I Have No Idea What I am Doing » ideas about drink

Booze Infused Peppercorns. Yes yes. From Hot Knives.

no idea — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 23:25:44 +0000

The guys over at Hot Knives, a super fabulous cooking blog, accidentally dumped a bag of peppercorns into flavored oil. They dried them out, put them back in a grinder, and voila, even better pepper. Then, being Hot Knives (frequent reviewers of yummy beers), they naturally thought, why not do that with booze?

Brilliant. In the same way that bacon fat can make anything yummier, alcohol can add bite. Here’s their recipe for adding hooch to pepper.

I’m going to try Aviation Gin (from my bday tour of House Spirits, pic below), then maybe get into things like Kahlua.

Image right: Flickr/peppered

Finally, drink discounts for library card holders

no idea — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 22:28:13 +0000

Ah, we return again to the perfect marriage of my favorite pastimes, drinking and reading. While perusing the latest issue of the Mercury, a small ad caught my eye. I have a nose for these things. Though it’s not advertised on the website, the Secret Society Lounge (on NE Russell next to the Wonder Ballroom) has drink discounts Sunday-Thursday from 5-7pm for library card holders!

Load up on absinthe and start staring at yourself in that fish eye mirror while reading John Ashbery’s Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror (oh, snap, the library doesn’t have it).

The blog Things to Read, Drinks to Drink I mentioned recently hasn’t been updating, so we may have to form our own drinks and reading lists. The Secret Society Lounge specializes in classic cocktails, so start your planning. I love sidecars and absinthe, magic realism and travel writing.

I propose Reading & Drinking nights on Wednesdays, all in?

Get through the winter with Things to Read, Drinks to Drink

no idea — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 21:09:01 +0000

You know that friend you have who should really keep a blog? I have several. When I told Jess Fucking Price to get a blog she deflected it (skillfully) by referring me to a site by her college friends, Yer Sweet Chimneys. It’s a group blog with lots of categories/sub-blogs to navigate, including a cartoon .gif blog about The Insecurities of Inanimate Objects. They even have savvy internal ads for their own blogs. Mostly it makes me want to start a blog with my friends…a mini internet, just for us.

My two highlights of YSC are Sound & Vision, which is like an mp3 blog except each song is paired with a striking image, and Things to Read, Drinks to Drink, which combines two of my favorite pastimes. It’s simple: Book review + drink recipe. Staying in on a Friday? How about the Virgin Suicides and a gin martini? Home all weekend? Grab some absinthe and The Sun Also Rises.

Anyway, I have the nasty habit of half starting 14 books at once, so here’s my list of things I’m reading. Drink suggestions, please.

Books

The new issue of Field, a review of poetry and politics from Oberlin College.
The recent issue of Cabinet, the awesome arts and culture magazine that feels like a cabinet of curiosities and is the closest thing to my brain, in layout and focus, that I’ve ever encountered in print.
How to be an Adult in Relationships , laugh if you will, but your childhood relationships shaped you in mysterious ways, too.
The Invention of Everything Else, fiction about Nikola Tesla and not as good as her first book The Seas, a sort of Little Mermaid if she lived in the depressing alcoholic town in The Perfect Storm.
Modern Life, Poems, by Matthea Harvey, one of my favorite young (30-something) poets. I took a Tin House writing workshop with her and loved her even more in person.
The Master and Margarita, a classic in Russian literature starring the devil, and a gift from Matthew.

I’ve been having movie nights recently, but why don’t we have a reading night?