It appears that your favorite local Jimmy Buffet-inspired watering hole is having something of a special on shots of Zwack. The $5 sphincter-winking shooters are available tomorrow only (Fri., June 27) from 9:30-10:30 p.m. So that's one hour where you can get ... oh, say, a 50 cent reduction on Zwack.
And, of course, I think I'm obligated to mention the following: "Nice shoes, wanna Zwack?" (Thanks to Greg Reilly.)
Senor Trachea is fortunate enough to be spending some time on the coast of Peru. The seafood is great, especially the Latin American version of sushi, known as ceviche. Today I got a lesson in it's preparation.
Step one: find some good, fresh fish. The fishermen here pull in about 5am with the day's catch. This nice lady will sell you some little kingfish for about a dollar a kilo.
Look for ones with red eyes and clear skin.
Like these:
Next, make some chili sauce or buy
some fresh in the market. The locals here prefer yellow peppers,
kinda hot but not smokin', this when they can't find the little red
ones they call "monkey dicks." The sauce is just pureed peppers with
some green onions.
You're also going to need some lettuce
for garnish, onions to slice over the whole mess and limes. Very
important the limes.
Peruvians are very proud of their limes, which are especially tangy but still sweet. The ceviche you get in Chile or Mexico? Just not up to snuff because they're not lucky enough to live in Peru where the God's own limes are grown and common. You'll know when they're ripe because the nipples on both ends are inverted and they feel juicy when squeezed.
When you get back from the market, it's a man's job to prepare the ceviche, everybody knows this and takes it as obvious that women just can't do it as well. So, ladies, kick back with a cold one and let los hombres get to trabajo. Ask any three Peruvians whether it's really true that men are the masters of ceviche, and they'll look at you like you're retarded (I get that a lot).
Scale the fish, the nice lady in the market shoulda already lopped off their heads for you and yanked the guts, which is why the market smells horrible and your house fresh as a day in May. If the ladies want to chop onions or lettuce, that's cool, but leave it to los hombres to first dose the little pescados with chili sauce. Use as much as you and your guests can tolerate heat-wise, and then squirt a little more on for good measure. Then, take the limes that your wife or girlfriend (or both, if they get along) have sliced in half and de-seeded. Squeeze them over the fish flesh until there's enough to float the contents, salt and pepper to taste, and then swirl the whole thing around. You're allowed to dip a spoon in the lime juice/pepper sauce/fish juice mix for a little taste. Offer the same spoon to others so they can confirm how tasty it is.
That's pretty much it. Pile the ceviche on a bed of lettuce on a plate, put a layer of sliced onion on top and serve. A coupla slices of boiled sweet potato add nice color contrast and give you something to soak the acid from the lime and peppers off your tongue.
Be aware that ceviche is a well known aphrodisiac, and that it's often served with copious amounts of cold beer, so have some contraceptives handy.
Buen provecho!
Wetness? Wool? Walrus? I dunno.
What I DO know is that every A&W in the nation is giving out free rootbeer floats today. Apparently, A&W wants to help us Americans, so downtrodden and broke from filling our SUVs with $4/gallon gas—so they're giving us fat and sugar for FREE.
Just walk in to an A&W and be like, "I would like my economic stimulus free rootbeer float, please." And then they'll give it to you. Apparently.
We just came from our post-distribution lunch/beer party at McCabe's, where I forced people to drink Zwack because I was buying. After a shot of plain Zwack, we decided to experiment with Zwack mixers and rate them. Below are our ratings, with 1 being drinkable and 10 being awful (Zwacktastic):
Drink _________ Becky ________ Aaron ________ Jeanette
2-Zwacka Bomb 2 2 1
Zwack n' Cran 3 3 2
Zwack n' Orange 2 3 1
As you can see, we were all surprised by how not-awful these drinks were, some verging on tastiness, even. Our tasting notes:
From Jeanette, on 2-Zwacka Bomb: "I would order this as a shot. And actually pay for it.
Aaron on Zwack n' Orange: "This sort of tastes like eggnog. Smoky, thicker eggnog, fermented in the tears of those oppressed by Communism."
Becky, after quickly downing her Zwack shot: "That's not that bad."
McCabe's employee Marianne, on Zwack n' Orange: "Gah! That's naaaasty. It tastes like vomit."
All of us, on whether we wanted to order more Zwack: "No, thank you."
I just got word that the Colorado Springs Farm and Art Market announced their official location and opening for this summer:
June 11 – October 11, Saturdays 9–1pm at The Margarita at Pine Creek restaurant and Wednesdays 3-7pm at America the Beautiful Park.The Colorado Farm and Art Market kicks off the growing season in a NEW location with live music and fresh spring veggies. The Pikes Peak Region Locavore Challenge will also kick off at the start of the Market.
CFAM in partnership with the Peak to Plains Alliance will challenge participants to eat only local food, grown or raised within 300 miles of Colorado Springs, during this growing season. Participants will pledge to eat locally at various levels of commitment.
The Pikes Peak Region Locavore Challenge will allow people to connect with their food system, making small changes in eating habits that have a significant environmental impact. Food travels an average of 1300 miles from the field to the table. Though eating locally you can reduce your 'food miles' while reducing your carbon food print, supporting small farmers and, eating fresh delicious food!
Exciting news for local gourmands and art folks; I'm a huge fan of the Margarita, and the market is taking place in that big open field just off the patio. Tres Colorado, and very, very local. Plus, I'm a sudden fan of the word "locavore."
Holy cats, Mediterranean Cafe! This, today's special, is a leg of lamb sandwich, with sauteed onions and feta and tzadziki and is the best thing ever. I took it to go and brought it back to my office to find that it had leaked perfumed, delicious lamb juice all over the bag, which I then could not help myself from licking off the paper. Can you please add this to your menu? Purleeze?
Seriously, it could only get assier out if it started sleeting. Come on! It's May!
So here's my grandmama's recipe for борщ, or at least one that I found online and can pretend belong to my grandmama, who didn't speak Russian anyway.
8 cups beef broth
1 pound slice of meaty bone-in beef shank
1 large onion, peeled, quartered
4 large beets, peeled, chopped
4 carrots, peeled, chopped
1 large russet potato, peeled, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
2 cups thinly sliced cabbage
3/4 cup chopped fresh dill
3 Tbsp red wine vinegar
1 cup sour cream
Salt and pepper to taste
1. Bring 4 cups of the beef broth, the beef shank, and onion to boil in large pot. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer until meat is tender, about 1 hour 30 minutes.
2. Transfer meat to work surface; trim fat, sinew and bone and discard. Chop meat; cover and chill. Cool broth slightly. Chill in pot until cold, at least 4 hours and up to 1 day.
3. Spoon fat from top of chilled broth and discard. Add remaining 4 cups broth, beets, carrots, and potato; bring to boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer until vegetables are tender, about 30 minutes.
4. Stir in meat, cabbage and 1/2 cup dill; cook until cabbage is tender, about 15 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Stir in vinegar.
Ladle soup into bowls. Top with sour cream and remaining 1/4 cup dill.
Serves 6.
It is gorgeous out right now, which makes me want to sit outside and drink one of two things: margaritas or sangria. And, since margaritas are for suckers, here's a recipe for sangria that I'm totally making up on the spot—off the top of my dome, ya'll!
The beauty of sangria is that it can pretty much be anything you want to be as long as it's reddish. So let's start with a bottle of cheap red wine. K? Then, let's add a shitload of chopped-up fruit—say, oranges, pears and, what the hell, some berries, like raspberries or strawberries. Were we making this later in the summer, we would most definitely use Palisade peaches, which technically makes our drink azurra, but what the eff, right? It's summer, and we won't be bound by your rules, Dad.
Anyway, you need some sweetener there, so let's add some orange juice. And since most sangrias should contain some sort of extra spirit, usually a liqueur, let's just toss in some peach schnapps, or if you're feeling wacky, some Chambord. Then let's throw everything in the fridge and let it mix for a while. Then, we pull it out and add some soda water, or if you really like the sweet, some 7-Up, pour over ice and serve, garnishing with extra fresh-cut fruit.
Then we sit on a patio and drink it and eventually get sunburned and meet some cute girl who comments on our sunburn and get a crush and eventually have a summer fling which, yes, ends badly, but those perfumed nights in June and July were, we have to admit, worth the pain they ultimately caused. And that's summer.
I would love to be the guy who decided to challenge the 80-some-year ban on absinthe in the United States, because believe you me, he is raking it in. Our laws concerning it were never cut-and-dry, and given the resurgence of absinthe in Europe in the '90s, it was pretty easy to get by mail, anyway. But the American drinker is now suddenly confronted with a legendary spirit, and it's safe to say that most of us will want to try it.
It's showing up in bars with lightning speed, too—I'm told that eight bars have it in downtown alone now, and I'm sure that number will grow, given the liquor distributors' concerted push and the public's desire to have it. There are two brands I've seen, Lucid, from France, and Kübler, from Switzerland, and I've had the latter. 'Salright. Neither will make you hallucinate or go insane, I can promise.
As a beverage, it's almost mythic, so it'd be a good idea to acquaint yourself with it. HuffPost provided a link to this article on absinthe today, and you can also watch the following vid, which is worth watching if only for the narrator's central casting French accent.
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