A personal history of gin

When my roommate college was nearing his 21st birthday, he kept saying things like, “When I can do this, we’re going to start drinking a lot of gin and tonics.” I don’t think I had any idea what a gin and tonic tasted like before then – the only thing I knew about them was that in a video of our moving-away-from-Berkeley party, one of our friends – dressed in drag, in one of my mom’s dresses – got a big laugh when he fretted about losing his gin and tonic, so I gathered that my mom used to like them before switching over to vodka.

But once EDS crossed the line into adulthood (defined in alcohol-purchasing-ability, of course), we were setting aside 20 bucks a week for a Friday night trip to the liquor store. If we had more than 20, we could get a liter bottle, but usually we had to settle for 750 ml’s. We tried Tanqueray and Bombay, and were quite happy with them – until one day we decided to spring for the Bombay Sapphire. We spent a lot of time in the room, staring at the bottle – the ingredients etched into the side, the higher alcohol content. We smelled it, and man, we drank it.

A few months into this gin phase, we discovered something gross, and utterly delicious: a lime wedge from the previous night, left to sit in a glass with melted ice and some gin? It made the gin and tonic supersonic, as we would say. The lime flavors were concentrated and flowery, and we found that when we couldn’t get Sapphire, this lime trick was a great way to mimic some of the enhanced flavors without spending the extra cash. We would have people over for g and t’s and explain the nuances of this trick – it helped you save money on gin and also on limes, since one lime became enough to get you through the weekend.

That summer, my mom chuckled when she saw me making one. “Add some bitters,” she suggested. "It changes the drink." And it certainly did. Except I sort of outgrew Sapphire. I wanted something cleaner and less flowery, so I went back to Tanqueray. My switch was buoyed by a friend’s revelation that one of my professors drank Tanqueray on the rocks when he went out.

A few years after college, I noticed new brands on the shelf. Bols was interesting – I first had it in Rio, with fresh Persian lime wedges, and didn’t understand what the waiter was telling me - what the heck was a Bols? It's heavy on the juniper. With enough lime, it tastes like the beach. A few months later, I saw the bottle in a liquor store here and put two and two together. Then Daresbury’s came out, and that was a’ight, it was a’ight. Van Gogh made a gin, and now these new high-end gins were becoming a bit generic to me. And then I found Hendricks, and my life changed completely.

Instead of trying to hide the herby gin flavors with lime, Hendricks offered an opportunity to exacerbate them. More herbs! Embrace the cucumber! And embrace it I did. It has had more staying power than any other gin, in my experience. I occasionally pick up a bottle of Plymouth for martinis if I want to feel like I’m having a working man’s cocktail, but Hendricks is still where it’s at. Not surprisingly, my all-time favorite cocktail is the Cucumber Collins at Hudson. I could easily down five before looking at the time. This is a bad thing.

As scotch began to vie for my attention, I found myself having a hard time choosing between the clear and amber liquors. Even now, I probably go to scotch more often than I should, especially since every time I have a good gin cocktail, I’m reminded that gin really is my first 80-proof love. And with summer right around the corner, I definitely plan to reacquaint myself with Mr. Gin on my rooftop deck.

Fun facts I’ve picked up along a lifetime of gin-love: gin was sort of like the crack cocaine of 17th and 18th century England. It was considered a vile and classless libation, and you sometimes had to procure it from loose women who sold it from under their skirts at public executions. Hogarth’s Gin Lane series is infinitely more laughable than any “Just say no” campaign you might remember from your lifetime.

Impossible to estimate how much gin I’ve consumed, as I did for beer. But here is a partial list of all the states and countries in which I’ve consumed gin:


California
Canada
Colorado
England
Florida
Illinois
Louisiana
Massachussetts
Mexico
New Hampshire
New York
North Carolina
Pennsylvania
Ohio
Oregon
The Netherlands
Rio
Spain
South Africa
Tennessee
Vermont
Washington State
Washington DC, Maryland, Virginia
West Virginia

A personal history of beer which is neither complete nor illuminating

1. The first beer I tasted where I could “get” the flavors as described by the bottle? Pete’s Wicked Winter Brew. It had a hint of raspberry
which came through in the finish. The front end was a nice, light ale, making the fruity finish all the more enjoyable.

It just happened one day in 1996. I was drinking one, and as a big gulp went down, I suddenly tasted raspberries. Prior to then, I would read tasting notes for beer and say, “Yeah, whatever, it tastes like beer. It's either light or dark, and that's it.” After my Winter Brew epiphany, everything changed.

2. A six pack of Honey Brown was $5.99 when I was in college. I used to consider it a fine beer.

3. I have never consumed a .40.

4. The first time I remember going “upscale” with a beer purchase was a six pack of Heineken Special Dark from the Campus Citgo.

5. The first time I tried Dogfish Head’s 60-minute pale ale, I thought it was horribly bitter and unbalanced.

6. The defunct Olde Heurich brewing company made the first pale ale that I loved: the Foggy Bottom ale. Shortly thereafter, I discovered Tupper’s Hop Pocket, and that was when I really came to understand hops. In fact, Tupper’s Hop Pocket was one of the beers we served at our wedding, and it gave me a huge thrill to see that my dad really enjoyed it too - and that he found on his own, with no coaching from me. He’s not much of a beer drinker, but clearly, the Tupper’s made an impact. Or it plays to our genetics.

7. The first time I heard about Belgian beer was in an article in a Brazilian Playboy magazine. I had a subscription when I was 13. This is less weird than it sounds: most of my friends who were my age had subscriptions too, all with parental permission. Some of my friends even got the more hardcore nudie mags from their dads. I even remember having a conversation with a female classmate about a fiction piece from a recent issue of Playboy. Indeed, we read the articles, including a fantastic 3-part series that was a famous reporter’s memoirs from the 1970 World Cup. I’ve tried to locate this article online, but the combination of “world cup,” “article,” and “playboy brasil” yields some expectedly irrelevant google results.

Anyway, there was an article in an issue of Playboy about how to enjoy the fine things in life (now that I think about it, every article in every issue was more or less about that very same topic. Hmmm.) One of those things was Belgian beer. The advice I remember from the article is that you should be very careful handling the glass after the beer is poured, to avoid unnecessarily warming the beer with your fingers. Whenever possible, hold the glass from the stem rather than around the bulb.

8. Anytime I’m working out – but especially in the middle of a long run - the thing that keeps me going is the promise of a beer later in the day. At around mile 6, all I can think about is beer. I crave it in ways that I don’t understand. I’m not sure I’d be able to work out if I didn’t think I’d be able to enjoy a beer later as a result.

9. Let’s do the math. From “Trains Across the Sea” by the Silver Jews:

In 27 years
I’ve drunk 50,000 beers
And they just wash against me like the sea into a pier

From ages 17 to 20, let’s assume I drank an average of 3 beers a day, 5 times a week. That’s 15 beers a week, translating to about 780 a year. Over 4 years, that amounts to 3120 beers.

Let’s assume that for 21 to 23, I dialed it back a bit to 3 beers a day, 4 times a week. Remember, this is an average, and it includes family gatherings, work happy hours, business trips, etc. That’s 12 beers a week, or 624 a year. Over three years, that makes about 1872.

From 24 to 26, say I set myself back – disposable income, a kickball league, etc. Let’s say 4 beers a day, 5 times a week – for a total of 20 per week, or 1040 per annum. Over three years, that’s 3120 (weird how that’s the same as for 17-20, huh?)

Assume that 27 to 31, I returned to a more socially acceptable 3/4 split, like for ages 21-23 – 624 a year. Over 5 years, weirdly enough, that equals my total for 17-20 and 24-26: 3120 beers (that number, again! This is like an episode of Lost…)

Anyway, adding them all up: in 31 years I’ve drunk 11,232 beers. Meaning that David Berman consumed almost 5 times more beer than me in a considerably shorter timeframe. Which is also why he’s had infinitely more health problems than I have, I guess.

And there, folks, is my list of beer-related thoughts on this clear federal holiday.

Blow fish, blow.

Something else I can cross off the list: eating fugu. Definitely an interesting experience, but I have a hard time imagining that anyone would go out of their way to eat this if it were non-lethal. Potentially.

At the four-hour mark, I am showing no signs of dizziness, nausea, or loss of motor control. For those who are local and interested, Tako in Bethesda has fugu right now. They only get it once a year. If you'd like to pay $17 (or $32 if you'd prefer sashimi) for something that's only kinda tasty and only somewhat likely to cause you to die a slow and agonizing death - make haste!

Hyphenated-American literature and cooking

One of the most transparent ways for what I call hyphenated-american literature is to have a character who is an immigrant rekindle a connection to their family and heritage through cooking. Unless this happens in a Jhumpa Lahiri novel or short story, it's a terrible idea.

And yet,it's definitely true that places with distinct regional cuisines do tend to evoke a special kind of homesickness that can be mitigated (or exacerbated) by cooking. Certainly Ms. Citizen felt strongly enough about her Pittsburgh connection to make cheesy potatoes and pierogies for the Super Bowl. I tried to marry Brazil and Pittsburgh (an unlikely pairing, but then again, so are we...) through color.

First up, this fantastic beef chili recipe - topped with Brazilian-style black beans and cheddar (for the black and gold effect.)

For most of my childhood, it was a given that there would be a pot of black beans on the stove at all times of the day. And so I was eager to pick up some tricks from my mom on how to make beans in the style of, I suppose, our family. The two most salient points?

1. Skim the initial film of soapy foam that forms when you initially bring the beans to a boil. This film is reputed to be the flatufactory element in beans.

2. When the beans are almost done, melt some butter in a skillet. Add generous amounts of finely chopped onions, garlic, cilantro, or other flavor ingredients you want in your beans. After these are nicely sauteed and aromatic, add one ladle's worth of beans and broth to the mixture. Slowly and methodically mash the beans into the butter, till a thick layer of garlicky/oniony gunk is formed. Salt and pepper to taste. Then, add this delicious mixture back into your big pot of beans - this will flavor the broth in ways I can't even begin to describe.

I also add made brigadeiros for the first time since I was a kid. These are a staple of kids' birthday parties. Most of ate them till our stomaches cramped up and said, "please, no more condensed milk. I beg you." They are as delicious as they are easy to make. We used yellow sprinkles for further black-and-goldness.

Incidentally, condensed milk used to be one of my favorite things to eat. Sometimes for a snack or for dessert, I would just pour a thin layer of condensed milk into a bowl - sometimes I would stuff to it, sometimes I would just scoop it up with a spoon and eat it. Don't judge.


And since I mentioned Lahiri and immigrant fiction earlier, I heartily recommend to anyone with some down time her fantastic short story "The Third and Final Continent." These last few paragraphs of it, excerpted below without any permission whatsoever, are thoroughly heartbreaking. It makes me think of my parents coming to the U.S., and all the things i never imagined they would have to learn or figure out with no guidance or help.

I like to think of that moment in Mrs. Croft's parlor as the moment when the distance between Mala and me began to lessen. Although we were not yet fully in love, I like to think of the months that followed as a honeymoon of sorts. Together we explored the city and met other Bengalis, some of whom are still friends today. We discovered that a man named Bill sold fresh fish on Prospect Street, and that a shop in Harvard Square called Cardullo's sold bay leaves and cloves. In the evenings we walked to the Charles River to watch sailboats drift across the water, or had ice-cream cones in Harvard Yard. We bought a camera with which to document our life together, and I took pictures of her posing in front of the Prudential Building, so that she could send them to her parents. At night we kissed, shy at first but quickly bold, and discovered pleasure and solace in each other's arms. I told her about my voyage on the S.S. Roma, and about Finsbury Park and the Y.M.C.A., and my evenings on the bench with Mrs. Croft. When I told her stories about my mother, she wept. It was Mala who consoled me when, reading the Globe one evening, I came across Mrs. Croft's obituary. I had not thought of her in several months—by then those six weeks of the summer were already a remote interlude in my past—but when I learned of her death I was stricken, so much so that when Mala looked up from her knitting she found me staring at the wall, unable to speak. Mrs. Croft's was the first death I mourned in America, for hers was the first life I had admired; she had left this world at last, ancient and alone, never to return.

As for me, I have not strayed much farther. Mala and I live in a town about twenty miles from Boston, on a tree-lined street much like Mrs. Croft's, in a house we own, with room for guests, and a garden that saves us from buying tomatoes in summer. We are American citizens now, so that we can collect Social Security when it is time. Though we visit Calcutta every few years, we have decided to grow old here. I work in a small college library. We have a son who attends Harvard University. Mala no longer drapes the end of her sari over her head, or weeps at night for her parents, but occasionally she weeps for our son. So we drive to Cambridge to visit him, or bring him home for a weekend, so that he can eat rice with us with his hands, and speak in Bengali, things we sometimes worry he will no longer do after we die.

Whenever we make that drive, I always take Massachusetts Avenue, in spite of the traffic. I barely recognize the buildings now, but each time I am there I return instantly to those six weeks as if they were only the other day, and I slow down and point to Mrs. Croft's street, saying to my son, Here was my first home in America, where I lived with a woman who was a hundred and three. "Remember?" Mala says, and smiles, amazed, as I am, that there was ever a time that we were strangers. My son always expresses his astonishment, not at Mrs.Croft's age but at how little I paid in rent, a fact nearly as inconceivable to him as a flag on the moon was to a woman born in 1866. In my son's eyes I see the ambition that had first hurled me across the world. In a few years he will graduate and pave his own way, alone and unprotected. But I remind myself that he has a father who is still living, a mother who is happy and strong. Whenever he is discouraged, I tell him that if I can survive on three continents, then there is no obstacle he cannot conquer. While the astronauts, heroes forever, spent mere hours on the moon, I have remained in this new world for nearly thirty years. I know that my achievement is quite ordinary. I am not the only man to seek his fortune far from home, and certainly I am not the first. Still, there are times I am bewildered by each mile I have travelled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept. As ordinary as it all appears, there are times when it is beyond my imagination.

Wait, forget the Samoa cookie ice cream...

It's the good people at Haagen Dazs who are doing the lord's work: white chocolate ice cream with peppermint bark? Holy Jeebus. May the timeframe of this "limited edition" be long and sweet.

truly, obama has long coattails...

how else do you explain the fact that the black cupcake won the cupcake wars?

To the good people at Dreyer's/Edy's:

You are doing the lord's work out there. I agree with this review - that the actual ice cream isn't exactly life-altering. But that won't stop me from consuming as much of this "limited time" ice cream as I can...

A partial list of the animals whose products I consumed while in Montreal

Forgive me.



Salmon
Cod fish
Venison
Pig and piglet
Beef and veal
Duck
Wild boar (first time!)
Goose
Chicken

Said "no thanks" to pigeon, and I've excluded sushi. Also, I only tried the sauce on some escargot dishes because I'm partial to Al Caparra's escargots across the street from my dad's apartment in Rio. All in all, though, not bad for a 6-day trip. Had me looking and feeling like this.

I love grana padano

Been living non-virtually the past few days, in a whirlwind that leaves little time for recreational writing. However, I just wanted to drop by and tell anyone who reads this that if you're not using grana padano instead of parmiggiano-reggiano, you're missing out on one of life's most exciting treats.

Food, morals, questions

I often think about what I’m going to eat, or what I’ve just eaten, or what I may eat several days from now if there’s a restaurant I’m particularly looking forward to visiting, and over the past few years, we’ve tried to adopt a more locally-based diet, for all the usual reasons. John’s post really gets me to thinking about the broad spectrum of different concerns that I rarely contemplate. Namely, eating meat – something which I don’t do often, but when I do eat meat, I certainly don’t exercise any particular zeal to ascertain the origin of that meat and, in fact, I am thrilled when I find a whole chicken at Harris Teeter for under $6, though I’m sure this is a “chicken” churned out by some vast sprawling industrial chickenarium somewhere.

And yes, this is partly because I was freaked the eff out by Jerome Groopman’s article about MRSA, aka, drug-resistant bacteria.

Read if you’re into paranoia, and kiss that bottle of Purell’s hand sanitizer goodbye (except for truly dire circumstances, I believe.)

PS. John, I meant to ask for permission to link, but since you're an assiduous readers, there's a good chance you'll be the first to see this anyway - let me know if you want it taken down!

The joy of reading...about cooking

Despite my titular abstractness, it is a well know fact that here, at Abstract Citizen HQ, we don't survive on abstractions alone. A smarter and distinctly more German man than I - Bertolt Brecht - wisely had a character say, "Grub first, then ethics." Accordingly, here's a plug for a book that I recently came across.

One of the nice things about knowing a chef is that at some point during our visit, he will pull his most recent food-related books down from the shelf, and we get to come away with a long list of must-buy books. One such book was the Food Lover's Companion, currently in its 4th edition.

It's hard to overstate how much information this book contains. It's like the Norton Anthology of food. Of course, The Joy of Cooking is probably more essential, but I would argue that the Food Lover's Companion should probably take up permanent residence right next to it on your bookshelf.

Set up as a food encyclopedia, the FLC can probably answer any food-related question you might have. And despite the obvious pitfalls of trying to capture this much information in a concise and user-friendly format, the FLC is actually a joy to read - certainly much more so than The Joy of Cooking, which has all the actual joy of a Del Boca Vista salsa class.

The writing is crisp, with just the right amount of literary license. Anyone who has tried to describe flavors or odors in more than a passing way knows how hard this can be. Imagine describing a color without making references to other objects - how would you describe the color blue without referencing the sky? Flavor is sort of like that to me. Even really intelligent people on the teevee - your Bourdains, your Colicchios, your America's Test Kitcheners - fall into linguistic ruts, often repeating simlar variations of a stock phrase to describe flavors. (Colicchio: "This is under-seasoned" or, its corollary, "This was perfectly seasoned." Bourdain: "You know why this _____ is so good? It was made by someone who spent their entire adult life doing nothing but making ____.") Describing flavors with precision and originality is so hard that the existence of a fifth flavor category, which was only relatively recently established - umami - is often rendered as "tastiness."

Compare our general vagueness as a species to the entry for "martini" in the FLC - which tells you that the drink probably descends from the Martinez, created in the eponymously named city in California, and that it therefore belongs to the Manhattan family tree. But most elegantly,it tells you that over time, martinis have become drier and that this "replaces its predecessor's slight sweetness with an icy austerity." The entry for "mulligatawny soup" tells you that the name of the soup derives from the Tamil word for "pepper water." And the entry for "peppadew" tells you that these peppers are "purported to be the first new fruit introduced to the world since the kiwi's debut some thirty years ago."

The appendices include a pasta glossary, a wealth of technical information ranging from nutritional data to metric conversions and smoke-points for different kinds of oil, and lots more. So, don't sit around wondering what a "weakfish" is. Go get this book and find out.

I've got the next million-dollar restaurant concept right here

Enough upscale burger joints. Give me an upscale bagel shop. The independent neighborhood bagel shop is almost a relic – I shudder to think of what will happen if Whatsa Bagels goes under. A combination of low-carb diet fads and encroaching chains that sell fake bagels (I’m looking at you, Einstein and Panera) are probably responsible, but maybe it has to do with the awful hours and terrible boiling smell of bagel-making that the employees have to endure. In any case, consider this my plea: we’re over the low-carb thing. It’s a recession – people want to go out for affordable, comfort food (or at least that’s what the upscale burger places would have you believe.)

Accordingly, I give you a few items that would be featured prominently on the menu of the upscale bagel shop of my dreams:
-Pork tenderloin sandwich on a cornbread bagel; cilantro/red pepper cream cheese
-Miso-glazed salmon on a wasabi bagel; lemongrass-basil cream cheese
-Lamb rogan josh on a curry bagel; raita cream cheese

And so on. I don’t know anything about the specifics of bagel-making or cream-cheese-flavoring, but if it’s possible to make a blue blueberry bagel, how hard can it be to make a wasabi bagel? Or a cornbread bagel?

Someone, get on this pronto. And then give me credit for the idea.