Wednesday, February 8, 2017

A Richmond Float


The first time I met Michelle Richmond was around the time her debut - The Year of Fog - arrived.  Ten years?  At least.  Have you read that one?  Go read that one.  I was a newish father when I was introduced to it - and it was an incredibly difficult read for that reason - but Ms. Richmond's prose is so rich, the story (about the disappearance of a child) so brutally seductive, that it's grip won't loosen until you're done.

So go read that because you'll have to wait until July for her latest novel, The Marriage Pact.


The Marriage Pact is deliciously creepy with ominous tidbits strewn artfully about that make you immediately worried for Alice and Jake.  Newly married, deliriously happy (at least Jake is - Alice is more guarded.  Happy?  Yes.  Verdict is out on the delirious thing).  Each is successful in their professions.  They live in the Bay Area, so they also have that going for them.  Happy days, right?

But then there's the Pact.

They're invited to join a jet-setting community of interesting souls who all share one thing:  they want their marriages to be successful.  What's the harm in that?

Did I mention the ominous tidbits?  The bracelet Alice is forced to wear because some members of the Pact question her commitment?  The warning Jake receives from an old friend about the dangers of the Pact, and oh yeah, he notices a nasty and fresh wound that she tries to hide?

Did I mention that the novel begins with Jake regaining consciousness, bloodied, the only passenger on a plane headed back to the bay area?  So yes, there's all that.

Time for a drink?  I think so.

Ms. Richmond was kind enough to comment on an earlier post and, because that cocktail had chocolate and heavy cream, she was all in.  Which gave me an inkling for where I might head for her own drink - and I ended up going there and then, perhaps, I went a little further (cue atmospheric / haunting music).

The woman who gives Alice the bracelet is caught off guard when, while she's introducing Alice and Jake to the idea of the Pact, they ask her to answer one of her own questions.  What's your favorite drink?  Vivian responds without hesitation:  Green Spot Irish Whiskey, 12 year, neat.


Ok, I have a bottle of Green Spot at home, but it ain't the 12 year.  I think they only bottled two hundred of those and they are long since gone for a very princely sum.  But I can work with it, because the Green Spot I have is good.

The bracelet I mentioned earlier?  Alice is told it'll be monitoring her, and so Jake lies and speaks into it, saying that he was so happy that Alice brought him vanilla bean ice cream (the lie being that he bought it for himself).  Vanilla bean ice cream?  Hmm.  Did Ms. Richmond indicate that she liked an earlier concoction of mine because of the heavy cream?

Are we seeing a trend?

More importantly, can I mix good whiskey with ice cream?  Of course I can.  Grab a spoon kids, and get ready for a Richmond Float.


Richmond Float:

2 oz. Green Spot Irish Whiskey
Root beer
Boozy Vanilla Bean Ice Cream*
Bourbon Maple Syrup

Drizzle maple syrup inside glass.  Add two scoops ice cream.  Fill glass with root beer - leaving room for the 2 oz. of whiskey.  Drizzle more maple syrup on top.



*For the Boozy Vanilla Bean Ice Cream:

2 cups heavy cream
1 cup milk
1 vanilla bean, split
3/4 cup dark brown sugar, packed
4 egg yolks
Pinch fine sea salt
3 Tbsp Green Spot Irish Whiskey

Set aside one cup of the cream in a metal bowl.  Place it in a container filled with ice water.
In a medium saucepan, combine the remaining cream, the milk, the vanilla bean, the sugar, and the salt.  Heat on medium until the sugar is incorporated and it just begins to boil.
Remove from heat.  Let sit, covered, for one hour.
Finely strain this mixture into the chilled cup of cream.
Add the whiskey and refrigerate for three hours.
Process in your ice cream maker.


Monday, February 6, 2017

Spoils of War


I don't often post multiple recipes on the same day, but I'm exceedingly fortunate to meet two authors this evening, along with the inimitable Lee Boudreaux, who just so happens to be VP and Editorial Director of Lee Boudreaux Books - the publisher of the novels we'll be celebrating tonight.  I already told you about the new work from Andrew Sean Greer, now it's on to the Spoils.


Spoils is the debut novel from Brian Van Reet.  Mr. Van Reet interrupted his schooling after September 11th, 2001, to enlist in the US Army.  He was awarded the Bronze Star for Valor as a result of his service as a tank crewman in Iraq.  And although war is devastating, and it's often difficult to see what good can come of it, I'm thankful that after his Honorable Discharge, Mr. Van Reet focused on writing.  Spoils is the culmination of his very long journey from America to Iraq and back again.

With his novel, Mr. Van Reet gives you the boots-on-the-ground view during the war in Iraq.  He doesn’t take sides – he ventures into much more difficult terrain by showing the war through both prisms, American and Iraqi.  The result is disturbing and grave.  Spoils is a powerful examination of the costs of war, both on a country and the people fighting for it.

Looking for inspiration for what to put into a drink for his book, I started with Abu Al-Hool, a mujahedeen with a past he'd like to forget - his passive father, who didn't believe that political power grew out of the barrel of a gun, but rather was something that a good martini could help bring about.  So I'd start there.  A martini is always a good place to start.  Then, everyone's drinking coffee - American and Iraqi - so I wanted that to play a part.

There's a calm-before-the-storm moment when Cassandra, the teenage gunner on an American Humvee, witnesses a group of Iraqi children happy to receive rations - especially chocolate - from the Americans in their country.  Chocolate, then, to round everything out.

Those ingredients create the Spoils of War.  Close to a White Russian, which seemed weirdly ok - though the Dude might not approve of how strong the Spoils actually is.


Spoils of War:

3.5 oz Hendrick's Gin
.5 oz white chocolate & coffee vodka ganache*
Coffee beans for garnish

Add the gin to the ganache.  Stir with ice.  Strain into a chilled glass and garnish with the coffee beans.


*For the Ganache:

8 oz white chocolate 
1 cup heavy whipping cream
4 teaspoons ground coffee
1/8 teaspoon salt 
1 teaspoon vanilla extract 
3 oz vodka 

Heat the cream and add the salt and coffee.  Add this, while hot, to the chopped chocolate, vanilla, and vodka.  Stir until smooth - adding heat if needed.  Refrigerate overnight.

What is Love?


Through some trick of how I process what I read, the first book that I encounter from a particular author invariably turns out to be my favorite.  I can love the books that follow, but for me, there's just something about the first.

That said, by all rights my favorite book by Andrew Sean Greer should be The Confessions of Max Tivoli.  It's not Mr. Greer's first novel, but it's the first one I read, and so that should still be #1.

It's not.

I just finished his newest novel, Less, and it's breathtaking.  You have to wait until the summer before it's released - so please, mark your calendars now for July 18th.

There's so much to love about this novel - not the least of which, of course, is its protagonist, Arthur Less.  And not just because Arthur is turning 50, as I just did, with all the baggage that number has to offer, but it's because Arthur, like many of us, is trying to do what's right for himself and for those he loves - and is making a mess of it like we're prone to do.

You'll read the novel for the brilliant way Mr. Greer makes his words leap from the page - there's a description of Arthur's older lover, receiving the phone call that let's him know he's won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and you'll reread that passage for the sheer energy and joy of the words.  If you're one of those people who underlines favorite passages, don't bother - it will become impossible to see the words for all the underlining.

Mr. Greer's novel is seemingly structured effortlessly, but each line is so pure, so crystalline in its placement, that any attempt to remove one would shatter it all.

July 18th, did I say that?



For Arthur's cocktail, it was easy to pick champagne as a start, because he and others drink it throughout.  Towards the end, when the clock is close to striking 50 for him, it's already struck for a friend, and she's drinking marc, a French pomace brandy.  It reminds her of times past, so that was a natural addition.  (And though I didn't have any French marc lying about, I did have the Cretan version, tsikoudia, and that was closer to what I wanted to use - marc de gewürztraminer - because both of these are clear whereas regular French marc is aged in wood and becomes tawny.  I didn't want tawny, I wanted clear.  So.

And, most importantly, Arthur's friend then asks the question at the heart of the novel, What is Love?  And bless her if she didn't also, then, name our drink.

Because Love's in the air and on the page - and especially because of the comment made late in the book ("Elegant Parisian women in black and gray sip garishly colored American cocktails that even a sorority girl would not order.") - I knew I had to give Mr. Greer exactly that, so I went with grenadine, the color of romance.  So sip this and (egad, I thought I would make it through without resorting to the most obvious cliche, but here it is anyway) you'll agree that Less is indeed more.

Postcript:  This evening I was lucky enough to attend a dinner celebrating two novels not yet released.  One was Mr. Greer's Less.  When I admitted to him, after too much wine, that the inspiration for his cocktail was partly just throwing a stick of dynamite at a French 75 and then, like Dr. Frankenstein, reconstructing it with found parts, Mr. Greer smiled, big.  "The French 75 is my favorite cocktail," he said.  Which made me think that the direction I took was the right one.


What is Love?

1.5 oz marc de gewürztraminer
.75 oz lemon juice
.5 oz grenadine
Champagne
Cherry for garnish

Combine the marc, lemon juice, and grenadine in a shaker filled with ice.  Shake.  Strain into a champagne flute.  Top with champagne and garnish with the cherry.  Sword is optional.