Martinis and Eggs

I love a good olive-laden gin martini, and order them nearly every time we eat out. Tonight, though, I bought some extra-dry vermouth, which means I can make my own. A dangerous thought, to be sure! But tonight I made a mini one; perhaps 1/3 the volume of a bar serving. It was oh-so cute.

And after unsuccessfully attempting to coerce Bean's elderly Father to take us to dinner, we whipped up a delightfully refreshing meal of rice, broccoli and asparagus, topped with an over-easy egg expertly cooked by Bean. I added mushrooms and kimchi. Mmmm.

Why was this so delicious?!

Simon was perhaps too excited about the building possibilities:

Cucumber & Gin

There was a name for this drink, but I forget it. We blended:

whole Belgian cucumber (small and sweet)

shot of lime juice

Leaving the skins on the cuke resulted in a beautiful dark-green speckling in the pale mixture. We added this to a cup of ice and two shots of white rum. It was a wonderfully delicious thang.

pasta and broccoli and mango and gin

This was a simple dinner; penne pasta mixed with slightly-steamed broccoli, and topped with olive oil and feta cheese. Delicious, though, because it tastes so healthy.

Then we trooped over to watch The Road, which depressed all five of us to a noticeable degree; Jesse came back and wolfed down chocolates, Sean wandered restlessly about the house, Simon descended into silence, and Hannah and I broke out the alcohol.

I have had a can of mango nectar sitting in my refrigerator for an unacceptably long time, and I had brought it with me tonight (perhaps because of the birch beer experiment). I haven't had any juice to drink for months and months because of its superb sweetness. I find it strange that I can stand any amount of sweetness in chocolate form, but fruity sugar has become unbearable in any substantial concentration.

So! I made this one more bearable (and simultaneously delicious) by adding more gin and more vanilla seltzer.

Bean also made wheat-honey bread today, but I have no proof!

Win & Gin?

There is a beer place in [I think] Albany called [I think] the Brew Crew, and we stopped by it the other day after we made ourselves miserable buying suits to hasten toward our perilous futures. It is a quiet-looking place, but filled with so many beautiful bottles and boxes and labels and colors, and beer of every type and flavored with chocolate and berries and oats and from every freaking country in the world BUT -- I don't like beer. So I bought one bottle of Stewart's birch beer instead, and felt the fool.

Last night I tried it and forgot that the downfall of soda is its unbearable sweetness. This was a problem easily fixable by mixing it with Bombay gin and vanilla seltzer, which we had previously used to make a less-satisfying version of gin-and-tonic.