myself are enhanced when a cappuccino blows my mind or my cocktail blends to perfection. I’ll remember that moment exactly for its sight, smell, and taste and be reminded of it when I sense it again.  It enhances a moment and everyday experiences to the next level and I think that’s what we’re really trying to do here.

To follow up on some viral ideas, my 2012 word is enhance. I will do my best to do it not just in the careers or accounts I’m taking on but in every aspect of my life. I want to pay attention to its detail, try something I haven’t tried before, and enhance our small everyday moments in every way possible. I’d like to not just to that for myself but to stretch the ideas far and wide and enhance the lives of others and those around me in tiny and sensual ways. I'd also like to take more time to properly thank those who have enhanced my life. To that, a shot of Batavia arrack.

Aroma-therapy

The most frustrating times I had starting at Fino were had at our server meetings. It’s hard to believe, I know, if you have read my past few posts citing certain love affairs with these wine tastings. It was a boys’ club of know-it-alls talking about pencil shavings and lead, visions of forest floors, and baking cookies with Grandma at Christmas time. I made fun of these people while I would cook dinner with Jackie later that evening talking about how awful it was listening to this pretentious banter. I would smell and sniff and yes, I would finally get something. Grapes. Oh, well, right. Wine is made from grapes. How poetic.

I spent most of the year finally realizing that what I was smelling were actual things and not just grapes. I was getting that fruit but which one? Peach? Yes, that’s it! Biscuits you say?! Yes! That’s what I wanted to say! I knew it was something- I just didn’t know what. 

Then I realized that the only way to ever understand was to practice. I had to immerse myself in the culture in order to learn the language. When I decided to not be so judgmental of my cohorts, to stick to the wine and beverage career path, not I only did I have to smell these things but I had to talk about them and in turn, have some opinions.

After google searches for aroma classes and websites on how to prime your palate, I came to the realization that the only way to practice was to engage in this pretentious banter on a regular basis. Here’s how I did that:

cuppings @ Houndstooth

tequila, sotol, and mezcal tasting @ Fino

Something eventually clicked over time. I now feel more comfortable with the process and the conversation especially when I can smell my mother making me a  peanut butter and jam sandwich in my New Jersey kitchen or a walk with my great uncle to tend his garden in our joint backyard growing up. I also feel comfortable talking about the smell of ash and smoke that brings me to Oaxaca, Mexico if I can’t physically be there. Now these things I can identify. These things are what I can appreciate in a cup of coffee or a (sipped) shot of tequila.

  

It’s also nice when a cocktail with no trace of espresso can bring you to visions of a cup of coffee had on your balcony wrapped in a blanket with a book:

Jerry Thomas' Coffee Cocktail @ Fino - brandy, port, egg, and sugar

Nowadays you’ll find me engaging in the banter and being one of those in the clique-y club but you’ll also find me in my own romantic dreams of future travels and past memories. You don’t have to be part of a boy’s club or feel pretentious to be capable of that.