Category Archives: Random Nonsense

Tomatoes suck. 

A tomato is a pupating mass of membranes, seeds, and gelatinous goo so far down the palatability scale for me it’s keeping the New Year’s abomination known as “Hoppin’ John” company. (Seems like the only place “John” is “hoppin’” to is the bathroom fixture that shares his name to spit out what to my tastebuds seems like boiled cat litter.) I will not eat anything that a slice of raw tomato has touched, because its filthy snot has a way of tainting adjacent food items with its unholy “flavor.”

Tomatoes are fit only to be rendered down, laced heavily with sugar and vinegar, and turned into ketchup.

Gross

You may be asking yourself, what has prompted this screed against a perfectly innocent fruit? (Vegetable? Hellspawn?) It’s because for almost three weeks not long ago, I was entirely responsible for creating my own meals. I normally make one meal per year — a shepherd’s pie a few days before Christmas. My wife, Shannon, is responsible the other 364 days for grocery shopping and cooking. Not because we conform to antiquated gender roles, but because she genuinely loves to cook, enjoys selecting fresh ingredients, and is very good at it. (I am Official Pot-Scrubber, Dishwasher-Filler, and Counter-Wiper-Downer, because as soon as she’s done cooking, she does the culinary equivalent of a mic drop and leaves the arena.)

Shannon would be spending twenty days in Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands. The Galapagos portion was a professional development program for educators put on by Stanford University, and the Ecuador portion was a personal vacation that I, technically, could have gone on as well. But the idea of traipsing around the Andes at altitudes over 16,000 feet and careening along narrow cliffside roads in colorful-but-deadly buses with questionable maintenance records and crammed full of live poultry did not appeal. (My Latin American bus-phobia may have been misplaced. Shannon and the friend she went with ended up on some very nice buses. She sent pictures.)

Shannon in Ecuador

So, with a few weeks off work myself, I decided on the glorious situation that goes by that too-cute-by-half portmanteau: the staycation.

Since I was now solely responsible for keeping myself alive, I decided to indulge myself even more than I usually do by making two of my favorite restaurant meals in my own kitchen — a full English breakfast and a Cobb salad. (Not at the same time, obviously.)

Which brings us back to our starting point — both of these dishes feature tomato. In the case of the full English, a fried tomato. Frying them definitely does not offer any improvement. Aesthetically, it makes them so much worse. A discolored, shriveled orange sack that looks like some kind of diseased bladder plucked from a dissected amphibian. Keep it away from my bangers, please.

My full English and Cobb salad would be proudly sans tomato.

With my Films of the Solo Beatles series (temporarily) stalled, why not turn my kitchen experiment into an entry for my neglected website? In fact, why not do the Holy Bee version of a “lifestyle” blog, complete with recipes and touting certain brand names? Maybe even throw in some product links?  

As you’ll see, it’s not much of a lifestyle. And like any good cooking blog, you’ll have to read through paragraphs and paragraphs of personal blather about my backyard, my reading habits, and my adorable pets before you get to the actual recipes. 

True Confession Time: I am a reformed cigar-smoker. Long ago in my single-guy days, from April through October, you would find me on the patio or balcony of whatever bachelor pad I was occupying, enjoying the pleasure of a book and cigar after getting home from work. When the weather turned too cold to sit outside, I would go on cigar hiatus for the duration of the winter. Even in my own place, I never smoked a cigar indoors because I’m not an animal. I was already weaning myself off them entirely (it was getting too damn expensive) when I met and subsequently married Shannon. Shannon abhors smoking in any form, so even though she never outright asked me to, I easily gave up cigars altogether over ten years ago.

Sort of. Almost.

Whenever Shannon leaves the house for two days or more, I immediately dash out and buy a pack of cigars. It has to be a two-day trip minimum, because the smell will not leave your pores after only one shower, and the taste will not entirely leave your mouth in less than 24 hours, no matter how many times you brush, floss, and rinse. Obviously, I enjoy the taste and aroma of a cigar as I’m smoking it, but once the party’s over, the odor that clings to the skin and clothes is not particularly pleasant. I also make sure the clothes I was wearing are washed, or at least completely buried at the bottom of the hamper. If it sounds like I’m trying to keep this a dirty little secret, I assure you I’m not. Shannon is well aware of my cigar-backsliding while she’s away, but why subject my lovely wife to a smell she’s sensitive to and I know she hates? (Almost as much as we both hate patchouli. If you’re one of those people who douse youself in patchouli and then parade around in public like it’s perfectly acceptable, you owe society a huge debt for not collectively vomiting in your presence.)

So these days, I smoke a few cigars about twice a year. A pack of five will get me through two days. But this summer, she’d be gone for twenty days. To hell with a pack, I bought me a full box.

I have smoked premium Cuban cigars from Havana. I once smoked a single cigar that cost in the triple digits. And they were just fine. But to me, nothing tops a good, sweet, cheap liquor store cigar.

I was never really a cigarette smoker. As a disaffected hipster teen in the early ‘90s, I sometimes puffed on those black clove cigarettes that popped and crackled as they burned (illegal in the U.S. as of 2009). A little later in life, I discovered everyone I worked with at the video store took smoke breaks in the back alley, and I decided to join them with my newly-purchased pack of Chesterfields (because that’s the brand Christopher Walken gave to Dennis Hopper in True Romance). That lasted barely a year before I decided I didn’t really want to be a “real” smoker. I switched to cigars, which you could puff away on without coating your lungs in tar. (Coating your mouth and throat with aromatic smoke seemed somehow healthier.) My preferred brand for years and years was the widely-known Swisher Sweets. I was mail-ordering them in bulk by the time I decided to curtail the habit.

Nowadays, because my smoking opportunities are much more limited, I need to get as much time and pleasure as possible out of each individual cigar, and Swisher Sweets are on the small side. I switched it up to Phillies Titans. Each one is a solid six inches long, and if you don’t go crazy with it, a slow-burning Titan will last almost an hour. I know I referred to this type of cigar as “cheap” earlier, but a pack of five Phillies Titans will run you $9.99 at your local Rite Aid. Cheap compared to Montecristos, I suppose, but the cost is another good reason to not smoke cigars too often.

In my life, cigars are indelibly associated with reading. I don’t think I have ever smoked a cigar without a book in hand. Since I don’t smoke indoors, that means an outside reading chair is a must. Even without cigars in my routine, reading outside on a nice afternoon has become habitual.

Continue reading →

Fitzgerald: Don’t make them so sweet this time.

Dingy: You want another one? You’ve had two already, can’t you wait until we’re on the ground?

Fitzgerald: What are you talking about? All right, I’ll make the next batch. (To Benjy) You! You take the controls!

Benjy: I don’t know how to fly an airplane!

Fitzgerald: Oh, that’s nonsense, anyone can fly a plane…Now I’m going to make us an old-fashioned the old-fashioned way, the way dear old Dad used to!

Benjy: What if something happens?

Fitzgerald: What could happen to an old-fashioned?

The Holy Bee doesn’t do things by half-measures…when I write a blog entry, I usually gush 4000 words…when I fix a drink, it’s usually a double.

The perfect unwinding drink is the old-fashioned. Whether you knock one together as soon as you walk in the door after a rough day, or wait until later in the evening as dinner is settling, an old-fashioned can have a magical effect on your mood. Don’t let anyone tell you there’s a “correct” technique. No one likes a bar snob. But I’ve had too many watery, overly-fruit-muddled old-fashioneds in restaurants, so now I only trust myself to fix a good one. Here’s my recipe.

First of all, get yourself a silicone ice tray, capable of making 2-inch cubes. Use filtered water to make your cubes. The extra-large size will slow melting.

Again, this is a double, so put two sugar cubes in a double-sized, heavy-bottomed rocks glass. (Some people prefer simple syrup to cut down on graininess, but I rarely have any on hand.) (EDIT: I have since discovered the super-finely grained caster, or “baker’s,” sugar, which will leave no graininess or residue. One teaspoon is the proper amount.)

Thoroughly coat the cubes in Angostura bitters — accept no substitutes! Don’t be stingy with the bitters, either. Make sure those cubes are doused (8-10 dashes).

Splash in a small amount (about two tablespoons) of carbonated water or club soda. 

Squeeze in the juice of ⅛ of a naval orange (or ½ of a small mandarin). Bag and fridge the rest of the orange — it’s good for seven more old-fashioneds.

Muddle the sugar, bitters, water, and orange juice into a slurry with whatever muddling implement you have handy (I use a small ladle). Work it hard — try to dissolve the sugar as much as possible. You won’t dissolve it all, but that’s OK.

Swirl the mixture to coat the inside of the glass, and add the big-ass ice cube

Add two shots (about 3 oz.) of whiskey. The Holy Bee is a rye man, but a Canadian blend such as Crown Royal also works well for a different flavor experience.

Stir thoroughly!

Slice your used orange wedge in half to use as the first part of your garnish.

A toothpick is handy to extract a maraschino cherry from its tight little jar. Luxardo (the “original,” imported from Italy) is highly recommended. Add the cherry, and use the toothpick to drizzle in some of the cherry syrup.

Stir one more time. You can splash in a little more club soda if you want (I usually don’t).

Again, there’s no “right” way (except the Angostura bitters), but I prefer not to mush or muddle the fruit garnish. The juice & syrup are already in there, and you’d just be making it look worse from an aesthetic point of view.

The result is a smoky, spicy, sipping drink that goes well with elevated slippered feet, and a good book or whatever episode of an acclaimed cable show strikes your fancy. It should last an hour or so with proper care and handling, and it gets mellower, colder, and sweeter as you consume it. Don’t forget the cherry surprise that rewards you at the end.