BAM Night
For those of you who might not have noticed, I'll let you in on a secret; I used to hate gin. God-awful stuff, I thought; taste like cheap perfume and doesn't smell much better. The fact that my first memorable encounter with alcohol was via some cheap lemon gin before a basketball game, as a ninth grade cheerleader. Bourbon was my drink of choice.
That all changed this year, whether by virtue of epiphany or changing metabolism I shall never know. Out of the blue, I decided I'd try a martini, and my one-time bartender beloved made me a fine, dry martini with good gin and good dry vermouth.
I was lost.
Thus was born Big Ass Martini Night. Once a week, either on Friday or Saturday, I make myself a very large martini with two huge olives in it. And that does me for the evening. One night a week seems to be sufficient, with occasional weeks where a BAM never materializes. Ah, but when it does ...
It occurred to me that, in this time of selfies and photos of people's food porn fantasies, one could present a picture of one such BAM, artfully displayed against the lava lamp one has (as one does), as an amusing illustration of one of my simple joys.
But I don't just write about booze.
I can tell you that I had an absolutely lovely day, playing for the first time with the Christmas present BB gave me last weekend; a 6 quart Kitchen Aid ProMixmaster Mixer. I've been faunching for one for a dreadfully long time, and now I have one! It's bright red and gorgeous and just a little daunting until today because I've never worked with a modern mixer. The one I had most recently was a 1950s actual Mixmaster like my Nana had, and before it, the one my Nana had. They weren't powerful. We'll leave it at that.
Because of that, I was used to mixing everything by hand, or with a little hand mixer - but over the last couple of years, my hands won't let me do much of the first. And of course neither the little mixer nor old Mixmaster could mix or knead bread, so one of my favorite things to do - bake bread - became very infrequent. Well today, I got Big Red out and made banana bread and banana-cranberry bread. Very simple, but oh, so much easier now!
This makes me happy.
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For those of you who might not have noticed, I'll let you in on a secret; I used to hate gin. God-awful stuff, I thought; taste like cheap perfume and doesn't smell much better. The fact that my first memorable encounter with alcohol was via some cheap lemon gin before a basketball game, as a ninth grade cheerleader. Bourbon was my drink of choice.
That all changed this year, whether by virtue of epiphany or changing metabolism I shall never know. Out of the blue, I decided I'd try a martini, and my one-time bartender beloved made me a fine, dry martini with good gin and good dry vermouth.
I was lost.
Thus was born Big Ass Martini Night. Once a week, either on Friday or Saturday, I make myself a very large martini with two huge olives in it. And that does me for the evening. One night a week seems to be sufficient, with occasional weeks where a BAM never materializes. Ah, but when it does ...
It occurred to me that, in this time of selfies and photos of people's food porn fantasies, one could present a picture of one such BAM, artfully displayed against the lava lamp one has (as one does), as an amusing illustration of one of my simple joys.
But I don't just write about booze.
I can tell you that I had an absolutely lovely day, playing for the first time with the Christmas present BB gave me last weekend; a 6 quart Kitchen Aid Pro
Because of that, I was used to mixing everything by hand, or with a little hand mixer - but over the last couple of years, my hands won't let me do much of the first. And of course neither the little mixer nor old Mixmaster could mix or knead bread, so one of my favorite things to do - bake bread - became very infrequent. Well today, I got Big Red out and made banana bread and banana-cranberry bread. Very simple, but oh, so much easier now!
This makes me happy.
This entry was originally posted at http://kaffyr.dreamwidth.org/288140.html?mode=reply, where there are currently
Comments
And, no, I'm not talking about the Mixmaster.
"Show me a kitchen for rustic beams and this."
*snort* Having just seen pics of your new place, I can understand this one.
And good gin is divine! Tanqueray is putting out a limited edition Malacca gin that is so heavenly -- more citrusy than floral, so I wouldn't recommend it for martinis.
And BB brought around what I think of as a dessert gin: Old Tom Gin's Ransom gin. It's got orange and lemon peel, coriander and cardamom, and angelica root. It also has barley malt, which is kind of weird. It's definitely not martini gin.
We developed a martini that we call the Empire; instead of dry vermouth, you can use a dry sake, thus bringing the British and Japanese empires together. Yeah, stupid name, but we like it.
I don't mind the occasional G&T, it can be rather refresshing.
My mum makes Bramble gin (Gin infused with blackberries picked from their garden hedge).
It is lovely with a nice mixer (tonic, lemonade, etc)
*checks out Negroni and Aviation*
I'd like the Negroni, I think, but the Aviation might route the taste too close to flowers for my liking.
AND YOU NEED TO SEND ME BANANA BREAD. YUS.
*HUGS*
And BB will be glad to make you a martini; we've got to get you up here again!
Indeed!! And when that happens I need to make you 'my' spaghetti...*beams*
*HUGS*
I don't know of holidays particular to Bacchus, though.