What I’ve been “doing” (3/3)

Drove down to Laguna with Sheeho this past Saturday for family Christmas time. No car stereo (thievery) led us to try our luck twisting the slippery knobs of a shower stereo (early Christmas gift), which did not work out well at all (fat finger syndrome). That’s right, twisting the slippery knobs, ladies and gentlemen.

Anyway, this is relevant to this forum, because in the bed of my truck was a cooler. And in that cooler were the central makings of a Christmas dinner. As it turns out, I didn’t really need the cooler, as it was approaching absolute zero on the way down from SF. Still, I always feel like it’s special times when I use the back of my reproachable, impractical pickup truck to import gastrogoodies from the Bay down to primordial SoCal. 

 

Coming next: Cookies, including Mexican wedding cakes a.k.a. snowballs; photodocumenting XXX-mas dinner; exhaustion.

What I’ve been “doing” (2/3)

I mentioned the vodka and cachaça (hey, it’s one of those cedille things! I did it!) infusions, 8 or 10 times in recent weeks, so I figure I ought to mention how they turned out. Pretty damn good for the most part, if I may say so. Pineapple-mint, apple-quince-cinammon, and mango-jalapeño were standouts. Ginger and citrus -centered ones were less so. Picked up some bitterness when I decided to include the whole citrus. Still, they will make you drunk, and are a significant improvement on un-infused Smirnoff. 

So delighted was I, that I even worked up the initiative to make a second batch. In this batch, I threw in some more of the pineapple-mint ilk, and messed around with with coconuts, coffee beans, lemongrass, persimmons, vanilla beans, meyer lemons, and pomegranates. Picture comin’:

Infuzzions

Again, that’s not my handwriting. This time I employed the chicken scratch stylings of The Fabulous Sheeho (1), who flew out from Chicago last week to sleep on my couch and keep Mr. Pizza Man’s late-night delivery guy busy. Anyway, we’ll see if these turn out as well as the first batch. If you’re lucky, you might qualify as a second-tier friend and land yourself one of these bad boys. Just kidding. I arbitrarily doled out the first round to the people closest in physical proximity to me, who in many cases were shitheads I don’t care for. Just kidding again!

Lastly, based on my general ineptitude, the ease with which these were done, and the confidence I have in you as a reader of this blog, I recommend with few reservations that you go out and get some jars, some booze, and some fruit/spices and make some tasty tasty of your own. Then let’s get wasted together, Andrew WK -stylez.

We like to party,

Chris

 

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(1) His official stage name, not something I made up.

What I’ve been “doing” (1/3)

Our Man in Shanghai a.k.a. The Benefactor a.k.a. Micah Lewis-Claus sponsored a holiday meal of jambalaya and biscuits last Thursday, by donating an assortment of Louisianan sausage and ham that I had been lusting after. Dozer snapped some photos of the festivities. The only one relevant to this blog is the following:

Jambalaya Juice

In the background, our food stylist has placed the finished infused jars of gift booze, and what appears to be a bowl of transfat, but which is in actuality honey butter. Even TK, who holds a thoroughly un-American resentment of delicious, smoky, spicy pork, couldn’t resist biscuits with honey butter. 

I’d post a “recipe” for that jambalaya, but I’ve largely forgotten what I did. Plus, I’m just an Asian-American gangbanger from the forthcoming film Gran Torino, so where do I get off telling you how to make jambalaya?

I will not, however, withhold my pride in those infused liquors. JB declared the mango-jalapeño vodka soda “amazing” and “like a Range drink.” Personally, I think the Range tenders ought to sleep with one eye open, because I’m coming for them. You hear that? I’m coming for you, Range. And I drive a Toyota.