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Happy Friday! And happy start of vacation! (At least for me.. I'm living the easy life until the 21st).
If you live in Pittsburgh, you know that the weather has sucked like nothing else this week. Wind and rain leads to floods and power outages.. And a lot of headaches and heartaches. To all my sandbag-happy Millvale friends ('s up, Joe?), hang in there, this too shall pass.
To ward off the bad-weather blues, Alex and I opted for a bright and fruity drink this evening- however our featured slurp is not the booze, but the mixer. Giant Eagle's Market District label makes a Blood Orange Soda that, unlike Crush or Slice, actually tastes like oranges (and isn't so sweet that it overwhelms the drinker). We tried this with both gin and vodka. While Alex enjoyed the vodka-based drink, I much preferred the gin (a little more of that Hendrick's I mentioned previously). Either way, it's great on its own or with any clear spirit of your choice. Cheers!
"I've got my twelve sided die and I'm ready to roll with a wizard and my goblin crew
My friends are coming over to my mom's basement, bringin' funyuns and some mountain dew.
I got a big broadsword made out of cardboard and that stereo's a-pumpin zeppelin
It's that time of the night we turn on the black light, and let the dungeons and the dragons begin...
It's D and D!
Fighting with the legends of yore.
It's D and D!Never kissed a lady before. Nope!"
--Stephen Lynch, D&D
He'll swear otherwise until the day he dies, but my boyfriend, God bless him, is a big ol' geek. Alex may not look like one, but trust me, he's a a video game playing, comic book collecting, sci-fi/fantasy reading, futurama/simpsons quoting, anime-watching, tabletop gaming, IT-employed nerd among nerds. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking geeks- in fact I freely admit that I am one. But when the Dungeons and Dragons books come out from under his desk, I believe I am fully-justified in picking on him and his gamer buddies.
Once a month, Alex and and his friends get together for what they call 'Man Day'. This usually amounts to playing tabletop and video games for 12 hours while killing a case or two of beer and a mountain of food. We're hosting this month, and my contribution is to keep my jabs to a minimum, and whip up some edibles to keep the elves and dwarves from deploying a raiding party on our unsuspecting cabinets. (Sorry, can't help it..).
Cooking for this group can be a bit of a challenge for me.. with the exception of Alex, their palates are somewhat limited. OK, they're a lot limited- think chicken fingers and french fries 24/7. I don't think they'll share my enthusiasm for a watermelon, feta and charred jalapeno salad with ginger-mint vinegarette. Any suggestions, folks? Email me, please!
For those of you who don't know (and if you don't know, you must not know me at ALL), I'm a freak about food. Cooking isn't just an everyday chore for me, it's my hobby, creative outlet, stress relief, passion.. occasionally, it pushes obsession. And nothing will make me happier than a top notch meal- be it at the latest 'it' restaurant, a hole-in-the-wall eatery, or in the homes of my good friends. I've got all the usual magazine subscriptions. I've read everything from Anthony Bourdain's works to Auberge of the Flowering Hearth to Marco Pierre White's autobiography. I've got more cookbooks than I care to count.
Not surprising, I also follow food blogs. One of my absolute favorites is French Laundry at Home, which chronicles one woman's quest to make every recipe in The French Laundry Cookbook. Not only is Carol's aspiration laudable (as these are NOT recipes for beginners), but she accomplishes something terribly rare in the blogger world- she is thoroughly entertaining while being informative. Read her description of cooking soft shelled crabs and I guarantee you'll want to read the whole blog. Unpretentious, warm and very funny, Carol's approach to gourmet cooking is very refreshing- most of us food-freaks take our hobby (and ourselves) way too darned seriously.
