The Muse Is Always Half Drunk In New Orleans

Tales of the Cocktail is a marathon, not a sprint, as one of the drink descriptions at Arnaud's French 75 put it, but I did have to write the sprint version for the Indy, the long but not long enough feature that will run August 9. In the meantime, I want to provide some daily snapshots to give you even more of a sense of what a festival honoring the cocktail, in New Orleans, means for one's mind and liver and deodorant.

Day 1, Wednesday, July 25

Weather:

Post-plane touchdown thunderstorm, Thor v. Zeus division. Even after that, hot and humid, which I'm pretty sure is human-controlled as a clever plot to keep you inside in air conditioning, eating and drinking.

Quote o' the Day:

"This is insane--I've only been here two hours and I already have icing on my arm."

Event o' the Day:

Welcome Reception at the Contemporary Arts Center sponsored by Absolut

You know there's this dream in your head of the perfect happening party, the kind even movies never even seem to nail properly, when the setting is magical, the drinks tasty, the people fun, and a row of models greet you as you enter? Well, that was this shindig. It snowed. Inside. The blue lighting added to that effect, but then there were all these separate bars to go to, themed sort of internationally, like It's a Drunk World After All, but without the insipid earworm of a song. (Instead, a DJ not quite getting people to dance, but perhaps that's just because we were all too f-ing cool.) You could get temp tattoos (not many takers, as most people there didn't have enough un-tatted territory on their bodies for one). You could pose with New Orleans appropriate costuming (masks, etc.) for an Absolut ad photo. You could get a t-shirt silk screened with one of 8 designs. You could drink, plenty--probably 20 different Absolut cocktails, including one made with dry ice, one featuring ice cubes carved into diamonds. One spot featured Dale DeGroff and Audrey Saunders side-by-side making you drinks like the king and queen of boozy prom. The waitress with the little grilled tuna cubes remembered you liked them and that one of you was prescatarian and kept hunting you out with a fresh tray. All the models went back to your room at the Monteleone afterward. Perhaps I made a part of this up.

Surprises o' the Day:

At a tasting called Better with Age, where I somehow avoided any jokes about my magnificence because of my midlife status, during a blind tasting I actually preferred the young Glenfiddich to the 15-year aged one, mostly because it packed more punch so stood out in a room of fantastic tequilas, whiskeys, and Armagnacs, and a bit because it was aged in old Solera barrels, giving it a pleasing Sherry push.

You can make a lovely sipping whiskey...from wheat. At least Bernheim Original Wheat Whiskey can.

Evan Williams does a single barrel whiskey that you can buy for $21. Maybe the best value tasted at TOTC.

You actually can make interesting cocktails with vodka. It's a challenge, but that's the fun, no?

Best Food, Non-TOTC Division:

Herbsaint. We'd do further homage to Chef Donald Link on the trip, but this was on the way back from the Absolut party so we decided to do a bit of the small plate action and everything was pitch perfect with prime ingredients. Simply the fries, with pimenton aioli not so simple, were divine. We also enjoyed Seared Louisiana Shrimp with Summer Squash and Chili Oil and Butter Poached Gulf Tuna with Criolla Sella Chili and Lemon--the seafood clearly the stars of each plate, but all the other ingredients whipping up spectacular supporting symphonies. We had a dessert, too, that the receipt calls a BB tart a la mode, but somehow we can't remember what the BB is--butter and bourbon is what I'm going to say.


Other Drinks* Consumed Not Covered in the Above:

Tito's Cherry-Vanilla Limeade, Jasmine-Spiked London Lemonade, a Sazerac at Herbsaint, a Vieux Carre at the Carousel Bar in the Monteleone, and an Abita Turbo Dog draft at Acme Oyster House, where we ate after our long, foodless plane flights out, a soft-shell crab po' boy and an oyster po' boy and some raw oysters, too (see below)

*Note, this really does just mean cocktails and beer, so liquor straight is left out of the equation.

The Nichols Brothers Choose Sides

Makin’ bacon isn’t a crude double entendre for Jeff and Matt Nichols — it’s something they take very seriously at Sides Hardware and Shoes: A Brothers Restaurant.

“Prior to opening, serving breakfast was new to us, so we wanted to honor our commitment to made-from-scratch and working with the best ingredients,” said Jeff. “So we started playing around with curing our own bacon, the Brothers’ Bacon Steak. When you take a pork belly and go through the process of brining, roasting, and smoking, you then have a choice of how to slice it. Since our product is a cross between pork belly and bacon, it led naturally to a thicker cut.”

Want to read the rest then do so at the Indy's site.

Professor Plum in The Kitchen with KCET

As you know if you read the Indy at all, we're a contest-loving bunch (coming soon: a contest to come up with the next best contest!), so I'd be amiss if I didn't point out there's a cool contest KCET is throwing to our south, and we're all welcome to take part. (I'm pretty sure this isn't a sneaky way to annex Santa Barbara, promise.) The prize isn't just glory, but also a basket of farmers' market goodies.

KCET is celebrating summer stone fruit season by asking viewers like you to submit your favorite plum, pluot, or apricot recipe. You've got till Friday, so go to the contest site for details and make Santa Barbara proud.

And did you know that when Luther Burbank dreamed up the pluot, he called it a plumcot? Perhaps Burbank knew best--that just seems easier to say, doesn't it? And if you're going to end up a hybrid oddity, the last thing you need is a funky, fake French name. 

Wishing I was Clever Enough to Make a Good Joke about Big Star's "India Song" and This Post

Summer (at last it's summer here in Santa Barbara, and sorry, rest of the country already broiling, burning, and droughting) has arrived, which calls for long drinks and afternoons on the porch with good books after a morning at the farmers' market. Hence the re-invention of a classic above, what I dubbed the Green and Tonic. And I realize the blog has been a bit obsessed with cocktails lately, but there are a few excuses for that, not the least being writing about cocktails seems easier to do quickly. And, we head off to New Orleans next week for the Tales of the Cocktail, and I'm slowly trying to ramp myself up--it's like training for a marathon, and I haven't found the running shoes that fit my liver yet. In the meantime, this drink....

Green and Tonic

(makes two tall drinks)

1/2 a small cucumber, not peeled, cut in thin slices
1 lemon
8 sprigs lemon basil
4 oz. Hendrick's gin
tonic water (will be less a can)
two cucumber wheels
two flowery tops of lemon basil

In a cocktail shaker, combine the cucumber slices, 8 sprigs basil, and juice the lemon. Muddle thoroughly--really break-down the cucumbers and get the basil to extrude its oils. Add the gin. Muddle a bit more, but watch splashing. Add ice cubes and shake shaker. Evenly divide the contents of the shaker into two tall glasses--it's best to strain as you pour to avoid getting seeds or torn basil into the drink. Top with tonic water to about 2/3 full. Add crushed ice to fill (you do have an ice crusher, don't you? I go with a hand-cranked one, as I can feel even more virtuous having had to expend a bit of effort). Garnish with a cucumber wheel and a flowery basil top per drink.


As you can see, it makes for a lovely color (especially through a frosted glass). then when you go to drink, the aromatics of the cucumber and basil garnish right next to your nose really wake you up. The taste, too, is sublime. Here's a soundtrack for the drink, too:

This Post Dates Back to Pre-Civil War New Orleans

I don't wear a lab coat or funny glasses, I love a great Sazerac, but I don't think I'd want to drink a Moist Yoga Mat made of Hemp vodka, 12 year kombucha, wheatgrass with a coconut water back.

A bit too much of this is made from just not getting it (people have been putting egg whites in drinks since the days when having chickens and fresh eggs wasn't just suburban hip but just sort of how people lived and ate and didn't watch TV as they didn't have ones to turn on in the first place), but that's satire for you. And a single big ice cube that actually fits in the glass is a good idea. But humor is about exaggeration, I know.

What I say is we should all have a drink and not be so serious.

Cooking with the Pros

You know an author is prolific when his book jacket can’t even keep up with his publishing. Though the blurb on Santa Barbara Chef’s Table touts James Fraioli as the “award-winning author of 17 cookbooks,” Fraioli himself explained, “This one makes it number 20.” Whatever the count, the latest Fraioli book is a handy compendium of the state of area dining, featuring 70 recipes — written so that a home cook has an actual shot of making them (no need to buy a sous vide machine, for instance) — from 40 Santa Barbara County restaurants. In fact, the book works so hard to earn its subtitle, Extraordinary Recipes from the American Riviera, with gushy prose and glossy photos that it might leave locals a bit embarrassed by the immodesty of it all.

Want to read the rest then do so at the Indy's site.

Learning to Love Vegetables

Suzanne Landry has been teaching cooking for 35 years, frequently at adult ed for SBCC, and the accumulated wisdom of that time is now available in her attractive book The Passionate Vegetable (Health Inspired Publishing 2012, thefreshfoodchef.com). She recently answered some questions by phone.

Want to read the rest then do so at the Indy's site.