Turkish Veggies; Risotto alla Milanese

I’ve been doing pretty well in the kitchen since I came back. I did a week of plate lunches, drive-ins, and microwave cooking, and then reverted back to home cooking. I bought a mess of vegetables and some good olive oil, and have been experimenting with Turkish dishes. Turkish cooking reminds me of Japanese – both emphasize maximizing the base flavors of the vegetables The major difference is that Turks do this with touches of lemon, pomegranate, and olive oil, whereas the Japanese do this with soy, vinegar, and miso.

I’ve been really happy with the results. If I ever opened a restaurant I think I would focus on Turkish salads, beans, and vegetables. I think it’s one of the great undiscovered cuisines in the U.S.

Sources:

Binnur’s Turkish Cookbook

Yemek Tarifi

Almost Turkish

This first one is pretty much like a bruschetta topping. I used too much pepper, so it was really spicy.

Kirmizi Biber Yemegi

(Red Pepper Paste; Binnur’s)

• 1 red bell pepper, diced
• 1 scallion, chopped
• 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tbsp rice, rinsed, drained
• 2 large tomato, peeled, diced
• 1 Hawaiian chile pepper
• Salt
• Pepper
• 1 tsp pomegranate syrup

Saute the onion with olive oil until it's softened. Add the red pepper, rice, tomatoes, chile, salt and pepper. Put the lid on. Do not open while its cooking. Cook for 20 minutes under medium heat. Turn the heat off, add pomegranate syrup, stir.

Sprinkle some chopped parsley all over. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Dible is from the Black Sea region. It tastes good warm or cold.

Dible

(Green Beans and Rice; Binnur’s)

• 500 gr flat green beans, cut 1.5 inches long
• 1 medium sized onion, chopped
• 1/2 cup rice, washed and drained
• 1/2 cup water
• 50 ml extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp black pepper

Saute the onion with olive oil in a pot for about 2-3 minutes. Add the beans, salt and pepper, and cook on medium-low heat for another 5 minutes.

Using a wooden spoon, place the beans in a circle around the edge of the pot. Put the rice in the hole in the middle. Now cover the rice with the beans. Pour the water in from the sides. Cover the lid and simmer for about 30 minutes. Make sure not to open the lid too often to ensure that the heat stays in the pot. Wait until the water evaporates. You can also let it cook a bit longer until the rice is caramelized.

This one is just delicious. I never peeled the potatoes, and that was fine. I liked it better cold.

Patates Salatasi

(Lemon Potato Salad; Binnur’s)

• 2 medium waxy potatoes

Sauce:

• 60 - 70 ml extra virgin olive oil
• 2-3 tbsp lemon juice
• Salt
• Pepper

Garnish:

• 2 fresh green onions, chopped
• Some red onion, sliced

Boil the potatoes. Remove the skin and cut in medium sized chunks. Whisk all the sauce ingredients. Toss it with the potatoes while they are still warm. Sprinkle with fresh green and red onions.

I don’t know why this next one tastes so good; the ingredients are all simple. I also don’t know why it’s important to build the pyramid out of tomatoes and beans, but it is. I tried just cooking all of this together and it was average. The technique makes all the difference.

Zeytinyağlı Taze Fasulye

(Beans in Olive Oil; from Almost Turkish)

• 1 kg green bean
• 3 medium tomatoes
• 3 cloves garlic
• 2 large onions
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 3 teaspoons sugar
• 8 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/4 cup hot water
  

Snap off ends of beans. Divide into 2 portions. Leave 1 portion whole. Cut remaining portion into 3-3 1/2 cm long chunks. Place 1 whole tomato in center of a shallow saucepan. Arrange whole beans around tomato, side by side. Spread cut beans over. Sprinkle with garlic cloves. Top with thinly sliced onion and tomatoes. Seasons with salt and sugar. Add olive oil and hot water. Cover and simmer for 45-50 minutes or until tender. Remove from heat; cool. Turn up side down on a serving plate.

Serve cold.

I also made my first risotto a few nights ago! This wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be, though it took a long time to find all the right ingredients.

Risotto alla Milanese

(House and Garden, 1962)

• 1 marrow bone
• 5-6 tablespoons butter
• 1 scallion, finely chopped
• 2 cups rice
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 1/3 cup sherry
• 6 cups stock
• 1 teaspoon salt
• Saffron
• Parmesan cheese

Soak marrow bone in warm water until the marrow is tender and can be pushed out in one piece. Poach the marrow in 2-3 cups water. Save stock. Make another stock out of the bone. Save.

Melt 3 tablespoons butter in a heavy skillet. When it is bubbling, add the onion. Cook for 2-3 minutes; do not allow the onion to brown. Add the rice and stir it well with a spatula; do not allow it to color. Be certain that the onion and rice are well coated with the butter. Add the sliced marrow; then add wine & cook until wine is almost gone.

Add sherry and ¼ cup stock. Let each round of stock cook away before adding more, ½ cup at a time. As the rice becomes tender, stir it with a fork to keep it from sticking to the pan (I stirred with a spatula the whole time; maybe that’s why I needed 6 cups of stock and not the 3 cups the recipe called for).

When the rice is done, Add salt and a couple big pinches of saffron (House and Garden says to add “a touch” – but what’s the point of that?). Stir 3 tablespoons of butter and a little grated Parmesan cheese.

Serve at once.

For the leftovers, form them in patties and fry in oil or butter for riso al salto.

House and Garden says to add sliced white truffles when serving. That was a bit beyond my budget. I'll save that bit for if I have a hot date I need to impress.

I bought organic “beef broth” at Whole Foods and it was vile. They almost won me over by having marrow bones at the butcher. It worked out in the end, because my improvised marrow stock worked really well. So, this is the recipe as I cooked it, and not quite as the book called for. I’ll do it my way next time too.

Food vs Stuff

I suppose the holiday is going to happen whether I do anything to prepare or not. Christmas wasn't so commercially in your face in South America. Rio had a big artificial tree floating in their lagoon, and a church I toured in Uruguay had Advent decorations. That was about it, I think. Things were low key even in Miami, which is more or less South American anyway.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, decorations are everywhere and the consultants are sending the office expensive but bland cookies and waxy chocolates and chemically-enhanced Japanese candies. I came in this morning and my stomach almost lurched when I saw another box of ... junk.

I'm having serious food withdrawals. Buenos Aires didn't have much of a cuisine - it was pretty much steak, lamb, potatoes, and wine - but what they had was world class. Grass fed and organic and fresh. And even though it's their beef that's famous it's the Patagonia lamb that I'm craving the most.

There was no 'stuff,' nothing from a can or frozen or processed or pre-made. It was a bit like Ireland and Turkey. It was real food. And even though it didn't look like people ever ate vegetables or fruit, and even though our diet gurus say Meat is Bad, the guys there were pretty fit and lean.

Michael Pollan tells us to 'eat food, not stuff.' Easier said than done. I went to Cost-Co last night and had a hard time finding food. Even the meat came from ranch-factories that feed their animals on products and hormones. I wandered the aisles, but couldn't find much. They seemed to have stopped stocking the few foods that I would normally buy. I picked up some nuts and cheese and called it quits. I ended up going to Tamuras to pick up some gourmet ingredients. It stretches my budget, but sometimes I need real food and it is getting harder and harder to find that in our stores. Even the stuff they call 'organic' and 'free-range' at Whole Foods doesn't really taste that much better.

Tamuras seems pricier, but I'm not quite sure. Good food had so much flavor that I eat less of it. I made a pasta with serrano ham and wahoo that was delicious. It was pretty thick and creamy, and I think it would only work if you use good pasta and real cream and good fish, etc. Otherwise it would just be a nasty tuna casserole.

Saute sliced shallot in 2T olive oil until shallots are slightly brown
Add 1.5 T orange zest, 2 anchovies, and two slices of minced serrano ham; saute for 5"
Add 2 T mashed green olives; saute 2"
Add 4 oz. tuna and a bit of oil; saute for 2-3"
Add .75 c cream; saute until reduced by half and sauce is thick.
Add pasta.

And that's it. Good pasta will have enough extra starch to thicken the sauce, so this was almost the consistency of a risotto. I'll make it again, maybe even tonight.

Libertad

I changed my mind. I´m not ready to go home after all. I had a great afternoon & I´m back in the ´don´t let this life end´frame of mind.

I was wrong about La Malba yesterday. It wasn´t a film actress that shut the place down - the were screening a film about an activist who challenged the dictatorship, and the right-wing had threatened to bomb the museum. They´re going to screen the film tonight regardless. Freedom is not just another word here.

Hollis spent most of the day in bed; I spent it at the museum. I went for Frieda Kahlo (Still Life with Monkey and Parrot), but stayed for the hundreds of other artists whom I had never heard of. It was all 20th C Latin American art, and it was more dynamic and exciting than any modern art that I´ve seen before. There was also film - they were screening silent films from the 1920´s and 1930´s in one room - and music, from Kurt Weil to Ravel, taken from the museum´s founders collections. I wasn´t alone; it was a beautiful sunny day yet the Malba was full of young people. I was one of the older patrons, and I loved being in a place were art was actively relevant. It was fantastic.

The street fair was in full swing when I got back. They took all the tables out of my square (like that? One week and it´s already "my square") and it´s full of antiques dealers and the queens that love them. The side streets are full of musicians, including half a dozen barefoot and scruffy tango orchestras. It´s a great day, and it´s too bad it has to end, but it´s time for me to pack.

Last Hours in Buenos Aires

And I´m ready to go home. I´ve stayed away just long enough, or maybe a day or two longer. It´ll take a bit over two days to get home, so there´s still a long way to go.

I don´t think I´ve done Buenos Aires right. There´s been parties in the old plaza outside our hotel all night for the past few nights. The city here only really comes to life after 1 am. The people I´ve met, or traveled with, have been more conservative. They go out, for a few hours, but don´t dive in. I want to dive in. There´s so much here I haven´t done. I´ve seen the main sites and taken the photos but haven´t lived the full experience. And so it´s been fine, and in most cities that would be more than enough - I´ve been coming home between 3am and 6am each night - but I know that that is only a nibble. I know because I hear the party every night. Even now, at 10am, I can hear the musicians in the plaze. Last night it was flamenco, formally, then a South American street jam, informally, when the stage was taken down.

If I make it hear again I want it to be with the wild friends who stay up all night and sleep all day. I think Hollis and I saw most of the Daytime Sites. Not all, but most.

So. Tuesday. Hollis and I arrive, and head to Siga la Vaca for our first parilla. It´s an all you can eat grill featuring every part of the cow and quite a few from the sheep. I have bif de chorizo (porterhouse) and morcillo (blood sausage) and mollejas (sweatbreads) and lamb ribs that a juicy, crackling skin. The lamb was the best. Lunch came with .5 liters of wine, and Hollis doesn´t drink, so I had to finish the carafe myself. Napped, and then wandered to Plaza Mayor and on to the Obelisk. We get caught in a cold rain, and wait out the storm in a cafe along Corrientes, the theater strip. We´re off to a good start.

Wednesday. We head to Recoleta. The streets there confuse me, and we walk and walk and walk trying to find the cemetery. We finally do, and it is fantastic. It´s a marble necropolis that houses all the famous poets, leaders, villains, and revolutionaries of the last few centuries, and some of the tombs were beautiful works of art. Hollis wants his photo taken in from of Evita´s tomb, and I refuse to take it at first, it seems disrespectful, but everyone else is doing it & I start to feel silly sticking to my point and give in. Later we hit the Museum of Belles Artes. It´s a great collection, with a number of sculptures by Rodin. He was the surprise for me; I knew The Thinker but had no idea how raw and sexual his main body of work was. I loved it. Hollis was bored.

Wednesday night I want to go to a all-male milonga, but can´t find anyone to go & it sounds to intense to do solo and without many language skills. Instead I take a wander through downtown, hitting two smaller bars that I had marked on the gay guide to Bs As, Toms and Flux. I love walking the city at night like this. The first joint is pretty cruisy, but the guys are odd. One tries to force me into a back corner, which: fat chance. Guys here are slim, and I have a dozen pounds on most of them. I don´t hurt the creep, just twist his arm hard enough to give him the message that that macho shit doesn´t fly with me. The second bar was run by an ex-pat UK and Russian couple, and everyone inside it spoke English. That was a nice surprise. They drank like the English too - everyone was totalled. I pretended I didn´t speak English to one shit-face American. Good times. The bartender made me a Negroni that was awesome. I taxi home.

Thursday we took a ferry to Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay. The highlight is a centuries-old village on a promontory that has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. There are now lots of artists living there. We have lunch on a garden on the Rio de la Plata. The second highlight is the exchange rate: 25 pesos per dollar. I go shopping for the first time in two weeks. I really like this town. Hollis and I are back on the same page.

Thursday night. Did we sleep? I forgot what we did Thursday night. It´ll come back to me, I hope.

Friday we go to the La Boca neighborhood. It looks pretty rough and tumble - wide dusty streets and lots of poverty. In the center are a few smaller streets that have been renovated and have become a major tourist attraction. Friday night we head to La Canitas on Dave G´s suggestion, meeting Dave, Eli, and Donielle for dinner at the famous Campo Bravo. This is my fist taste of the beautiful life in Bs As. San Telmo, where we stay, is full-on bohemian - narrow buildings and plazas with old men drinking wine and cobble stone streets; I expect Garibaldi to come along and liberate it at any moment. La Boca was rough and tumble, Centro was major urban inner city, and Colonia was artists. La Canitas was fashion and glitz and the newest place to see and be seen. It was quite a change. Mariano was supposed to join us, but turned Latin on us - he called and was surprised that we had grabbed a table so early. At 9;30 pm. By 3am The rest of the crew goes to bed. I try one last club. I skip the mega club in favor of a smaller place, and get more macho weirdness. Think 20-year olds who want me to call them ¨Papi." It just doesn´t work. To make it extra weird, the exact same kids who would try to come on macho would then melt in my arms when I´d stop them from biting or grabbing or squeezing or whatever.

Yeah. Biting. I´ve never had so many men try to bite me. At least not in public and at the bar. I get home at 6am. Back in my barrio the party in Plaza San Dorrego is still going strong, but I´m still dressed trendy from La Canitas and don´t really blend well with the working-class vibe.

Saturday I want to go to the Malba, the Latin American museum. I never make it. Hollis and I decide to walk. We spend a few hours wandering, then Hollis gets pickpocketed while we watch a tango show. The criminals are good - the opened his bag and opened his wallet and got 300 pesos without being seen. All I saw was a flash, and I couldn´t tell where the hand came from. It was amazing, really. It puts Hollis in a capital-f Foul mood. Of course. I've been there to, and there's nothing much to do but slowly work through it. No museum for him. We have a late lunch at an outdoor cafe. A thief rips a necklace off of another patron and darts into the street. She screams and cusses, la puto! and ladrone! And half the men jump up and chase the thief down the boulevard, but he is too fast. That´s enough crime for one day. Hollis goes home, I go to the Malba, but we are evacuated after a half hour so that a film-star can tour the collection. I don´t know which one, but if I find out I will forever hate them. The collection looked awesome, and I´ll try to visit again before my check-out.

Saturday night, and it´s no disco for MC. Poor me. I go to a parilla with some guys from the hotel. It´s good. The steak is far better than what we get in the states, but I still haven´t had that piece of so-soft you can cut it with a fork slab of meat that this country is famous for. The hippie member of our party, who was already getting on my nerves both for his slimy bragging about how much ···· he gets from his young boyfriends here and for his lack of fashion sense (red and yellow Pippi Long Stocking socks with Birkenstocks, commits a fatal error at dinner and I let my inner monster out and slash into him, hard and loud.

If anyone is actually reading this far, here´s a warning. I tip well at restaurants. It´s my choice. Do not try and stop me. Last night we divide the bill, then I throw an extra ten pesos in. Hippie announces it´s too much and takes the money as his change. I throw another ten pesos in. He again insists its too much, that the waiter was rude and doesn´t deserve the tip, and redistibutes it to the other members of our party.

Can you say dead in the water? The bitch was nothing but road kill after that. I threw in more money, he started to reach for it, and I laid into his ass hard. That pretty much broke up our party. I went to a small bar with two guys from Montreal, but I think they were a bit nervous around me and things were too subdued for a Saturday night.

And now its Sunday in San Telmo and I only have a few hours left. I´ll go to the museum, pack, and spend my final hours drinking wine in the plaza, as I should have been doing all along.

Gear Shift

You could here the gears grinding in my brain when I tried to switch from Portuguese to Spanish. It didn´t help that one of the guys at the Bed and Breakfast is from Paris, and that the guy who works in the evening is actually from Brazil. I couldn´t even speak basic English; the best I could spew was some unintelligble mush of four languages.

Doing better today. The Spanish here is pretty damn different than any I´ve heard, but since I don´t actually speak Spanish that isn´t much of an issue. I´ve been doing ok if I can think of what I need to say ahead of time, but I am not having much luck in speaking on the spot. And even then only a few people actually understand what I am trying to say. Luckily one was a bartender. ´Punt e Mes´ is on all the menus here, and I´ve read about it & that it´s great in manhattans and negronis and the elusive sazerac, but I´ve never found it. I finally got to try it. It´s a bitter, a vermouth I think. It was a bit of a production - the bartender brought a tub of ice, some orange slices, sparkling mineral water, and the bottle to the table. He put in an orange, added ice, some Punt e Mes, muddled it, added another orange, another cube, more vermouth, muddled it again, then added a bit more vermouth, another ice cube, then topped it all with the soda.

It was tasty, and I´ll be bringing some back.

South America Update

I´ve been doing Facebook more than blogging this trip - the days have been too packed to sit down and do this properly.

Our group had a mixed reaction to Brazil. I loved it, but I was one of the few who found a life down here outside of the race. For most of them they were Kamehameha CC 100% of the time, from the moment they stepped off the plane. For me, I had met two guys - Marcos and Cim - and spent a fair amount of time hanging out with them. Hollis came down from NYC on the weekend, so we hung also. Friday to Sunday I was all Kamehameha. I think there were some tensions among those who never escaped the group, though I didn´t even notice until I was set to leave.

The breakdown:

Tuesday - arrive, and I am so beat I can barely function. It´s a bit cold and grey. I take a walk along Ipanema beach. I meet one guy, Marcos, and make plans to go dancing later in the week. At night I have coffee with Cim, a friend of a friend of a friend, and we hit it off and also make plans for later.

Wednesday - it´s cold and rainy. I run into Ruby by chance - she had been down here camping - and we head downtown to the museums. They weren´t that interesting, and Rio´s downtown was standard: beautiful old buildings and thousands of people bustling and hustling. That night more of the group arrives, but I can only convince Allen to go out with me. We hit Galeria Cafe, a small art studio that turns into a gay dance party at night. We meet Marcos, and dance until late at night. Everyone dances; there is no standing still. It´s all Brazilian music, and the crowd is cute and friendly and surprisingly normal - no twinks, muscle heads, or fashionistas. Just guys having a real good time.

Thursday - I work out for the first time in a week, then chill with Jake and Allen and Roz at Ipanema´s gay beach. The men are drop dead hot. I get too much sun. That night, our last night of freedom, no one will go out with me. Lame. I have a great time with Cim on my own.

Friday - Roz has us meet at 7:30 for a team work out - core, a bit of strength, and a run on the beach. Ouch! I hurt after that! The rest of the crew arrives, and we head to Urca to get the canoes ready and meet Nicholas, our Rio Vaa rep. The water is big, and it´s an intense trip from Urca to Copacabana and then back to Praia Vermelha. Luckily Mariano turns out to be an amazing steersman, with a talent for riding the backwash of the waves as they crash against the rocks and cliffs. It is either exhilerating (most of my crew) or a bit scary (yours truly). We ride the cable cars up Sugar Loaf after. That night I ditch the crew to hang with Cim. I wasn´t impressed with the restaurant choices, and it was getting too expensive to always be eating with a group at nice places. I love having dinner with groups like this, but it was getting to be too much. Plus, well, yeah you´re seeing a pattern.

Saturday - We put together a Master´s Crew for a 6km race: Jake, Allen, Jake, MC, Steve, Mariano. The water is choppy and confused, and I can´t say that we blended very well together, though it was the first time we had paddled together in this lineup and it was different. We come in 4th. Out of 4. We spend all day at the beach, then nap and later head to a nice Italian Restaurant for our team dinner. I have a Rosa de Bacalhau, a pasta stuffed with codfish in a tomato sauce, and it´s great. The first great meal I´ve had, really. We get to bed later than I wanted to.

Sunday - Race day. And I remembered, once again, and as usual too late, why they call these races "iron." Because of course if it were easy it wouldn´t be iron, or impress anyone. If anyone is impressed. We went from Praia Vermelha to Ipanema and back, and then into the Bay to Urca and back to Praia Vermelha - 42 kilometers without rest through all kinds of water. And I was loving it and later hating it then loving it and then just kind of delerious. Our line up was Eli, Jake, Lance, MC, Steve, Mariano. And we came in last, but I´m ok with that - we were a master´s crew, and the only Master´s Crew that even attempted the full iron course. That night we partied with the Rapa Nui guys at Baixa Gavea, which was basically a standard issue college type party where everyone drinks in the streets until the late hours of the night.

Monday - Ah sweet freedom! No tensions or anxiety, no worries about training, and one mean hangover (Eli and I had to keep one step ahead of Donielle in her caiparinha intake, cause it just would not have been right to let her drink more!). Those two took off to Buzious, the rest of the group took a cab ride to Corcovado, and Hollis and I climbed the mountain. ´Cause I haven´t been physical enough the past week, I guess. It was nice, though it sucked up the last of my body fat reserves. I have abs again! That night I finally got people to come dancing with me - Pam, Roz, Phil, Ruby, Lance and I went to Carioca de Gema in Lapa to hear some live Samba. We ran into the Tahitians, and had a great time dancing. I can, almost, I think, at least in my mind, samba and keep in step with the slower dancers here. Fun times.

And now Hollis and I are in Buenos Aires and a whole new movie has started. It´s a world apart; our neighborhood is cobblestone streets and narrow houses and could be Cervante´s La Mancha if it were on a different continent and you removed the buses running up and down the street. And I´m liking this too, but more on BA later ...

Rio

Arrivals are always the same. I think that I am doing pretty good with the language, but can't even order a coffee at the airport and so switch to English. I plan on diving right in and taking the bus, but I'm tired and confused and so splurge for a taxi. The route from the highway passes through tenemants - tall, crowded, brick or cement, half-finished buildings that seem to radiate heat and oppression, and I wonder how anyone survives here, much less brings a new generation to life.

The City and its poverty always goes on and on, and I wonder how many days until the next revolution. I get to my hotel, and crawl into bed. I need to shower. I'm hungry, I'm tired, I have no local money, and I don't want to leave the room. I don't know what the week will bring and I can't imagine that I will ever make sense of this particular city. I wonder why I travel, and put myself through this. I debate spending the week in my hotel room.

Hunger wins, and I eventually shower and head out into the street for a quick bite before taking a much needed nap. I leave the hotel, without a map, never with a frikkin map, because I don't intend to wander far. And I end up wandering far, and taking wrong turns, and spending hours putzing about.

So that's the part that's always the same. From there on out it's all particulars.

Rio has been fantastic. I slept half of Tuesday, but still managed to meet a guy, Marcos, and make plans to go dancing later, and later to meet up with Cim, who I had friends in common with.

Wednesday it was cold and rainy. I ran into Ruby, and we headed downtown, to Centro, to explore the museums. The museums were just alright, but it was fun being in the middle of a big city again with all it's 19th Century architecture and bustling crowds and chaos. The second crew came in that night, we met Mariano, our steersman from Buenos Aires, and then Alan and I went to Galeria Cafe, met up with Marcos, and danced until 3am. It was a gay bar designed by a local artist, so the space was great and the crowd was fun. It was all Brazilian music, but a wild mix of faro and samba and hip hop and techno and who knows what else. And Marcos turned out to be an amazing frakkin dancer, so that was special to be dancing with him.

This morning I worked out and then a group of us went to Ipanema Beach to sun and cruise. Later we all met Mariano at Praia Vermelha and went over the course. It looks hard core. I might race a second race - there are some women from Maui looking to put together a mixed crew for Saturday. Then we took a hike through the forest, then took the cable cars up to the top of Sugarloaf. Tonight I ditched the crew. Some are taking naps, some are going out for sushi. I had planned to meet up with Cim, but he had to work late. And though I love my crew, they're all going to be early and I have no plans to. There's another club I want to check out designed by the same artists as Galeria, so I'll grab an acai and head there and see what the night brings.

Not bad for only 2.5 days. I have to switch back into training mode tomorrow, with a 7am practice, so this is my final night to be a bit wild. Then I have to be very good for three days. I can do it.

Rio

It's been fun so far, and I haven't had time to do emails or post. Just dropping a line here to let you all know I'm alive! I had to change my Facebook account after someone hacked in and posted obscene comments, so now I don't know if I can do that from my phone anymore. So much for technology.

All is good. More late. Off to the beach.

White Party Miami

A guy walks up to me in a Miami Beach bar here and asks if I used to model.

I smile and tell him "no" ... and his eyes glaze over and he walks away as if he had never spoken to me in the first place.

And that was my experience with The Beach. These guys are so style obsessed they make West Hollywood look like a bunch of granola-eatin' love children. It was a bit much at times. I could see guys checking me out, but if I turned to look they'd get whiplash they's turn away so fast. Or maybe they weren't checking me out. Maybe they just had never seen a gay man who wasn't wearing Dior sunglasses.

It's early Monday morning, I've checked out of my hotel, and I have an hour until the SuperShuttle takes me on to the next adventure. Time enough to try and recap a bit ...

The Beach really was stunning; the architecture alone is worth a visit. They people, all blue-eyed Cubans, really are beautiful. It's a great place to meet up with friends, and I enjoyed the first few days of reunions and dinners and cocktails with guys I hadn't seen in awhile. Bill, John and Neil were in from New York, Mike was in from Maui, Steven K and his group were in from LA, and Ron stopped by on his way back from Puerto Rico. I got to catch up with Louie, who I had met in Montreal years ago. I tried to see Bugie, and ran into a sadly tweaked-out n... a few times.

So, with that, I didn't mind the attitude at the bars. Besides, I had some fabulous parties to attend.

I'll try to be objective here, and there were some great times, but this did not work as a "Circuit Weekend" for me at all. First the bitching:

SCORE: FONSECA - I skipped this night, but friends say Fonseca was On & that they think he's a great choice for Palm Springs. The club was crowded and smoky, so they didn't stay long.

FRI: TONY MORAN & CHRIS COX - Again, I passed (tried to pick up online since the bars were a failure for me. Depending on who you ask, it was either a great party, an ok party, or a just regular club night.

SAT: POOL: NIZRI - There might be some wet angry queens after this ... the pool wasn't packed, but they were making people line up because it was 'full.' We were sent inside by a worker to use the restrooms because the outside line was too long. Security stopped us and sent us back. Management stopped her and had to escort us through the ballroom to the bathrooms! "They are our guests and you will treat them like guests" she snarled at one rent-a-cop.

SAT: VIZCAYA: BILL HALLIQUIST - Vizcaya was really beautiful, and I thought it was an excellent way to kick off a weekend. It was a mansion / estate built like some mini- Versailles. I had a great time, and Ron said it was the highlight of his weekend (he never does after-hours) and was thrilled. The other guys skipped it. BUT I think this event has changed a lot; it was not what we were led to expect. There were no fabulous arrivals by yacht. There was some food - I think four restaruants had tables. It was hardly 'dinner.' There weren't people in fabulous costumes, celebrities, A-list queers, etc. But it WAS a dance night for us - and we were told not to expect that! Bill's set was close to my favorite over the weekend - it was high on vocals and happy house, and most songs were new to me. I'd love to see a track list. He's not main-room style yet ... he wasn't able to maintain extended stretches of peak energy. But it was fun, and the dance floor was packed for four hours. Good job. Fun party. But One Hundred Fifty bucks? I won't do it again at that price.

SAT SHUTTLES - What's a party without shuttle drama. Our bus was re-routed for some unknown reason, a French guy accused another guy of 'hijacking' it, and we sat in traffic jam while the two of them and the driver had a bitch fight.

SAT: PARKWEST: JOE G - I love Joe G. Great remixes, he kept the energy up, I finally got to hear this "Like a Prayer" dance mix all of you have been talking about. I could have danced all night and been so happy, except that Joe was just the warm up, and the main act was ...

SAT: PARKWEST: VICTOR - who gave me a headache. I know some guys, including dj's, who love him. He has his fans, and I tried to find what they find. But it was all beat! No melody so no love; no syncopation so no sex; no groove and so no dancing. The guys who stayed all shifted into a dull march. Interaction ended on the dance floor. If you even brushed someone they would stiffen and pull away (and seriously, guys, if your job is folding clothes you might want to tone down the attitude, no matter how pretty you are). I tried. I went inside to find the groove. I went outside and tried to pick it up from the crowd. I chewed half my tongue off. I was not having fun. I left, and this was my last chance for Victor. Never again. I don't care that they were all "his own beats." Music is more than a fucking beat.

SUN: BEACH: PHIL B - Ooh did I wake in a bad mood! I don't attend many events, and it felt like there was a big hole at the center of this weekend. I didn't want to get out of bed, and so missed Wendy Hunt. Some of my crew never got out of bed, and missed the Beach Party entirely. No loss. At first, I was happy to hear love and vocals from Phil. It was a Victor antidote. But ... it was too vocal. It was just top dance remixes, one after another. No surprises, no progression, nothing that couldn't have been done randomly. I swear I'm not always a bitch like this! But most of my crew stayed home, it was cold and windy, the crowd was a bit aloof, and once you're in that bad place it's hard to pull out. After 2hrs Phil put on Kung Fu Fighting and I went home back to bed.

SUN: CAMEO: MANNY AND ABEL - Brothers, I was not feeling it by Sunday night. My original plan was to be the first in the door and the last out. Instead I drank Guiness and watched a football game at Jerry's Deli while a storm swept in from the ocean. And I found more brotherhood there than I had yet at any of the parties, and that's shameful. I was hating the Circuit, and thinking: yeah, maybe it is dead afterall. I finally went to Cameo around 12:30. Manny was good. Manny is always good. There were rumor mills going around that he had "fucked up" his last visit to Florida and that people were booing and throwing water bottles at him & so no one local was going to go. I don't believe these rumors. Then Abel came on, and did his thing, It was a great night, the music was hard and sexy, the guys were friendly and interactive, people smiled and danced with their neighbors, and I finally had the night I had come all this way for.

My theory, and I'm sticking to it, is that Rauhofer & Co., drew off all the assholes to Mansion on Sunday night. In which case, I am all for competing events. We should make them standard!

So overall, I reunited with friends, and had some good club nights. My legs are still sore from dancing all half the night Saturday and straight through til dawn last night. There was no Central Event (for the most part, the guys at Vizcaya were not the ones at the parties). There was no "progression" a la Palm Springs or Orlando, where you all share the same journey throughout the weekend. And so, no "circit." I would come again if other friends all came, but I won't be leading the charge.

On to Rio ...

Mole Verde for an Army

I just finished up the first half of the pork in mole verde I'd made for the women's race a few weeks back. The other half is still in the freezer. I only used one pork shoulder, but the dish was so rich that a little went a long ways. I based the pork on Diane Kennedy's Cochinita Pibil recipe, and based the mole on Karen Hursh Graber's chicken in mole recipe on Mexico Connect.

Not mine, but it looks close enough

This, for the record, is similar to the mole verde that put my sister-in-law into labor. I wanted to make papadzules, a Mayan enchilada in pumpkin-seed sauce that I had in Mexico City, but I haven't been able to find a good recipe. The mole verde is close, and the pepitas /tomatillo / chile combination is luxurious. And the cochinita gives a pork that is really close to Hawaii's kalua pork - one that's better than anything you can get at the store.

As usual, the amounts here are a guess.

COCHINITA PIBIL

• 10 pounds pork shoulder, fat left on
• 6 teaspoons salt
• 12 tablespoons citrus juice (lemon, lime, orange mix)
• 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
• 1 teaspoon oregano
• 24 peppercorns
• 6 whole allspice
• 12 cloves garlic, peeled
• 1 teaspoon smoked hot paprika
• 1 teaspoon smoked black Turkish pepper
• ti leaves

Night Before
Pierce the pork, then rub with salt and 1/3 of the citrus.

Grind the whole spices. Sift in a fine strainer, then grind what's left.

In a molcajete grind the garlic, paprika, pepper, and salt. Add the rest of the citrus juice and the grated lime peel. Add to other spices to form a thick paste. Coat the pork with the paste.

Line a dutch oven with ti leaves. Place the pork on top, and wrap with rest of ti. Marinate overnight.

Cooking

Add about 1/2 cup to 1 cup water. Cook in a 325 degree oven, basting frequently, for 3-5 hours (until meat is falling apart).


MOLE VERDE

• 1.5 cups pepitas. Toast, grind, sift, regrind until powdery
  
• 16 tomatillos, cut into quarters
• 1 medium white onion, coarsely chopped
• 4 large cloves garlic, peeled and halved
• 8 serrano chiles, partially seeded
  
• 8 poblano chiles, roasted, peeled, seeded
  
• 8 romaine lettuce leaves
  
• 6 sprigs cilantro
• 6 sprigs parsely (or epazote, if I can ever find it)
• 1 bunch radish leaves
• liquid from the pork
  
• lard

Boil tomatillos, onion, garlic, and serranos for 5 minutes. Drain. Add to cuisinart and blend. Add poblanos, lettuce, and radish leaves. Blend. Add herbs and pepitas. Blend.

Heat lard. Add mole. Thin with juices from the pork. Reduce heat, and simmer for thirty minutes or longer. Season with salt.


FINAL

Shred pork. Heat lard in pan. Fry pork. Add mole. Simmer another thirty minutes until flavors have blended.

This makes enough for 40 or more. It's a lot! I don't know how to reduce it, since the pork shoulder is so big.

Next up: Haulani and I have set our Chirstmas party for December 19. I want to try one of the other seven classical moles, but ... since I'll be coming back from Brazil ... a feijoada might be in order. I'll make sure to try a lot of them while I'm down there.

Tinto de Veranos and Kısır

I haven't been doing a lot of cooking lately, and most of it has been basic. Though, now that I look, there are a few things that I need to post before I forget them (from Swamp Romp: Heuvos Rellenos de Atun, Andalusian Salad, and Honeydew in Honey Liqueur; from Easter: Lamb with Feta, Aspic Salad).

From this weekend, though, I have two for the records:

Kısır
This is Turkish bulgur wheat salad. It's a bit richer and spicier than tabouleh. I made this the day ahead, and re-seasoned it with pomegranate molasses and lemon before serving. The pomegranate molasses (it's the new balsamic vinegar, say the cognoscenti!), I think, takes it to a higher level.

• 1.5 c bulgur wheat - soak for 30" + in 2 c hot water. Add more water if needed. Soak until wheat is soft but not mushy. Squeeze excess water out of wheat.
• Red pepper paste - puree 2 red peppers, half a habanero, and a few Tbs water in a blender. Heat over medium heat until reduced by half.
• 2 tomatoes - remove seeds, grate, discard skins.
• 2 banana peppers - seed and slice
• 1 cucumber - seed and dice
• lots of fresh parsley and fresh mint

Mix all the above ingredients. Add, to taste:

• Spices - I ground equal amounts cumin, black pepper, Spanish paprika, smoked Turkish pepper, & black cumin. A smoked Mexican pepper like dried chipotle might work instead of the Turkish pepper, since you have to go to Istanbul (or bribe me) to get some.
  
• Fresh lemon juice
• Pomegranate molasses - Heat 4 cups pomegranate juice, 1/2 c sugar, and the juice of one lemon. Do not boil. Reduce to 1 to 1.5 cups. Let cool. It should by syrupy and tart.

Serve on a bed of red cabbage leaves, and garnish with lemon wedges.

Tinto de Veranos
Campari's reign was short-lived as my drink of summer. She's been replaced by a cheaper and fruitier Mediterranean neighbor. Tinto de Veranos - a mix of red wine and orange soda - is my new choice.

• 2 liters orange soda. Dump out 3/4 liter
• Add 1 bottle cheap Spanish or Italian wine. Bonus points if it comes out of a box.

Serve over lots of ice.

I would have never even tried this, except that I had bought a bottle of Sicilian red that was close to undrinkable. It had looked intriguing, or at least as intriguing as a seven-dollar bottle of wine can be. Now that Spanish wines are gaining attention - Fukioka's now has a whole section for them, complete with a giant stuffed black bull - the price is going up accordingly.

I need to find a new, undiscovered and under-priced region. Sicily seemed like a good bet. But the wine I got was rough, and I don't think I even finished one glass. I put the bottle in the fridge and forgot about it.

On to the weekend. I wanted to make a good sangria for after the race. I went online ... and learned that you never order sangria at a bar in Spain. Or rather, that only tourists do. That was news. Apparently sangria is like punch - you make it for a party, but not really for an individual. Which makes sense - sangria tastes a lot better when the fruit sit in the drink all day.

What the Spanish drink, instead, is this Tinto de Veranos. It sounded rough. It also sounded like a good punishment for the bad Sicilian.

Somehow, orange soda made the bad Sicilian good. Good enough that I bought another bottle, mixed 'em, and brought it to the regatta Sunday. I only made 1 2-liter batch, as I'm not always sure that everyone will share my tastes in drinks. As in: most people don't.

This one went over well. It's light and summery, low in alcohol, and easy to drink. I could have made more. Next time I will. Since I can make it in 60 seconds and for about 4 bucks a liter, I'll make a lot more.

Bitters

I've been having a love affair with Campari lately. I had ordered one out of curiosity at Tapas Christmas night. Dave C, Jose, and I had eaten a fatty (and somewhat disgusting) meal at Senor Frogs while, in the background, tourists and their children to act like they were at a wild party rather than at a family theme restaurant (the theme being, Spring Break! - minus the wet t-shirts and desperate frat boys).

So I needed a drink (not that we hadn't been drinking since noon, but we hadn't had anything after dinner yet), and all my usuals didn't sound right. Bitters sounded right, something to settle my stomach - and so Campari and Soda it was.

And so it was again. I wasn't even sure if I liked the first sip - it's a bit eccentric. I definitely liked the last sip.

Had it again, with orange juice, in Munich. And again on the plane ride home.

And that was all she wrote, homeboys. It's been my drink of choice since. I still like my Manhattan's and Old-Fashioneds and Martinis (assuming they're made properly, with gin and vermouth) - but these days I'm more likely to make a Negroni at home (gin, vermouth, and Campari, garnished with a burnt orange peel ... I haven't dared order it a bar yet for fear of what I'll get), or a Campari and soda, or even better, a Campari and Orange. I splurged once and bought a bottle of Gavioli Blood Orange soda, and that was beyond good - and beyond my day to day budget, unfortunately. My kalamansi is full of fruit, strange little oranges with bitter flesh but a sweet peel, and half of one is the perfect garnish.

SO okey-dokey. I went to Safeway instead of Tamuras tonight, and they wanted thirty bucks for a bottle of Campari. Which: fuck off, Safeway.

And so I met Campari's evil twin, Fernet-Branca. I knew nothing about this beyond that it was made with lots of herbs, it was from Italy, it's popular at Argentine barbecues, and San Francisco consumers more than any other city. It's a cult favorite there, apparently.

The San Fran trivia should have warned me. Sometimes that City tries to hard. But I've been curious about Fernet-Branca, & tonight seemed the night.

The bottle says Fernet-Branca si beve liscio, con ghiaccio, nel caffe, oppure con acqua natural, minerale, cola, soda o altre bibite gassate.

I can understand enough of that to get the gist of it: add it to anything you want.

I look up Fernet-Branca cocktails online. There's not many, though I learn that it's made with in Milan with a base of gape alcohol and 40 herbs and spices, including myrrh, rhubarb, chamomile, cardamom and saffron. I also learn that people compare their first taste to rubber bands, listerine, or ... my favorite ... Catholicism. It must be the myrrh.

Or the sense of penance that you get while drinking it. I was worried I'd just wasted some bucks, but I poured half a shot.

I tasted burnt oil.

I tried half a shot with lemon soda. I tasted burnt oil with lemon. A dash of cream didn't help. I tried a quarter of a shot with coffee - the most popular on-line combination. Still wasn't working. I did the dishes, and then tried the tiniest of sips. I started to taste some background flavors. Mint, I think. Maybe anise. And definitely radiator fluid.

Friends, this shit is rough. Maybe it's good for you. I'll give it a few more shots (heh) ... but I don't think that this is going to be one that I'll learn to savor and enjoy. I think it'l be more like cheap tequila: a quick shot followed by a quick chaser.

Lost Weekend

It wasn't really lost, per se. I've had true lost weekends. This last one was more of a: I'm not doing anything I don't want to do. No paddling. No training. No prepping for Swamp Romp.

I was busy enough. Did a deep cleaning, which I needed to do. I shopped for Friday's carb loading dinner. And I went to Big Tom's party. The last took up more prep time than it should have. I can find a crowd for a night of dancing in half a dozen of the world's great cities ... yet could barely manage it in my own home town. My crew came together and fell apart. One girl dropped when she learned there wouldn't be Booty House. Which: there will never be "booty house" at any party I go to. I'm not that white. A few others just faded out. Some of the usual suspects predicted it would be a waste of time. In the end, it was just David and I.

And four to five hundred people. That was a nice surprise. It was a good, happy crowd. It was nice to dance again in my own town, without having to get on a plane.

And yet ... I was ready to go until dawn. By 2:30 the dance floor was empty. The DJ, Cary Stringfellow, was strong for awhile. He made a fatal mistake, though, of going to hard at the wrong time. I took a break - the music didn't sound right to me. Maybe it was too early to go hard. Maybe the sound system couldn't handle it. Maybe I just wasn't wasted enough. Either way, I started to fade.

As did everyone else. People took cigarette breaks and never returned, they sat down on the couch and never got up. A few left, then more followed. The party went from rocking to dead in less than fifteen minutes. I think the DJ realized his mistake and went back to happy music, but it was too late. There was no longer critical mass. I went back to the dancefloor - and I could name every one of the other four groups out there. Sure we were the diehards, but we weren't enough to resurrect the party.

It was too bad, though I hope it went well enough we'll get more. For me it was only a warm up for Palm Springs, anyway. That is pretty much guaranteed to be non-stop fun.

Hit the gym hard twice since, I'm up to 750 crunches a set, and went running twice. I still hate running, but don't want to shame myself in this weekend's Swamp Romp. And I need to be buff for PS.

At the moment I'm hot and stinky form being in the kitchen all evening. I thought I took notes last year when I cooked, but I can't find them, so I'm guessing at quantities. This year I'll do better, and post the recipes & how much was left over. I did the bulk of the cooking tonight (though just realized I forgot a few things & will need to make them up tomorrow). The menu, for 30 Rompers:

Heuvos Rellenos de Atun - 30 eggs
Cochinita Pibil - 15# pork shoulder
Andalusian Salad - 5 c rice, 5 c soybeans
Colcannon - 10# potatoes
Melon - 4 honeydew & half a bottle of honey liqueur

notes: The eggs went, and the pork was good the next day at the race. Both were the right amounts. I had twice as much potatoes and melon as needed. Johnny brought bread, and that was a needed addition. The soybeans took forever to cook & I ended up not even using them. People liked the rice salad, though I thought it was just ok. People didn't drink much - only two of the eight bottles of wine.

Turkey Aftermath

Had a very pleasant Thanksgiving at Kevin and Frank's place up the hill. It was a diverse crowd - the only ones I knew were Bernardo, Ahmed, Ken & Ken, and Elle. Even then I forgot that I had met Ellen years ago. I never did figure out how most of the rest were connected.

I spent a good hour cleaning the kitchen this evening (pics to come!). I thought it would take longer. Longer as in: all night. An hour wasn't too bad.

So the turkey came out fine. The stuffing was good, but not the knock-out punch I was aiming for. Kevin ended up adding pomegranates to his stuffing also - great minds etc. But I found, after three Turkey meals (Harris's lunchwagon Wednesday, dinner last night, and Mandalay for lunch this morning) that I'm seriously craving an old-fashioned sage, sausage, and celery stuffing. My avant-garde creation didn't even come close to the original.

Notes for next year, since I'll probably forget if I don't write it down:

• Order the turkey online. The only choices we had were cheap Franken-birds or $40 free-range organic birds. Nothing in the middle. I went Franken-bird this year, and it showed. The meat was all white, which is a sure sign that the bird was a mutant raised in crowded conditions. It lacked any deep flavor, and there were almost no drippings. I couldn't find just a normal turkey - everything was injected with saline and oil! - and it would be cheaper to go through d'Artagnan and get a heritage bird than buy one of Safeway's mass-produced 'free-range' critters.

• Frida's recipe cooks fast! Forget four-five hours - this baby was done in 3.5. Which meant it set for a long time, and that nice crispy skin lost its crispiness. Next year I'll time it down to the wire. Her way is still my favorite way to cook it.

• Make sure you have a pan big enough to catch the drippings. Drippings plus gas = critical levels of smoke.

• If you stuff the ass then tie then sew it shut well! Skewers aren't enough (as evidenced when the bad boy shat out half the stuffing in the oven). Skewers were fine for the main cavity.

• Towards the end I started switching out roasting pans. I'd pull one, put the second in, and use the butter from the first to baste. Then repeat. This was much less dangerous than basting from the original pan.
  

• One round I put the heart, gizzards, and some shallots in the basting pan under the bird. They roasted nicely, and were ono in the gravy.

• And go with the sage stuffing, dammit! No one had it this year. I might need to cook another bird just to have some. Maybe I'll try a mincemeat pie next year - that should satisfy my urge for drama.
  

Turkey Fight

My studio is filled with smoke, and it's starting to drift out of the windows and over the neighborhood - it must be Thanksgiving.

I'm having my yearly Turkey fight. Kevin and Frank are collecting twenty of us orphans and having us for dinner. I volunteered to cook one of the turkeys.

I'm following Frida Kahlo's recipe from her Fiesta book. It's simple - rub with salt and pepper, roast in a 425 oven, and baste constantly with butter. The skin comes out so crispy and golden; none of the modern recipes come close. But oh my does this simple process make a mess! I haven't burned myself yet, but I'm only 40 minutes into a four-plus hour process. Give me time.

I'm experimenting with the stuffing. I found a fruit and nut stuffing from Rochelle Palermo Torres, and twisted it around a bit. It almost reminded me of a mince, and so I adjusted it a bit to make it more like my Aunt Gloria's mincemeat pies. Mincemeat cooked in a turkey sounded good. I added figs, and then went looking for meat to add. I had some rabbit and chicken livers in the freezer, and I thought: ooh, figs and liver. That's pate! And so I added them instead of meat. And so I cooked it up a few days ahead to let the flavors blend, and then stuffed my bird with the mincemeat pate stuffing.

Yeah, I made that up. Google it, you won't find it anywhere but here.

It tasted pretty damn good, though it's expanding at a rapid rate and threatening to pop my bird. A third is in the turkey. I put a paella pan under the bird to catch the drippings, and I'll cook the rest of the stuffing under the turkey & let the fat drip on it. The rest of the fat will go towards a giblet cream gravy. I might add some roasted shallots if I get motivated.

So, here's the Torres recipe, unexpurgated. I'll follow it with my expurgations and additions.

12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) butter
2 large Anjou pears, peeled, cored, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 tablespoon sugar
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
4 cups chopped onions
1 1/2 cups chopped celery
1 1/2 cups Sauternes or other sweet white wine
1 1/2 cups chopped pitted prunes
1 1/2 cups chopped dried apricots
1 cup dried cranberries
2 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary
1 tablespoon chopped fresh sage

14 cups 1/2-inch cubes crustless firm white bread (about 1 1/2 pounds)
1 cup pecans, toasted, chopped

Melt 2 tablespoons butter in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add pears; sprinkle with sugar. Sauté until pears are golden, about 5 minutes. Transfer to very large bowl; mix in cinnamon. Melt remaining 10 tablespoons butter in same skillet over medium heat. Add onions and celery; sauté until golden, about 15 minutes. Add wine and next 5 ingredients. Simmer until liquid is reduced almost to glaze and mixture is soft and moist, stirring occasionally, about 15 minutes. Mix into pears. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and chill. Reheat to lukewarm before continuing.) Mix bread and pecans into fruit mixture. Season stuffing with salt and pepper.

To bake stuffing in turkey:
Loosely fill main cavity and neck cavity of turkey with stuffing. Generously butter baking dish. Spoon remaining stuffing into prepared dish. Cover dish with buttered foil, buttered side down. Bake stuffing in dish — alongside turkey or while turkey is resting — until heated through, about 25 minutes. Uncover stuffing in dish. Bake until top of stuffing is slightly crisp and golden, about 15 minutes longer.

To bake stuffing in dish:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Generously butter 13x9x2-inch glass baking dish. Transfer stuffing to prepared dish. Bake uncovered until heated through, about 35 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350°F. Generously butter 13x9x2-inch glass baking dish. Transfer stuffing to prepared dish. Bake uncovered until heated through, about 35 minutes.

MC's Midnight Expurgations and Adulterations

• Make the stuffing, up until adding the bread, two days ahead. There are a lot of discordant flavors here, and they need time to blend.
• Use 6 persimmons instead of the pears.
• I substituted black mission figs for the prunes. Because: Figs? Yum. Prunes? Not so much.
• Add dried cherries and seeds from one pomegranate
• Use Cline Viognier, as I love the creaminess of this wine. I also added a cup of stock, as some of the commentary noted the stuffing could be dry.
• Add 1 pound of chopped and sauteed rabbit and chicken livers
• Forget the nuts. There's enough going on here already. Plus, I didn't have any nuts on hand.

It's more or less the same recipe. With the non-linear way I cook it's the closest I'll get to a carbon copy. Shoots, this is almost cloning.

We'll see how it goes in a couple hours. Everyone is a gentlemen, so they'll all say they like it. I'll know more from their looks as to how it went over.

A Moose in the Pot

Ron's father came through, and brought over a 1.5 kg sirloin tip of moose.

I had trouble finding recipes online. All the hunter's recipes were variations on pot roast: add potatoes, onions, carrots, and moose to a pot. Boil. Serve.

I hate pot roast.

Epicurious had nothing. The recipe exchange on Tribe was no help. So I called mom. Hi mom. How do I cook moose (with an 'o')? I thought this might faze her, but she came up with sauerbraten and knifles within seconds.

Which: perfect. It fits in with how I cook, where it takes me three days minimum to cook a meal. It's kind of traditional and reminds me of childhood - though we would have had a regular hunk of meat from the farm in the pot, and not wild game. And I get to try my hand at some traditional food - knifles are a Norwegian noodle that I loved as a kid, and it would be great to get the technique down (it involves pouring the batter on an inverted plate held over a pot of boiling water; the batter drips of the end of the plate & forms the noodles).

I'm sure I'll make a Katrina-sized mess trying this, which also fits into my style of cooking.

I've been marinading the moose in wine and vinegar for the past two days. I'll try my hand at the knifles tonight, and cook the meat. Tomorrow I'll make a cranberry relish, a cardamom applesauce, and the ginger gravy. If I could find lefse on this island the meal would be complete.

It'll be a small group: Ron, Sumner, Dave, and a friend of Ron's who's new to the island. Add wine and champagne, and the holidays will have officially begun.

Moose for the Holidays

I don't know what triggered it, but I've already started fantasizing about what I want to cook for the holidays. Maybe because it's that I've been too busy to do anything spectacular in the kitchen recently. Maybe I've been watching too much Top Chef. Maybe it's because paddling has left me 1) continuously ravenously hungry, and 2) with needs that need to be sublimated.

Whichever, I'm ready to start prepping, and I'm feeling nostalgic for northern spices and flavors ... coriander, dill, nutmeg, allspice, juniper, and all the other winter scents of the season that we just don't get out here.

I want lefsa. I want creamed herring and wild rice and gravlax. I think I might even want lutefisk, although I might lose all my friends with the last one. Some stuff I'll need to order online soon. I need to start some of the liqueurs (pimento dram, the eggnog spike, falernum) now. I've never started a rumcake so far ahead, but I'm willing to bet it'll taste damn fine if I do.

So the question is, where and when? I'm hoping to be in Egypt during the last part of December. Hau and I talked about doing another big party, but I'm not cooking for 100. Ken has the surf house reserved for the Triple Crown, and though I'll cook again if asked I don't want to be inside all day prepping a major dinner.

Chez moi? Maybe, but it's hard to fit many people here.

And then - kaching! - I thought of Ron. We've done joint dinner parties at his place before, but not in awhile. And even better, his dad has a freezer full of game that his mom would be all too willing to donate. I just talked to him, and his job this fall will be to get a cooler full of venison, moose, and whatever else his dad has shot from Vermont to Hawai`i. Not that I've ever cooked a moose before, but I can't imagine it'll be that difficult.

Savory Tomato Bread Pudding

I made Sara's Savory Tomato Bread Pudding from Top Chef for the wahine last night. She has $50 to prepare an appetizer for 60 of "Miami's Beautiful." I spent 40 to feed 20 - but bread and eggs are expensive here! The link shows her recipe. It says it's for ten, so I doubled it ... and ended up with 120 muffins before I caved in & through the rest of the batter in four pie tins and baked it en masse. The muffins were great - a definite keeper!

A pic of her food is above; I'll post mine someday.

1/2 large onion, diced
5 cloves garlic, sliced
1 quart heavy whipping cream
3/4 quart whole milk
9 oz tomato paste
10 whole eggs
3 loaves baguette, shredded in the cuisinart
1 bunch basil, chopped
8oz cream cheese

• Saute the onion and garlic until translucent. Remove from heat, add cream, and season well.
• Blend milk and tomato paste in a cuisinart. Season.
• Mix the two sauces. Add bread and eggs. Let sit 45"
• Put mix in mini-muffin tins. Add a dollop of basil cream on top. Bake in 375 oven for 15". Let cool.

So easy! They were nice and moist, with a nice blend of pepper and tomato. Perfect for a hot summer's day. It was popular - the wahine devoured the 60 I brought to the race. I could've brought the whole batch! Instead I gave some to my neighbors, and I'll bring a couple dozen to work. And I still have a batch left in my refrigerator. Thanks Sara!

Differences:

• I diced my onion, while Sara's was brunoise. Same thing in my book
• She used a red onion. I think I'll do the same next time.
• She added thyme to the cream cheese, and pushed it through a tamis. I just used basil, and kept the herbs in.
• She drizzled the basil cream on top after it was done, and drizzled it all with balsamic vinegar. My way is easier.

Creme Yvette

Crème Yvette is the one that intrigues me - a liqueur made of candied violets and flavored with vanilla & other unknown spices. The manufacturer discontinued it sometime in the 60's. France that still produces Crème de Violette, which is similar, but close to impossible to find.

I haven't done the Mixology Monday party in awhile, but was on the site & saw that there is a conference on lost cocktail ingredients this weekend in New Orleans. Attendees will learn how to make falernum (got it!), pimento dram (got it!), bitters (sounds complicated), crème yvette, and crème de rose.

There's a rumor that Dr. Cocktail (of the Internet Cocktail Database fame) knows the recipe and makes it for his friends ... but so far no one has leaked the recipe online yet. I looked. Hopefully some nice fellow will blog about it after the conference!

And while looking, I found this strange liqueur on the Household Cyclopedia. It's a website that reprints articles from the an 1881 series of how-to manuals. It covers everything from mettalurgy to whisky making. Just reading the site conjures up a lost world of back-yard stills and American self-sufficiency, of the age before everything became commodified and standardized. Recipes call for ambergris and cochineal, herbs that we don't grow anymore & fruit varietals that I have never heard of (bigarades and cedrat, anyone?).

Most of the recipes are beyond me - I don't have a still. This one - a Crème d'Orange flavored with saffron - intrigues me. I haven't been able to make a decent orange liqueur yet. It might be worth another try ... assuming I can figure out what all the terms mean and how to do all this in a modern kitchen.

Creme d'Orange of Superior Flavor

Take 3 doz. middling sized oranges; orange-flower water, 2 qts.; loaf sugar, 18 lbs.; spirit of wine, 2 galls.; tincture of saffron, 1 1/2 oz.; water, 4 1/2 galls. This will produce 7 1/2 galls.

Cut the oranges in slices, put them into a cask, add the spirit and orange-flower water, let it stand a fortnight, then boil the sugar in the water for 1/2 an hour, pour it out, and let it stand till cold, then add it to the mixture in the cask, and put in the tincture of Saffron. Let it remain a fortnight longer, then strain, and proceed as directed in the receipt for Cremes de Barbades, and a very fine cordial will be produced.

To make Real Creme des Barbades

Take 2 doz. middling-sized lemons, 6 large citrons; loaf sugar, 28 lbs,; fresh balm leaves, 3 lb.; spirit of wine, 2 1/2 galls.; water, 3 1/2 galls. This will produce about 7 galls., full measure. Cut the lemons and citrons in thin slices, and put them into a cask; pour upon them the spirit of wine, bung down close, and let it stand 10 days or a fortnight then break the sugar, and boil it for 1/2 an hour in the 33 galls. of water, skimming it frequently; then chop the balm-leaves, put them into a large pan, and pour upon them the boiling liquor, and let it stand till quite cold; then strain it through a lawn sieve, and put it to the spirits etc., in the cask; bung down close, and in a fortnight draw it off; strain it through a jelly bag, and let it remain to fine; then bottle it.

The best I found for flowers was to take 4 cups of vodka and 1-2 cups lavender leaves (or 1/3 the amount dried), let steep for two days, and 1 cup sugar, shake to dissolve, let steep for two weeks, and strain. I'm assuming this could work for violets also. It looks too simple to be the right recipe, and it doesn't look like a creme. It might be a start, though.