Thursday, September 28, 2006

Liquor in a sippy cup

I knew the weekend was gonna be ggo when it started out with Jack in a sippy cup on Friday night.

Who knew the Chuck E. Cheese's give you a sippy cup when you order a kids meal.

I got home on Friday night exhausted from preparing for the most important non catering catering gig of my life. I was assigend to cook for my boss, her boss and a bunch of her peers. No pressure. I was only being billed as the lab grill master!

OK in all fairness, i may have given myself that moniker in the past, buit i never realized it would be escalated to the bosses boss. Did i mention he is a Texan? Did I mention I had decided to Smoke Brisket before i KNEW he was from Texas????????

No pressure.

I get home from this wonderful affair on friday evening. I am worn the fuck out. All I want to do is get a shower, and have a jack. At the same time. I mention to the OL that i wish I coujld get a Jack in a sippy cup, cuz then I would just seat in teh shower seat and sip on my jack while the shower poured over me.

I jump in the shower to wash off the smoke and grime of 24 hours of cooking, and two minutres later the OL walks in and hands me a sippy cup containing ice, and... yup you guessed it, Jack Daniels. Best shower ever.

Ok so i said teh whole weekend was awesome.

Saturday afternoon, I get a phone call from everyones favorite Certified Hawaiian. the conversation goes something like this:

Him: Wanna go to Vegas?
Me: shit yeah!!!!
Him: no really.
Me: Yeah really.

the call came at 2:30. We were on the road to the Airport by 3:15, in Vegas by 6:30. first cocktail at 7, first jackpot, 7:01. Everyone's favorite Hawaiian hits a $5 slot machine for $800!!!

oh yeah

DRUNK POST WARNING!!!

there is more to teh story, but that will have to come later.

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Anchovy Stuffed Olives

DRUNK POST ALERT!!!!!!!!


I didn't bother posting a week or so ago when I discovered that the OL had picked up a jar of blue cheese stuffed olives from Trader Joes. I must admit that was a mistake, cuz now I have to tell the back story to this post while intoxicated.

So I find this jar of olives, and it immediately reminds me of NAB 2006. (V4 has found a video on YouTube that has the peanuts characters dancing to Outkast's Hey Ya') NAB 2006 was a lot of hard work followed by a lot of hard drinking.

On this particular night, TB and I were in the company of a few friends at the lake show at the Wynn Hotel and Casino. I was drinking my usual Jack rocks, and TB was drinking Ketel One martinis with three olives(yes, the number three is important when drinking martinis in Vegas). Well at some point, the bar ran out of their usual olives, and decided to substitute blue cheese stuffed olives. TB made the mistake of announcing to the whole table that the olives were blue cheese stuffed, and the rest as they say is history. We proceeded to pilfer olives from TB's drink... Damn they were good!

back to the near future, after finding the blue cheese stuffed olives in the grocery bag, I declared that we were gonna have martinis that night. So later that afternoon, we head to BevMo to procure the necessary martini shit, usually, I would say accoutrements, but shit I am fucked up right now. $172 later we leave BevMo with a couple of Martini glasses, a handle of Ketel One, the OL's favorite, two packages of Martini picks, my choice, and hers, another jar of olives, and assorted other shit. Long story made short, $172 and change later, we have martini fixins!!! Three hours later, and 3 or drinks later, we are debating whether vermouth is really necessary.

So to get back to tonight, it would appear that during my absence this past weekend, the OL decides to go on a road trip to The Brentwood Olive Oil Company.

The OL shows me the items she procured from the BOO. She picked up lemon infused olive oil, Jalapeno infused olive oil, and anchovy Stuffed olives. Well, I am sure you know exactly what happens when I see these olives. Just a hint, I happen to love anchovies, and they taste really good when they have soaked for a few minutes in a well prepared martini.

Too much typing. Time to drink more!

Sunday, September 10, 2006

How much time is enough?

I know I owe a review of Frangelico, and I also nee to revisit the reviews of Damiana liqueur and Phillips Root 100, but those will come later.

I think I have waited the appropriate amount of time to comment on OSU v UT.

UT got beat by a better football team. That's not saying that UT is not a good team, just that they are not National Championship contenders this season. Look for the 'Horns to improve as the season progresses, and for them to be up near the top again next season.

Sunday, September 03, 2006

Exploring BevMo

Four new bottles made it into the liquor cabinet tonight.
  1. Phillips Root 100 Root Beer liqueur.
  2. Phillips union Cherry Flavored Whiskey.
  3. Damiana liqueur
  4. Frangelico
We also picked up a bottle of our new favorite rum, 10Cane. This stuff is made from pure cane sugar and goes down very smooth. It is awesome with Coke, or even on the rocks.

First impressions:

The Root 100, appears to be corked, but it is only wrapped in a seal similar to a wine bottle. The first whiff out of the bottle is very medicinal and slightly sweet. I tried it first neat. Bad idea. I poured a little over an ice cube and let it set and chill for a minute. The chill helped some, but it wasn't until the ice melted and watered it down a bit that I was able to smell the rootbeer and the taste was much less astringent.

The Damiana has a pleasant spicy herbal aroma. I got bits of rosemary and another note that I couldn't quite place. Near, the taste was this same herbal yet mild taste. Over Ice, there were citrus notes with a spicy finish and very little after taste. Overall a very interesting taste. This one will get more experimentation real soon

The Phillips union Cherry flavored whiskey has a nice cherry flavored nose. The first sip neat, was smooth and pleasant. The finish however was acidic and artificial. On the rocks, the cherry flavor was more pronounced and the artificial finish was not noticeable at all. With coke, this is a down right decent beverage. A nice blend of whiskey and cherry coke. If it wasn't for my "condition", I would add this to my rotation of beverages. As it stands, I will be enjoying this one strictly on the rocks.

Frangelico? well that will be a tasting for another night.

Now I am off to pour another Cherry Coke!

Saturday, September 02, 2006

Bacon!!!!!

I made bacon sandwiches for brunch today.

What I hope will turn into a great three day weekend started on a sour note. I was forced to wake up at the ungodly hour of 9:00 am PDT. What's worse is I had to wake up to the most annoying play by play voice in the world, Joel Myers.

So after UT got off to a 28-0 halftime lead I figured it was time to get a little food in my belly. My selection, two types of apple wood smoked bacon, I thought was perfect for the official start of the College Football Season. Turns out the bacon was okay. I had two types, both from my local Albertson's meat counter.

The first was simply smoked over apple. It had a mild flavor. I thought it wasn't much different than something you might find in a Farmer John's package. Rene thought it had just the right amount of smoke flavor and a really nice "meaty" taste. She felt that it didn't have the fake smoke taste of some bacon. The second was a peppered bacon. Though I have never seen peppered bacon, I figured I would pick it up and compare the taste.

The second was also smoked over apple wood. This one, however, was also peppered. Now I am not certain of this, but I think this bacon was coated with ground black pepper before smoking. You really couldn't tell by looking at it, the sliced bacon in the package was sprinkled with ground pepper. My guess is that a lot of the pepper came off during slicing. The flavor was more pronounced. Not peppery or spicy, it just seemed as though the peppering enhanced the smoke flavor.

I cooked both in their own non stick skillet on the stove top. Next time I will give the oven a try and see if there is any difference.

I had my heart set on watching Ohio State play, but ABC decided that I would rather watch Stanford vs. Oregon in a match up of Pac-10 powerhouses. I even tried to buy the game on the ESPN Game Plan, except Comcast does not want my money and does not offer the Game Plan in my area. I hate Comcast. Fortunately, my lovely wife rescued me when she decided to take a jaunt down to Bonny Doon Vineyards. They have a revolving selection of wines available for tasting, and the tasting fee is only $3.oo, although I think they waived it after we purchased almost 2 cases of wine.

After the trip to Bonny Doon, we got home in time to watch USC whoop up on the Hoggs of Arkansas. Although not the thorough ass whooping of last season, it was still a very impressive win.

Football observations:
  • Why were the defending National Champions playing at such a horrible time?
  • Why did Fox choose to save their HD cameras for the Utah vs. UCLA???
  • Joel Meyers has the most annoying voice of any play by play commentator.
  • The Longhorns looked really good today. (even though it was against the Mean Green of North Texas.
  • McCoy looks like the real deal. He is no Vince Young, but who is?
  • Jamal Charles will finally get a chance to show his running skills now that he is no longer in the shadow of VY.
  • If Selvin Young stays healthy, Texas could have the most potent running game in College football this year.
  • USC is off to a great start.
  • Booty looks really good.
  • The Trojans have more running backs than you can shake a stick at. I don't envy the coaches job of choosing a starter every week.
  • The Trojan Tailbacks do not give up. They keep running till the whistle blows like no bodies business.
  • Did you see the defense play? They look like they haven't lost a step.
  • Art Shell finally got to make a decision. The Raiders cut Jeff George.
I will let you know how the bacon turns out in the oven, and also update the wine adventures.

Happy football day!!!!