Karl Lagerfeld and his chocolate lapdog
It’s not as if Krazy Karl ever, you know, eats (or at least he doesn’t swallow), but he has designed an all-chocolate hotel room, including a solid chocolate (and apparently quite startled) roommate modeled on his own pet, Baptiste Giabiconi. He’s a pretty fellow, but really is a pity about the melasma. Still, I would recommend not just a condom but a full-body wetsuit if you’re going to get down and dirty with Blackface Boy here.
Chef-Owner Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Blogger Heather Watson
Actually, as you can see there were no hogs involved in the Winedown event at Market, the Vancouver outpost of the Jean-Georges empire (unless you count the people who tried to scarf more than their share of the truffle pizza). It’s a strange fact but a fact nonetheless that now that I’ve got a blog with “food” right there in the name (scroll up and confirm for me that I’m not just hallucinating this, okay?) I get dozens of invitations to cocktail events and none at all to foodie events.
Fortunately for my liver, Market changed my luck with their invitation to the Winedown event, at which actual food was served. It still counts, even if the invitation came through the bartender, right?
There were cocktails served, too, and very tasty they were although I have to say the Palaciosour was something I’d order again whereas the Basablanca comes across as just a too-tart, much more labour-intense Tom Collins.If the lemons in yours were sharper than the lemons in the test batch as mine were, you were hooped unless you wanted to go back and ask them to splash in some simple syrup or something, which is a bit like sending your food back to get some ketchup on it. I know it’s heresy, but sometimes making drinks in a pitcher and sampling the pitcher before pouring is more likely to result in consistent quality. At a posh event, people want them made individually; the problem is, there’s no time to test them this way. One must strike a balance between practicality and pizazz.
The Palaciosour was a nice sour (and not too) but the float of rich, hemoglobinesque red wine completely made the drink. The interplay between the bitters, the citrus, the refined whisky and the wine added an almost electric dimensionality to the experience that made it something special. It also looks pretty wicked, as the Rioja remains floating instead of mixing in with the rest of the drink.
UPDATE: added the decimals into the recipes. Darn proofreading!
Basablanca
.75 oz Telmo Rodriguez !Basa” Rueda.
.5 oz Victoria Gin.
.5 oz St.Germain.
.25 oz Fresh Lemon Juice.
2 dashes Fee Brothers West indian Orange Bitters
combine ingredients and shake with ice
double strain into a coupe
*garnish with zested lemon peel
Palaciosour
.5 oz Alvaro Palacios !La Vendimia” Rioja.
1.5 oz Centennial Rye Whisky
.75 oz Fresh Lemon Juice.
.25 oz Fresh Lime Juice.
.75 oz Sugar Syrup.
2 dashes Fee Brother Plum Bitters
2 dashes Fee Brothers Aztec Chocolate Bitters
combine Rye, citrus juice, sugar and bitters and shake with ice
double strain into an old fashioned glass
top with ice
float wine on drink surface
*garnish with brandied cherry on rim
And, didn’t I say something about food? The food was (as should be the case at one of Jean-Georges’ places) marvelous. Truffles don’t really float my boat, and thank GOD I finally found something expensive that I don’t actually adore, but the first item out of the kitchen was truffle pizza, and it had me reconsidering my truffle position. The truffle gave the cheese pizza an edge, a savory interest that wasn’t as overwhelming as truffles can be.
I remain, however, deeply skeptical of their celebrated truffle burger. I am a devoutly orthodox burgerologist.
For the second item, let me put this as simply as I can: the scallop sashimi with warm crispy rice and chipotle emulsion may just be the nicest thing I’ve ever had in my mouth, including my ex.
The Steelhead salmon sashimi with green chili, crushed pistachios, and mint (whatever happened to giving foods names instead of entire recipes?) was equally marvelous. It’s not easy to do foods that retain their individual component flavours while working together perfectly, and while this sounds strong, it was in fact subtle and perfectly-balanced.
The raw tuna with wasabi cream cheese and pickled ginger pizza was fresh and, again, well-balanced, but it made me wonder why some foods were sashimis and some were just pedestrian old “raw.” I suspect the salmon and scallops slept with the chef. The dish was radical, but very successful.
Rice cracker crusted tuna with a citrus-sriracha emulsion was my second-favorite of the night, even though I am allergic to the word “emulsion” outside of physics class. I’m a big fan of contrasting, bold flavours, and so was pretty much in heaven all night.
It was a good reminder that there is more to wine cocktails than sangria (or that lame excuse for white sangria that’s really just cheap white zin watered down with some orange slices in it, and Yaletown, I AM LOOKING AT YOU) and that less-alcoholic cocktails pair better with food, particularly after the second round.
Joan Rivers may have bent the elbow prior to this photo being taken
Joan Rivers is the latest celebrity spokesperson for vodka, taking up the mantle still worn by a no-doubt confused Diddy and Dan Ackroyd (“I thought we had this gig sewn up?”).
I am thinking it’s an improvement, actually.
Diddy, dude, when you distill grapes you get brandy and when you distill dead, post wine-making grape crap you get marc. It doesn’t matter how much you distill it, it doesn’t become vodka: no matter how long you bake a butter tart, it doesn’t turn into a custard tart. And we know you know your way around tarts.
It's crystal clear, my dear Watson
As for Ackroyd and his Crystal Head Vodka, I’ll let you in on a dirty little secret. Well, first I’ll avow that it’s actually not half bad. And it does come in one of the world’s great decanters. But it actually tastes pretty much or entirely indistinguishable from the much less expensive Iceberg Vodka (also produced in Newfoundland, and how many can there be, really?). Iceberg is a perfectly good mixing vodka, quite underrated probably because of the price, but it’s not exactly sippin’ likker. So, if you want to save money and pull an old trick from Prohibition, buy the Crystal Head and treasure the skull, but refill it with Iceberg.
Hey, I never said I was classy, but I never said I was rich, either, knowmasayin’?
A little tacky makes the cocktail go down better, as Tallulah Bankhead knew.
Now, speaking of tacky, we come to the above Joan, delightfully protean siren of stage and screen, all the way back to the days of zoetropes. Today, Joan came out with a Better Housekeeping Tip for the Ages, and not-incidentally tipped us off that she buys cheap vodka. Is she a skull-refiller herself? Who knows? But read on and file this away in your I Want To Be Betty Draper index card box.
“I always spray my costumes with vodka and water. It’s an old Broadway trick — two-thirds water and one-third vodka, spray your armpits and you’ll never smell again.”
via PageSix
And here’s Joan, fresh as a Daisy (a double, though) at an Aussie awards show.
BONUS TIP:
My friend, a cocktail fancier and pharmacist, suggested to me that if I can neither swallow the horse pills that my medicine comes in nor dissolve them in water, that I dissolve them in vodka instead. Yay, Science!
William Shatner would like you to ease up on the Scotch Bonnets
Ladies and gentlemen, it is my great pleasure as a Canadian and sophisticated humanoid life form to announce that today is an historic day.
Today, my friends, is Talk … Like … William … Shatner … Day.
It’s also his 80th Birthday, so mazel tov, Bill!
In the spirit of Shatnerianism, we present this ad for William Shatner’s Frying Saucer, a product somewhat less commercially successful than the George Foreman grill, despite the great advantage of being entirely imaginary.
Since we’re on a Shatnerian, foodie roll (a Montreal smoked meat sandwich roll?) here is Henry Rollins’ two-part tribute to the World’s Greatest Canadian and, in particular, his amazing ability to inspire scallop fishermen to greater heights (depths?) of awesomenosity in the pursuit of a Shatner-worthy seafood platter.
“He’s not like us. He’s Canadian.”
Which reminds me of one of the great trivia stories of celebritydom. When young Bill told his stuffy Mount Royal parents about his plan to throw away his proper, preppy upbringing and become nothing more than a meat puppet, his father threw him out without a cent, in fine Dickensian tradition. So William Shatner spent a great portion of his early years subsisting on 25 cent servings of fruit salad at Kresge’s Department Store.
A toast to Julian Assange
How did I miss this? Spies, food, alcohol, anarchy, conspiracy, and double-crossing: it’s got EVERYTHING I look for in a story.
In order to keep government-mortifying website Wikileaks running and pay the considerable legal fees of his (unsuccessful) fight against extradition, Draco Malfoy imitator and human ferret Julian Assange invited the world to dine with him on February 9th of this year.
For a fee.
Nom for Freedom, Julian!
No, seriously, how did I miss this? Assange is easily my favorite James Bond villain, and a more stimulating dinner companion could hardly be imagined (just keep all the lights on). According to the website, it was a one-time opportunity to gather with friends and Wikileaks supporters, donate to the cause, and in return be given a link to unlock a Vimeo video of Assange saluting you and presumably pretending to be interested in what your Uncle Harry has to say about kids these days and their crazy music, etc, etc.
Well guess what? Someone leaked the video. So here’s what we missed! [ed note: when the inevitable takedown notice comes, the very fabric of the space-irony continuum will be destroyed]
In the words of Julian Assange – “There are four things that cannot be concealed for long, the sun, the moon, the truth – and dessert!”
