The Bon Vivant’s Companion

In search of my next post I went to Surfas (a restaurant supply store) for inspiration.  Their selection of mixers and syrups always gets me thinking, but I didn’t come away with a new cocktail idea, I came away with a bottle opener.  I couldn’t help it.  The thing stalked me.  Its big laughing face was everywhere I turned; by the mixers, by the bar gadgets, and finally by the register.  The last thing I need is another bottle opener. I own hundreds (literally), so I tried to fight my desire for this one.  But when I got up front and saw a basket of them sitting near the credit card machine, I was too weak to resist.  Damn impulse purchase marketing…

I’m now the proud owner of a brightly painted, slightly menacing Beijing Opera mask bottle opener, and I must admit, I love it.  It’s another “good object.”  The colors are glossy, the slightly tapered disk fits comfortably in the palm of my hand, and the angry opening makes quick work of bottle caps.  Not that I opened THAT many bottles last night…

And since it’s tough to have buyer’s remorse over something that costs $4.99, I’ve decided to make another trip to Surfas and wipe them out of their inventory.  There are multiple colors available, and each opener has a different, wildly painted image on either side (see pictures), making them two-faced, if you will.  I plan on giving them as gifts to friends who can prove to me they really love beer – or cool gadgets.  I’m also thinking these openers will score me points when given as hostess gifts.

To get one for yourself, or the discerning beer drinker in your life, you might be able to beat me to Surfas and get one while they’re still there.  If not, they are available online at Ebay (of all places), or this store (the only web store I could find – so you know these will be relatively hard to get and unique when you give them).  That is, if you can part with them….

What to serve a cocktail virgin?  Not just someone who’s never had a drink before, but someone who’s dabbled in drinking and wants to trade up from Milwaukee’s Best to mixed cocktails.  Where to start?

I say, let them drink lemonade.  Everyone past the age of five has had a glass of the stuff, and lemonade is a resilient mixer.  It’s an easy base for batched cocktails and it holds a lot of liquor.  So go ahead, subtly layer flavors, or dump in a ton of booze.*

(*See everclear punch, and my first two years of college…)

Lemonade is also incredibly accessible.  Its natural balance of sweet and citrus reduces the need for multiple, flashy ingredients — more good news for beginners.

Dovetailing with the newbie theme, this post is my first for Mixology Monday.  I felt the need to present a sufficiently road tested cocktail.  So last night I played bartender for my book club ladies, a group of women whose feedback on literature, poor life choices, and cocktails is always appreciated.  They are a tough group, and there’s not a cocktail virgin among them, but who doesn’t remember their first time?  After much sipping and discussing, I’m pleased to say this rag-tag group of readers gave the lavender lemonade a unanimous thumbs up.  The virgin version even worked for our mom-to-be in the group, who declared her mocktail “good for the soul.”

Which, I feel, takes lemonade to a whole new level.

Here’s the recipe:

Lavender Lemonade:
1 ½ oz Vodka (preferably citrus flavored)
½ oz Lavender-ginger simple syrup
Mint
Blueberries
Fresh squeezed, or organic lemonade

Prepare in the glass portion of a Boston Shaker so you can see the cocktail as you build it.
Place 3 or 4 medium mint leaves, and 4 to 6 blueberries in the shaker.  Cover with ½ oz of the simple syrup.  Muddle ingredients.  Add ice.  Add 1 ½ oz vodka.  Add 4 oz lemonade.  Shake ingredients.  Pour contents of shaker into a tall glass.  Garnish with mint leaves and a straw.

Lavender-Ginger Simple Syrup
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
½ inch slice of ginger cut into thin pieces
1 tsp food quality lavender

Place sugar and water into small pot.  Once the sugar has dissolved all lavender and ginger.  Slowly reduce over low heat for 10 minutes.  Should produce about 1 ½  cups of liquid.  Store in fridge for up to a month.

Welcome to the Companion’s first, great big train wreck of a cooking post.  I wanted to blog about cooking with wine and ended up in mortal combat with a pot roast.  The pot roast won.  Not because I’m a bad cook, not because it didn’t taste good, but because I was unprepared to document my interaction with said roast.

Cocktails are simpler.  You need a handful of ingredients, ice, and at least one good picture, and then — cocktail time.

Food posts require a little more thought and, apparently, prep work and planning.  They need set up shots, sautéing shots, notes, and endless explanation.  Even for a humble freaking pot roast, a recipe I decided to try while watching Ina Garten’s Food Network show, The Barefoot Contessa.

It was in a segment called “Comfort food and Company.”  In thirty minutes the Contessa whipped up a pot roast while while a supporting cast of fabulous (pronounced faaabulous) design friends ran around the Hamptons gathering flowers for her table.

“I hope the guys remember peonies are my favorite.”

“Oh (huge inhale) Ina’s going to love these.”

“I wish you could smell this as the juicy bits reduce.  Now add 15 sticks of butter.  Delicious.”

Visions of East Coast dinner parties danced in my head as I headed off to the farmer’s market.  Unfortunately, wielding a camera in the meat department makes me feel less waspy and a little:

-Crazy
-Like a Spy
-Like a tourist who had never seen a steak.

(I also find responding to “May I help you?” with “I’m taking pictures for my blog.” Does nothing to ratchet down my “crazy in-public” feeling.)

Here is my picture of the meat counter at the Farmer’s Market on Third Street in Los Angeles, the best butcher in LA:

Once I started cooking, it was clear my roast was not living up to Ms. Garten’s televised effort and I, personally, was nowhere near as pleasant.

Stupid things threw me off my game.  I couldn’t get the Cuisinart (that I’ve owned for 12 years) to shut properly, and when I did, pulverized the vegetables.  I almost hacked a finger off crushing garlic, added too much chicken stock, and counteracted by adding more wine than the recipe called for.  (Which was a bummer, because drinking the wine was the thing I was most looking forward too.)  Overall, the TV personality I channeled was more Muppet Swedish Chef than Barefoot Contessa.

Exhibit A:

Here’s what I learned during my cooking-with-wine-TV-inspired-pot-roast-experiment:

-Cooking while very hungry is stupid.  I got grouchy fast and had to make myself a peanut butter sandwich to keep from passing out while I cooked dinner.

-2005 is a great, possibly epic year for Bordeaux.  A perfect wine for this dish.  Full bodied, and rich, it definitely added depth to the meat as it slow cooked.  You can find a quality Bordeaux for under $20.  Get something nice.  You should only cook with wine you would drink.

-Remembering to take pictures every five minutes is trickier than it sounds, so put the damn camera somewhere you can see it.

-Writing a cooking blog takes skill, or at the very least, organization.

The food blogs I read make it look so easy.  Here are a couple of very good ones:

Married With Dinner:  A husband a wife trying to eat locally in San Francisco.  You get stories of their travels, great food, and an occasional cocktail recipe made with fresh ingredients.  The photography is great on this site as well.

The Gluten Free Goddess:  I do not have a problem with gluten, but once a year my boyfriend and I go on a health kick. I stumbled across this site looking for recipes that were a tad healthier than the pizza with extra cheese that had become a staple.  The Goddess’ recipes are inspiring, and the photography is beautiful.

The French Laundry at Home:  Carol Blymire cooked every recipe in the French Laundry Cookbook.  I discovered this blog while white-knucking it through Thomas Keller’s recipe for Salad of Haricots Verts, Tomato Tartare, and Chive Oil.  I needed help plating the salad (before destroying $200 worth of salad ingredients).  Basically, I wanted a second opinion.  Carol was there with tips, photos, and an entire entry dedicated to the recipe I was attempting.  Besides being informative, her site was so damn serene.  She even listed the music she cooked to. For the haricots verts recipe it was, perhaps ironically, Salt-N-Peppa.

Carol has now moved on to the Alinea cookbook, and that site is worth checking out as well.

While schlubbing my way through my “Contessa Company” pot roast I did not listen to music.  I should have.  It would have covered the sound of me swearing like a longshoreman.

Looking to repeat my zen experience?  Follow this link for the Contessa’s Company Pot Roast recipe.  I will admit that the final dish, even after the errors and misfires, was very, very tasty.

My sister came across this fun find, the Stanley 8oz pocket flask.  She was doing research for a special event and was looking for something rugged to gift guests with.  The Stanley Flask fit the bill.  It is blue-collar-rugged, with stainless steel details, and wide flip-top opening (no funnel needed).  But iconic enough, with it’s gunmetal green and elegant grip, to accompany any design aficionado on the way to, I don’t know, a night at the opera.

The Stanley Flask is, as a friend of mine would say, “a good object.”  An object for the wine-and-cheese, rough-and-tumble, and the bait-and-tackle set.  An instant classic, with a little something for everyone.  And it is so much cooler than the “flask in the fake binoculars.”  I mean, you’re not fooling anyone with those -– you really aren’t.

Pick one up at:

Design Within Reach