James Bond Cool

Here's Jule acting cool in the computer room. He and Caleb and Patrick are watching "Santa Claus 3" tonight, which has to be one of the most retarded movies ever made. A good opportunity for me to do this, I guess. I'm hoping I'll have the energy yet after supper to watch a movie of my choice, and hoping that I won't be disturbed more than a little. Caleb sat through "The Proposal" with me last week, and laughed, and even followed the story. I'm embarrassed to say that I watched "G.I. Joe" yesterday with them from beginning to end. Jule was fascinated by the warheads that released destructive green powder on the Eiffel Tower. I at least had the pleasure of cuddling with him for two hours.

Tonight I made a Vesper, named after a James Bond villain, and drank only a sip. If I understood the recipe correctly, the Vesper contains vermouth not poured off, and gin and vodka. Blech. Then I was bored, and baked banana muffins, and boiled water to make instant espresso, which I cooled off in the freezer and used in two additional cocktails: an espresso martini, and a Vochacino. Both contain vodka and kahlua and espresso and sugar syrup; the Vochacino benefits from the addition of cream and cocoa powder. The dusting of cocoa powder over the top was a nice touch. I made Pat try both as well and we agreed that the Vochacino was the best.

I'm compiling a "to make again in the future" list: so far it's the Vochacino, Chi Chi, and Holy Water - which I wish I could drink every day before supper, actually. Maybe starting in a year, if my stomach still has a lining?

"Children Should Never Mix Martinis"

So I screwed up the French Martini, I think; Sourpuss probably isn't an acceptable substitute for Chambord, though both are raspberry liqueurs. One sip of that and I decided I might as well be drinking a plain old vodka martini, so I made that next. Has the whole adult world known this before now, that the vermouth is added then poured off, leaving only the flavored ice?? That's an important concept, that up until now I've somehow missed. According to Cocktail Genius, "children should never mix martinis, they always use too much vermouth." Children and Mennonites.

Despite my cautious pouring off of vermouth, the plain vodka martini is also unpalatable. I eat the olives, then dump it.

My stomach has been bothering me a little, so a day without much alcohol probably won't hurt. I've started stealing Nexium samples from the clinic. I'm really not keen on taking it, because I should really take a multivitamin as well if I do, and multivitamins tend to upset my stomach. I think it's being on an SSRI that's the primary problem - but without that, it seems, I'm a wreck.

This book contains recipes for 300 cocktails, supposedly, but the last chapter, "pure & simple", is all non-alcoholic and there are 23 recipes there, and I'm not going to bother with those. So that means 277 drinks, and if I do that over the course of a year, that's only 5.3 drinks per week. If I make two some days, like today, and consume less than half of each, that's only three or four drinks per week, which is about what I normally do. Of course if decent red wine is open I have a hard time resisting that, so that would be in addition...

I'm quite enjoying this, though, and have made a grocery list for Winnipeg next week: every flavor of vodka, kumquats, pomegranate syrup, and so on. I'm hoping I can find some vodkas in tiny sizes. I haven't checked Atikokan's LCBO yet; I will this week, just in case, and I'll buy my final couple of Christmas gifts at Voyageur Books or The Enchanted Florest, and two rubber chickens for the kids' stockings, and I'll be ready for Christmas.

Maiden's Blush

Jule took this photo on the train last summer, in the dining car, travelling to Vancouver.

I made and chugged a "Maiden's Blush" while getting ready for the hospital Christmas party this evening: gin, triple sec, grenadine, and lemon juice. Rather blah, not much to it. One to forget. Much like the hospital Christmas parties. We have dinner at the Legion, perogies and cabbage rolls and turkey, all very fine, but not amazing like when Berdina Bingham was alive and baking buns - no one can match her buns. Then it's usually a live band. One year the band played The Red Hot Chili Peppers quite competently, which was exciting, and another year we skipped out early to go to the Nite Club, and that was rather fun too. It could have been a small town bar anywhere, only populated by Atikokanites! This year the band was In Denial, four fifty-somethings playing Men at Work and The Rolling Stones, and the old people bopped up and down, and that was that.

Driving home I thought about how lovely it is, though, to live in a town, how there are so few of us here that we keep showing up in each others' lives, at work, at the grocery store, everywhere. I could lose my job, my spouse, whatever, but I'd still be part of this town, if I cared to stay. I could get old here, check into the Extended Care Wing at the hospital, lounge all day in my geri-chair overlooking a snowy field, swallowing pills delivered by kids whose ear infections I once treated. I'm sort of looking forward to it, actually.

The forest, snow-tipped spruce and pines and bare-branched maples, glows against the black velvet of the sky on cold, clear nights like tonight. There is depth there. There are lakes beyond, and islands, black bears, moose, wolves. We are here in our cave, warmed by wood fires and feather duvets. Really, I'm quite lucky.

Holy Water

Oh my God, this is good. Why have I never heard of this? Vodka and rum and triple sec, tonic water and grenadine and the rind of a whole lemon. It shouldn't be good, but it is - sour, but not too sour; potent, but not sharp.

For the first time since I started this project, I've wanted a second drink. I woke up this morning NOT nauseous, probably because I had no alcohol yesterday, and Christmas party week is coming up, and so I suppose I shouldn't, but - yum.

Supper is pretty much ready: roast chicken and mashed potatoes and cognac carrots. I also made 144 Ukranian scuffles today, and garlic shrimp per Jamie Oliver for lunch, so I'm feeling very domestic and accomplished.

I was going to say something about Morocco and the Garden of Eden, to go along with the Holy Water theme, but I forget what. Fez, Morroco - Tripoli - where U2 wrote much of "No Line on the Horizon" - is on my list of places to someday visit. Also Cadiz, Spain, near Gibraltor, a surfing town and the Land's End of Europe. Also Greece. Okay, that's irrelevant. Lots of other places I want to go, too. Okay, I'm a bit drunk, and the chicken's got to be done by now.

God bless you all...

Concoctions Containing Coconut Cream

So I now know what I once only suspected: that I prefer a Chi Chi to a Pina Colada.

And also: it is possible to create quite nice crushed ice using ice cubes and a blender.

For a while, when I was eighteen or nineteen, I thought Chi Chi's were delicious and asked for them at restaurants like The Keg, and O'Riley's in Medicine Hat, where we used to eat brunch in forest green upholstered booths surrounded by nostalgic war posters and Marilyn Monroe memorabilia. Then I was knocked down a few times by waiters who told me there was no such thing, and didn't I mean a Pina Colada?

One of the happiest days of my life was the day after final exams at the end of my first year of medical school. My Gross Anatomy group met at Wendy's house, where we made Pina Coladas and watched "Grease", singing along and dancing on the furniture. We were kids, in our early 20's, but also medical students, and successful ones, having made it through our first year. We were capable of dissecting dead people, of interviewing old men with heart conditions, of memorizing the cranial nerves; and of making Pina Coladas from scratch.

The primary difference, I now know, is that Chi Chi's contain vodka as opposed to rum. Chi Chi's are whiter, fluffier, more like candy. I made virgin Pina Coladas for Caleb and Jule last night but they weren't too thrilled with them; Jule asked for milk instead, Caleb for water. They watched "Up" for the second time. I woke up with a migraine and nausea again this morning. I felt better after a cup of coffee and a mandarin orange. I think something's wrong with me, though. I've lost ten pounds in the past three months without eating well or exercising any more than usual, my temperature regulation seems to be off, and I have this weird rash on my neck since yesterday. Probably nothing, as usual, and I'm trying not to be a hopeless hypochondriac, but I might ask for a TSH.

Also, my whole family's been a bit worried about our livers since my grandfather died, at age 71, of autoimmune hepatitis that progressed to cirrhosis, complicated by bladder cancer that he developed while taking azathioprine. As far as we all know, he didn't drink much. He did take a lot of tylenol for back pain, having broken his back twice, once when he was kicked by a horse as a young man, once crashing his plane, which kept him going, kept him working until two weeks before his death. No one's sure what, if anything, triggered his illness. I remember the day I learned that something was wrong: we were living in Winnipeg, Caleb was young, and I was laying on the floor in my spare bedroom working on a presentation on hypereosinophilia syndrome, when Grandpa called. He asked what bilirubin was, and what it meant if it was elevated. My right lower quadrant hurt. I listed all the things I could think of. It was maybe three years later, that he was dead. He was more like a father to me than either of my actual fathers; I miss him lots.

Black Russian

I have only a couple of minutes before picking up Caleb from Cubs, so this will be short. Yesterday I was again lazy and instead of making a Chi Chi from scratch which was my plan I went for the Black Russian, which was kind of blah without Coke and as I'd just shoved a bunch of caramel corn down my throat I didn't feel like Coke, so after a few sips I converted it to a White Russian, which was much nicer.  Then Patrick opened white wine, to go with the fish, so I had a glass of that (Jackson Triggs, I think, Chardonnay), and was nauseous during the night, and sweaty which I often am lately, and was sure that I must have a lymphoma.  This morning, though, it occurred to me it might have something to do with the combination of vodka, kahlua, 10% cream, white wine, and caramel corn.

I now know that "one measure" of liquor is 15 mL, which is half an ounce (thanks, James - if you're right), so it seems I've been making everything double strength so far.  Hopefully the Chi Chi, with its ingredients properly portioned, will be as delicious as I remember from Medicine Hat College days... I have a fresh pineapple and everything.  Should be interesting with prime rib and roast potatoes.