Fortune’s Pawn

Crème de Brie is wonderful stuff. This is the heart of brie without the rind. It is sold by Coeur Lion in little tubs and is great for spreading on biscuits or using in recipes. Yesterday I made the most delightful scrambled eggs with it, here’s the recipe:

2 large eggs (I use free range - happy food and all that)
1 large pat butter (1.5 Tbsp)
50ml milk (3 Tbsp)
15 ml (1 Tbsp) Crème de Brie
2 salad onions (scallions) finely diced

Melt butter in medium frying pan and when at heat, sauté onion in it till translucent (add a dash of salt to speed this up). With fork, briskly mix eggs with milk and brie, do not beat, just mix very well. Add egg mixture to pan all at once, and once it starts to set, draw spatula from outer edges of pan towards the centre turning egg in process. Proceed until egg is done to your liking.

Yum yum!

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This delightful concontion brings a pleasent and refreshing twist to the standard Gibson for early autumn evenings in Wisconsin. This is the time when we celebrate the cherry harvest, and the orchards are rife with the product of the cherry trees. In Wisconsin that means cherries from Door County, the thumb in the mitten-like shape of the state. Substituting a little 100% pure cherry juice (not sweetened) for vermouth will leave you smiling at your soon empty glass. Use a good potato vodka for this drink, you’ll appreciate how this almost flavorless variety of vodka gets out of the way of the cherry juice’s dry, almost bitter flavor. This most certainly is not cherry vodka!

Door County Gibson

To a shaker of ice add a healthy splash of 100% pure, unsweetened cherry juice (a mighty anti-oxident!)

Add enough potato vodka to make a decent martini, about 3 or 4 ounces

Shake well, and strain into a martini glass

Garnish with a cherry

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This is not how you were meant to go
oh cupcake
Your creamy center spilled upon
the sidewalk
like so much spent seed
You are of noble roots
Your surname “Hostess” once meant
so much, meant all
now, not so much
Now you lay, disheveled upon the pavement
your icing pecked off
by birds of fortune
your soul gone, spent
You once noble cupcake, are now wasted
This is your ultimate destiny
all your grandeur for naught
all your sugary goodness
untasted

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A towering French woman with a truly heroic push-up bra just served me chorizo on toothpicks.

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the New York Times recently reviewed The Joy of Drinking by Barbara Holland.  She offers up this interesting factoid about the founding of The United States:

In 1787, two days before their work was done, the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention “adjourned to a tavern for some rest, and according to the bill they drank 54 bottles of Madeira, 60 bottles of claret, 8 of whiskey, 22 of port, 8 of hard cider and 7 bowls of punch so large that, it was said, ducks could swim around in them. Then they went back to work and finished founding the new Republic.” Note the 55 delegates and 54 bottles of Madeira. Which founder was slacking?
The Joy of Drinking - Barbara Holland - Books - Review - New York Times

Pawn is getting thirsty just thinking about it.

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A fine confection to watch colonial dénouements by

White Countess:

In a double Old-Fashion glass, pour over ice:

1 ½ oz. Vodka (use something good)

6 - 8 dashes Angostura bitters

Splash Sweet Vermouth

top off with club soda (seltzer)

Stir vigorously and sip with a mixture of hope, sorrow and reckless yearning.

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