Tarrador

Recently went to dinner at Table on Main, a nice restaurant in Rosewell. We sat outside under huge blooming wisteria trees and had a very nice dinner. Before dinner, while we were looking at the wine list, the waiter mentioned that the owner was a bourbon fan, and that the bar had an extensive bourbon list. Funny how the Universe throws me these opportunities out of the blue. I asked for the list and chose a small batch bourbon called Four Roses, distilled by Four Roses in Kentucky.

I learned that bourbon, for the record, must be at least 51% corn, mashed and fermented. The remaining grains can be diverse but are usually barley, rye or winter wheat. Four Roses makes their small batch blend principally about 75% corn and 25% from rye. I got my bourbon neat in a common tumbler and took a deep sniff. There was definitely an upfront alcohol burn from the dark honey colored liquid (90 proof). It was also fruity like apples and star anise, and rich blackberries. The first taste over the tongue was nice and sweet, like caramel popcorn or roasted marshmallow, then it bled away to a nice woodiness, definite corn flavor and sharper citrus notes with vanilla. The burn going down was not as strong as I expected coming from the scent. It was smooth and easy. I was left with an aftertaste of sweet pipe tobacco, licorice, and a peppery sweetness. It did not linger long, though. Even though it has a big, bold flavor upfront, it is basically a limited range of flavor, without the layers of subtlety of other bourbons I’ve had.

I had them make a Sazerac cocktail with the bourbon, but I wasn’t too crazy about it. I thought it might go well with the anise flavors but those actually got washed out. And I’m not much of an absinthe fan anymore… not after that weekend in New Orleans…

I didn’t try it in a recipe, but I could see making a Four Roses and orange glazed cake with it. I didn’t drink it with ice or water or coke, but I imagine those ingredients would wake up the strong tastes and wash out the less up front ones. It is a nice bourbon, and one I could see myself ordering again at a bar. I won’t run out and get a bottle, though. I checked the price the other day out of curiosity and it is a reasonable $32 at the store.

Had the chance to taste this very nice bourbon recently, and was impressed enough to hunt down and score my own bottle. I paid $21.00 for my bottle, which is a steal. But on average the bourbon is available for $35 – $38.

It is made by the Buffalo Trace Distillery in Frankfort, KY and is a single barrel bourbon that is still considered a small-batch, although it doesn’t carry any of the info such as barrel number, bottling date, etc. The bottle is tall and elegant and simple, like a very classy woman. Also like a classy woman, she is so much more than she appears.

The color is a beautiful, rich bronzy topaz that is almost reddish. When the cork comes out there is almost a floral fragrance. My first date with Eagle Rare was a rushed shot glass bolted down between courses at work. On this night I pulled down a heavy tumbler and splashed a generous three or four ounces into the glass. The bourbon had very nice legs when swirled, and an initial nose of grain, tobacco, leather, and cardamom. The first taste was almost like a very sophisticated sherry, with additional charcoal, oak, vanilla, pepper, toasted grain, and traces of overripe fruit (flavorful, not spoiled). Swallowing was surprising easy for a 90 proof bourbon. It went down very smoothly and carried warmth vs. stinging heat. The flavors turned dry and spicy, making me think of beef jerky and dried persimmons and very old canvas (I dunno, that’s just what came to mind). After a few seconds there was a follow-up burn, but very gentle, with an oily, honey’ed, roasted almond taste that lingered in a very pleasant way with just a little bit of bitter acidity. So smooth was she I was able to sip the whole 3 or 4 ounces in under 30 minutes watching GOT on HBO.

The following Sunday I knocked out menus, schedules, payroll, grocery orders and prep sheets with a balloon glass of Eagle Rare on the rocks next to me. The cold and the water diffused some of the earthier flavors and maintained the sweet and spicy tastes. Later I paired it with Coke, Ginger Ale, orange juice, and composed into an Old Fashion. All were good, but this is a complex bourbon that really deserves to be enjoyed on its own. Over about two weeks I drained the bottle and even S., who is not a bourbon/whiskey fan at all, thought it was very smooth, flavorful, and lady-like.

I was actually a little jealous of sharing my bourbon with a food recipe, but I did use around 1/4 cup to make a bourbon-butter-cream sauce to go over white pepper seared scallops and red onion linguini pasta. I reduced the bourbon with a mash of roasted shallots and garlic, added some heavy cream and let reduce more, then swirled in some butter and emulsified, then finished with lemon zest and tarragon. I tossed this with the caramelized red onion pasta I made, sprinkled with flakes of shaved Asiago cheese and topped with grilled asparagus and orange juice-marinated sea scallops that had been crusted with white pepper and seared. The flavors were great, but I felt like the sophisticated elements of the bourbon got lost in the competition for flavors. I think this would be a good bourbon to blend with white chocolate and make truffles with, crusted in toasted peanuts.

For an event we made some mini chicken tacos. We cut and fried mini tortilla shells and filled them with a creamy chipolte chicken salad, topped with spicy mango slaw and avocado-cilantro puree.

It is on thing to get great reviews from the customers. But when the customer is only getting three out of four tacos because the servers cannot stop snacking on them… well, I guess that is a kind of compliment, too.

^{They didn’t even have the decency to look embarrassed!}

Haven’t had time to really work on the garden, and the season is slipping on. May just shoot for a late summer autumn garden now, which I have not done before and might be fun.

We need to finish our reconstruction of the raised beds and trellises along the fence. Teenagers keep jumping over our fence to cross the neighborhood, damaging the fence and now they have broken a slat on S.’s bench. Damn the HOA, I’m going to see if Home Depot sells razor wire and put an end to this rude trespassing.

We did get to Lowe’s for some paint for a room and while there S. got some very pretty marigolds to line the steps leading up to the garden.

I set out to make a 15 minute clean sweep and reorganization of the kitchen pantry. It has become not just a food storage area, but a general drop-off point for all kinds of stuff, some not food related. It is also relatively generous in size, and somebody’s law of something dictates that available stuff will swell and expand to fill all available areas unless rigidly controlled. So the pantry is full of all kinds of stuff that either have never been used, or were used once, or get used sporadically, or get lost in the shuffle and repurchased until we have multiple containers.

15 minutes actually turned into 1.5 hours and a lot of gathering, reorganizing, dumping, and relocating. During the course of the clean up I came across buggy pasta from 2 years ago, 5 different kinds of rice, 4 kinds of grits, 6 types of flours, 12 kinds of teas, 5 flavors of honey, 2 kinds of agave nectar, 6 heretofore overlooked bottles of our favorite wine, 12 types of dried fruits, 3 kinds of oatmeal, 7 kinds of ancient grains ranging from buckwheat to red quinoa, 5 lbs of graham cracker crumbs, 5 kinds of dried seaweeds, hemp powder, 3 flavors of olive oil, 2 varieties of balsamic vinegar, 8 varieties of dried and canned beans, 4 types of canned tomatoes, 4 kinds of salt, 5 types of chocolate, shredded coconut, coconut oil, coconut water, coconut milk, and coconut flavoring, a post-apocalyptic stash of sugar, malted milk and rum, and a bottle of lemon rinds soaking in grain vodka (my lemoncello project, lost and overlooked).

When the reorganization was finished everything was back in its designated area and it looks like a serviceable, efficient pantry once again. Now I have to summit the task of actually using the items in the pantry (what the hell am I going to do with 32 oz of tamarind paste?). A lot of stuff went into the trash. A few items got transferred to the refrigerator or the spice cabinet. Those will be the targets of my next 15 minute clean ups.

I have to say right off that I am not in financial straits. Our bills are paid, our credit is solid, our savings is whole and unplundered. We both have good incomes and solid employment with benefits. Despite starting new jobs over and over and over during the last two years, I am today making more money than I ever have. Both vehicles are in good repair and one is fully paid off and should be well serviceable for two or three more years. Credit card companies solicit us like Las Vegas prostitutes following a flush gambler from the casino.

So, what is broken? I feel like I best described it when talking to my therapist (yes, I still see the therapist, and probably will for a while longer. I’m better, but I’m still damaged). I said our finances were like wild horses tied to a buggy. What I felt like we needed was a couple of plow horses yoked up and tilling the ground. Our finances are fine on the income end, but out of control on the outcome end. Our house is pretty much in order thanks to my wife, who sallied forth and took care of bill paying and such while I was under a long, dark cloud. But I’m way better now, and I want our life to reflect that in what we do with our free time and how we save, invest, spend, and prioritize our money.

My wife and I are incurable enablers of each other, especially with money. We cannot refuse one another anything (except I have never gotten her the goat she wants to keep in our backyard). Truthfully we would never ask for something we knew we could not afford, but “afford” is a relative and bendable term. A happy bank account, fat savings, low-balance credit cards, and regular paychecks tend to make us careless, or at least over-confident. We both have histories of being fiscally poor and dead-ass broke at times. Times when I could not convince my first wife to let me spend $3 on a cassette tape in the discount bin. Times when S. ate Oddles of Noodles for weeks because at $.25 a pack that was all she could afford. Times when my dinner was Ritz crackers and salad dressing. Times when S. had to borrow the same $10 from a guy every week just to ride the bus to and from work. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that in America the streets are paved with gold. They are paved with ash and dust and sulfur. You have to dig for the gold.

Part of our rise to relative comfort was a change in our thinking about money. We both moved from what we called “poverty minded thinking” to “prosperity minded thinking”. I really believe this was instrumental to our steadily increasing incomes, our ability to buy a house (although now I tend to rethink the wisdom of that purchase), pay our bills and have lots of “fun money”. I am thinking now that we need a new overhaul in our thinking about finances, and maybe other parts of our lives, too. A move from “prosperity minded thinking” to something else. Perhaps “affluence minded thinking”.

Prosperity and affluence might seem like the same thing. Affluence might even seem to be more focused on the materialism of money and wealth accumulation. I don’t know if I see it that way. For me, prosperity is the realization of things like success, health, wealth, and material comforts. Someone who is prosperous sounds more active and whole and on the path than some one who is affluent. But actually “affluent” is about movement and flow and increasing and gain. Affluent is more about the progress of reaching prosperity.

Comedian Chris Rock once observed that things would only change for African Americans when they began to control true wealth. Shaquille O’Neal, he said, was rich. But the white guy who owned the team that wrote Shaq’s check was wealthy.

I might have some cash on hand, and be doing okay. But I’m dependent upon the guy who owns the business where I work to write the checks that keep me that way. It’s a fair trade, my labor for his cash, but it is still a limited and risky one. I’m past the fear of being fired by an employer. I know my skills, knowledge, networking and work ethics will help me get another job. But if my wife and I haven’t developed good financial habits, based upon the principles of affluent minded thinking, we will certainly stay afloat and not sink, but we will ever be at the mercy of the tide. Affluent minded thinking gives us a sail and a rudder to plot a course and follow it. That is what I have to work on fixing.

My therapist suggested that my wife and I sit down separately and each write an income, expense, and planning budget. Then we compare notes and see how close we are (or how far apart) in our approach. I think that is a good place to start, and to start repairing the framework and supports that hold our fiscal household in place. I guess I will also look around for books or audio tapes on moving from a prosperity minded way of thinking to an affluent minded way of thinking.

^{On a side note, I’ve been playing around with photo-manipulation and digital painting, which enabled me to create the image at the top of this post. It took me three days of research, tutorials, trial and error, and head scratching to come up with the image, but I’m pretty pleased with it. I know it’s not perfect, and some details got lost due to size and proportions (like the “men working” t shirt and the blow torch). But with every project I learn more, try more, become more imaginative, and get a little better. Maybe this is a little bit of affluence minded thinking in action…}

Normally, I might say “Get Back on Track” for this goal. But the truth is I’ve never really been on the track like I should be. I feel, and have felt, perpetually at the station, stoking up the coals and gathering steam, but never letting off the brake and begining that journey of momentum.

And as I work to turn a corner in thinking, emotion, positivity and such, I don’t want to chain myself to previous expectations. Even if some of the goals look the same, I want to feel like the spirit backing them is different.

I have to remember that I am not a different person. I’m the same person as always; I just feel better and think differently now. Or at least I’m living the illusion that I do. Hopefully the results are the same regardless. The life I want, as well as the life I might have had, is sprawled amongst papers, journals, websites, vision boards and to do lists. I need to move on past planning to execution.

I’m not as interested in specific achievements (lose weight, read more, save more money, on and on and on…). My 43 day challenge is to get on track by setting up an environment that makes success more possible. Not specific goals, but routines, disciplines, and support for those goals. Rather than “lose weight”, I’d first create a diet plan to support that goal. But first do things like clean out my pantry, pre-plan how to avoid eating out too much, decide how to have on hand proper foods… Basically, make the achievement of goals easier and more likely by laying the track on which they will run. The strongest engine won’t go anywhere without a secure, straight track.

During these seven weeks, I plan to lay the tracks aimed at where I want to go, and worry less about the engines that will get me there. The challenge will be to plan properly and execute, stick to the vision and realize I’m in this for the long run, with no short term expectations. For me, being patient, being consistant, being long visioned, and being committed will indeed be a challenge.

In my time I’ve smoked a wide variety of stuff that could be rolled in paper or stuffed in a bowl. I’ve made bongs on the fly from Gatorade bottles and socket wrenches and bic pens. I’m familiar with the mechanics of the hookah, but its recent resurgence around here comes at a tim when I had lost interest in inhaling smoke and burning fumes (unless I’m smoking a pork butt or grilling some steaks). I quit smoking tabacco and weed and pipes and even more nefarious substances about 20 years ago (although I never smoked crack – ‘cause crack is whack). I even have become one of “those people” who wrinkle their nose and give disgusted looks as I pass knots of people who stand outside a building, smoking. Or crack their car window on the freeway and eject a smoldering butt. Or come back from break reeking of Marlboro country.

My remaining smoking vice is cigars, which I enjoy rarely. Cigars can be more pungent and offensive that cigarettes, I am aware. But they have their own kind of culture, and they can take a long time, vs the 3 minute burn of a Winston. And I’m firmly in the hypocrital camp that feels that cigar smoking is something you do for enjoyment, whereas cigarette smoking is something you are addicted to.

Out of curiosity, we visited a hookah club a couple of weeks ago. Someone who worked with my wife said it was very authentic to what would be found in the Middle East. She also said it was a great place to hang out.

The “club” was a shop in a strip mall that had been converted. We walked past a glaring neon sign and an appropriately dred and goatee’ed young man at the counter welcomed us and introduced us to the various types of flavors available. I looked into the seating area and it was a series of padded benches along each wall with short tables to hold the hookahs. There was a small group of young people near the back, and a Rastafari-looking individual and an older rocker-dude near the front. Seedy came to mind, but I didn’t want to jump to any conclusions.

We chose to have a mango flavored shisha and added a cut fruit bowl. We chose an orange on the recommendation of the guy at the front. This basically means that they cut an orange in half, put the tabacco and bowl onto the cut fruit, and wrap it with foil. The idea is that the smoke gets forced through the fresh fruit before percolating in the water, and you get a better flavor.

We chose a bench and sat down while they prepared our hookah. There was a TV on the opposite wall turned to “Hardcore Pawn”. The volume was off but some blessed soul had turned the captions on, so we were able to follow along in the horrified way you watch a highway pile-up on the news. The music was not Middle Eastern, but a blend of Hip Hop, Rap, current hits, and what I would have called “Thrash”, back when I listened to such music. I don’t know what they call it now.

Our hookah came and it was very ornate and shapely and beautiful. S., who has never smoked so much as a Virginia Slim, took a few tentative puffs and made a “so what’s the big deal” face. I took my hookah stem and drew in a great, long breath. Mentally and physically I tried to prepare myself for all the harshness, burning, sourness and ragged coughing I remembered form my cigarette smoking days. But the smoke was very cool and non-offensive. The flavors were rich and mellow and I blew out a cloud of white smoke like a dragon who’d just eaten a village. S. got more comfortable and began taking deep drags as well. We tried to blow smoke rings and took pictures of ourselves issuing smoke like Westworld robots. The plug of tabacco lasted a good long while, too. We watched and commented on two episodes of Hardcore Pawn and two episodes of “Extreme Repos”.

More people came in through the evening, although they were not of the Middle Eastern type crowd. More the nouveau-hippie-bohemian crowd with young women in Thai fisherman pants or sarongs and flip-flops with strappy tshirts and no bras and guys in knitted oversized berets, strappy tshirts and no bras, ragged shorts and shower shoes. But they were nice and quiet and enjoyed their hookahs like everyone else.

I’ve since found out there are lots of more classy hookah places around the metro area. One of the most recommended appears to be not far from where I live. We are thinking of giving hookah smoking another try because we enjoyed the experience, if not the environment. Plus, just like cigars, pipes, and cigarettes, there are sooo many more flavors to try.

I almost never stop for lunch during the day at work. As a result, my prep person almost never stops, either. I don’t make her work through lunch. I encourage her to take a break (when I remember). She demures and just keeps working. The other day I felt guilty because I caught her furitively sneaking bites of a banana while working. So I took a couple of minutes and knocked together a quick meal for us both.

Since I was working with chicken thighs, I set a couple aside and rubbed them with salt, pepper, garlic and whole grain mustard. I grabbed some leftover asparagus from the evening before and laid them inside the thighs, along with some shredded Swiss cheese, some shredded Asiago, and a wedge of brie, and rolled them up. I seasoned with paprika and sea salt and gave it a quick sear in a skillet, then tossed it in the oven to cook through. While it cooked I boiled some rice and tossed in some diced peppers and scrounged up some pickled onions, olive tapenade and balsamic glaze. Took about 15 minutes and we had a hearty meal to sustain us through the next few hours of prep. When I brought her the plate, Dulce laughed and thanked me. She said it was very good, but she had to add some jalapenos to it. But, she puts jalapenos on everything, so… Bottom line: we both cleaned our plates.

Saturday was Mina’s birthday. She’s a member of our marketing staff and a real sweetheart. Off-handedly I said I would make a cake for her. Saturday night Erika came into the kitchen and asked me when I wanted to bring the cake up to the office. I must have had that look on my face, because she asked if I had made it. Of course not, but I told her I was working on it. Mina would be in at 9pm, she said. No problem, I said. Immediately my staff chefs and I began putting together quick cake ideas that could be ready in 1 hour. I put them to work on an expresso cake that they promptly fucked up. I was going to make them throw it out, but they promised me they could fix it. Unconvinced, I began my own cake, and the whole situation turned quickly into a chef competition “cake-off”.

For my part, I made a chocolate sponge cake that baked up in about 15 minutes, then made a Kahlua-chocolate frosting and a brandy whipped cream. I cut the sponge cake into three layers, then took a cookie cutter and cut circles into the cake layers and layered the frosting on the layers. I reassembled the layers and filled the cut circles with brandy whipped cream, then frosted the outside, finishing with dollops of whipped cream on top. While waiting for the other chefs to finish their bungled cake repair, I made some pink icing and swirled it around the plate, topped with some edible gold glitter, and for good measure set a shot glass of brandy on the side.

The other cake came out after 30 minutes, and the chefs covered it with thick chocolate ganache, layers of sliced strawberries, and more ganache. We both finished within the hour and I took the cakes up to Mina’s office. When she came in she gleedfully knocked back the shot and cut into my cake first. Her eyes rolled with decadent delight. She told me later that both cakes were completely consumed before the night was out.

One of those goals that everyone has on their bucket list, but not everyone gets around to. For my birthday, my wife arranged for me to take a short class and a chaperoned flight over Atlanta in a Cessna Trainer. The “class” was a 12 minute video to familiarize me with the gauges in the cockpit, and a few minutes in the simulator, learning to keep the ball level and use the floor pedals. I didn’t crash the simulator, but it would have been one quesy ride. When the instructor asked me if I wanted to go again, or just head out to the plane. Of course I wanted to go out to the plane.

We did our walk around, checking fuel quality, mechanical issues, nuts and bolts. Then we climbed into the plane and did our pre-flight checklist. With my wife in the back seat and the instructor to my right, we put on our headphones and mic’ed up. I taxi-ed us to the runway in a weaving, drunken kind of way. The instructor took over on the runway, getting all the clearances from the tower and going for take-off. We got off the ground and climbed to 3,000 feet and ambled towards downtown. After about 15 minutes the instructor told me “you have control”. Trying to watch all the gauges, including the GPS keeping us clear of Hartsfield-Jackson airspace, I wobbled us around over the downtown buildings, including my workplace. We could see the tangle of traffic on 85 and 75 that we would normally be sitting in. Keeping the plane level and at 3,000 feet took a little work, and there was a little turbulence and I wasn’t sure if it was turbulence or me. We decided to fly over Stone Mountain, so the instructor set the directional dial to the required degrees and I turned us by degrees until we were headed for that big, bald hump of granite. We took a couple of swings around and the instructor told me that we were in open airspace and I could climb up if I wanted to. Tight-lipped and focused, I told him this altitude was fine.

Following a change of the degree dial, I began to zig-zag back towards the airport, working to line up with the distant gray tarmac 10 miles away. A little bogging and weaving, and I pretty much had us on course and decending with not too many sudden jolts. The instructor took over and landed us evenly and smoothly, and I got to taxi us back to our hanger.

It was a great experience, and one I’d be happy to do again. It was also remarkably easy and it is comforting to know I could be one of those guys who’s only had “a few lessons” and could keep a plane level and straight in an emergency, just like in Hollywood. Or I could pilot us out of danger in a zombie apocalypse…

Realistically I don’t think I’d spend hours and hours and thousands of dollars to get a private pilot license, and certainly would not own a plane. But there is something to be said for sailing over bumper-to-bumper traffic without obstruction. It’s hugely liberating to have the high view.

I recently was contacted to do a dinner for a couple based on a recommendation from another client. It was the gentleman’s birthday and his wife wanted to do something with a group of friends at their home. Since they were planning to go to Spain in May I suggested a tapas-style dinner with a Spanish wine tasting class. Since he was a big fan of small batch bourbons, she asked if we could do a bourbon tasting instead. I immediately agreed, even though I had no idea how I would work it out. I built some menu choices for them to choose from, suggesting they pick five dishes. They ended up picking all nine that I suggested. I told them that would be too much food, but they said they just couldn’t decide what to eliminate. They ended up going with the menu listed below.

I got a friend of mine from work to handle the bourbon tasting. He is a bourbon fan, too, and has procured some nice bourbons for my personal use before. He got lots of information from the distributor about the different liquors he wanted to talk about, and created a nice cocktail recipe featuring one of the bourbons. He also got the distributor to give him bottles of bourbon at well cost, which was a great bargain.

Normally I would do a dinner like this myself, but I had to be at my full time job for an event. First Montessori was having a fund raising auction and I had created an artisan fresh pasta station for the event, and I really needed to be on hand to make sure it went according to plan. I have very, very few people I would trust to send on one of my personal events in my place, but I asked my chef friend Alan to go, and sent my prep princess Dulce. Alan is a good chef but he can be a little verbose at times, but I had complete confidence he could execute the event with good technique and flair, and full confidence in Dulce to support him.

The food prep was pretty easy, except for the octopus. I spent four days and 10 lbs of octopus trying to come up with a method for cooking it that would make it flavorful and tender. I tried several methods but the one I ended up using was to wash the pus and rub it with sea salt, letting it set for 30 minutes. Then I blanched it for 1 minute in boiling water to fix the color, then cooking it with wine, garlic, lemon and herbs in my pressure cooker for 15 minutes, letting it cool in the pot until all the steam had escaped (about another 15 minutes), then letting it sit overnight in the rendered juices. This produced a pulpo that was firm, yet tender and well flavored, with just the lightest taste of the sea. We sliced the arms and Alan gave them a quick sautee on site with olive oil, garlic and shallots to warm them up.

Both the birthday dinner and my Montessori pasta station were great successes. Dulce did her onsite magic and Alan threatened to steal her away to work for him and I threatened to kill him and toss him in a dumpster if he did (I’m not really worried, Dulce made it clear that she thinks Alan if funny, but she’d much rather work for me than him). The bourbon tasting was a great hit, and Daniel had to actually stay an extra 20 minutes and make several rounds of the cocktail for everyone. My follow up with the client was glowing, and she went on about how great the food was, how much they enjoyed the tasting, and how effective and professional the staff was. She even tipped them $150 (which I split evenly between Alan and Dulce).

The big deal for me was not the complexity of the menu, or even juggling the production of two events on the same night for two different clients. It was the ability to release control over a personal event and trust someone else to take it as seriously and professionally as I would. Alan did not do things exactly as I would have (based upon the photos I ordered him to take of everything), but I know he took care to present it the best he could. Partly because he is a serious professional, and partly because he appreciated the confidence I placed in him to handle this important client for me. And the client was over the moon happy with the results, which was the ultimate goal, anyway.

Tapas Dinner and Bourbon Tasting Menu

To Start Things Off:
A Unique Tasting of Small Batch Bourbons, with Tasting Notes, Histories and Details, Hosted by Mixologist Extraordinaire Daniel Scarr.
Featuring:
Evan Williams Bonded
Elijah Craig 12 year
Eagle Rare 10 year
Jailer’s Premium Tennessee Whiskey
Mellow Corn Kentucky Straight Corn Whiskey

APPETIZERS:Chorizo Pan Rustico
Medallions of grilled chorizo sausage, smoked paprika aioli and minced olive on Spanish style rustic crostini

Sauteed Shrimp Spoons
Sauteed shrimp butterflied on a seared polenta cake with saffron cream broth and diced tomatoes, served in a ceramic Asian spoon

Iberian Dates
Sweet Medjool dates stuffed with Manchego cheese and wrapped in jamon iberico and lightly seared, served with cayenne-honey mustard

MAIN ENTRÉE TAPAS DINNER:

Crispy Calamari
Fried Calamari on fennel-onion slaw with diavolo jam and whiskey cream drizzle

Lobster Taco
Succulent chunks of claw and body with tomato-jicama slaw, fresh guacamole, Spanish aioli and drizzled with blood orange vinaigrette, in a crispy corn taco shell. Served with confetti rice pilaf and fresh pea shoots

Barcelona’s Hanger Steak
Strips of marinated and grilled hanger steak with black truffle sauce and cilantro coulis

Candied Pork Belly
Orange-glazed braised pork belly medallion served atop pan-seared shredded leek and potato cake with cucumber-mint salad, drizzled with cracked black pepper vinaigrette

BBQ Beef Empanadas
Home smoked beef brisket, shredded and seasoned with spicy bbq sauce, packed in a flakey pastry shell and served with grilled tomato and zucchini salsa

Roasted Octopus Steak
Tender marinated and roasted octopus arms, sliced into small steaks with Ancho pepper sauce, mango salsa, sweet roasted plantains and chive oil

Balsamic Beef Short Ribs
Balsamic braised boneless beef short ribs atop mustard-cheese flavored stone ground grits with blanched asparagus tips and red wine reduction sauce

DESSERT:

Chocolate Caramel Bread Pudding
Morsels of rich chocolate and vanilla brioche bread baked in mini ramekins and drizzled with salted caramel sauce

Flan Tres Leche
Individual tres leche flans with white chocolate and raspberry sauce

”Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous Fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them…” – Hamlet; Wm Shakespeare

The least I could do, I thought, was reach rock bottom. But it turns out rock bottom is very, very deep. You have to descend and descend and lose sight of the surface and all light, and feel the constricting power of the growing pressure. And still no bottom. The descent is bad enough. I shudder at the thought of rock bottom. Rock bottom is a secular humanist’s Hell. And the descent to Hell is paved with darkness and pressure.

For a couple of years (maybe many, many years if I’m honest… but let’s just take little steps for now) I knew something was wrong. I felt a persistent, compounding gloom and pressure building in my daily life. Important things faded in importance. Trivial things took on an exaggerated value. Happiness and even the feelings of contentment and peace became more and more elusive. Even anger, drive and competitive ambition took a vacation from my life and thought processes, it seemed. Basically, my life and world view dulled out. Nothing I tried helped. And I tried a lot of things. Positive thinking and reinforcement, goals and action plans, meditation and contemplation, binges and other wicked indulgences. I considered running away, beginning again somewhere tabula rasa. I considered driving my car through a construction barricade and off an overpass. Not to be dramatic and grandly suicidal, just to put a stop to this existence and restart at zero with a new life. Fortunately, my ambition and follow through were also sapped away. So those plans never really became much more than leaden daydreams.

I knew this wasn’t a normal way to feel. It wasn’t as if there really was anything in my life that was so wrong. I had worked towards and garnered a great job that I enjoy and was almost everything I wanted. I remain married to a wonderful and soul-matched woman who tolerates and loves me no matter what hand grenades I threw into our relationship. My health is fine, no cancer or diabetes or gout, and my physician’s MA says I have “rock star blood pressure”. Bills are paid, money is saved, cash is coming in and we are off the “month-to-month precipice. No family dramas, no run-ins with John Q Law. I’m a white man in White America; what on God’s green earth could be the reason for not being happy? Yet, I knew there was something wrong with saying or writing words like “happy”, “glad”, “pleased”, “enjoyed”, and having them ring empty and hollow. I knew I wanted to feel differently and it came to making a choice, to suffer the slings and arrows, or to take up arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing them, end them. End this melancholy, end this grayness, end this bleak. Surviving them wasn’t even the choice goal anymore. Just ending them; succumbing and feeling at peace.

The fact was I was looking for some solution. But all my efforts were self-generated, and I came to figure that it was like a car trying to adjust its own carburetor or change its own spark plugs; some things require the talents and knowledge of a skilled mechanic.

“Can you colorize my life, I’m so sick of black and white… Can you make it all a little less old? I can do that… now I can do that.” – I Won’t Do That; Meatloaf

So, at some point someone says “depression”, and I immediately dismiss it. I’ve seen the commercials for Celexia, Antpresta, Symbalta, Effexor, Confucius… all those symptoms described by the lightly lilting female narrator didn’t fit me, I thought. I don’t have a black cloud following me around; I don’t have a black dog gnawing at my heels. I get up, go to work, communicate, converse, order at restaurants, take showers, shave, and have sex… I have no crippling inability to do these things, I just have no ambition to do them like I used to. I’m getting old, my vigor is waning, I don’t like my job, I’m finally matured and reflective and realize I’ve wasted 1/3rd of my life on bullshit. But I’m not depressed. Sorry, spin again.

Then someone else says “depression”, and you know they had a cousin who blah-blah-blah. I’ve considered that, and it’s just not me. Thanks and choose another door, please.

Finally someone says “low grade depression, not full-blown”. Okay, okay. We’ve been down this road already. When are people going to learn that I never expected to live to be 40, and here I am knocking at the door of 50 so is it any wonder I’m lost and uncertain? I was supposed to married to one woman who would be my life and with whom I’d have children and neighbors and a deaconship at the church and a career I’d settled into and feel secure and safe with a mortgage and a 401K and Sunday picnics with the relatives where we’d talk about football and the price of bacon and how the Democrats or the Republicans or the Canadians were ruining the country.

Instead I was a thrice-married, childless, displaced, career-changing, hedonistic, aging rocker-hipster dude winding up when other men were winding down. Of course it would seem like I was depressed. But my problems were not chemical or biological… they were failings of character and morality. I am just about the smartest person I know, and it was fairly obvious to me the issues were all of my own making.

But the person who mentioned “low grade” depression is pretty smart, too. And she is someone whose opinions I respect. So I decided to do a little more research to build my bulwarks of self-blame and accusations. In my research I discovered a trove of information on what everyone agrees is a little understood and often misdiagnosed malady. In pages and pages of information I found an almost personalized litany of my complaints and ailments. In one moment I was both comforted that I was not so isolated, and also stripped of my uniqueness. I didn’t want to be mechanically broken. I wanted all this to be an Everest I had to be strong enough, tough enough, and resilient enough to conquer.

When my wife came home that evening I morosely told her I had “Low Grade Depression”. She asked me why I thought that and I pulled up the bookmarked Google pages and read paragraphs that could have been written by me rather than other people with similar feelings. After a too long pause, she said she thought those “symptoms” were just elements of my personality; I was just wired that way. I was able to explain how that is exactly how this illness goes unrecognized for years, so incremental is the descent. After about half and hour’s more conversation, she waggled her finger at me and said: “Okay, well, I’m gonna need you to take care of that. Take a pill, see a therapist… whatever you have to do.” And she walked out of the room.

Having taken up arms against my sea of troubles, I went out to find someone who’d disprove my personal diagnosis and reaffirm my still-deep-seeded conviction that it was really all just me. I found a therapist-lady (no way was I discussing such intimate vulnerabilities with a dude) and on our first appointment she asked me what brought me there. I spoke almost uninterrupted for 30 minutes. For that time she would only ask a couple of questions, but scribbled furiously on her pad. At the end of my mini rant, she looked up and said: “Well, I’ve got good news – based upon your descriptions, you are most certainly suffering from moderate depression, heading into more severe depression.” Then she smiled.

“I don’t get how that’s good news,” I responded cautiously.

“Well, it means, for one thing, that you’re not crazy. There really is something wrong with everything. It also means that what is wrong is treatable, and fairly reliably treatable, too. So much of what you are experiencing is a result of the skewed information your brain chemistry is sending you that once we get that straightened out, the rest of the work is going to seem so much easier.”

Okay, that does sound like good news. She continued. “What you need is what we call a SSRI (look it up). This is going to greatly benefit your overall feeling of confidence, happiness and positivity. I’m going to suggest you get with your primary doctor and get a prescription. One pill a day is going to make a huge difference.”

”I’m using the word ‘hate’ about a pill…” – Melvin Goodall; As Good As It Gets

I’m not into taking drugs. Aspirin, Thera-Flu, Tylenol, methamphetamine… I’m not so much against the nature of drugs, but I like to keep my immune systems in fighting trim by putting their asses to work and not letting them get complacent. So drugs and pills don’t excite me. I’m kinda anti-pill, in fact. But I was taking up the task of getting better for myself, my wife, and anyone else that cared about me. So I went to the doctor and had him prescribe a month’s supply of a SSRI drug at a measly 10mg. He also took the opportunity to violate my person under the guise of doing a prostate exam. Maybe after 1,000 he gets a bonus. Anyway, 10mg was not enough to have any effect upon my mood or attitude. I dejectedly told my therapist that “pills” weren’t helping. Maybe we should try matcha green tea. I read on a web thread it was used to treat depression. Her soulless clinical suggestion was to ask my doctor to increase the dosage of the SSRI I was taking to 20mg, which was the average dosage. I thought it was a waste of time to double the dosage of a medicine that was having zero effect. We talked about other things and I walked out with more homework than I’ve had since college. My doctor cautiously increased my dosage and my insurance ducked and weaved until compelled to comply. I began taking the new dosage and there were no immediate improvements, and now I was getting angry as well as depressed. Then, about four or five days later, I was Uncle Remus and it was a Zip-a-dee-doo-dah-day (look it up). Almost at once my mood improved, my positivity increased, my patience extended, and my dull, omnipresent sense of anxiety lightened. I smiled more, I laughed again, and I was solicitous of others. When people complimented my work and my food I believed them, which was a big, big change for me. I didn’t think of ending this existence so much anymore, I began to think of ways to enjoy and improve my life. Not consciously or purposely, just sort of naturally, organically. I thought of 5 ways to improve our menus and increase our client base. I was excited and energized about making menus and taking photos. I planned a vacation, I planned home renovations, I began cooking great meals at home, and I contemplated going back to school to get another degree. I want to study and get a degree in Philosophy. People look at me and ask why I want a degree in Philosophy. Will it help me in my job or career? No. It will help me enjoy my life. That’s why I want to do it. I’ve renewed my interest in art and design and crafting. I’m having fun with digital painting and photo manipulation. I created the photo image at the top of this post. It took me about 2 days of research and an hour’s worth of actual labor to produce it.

The pill comes with only a couple of down sides. One is I wake up in the morning with a fuzzy headache reminiscent of having a hangover. No one can explain that, but no one seems too worried. The other is a decline in libido. Now, the downward progression of my depression was impacting my libido as well, to the point where I got a friend of mine to procure some “street Viagra” for me so I could reliably perform my manly duties on a regular schedule. Ms. Therapist recommended I go back to my prostate probing physician for a prescription for “real” Viagra to help during this time of recovery. Hell no, I said. Viagra is for flaccid-penis’ed men with that dull and defeated look in their eyes like you’ve taken away from them everything that mattered (which, in a way, you have). I’m a Hillary, I’m a Neil Armstrong, I’m a Julius Caesar; I rise to the challenge all on my own by force of mind and will. I ain’t taking no stupid blue pill to boost my vim and vigor while lining the offshore accounts of pharmacy companies who prey on the distress of men suffering limp libidos. I’ll just call my friend and tell him to stock me up at 20 cents on the dollar. I finally gave in and got my doctor to call in a prescription for me at CVS, where the pharmacists are getting to know me rather well. I have the pills, but I haven’t used them yet. And I now have a legitimate cop-out if I want to say: “Not tonight, I have a headache”.

”Today is victory over yourself of yesterday; tomorrow is your victory over lesser men” – Go Rin No Sho; Miyamoto Musashi, Japanese swordsman and rōnin

In a situation like this, what does victory look like? Do a daily pill and a chemical shake-up of my brain constitute recovery and healing? Unfortunately, no. My mental condition feels much better than it did a year ago, or even for the last few years. I’m feeling optimistic and practical, passionate and long-viewed, impulsive and measured. My mental state is beginning to match my real-world state where I really never had that much to complain about, other that the messes I created for myself. But there is more to this life than feeling good and wanting to do adventurous things. At some point I do want to swim through the warm waters of giddy restlessness and being stroking towards some accomplishments. Now that I once again believe I can do awesome things, I have to relearn the art of actually getting things done. Not just what has to be done, and not just at the last minute. A planned, progressive, ambitious task list that matches my desire to my discipline. I’ve been running uphill with cement blocks on my feet. Some therapy and medication and I shucked off the cement blocks, but I’m not yet a skilled runner, or any closer to the top of Everest.

But tonight I do feel wonderfully unburdened and close to surface of my sea of troubles.

Passed this month with nothing to show for bootcamp. My fault, not the bootcamp’s. I’ve spend a lot of time in the mundane reality dealing with stuff, and dreams haven’t come alighting, teasing and pleading to be chased.

Dreams have kind of wandered off without me and are flittering out there beyond reach. I know they are there, sometimes I can glimpse their technicolor glow and vibrant hues at the edges of my steel and stone daily life. But I have to look up to see them and most times my vision is down so that I don’t get tripped up. I’m on a hard course right now, and I know inside it is not the one that will take me where I want to go in the long run.

I dream of who I want to be, where I want to be, what I want to do, and the reality of it all falls shorter and shorter of those dreams with every awakening. And there is a mental and emotional hardship that comes with not realizing dreams and with seeing goals uncompleted. It makes things a bit grayer, darker, grainier. Days are heavier and more plodding. Dreams and desires become more and more misty, and disperse more easily, and are forgotten more easily.

I don’t think I’m the right soil for dreams to take root in right now. All rock and sand and scrabble. Dreams seem to light upon me and shrivel from a lack of nutrients. I think I have more work to do on myself. For a time it may be necessary to banish dreams and desires until I think there is a place for them again in my life.

The next few weeks are pretty grueling and not made easier by the whims and undependability of other people. And other people who make plans for me in their lives without consideration to how it affects my life are pretty grinding, too. I’m tired of being everyone’s favorite, usable tool for entertainment and function. Twisting me and squeezing me and making me fit into their most convenient slot or hole. That is an environment that shreds the pretty little wings of dreams.

For now I will set aside my dreams and desires and work on getting through. Should I come out the otherside with anything worthwhile, I would be more able to draw dreams in to seed and sprout and root in more agreeable soil. Perhaps in a few weeks I can rest, and in rest, maybe some sleep. A nice, restful, healing sleep in this grey and cold and hard-edged world. Maybe from there I can draw back those dreams that elude me now.

We harvested out the last tomatoes, bell peppers, basil and carrots from the garden. Went the whole year without cultivating a single watermelon of successful cantelope but that won’t stop me from trying again next year. Having beat back bugs, vine borers and mold, I am going to go for some minature zucchini and patty pan squash.

We decided not to sow a winter garden due to my December schedule. The rest of the vines and bushes we pulled up, along with the weeds and grasses that crept in while I was too busy to maintain the garden properly. It is going to lay fallow through the winter while we redress the area between the two beds, build up the raised beds another layer and add more dirt and compost. I’m going to stake down some black plastic over the dirt to keep stray seeds out and to hopefully smother the weed seeds that remain. There is also an ant investation that I will have to decide how to deal with.

The carrots came out very nice, lovely, sweet and brilliant orange. But they are still stunted looking from the hard packed soil. Next year I’m dividing and area with lots of compost, hay, loam and good drainage, and using that for my root vegetables like carrots, parsnips and beets.

Reconstruction of the garden should be done by the end of January. I plan to replant in mid to late March.

I had a couple of duck breasts left over from a recent dinner party I was contracted to do. I had marinated the breasts in coca-cola and seared them and stuffed them with a blend of herbs, dried cherries and minced cashews. Two that I didn’t use I left in the marinade and put back in the cooler. A few days later I took them out, convinced I’d be throwing them away. But they smelled okay and the texture was okay. I took them out, rinsed them off, scored the skin, seasoned with salt and pepper and put them in a skillet over a low flame to render the skin and fat down. Then I seared the meat side, cooled the breasts again and retained the rendered fat from the skillet. I took the breasts home and brushed the skin with agave syrup and molasses and put them in the oven.

I boiled some toasted buckwheat, sauteed some onions, garlic and capers and mixed the finished buckwheat with it to make a pilaf. I stirred in a spoonful of basil pesto to bump up the flavor a little. I braised some brussels sprouts in vegetable stock and two spoonfuls of mango and chili pickle. I’ve been trying to use this as a condiment but the mangos (which must have been green when they went in, and still have the skins!) are too hard and overall the pickle is too spicy and sour. I sliced the very last of our garden tomatoes, sprinkling them with chardonnay vinegar and Australian sea-salt, blanched a couple of our garden carrots, and added a small bite of a buffalo blue cheese I bought at Whole Foods.

I took the rendered duck fat, some butter, and some black garlic and heated it up until the butter was melted and the garlic softened. I added some cream and let it reduce by about 1/4 then pureed it, giving it just a little salt. Then I sliced the duck, which I had cooked to medium (it had been in the fridge for over a week at this point, after all) and layed the slices over the buckwheat and topped with the sauce. I poured a small amount of 10 year-old Graham’s Tawney Port as an appertif, and enjoyed that instead of a red wine (I also had a big ol’ glass of water).

S. won’t eat duck or brussel sprouts, so she got grilled salmon and sauteed spinach.

The dinner was very good, with lots of varying textures. The duck had lost a good deal of its normal redness from being in the marinade so long, but was still flavorful, sweet, and amazingly tender. The buckwheat was soft but still had texture, and the brussels sprouts were just a little spicy, and very enjoyable. The only thing was the meal was very… brownish. Could have used a nice shot of bright green, maybe asparagus or broccoli or blanched spinach, to contrast the carrots, tomatoes and duck.

I never made a buckwheat pilaf before, so I was happy it turned out so well on the first try. I’m trying to add odd and ancient grains to my diet more often. Buckwheat is actually a fruit-seed and it is gluten free and low on the glycemic index. It is a good source of fiber, copper, manganese and magnesium. It is supposed to help with blood circulation, lower LDL cholesterol, and regulate blood pressure. Buckwheat can be eaten toasted, or the raw seeds can be sprouted and used in salads.

I think this would be a pretty good life, if it were someone else’s.

On the one hand, I cannot imagine being much more fortunate that I am these days. On the other hand, I feel continuously stymied and mired and separated from the things I want. When I do get what I want, I find reasons to feel guilty for having it. Or I feel deflated and without the grinding trial of a purpose. Once I achieve something there is a void where I feel lost and wonder what comes next.

I cannot give myself any due credit these days. I have had several very successful events, including a private dinner for 21 people that went fantastic, and a large corporate event for 650 people where the food portion came off flawlessly, despite several stumbling failures on my part. I woke up at 4am the day of the event realizing that if I screwed this up, it would probably cost me my new job. I didn’t screw it up, I prevailed and succeeded. I took very little solace in that. When people tell me how great the food is and how delicious the kitchen smells and how clean it is, I smile and nod and in my mind I say: “You can’t know what good food is or else you wouldn’t be calling this garbage good food.” Yet, I know people don’t lie about food, even if they don’t tell the truth. No one eats whole plates of something they don’t like. I feel like I am constantly missing the mark of where I aim with my dishes. I feel like I am getting lucky and getting by without being found out. And every time I cook something or offer a menu item or create a dish, people rave on my creativity and skill and capabilities. It is impossible for me to believe them because I believe I am capable of so much more that for some reason I am not achieving. I know that for me to really succeed in my career and in my own mind I have to improve my skills and my imagination and elevate my practices to a higher level. I cannot “fake it and make it” and expect to never be found out.

My spouse adores me like no one I have known before. I have been in love and been loved but never like this. She seat dances in her car coming up the road when she sees my vehicle in the driveway and knows I will be home. We have been married for 10 years and we still goof around like people in their first year of marriage. She calls me her best friend ever, her most awesome toy, her perfect partner. She asks my opinion on everything, and told me that she uses the WWJD principle when making choices (What Would Jack Do?). I think that practically no one deserves such love and adoration less than I do. She’s no fool, she must… she must see something authentic and worthwhile in this mass of irregularity, false-starts, and weakness of flesh and spirit. She looks past more of my faults and failings that I ever can, and my most redeeming characteristic is that at least I don’t suffer a lack of gratitude for that. I am endlessly grateful for her love.

Things are as good as I could expect right now, yet I cannot escape the feeling that something was supposed to have happened in my life by now. Some page should have turned, or some milestone marked. An age or era in my life has passed and I have not moved into the next one. I have even failed to identify what the next phase is. I meeting people younger than me who are farther on the track they have taken than I am on mine. I have also met people my age and older who are spiraling downwards, settling into the lives they have made without having achieved their dreams and goals. Gray-haired, sardonic guys who work part-time and boast about their glory days when they were the shit and at the top of their games, like any of that means anything now. I feel like I’m just one or two muddy, slippery steps from being on that track myself. Despite my diet and exercise, I am still woefully shy on energy and stalled in weight loss. I have a hard time working out because I am endlessly injuring myself in stupid ways. I am stiff and rigid and my body aches in almost every joint. I push myself up every day, my morning affirmations flaccid and impotent, and struggle to meet the day. I wish sometimes that this life would be over so I could start another one renewed. Or if not, then just over. Over so I could get some rest. I’m so tired all the time, yet I don’t feel like I have done anything to be so tired. And there are times when I feel like there is so very little point to anything.

So, what is it called when you feel things are a certain way when all evidence suggests that they are not that way at all? If life around me was a disaster and I refused to recognize it, would I be delusional or suffering a pattern of denial? To some degree, am I not delusional in my thinking now? Is this pattern of thinking more self-inflicted angst rooted in past insecurities or instabilities? Am I broken and re-broken, and reassembled with gaps? If I create a worldly reality that appears successful and prosperous, why can’t I create a thinking/feeling reality that matches it? Why does my everyday life make me feel like a tiger obsessively-compulsively pacing his cage? Why do I have the niggling desire to just keep driving, passing work, passing the store, passing the exit for home, and just drive and drive until I cross the point where I could turn around and come back without consequences? Until I reach escape velocity? What part of my brain keeps these concepts alive when the rest of me knows better, and strives to be better?

It is not my job, it is not my wife, it is not my family, and it is not my friends. It is not what I eat or where I go or what I do. It is not external. This craziness issues from within me alone. Like a tainted spring some part of my ill and corrupted brain pours toxins into my thoughts and spirit. The part that makes me feel like I don’t have what I want is exactly the part that keeps me from having it. The part that wants to cry woe unto myself because I am unhappy or exhausted keeps me unhappy and exhausted. It points out the failures and fallings that it negotiated. There is a kamikaze saboteur inside of me willing to pull everything down and then climb atop the smoking wreckage and cry shrilly: “See! See! Hahahahah!”

I might not get everything I want in my life, but I have a lot and I can get a lot more, if I choose to purposefully pursue it. One thing to do, however, will be to isolate that gibbering, booby-trapping, maniac part of myself that remains intent upon seeing me falter and fail, to remove his energy and negate his influences. Then I have to change my higher-minded energy. I have been like the Israelites in Numbers who, even after learning the reports of the spies that the Promised Land flowed with milk and honey and every good thing, cried and wailed that there were giants in the land. If I want my good life, I have to go forward in faith that I can have what I want and slay the giants as I encounter them.

‘Course, right now, I have no clear idea how to do all of that. Muzzling my inner Wormtongue, and all his caustic counsel, will be hard enough. It will take more self-discipline than I generally apply to such things. But that soured line of thought that I am not good enough, worthy enough, accomplished enough, strong enough, smart enough – whatever enough, has to be cut and cauterized. I’m not opposed to knowing my limitations; I just refuse to allow them to define me anymore. I still have to discover what this missing next chapter is for me. People mark their lives in terms of their teens and youth, their marriage and the raising of their children, the departure of the children, and the summation of their careers, the maturation of their relationships and character and ambitions. I have skipped a lot of that and taken circuitous routes through it. So I am teetering a bit on the edge of what I know, uncertain of what steps to take forward because so much of my life is unmolded and without the string of guide lights that mark my progress. But forward I must go giants or no.

Through all of this, I guess I don’t have to know why I feel the way I do at times. I just have to recognize it, separate it, and take away its energy to distress me. Then put more energy into facing whatever those insipid whispers were prevailing upon me to avoid. More books, more audios, more music, more affirmations… I think all of that will help. I may make some more remarks about it here, but I don’t know. I’m often uncertain if posting such things here is of any benefit to me. As I am breaking down and reassembling, I find myself uncertain as to how this site fits into the life I have, and the life I have coming.

Change the Energy, and I change everything. Then this really good life could really be my life.

I call the cell number and get a disconnected notice. Not good.

I call the home phone number and he pickes up after two rings.

“Hello?”

“Hey, it’s Chef Jack. What time are you planning to be here? Because I was expecting you at 3, and it is now 3:15.”

“Huh? Oh, I don’t think I’m working for you today. Let me look at my schedule but I’m pretty sure I was not working for you today.”

“Well, I’m looking at the schedule here, and you put your initials down for today, and we discussed it last week.”

“Let me see… let me see… Oh, damn. Yes, I did say I’d be there. Well, I keep my word, you know, so I am on my way.”

“What time will you be here?”

“Two hours.”

Heavy sigh “Dude, you’re killing me. Please get here as soon as you can.”

Hang up.

He calls back.

“You see Chef, the situation is this, my family is bringing my mother over, and she’s mentally ill. She can’t be left alone or she will run off. I was planning to stay here, but now I have to come in to work, so I’m trying to get someone from my family to stay with her while I come in. That is why it is going to take me so long. I don’t want to leave you hanging, I just want you to know what is going on.”

“Soooo… Are you coming in to work or not?”

“Oh, yeah, definitely. I’m a good damned worker and I keep my word. Absolutely.”

Hang up.

He calls back.

“Chef, it’s like this. I’m a good damned worker and this never happens to me, but I’m trying to get someone to come over, and I’m also calling a friend to see if he can cover for me – “

I cut him off. “I’m in the shits here. Are you coming, si or no?”

“Well, I always keep my word, but I just – “

“Is that a no?”

“I’m gonna have to say I can’t make it tonight. But you know you can count on me for anything else.”

“I have you down, in you hand-writing, for the 24th. Are you going to be here?”

“Absolutely, Chef. I am totally a man of my word. When I make a promise I always come through.”

“I have to go. I will see you on the 24th.”

“Yes sir. And if you have anything else you need, you call me. Make sure you call me.”

Hang up.

Jefferson’s Small Batch Bourbon is created by McLain and Kyne, a small batch blender with long time roots in the Kentucky bourbon business. Jefferson’s is their brand of single barrel and small batch bourbons, available at a median price of about $30-$50, depending upon the lable. McLain and Kyne are not distillers, I was interested to learn. They acquire all the bourbon used in their blends from other distilleries, and hand craft the selections to make their line of bourbons. The one I tried was the “extremely small batch”, blended from specially selected barrels and condensed into an 8-12 barrels of various ages, held in the heart of their metal-clad warehouse. I sampled it straight in a snifter. Snifters are great for complex bourbons, brandies and whiskies because the shape of the glass funnels the aromas to the top and the balloon bottom allows the drink to be warmed in the cupped hand. I poured, swirled, sniffed, sipped, and savored.

Nose: It has a sharp, alcohol start, but a complex blend of vanilla, peach, orange, and caramel.

Taste: Zaps the tongue a bit hard for a 82 proof and the first flavors are of spice and oak, but it smoothed out quickly and I could enjoy hints of honey, caramelized fig, roasted corn and butter.

Finish: Smooth and sweet with a bit of lingering vanilla, rye, oakiness, and toasted bread. A lingering flavor of tabacco, but not like after smoking a cigarette. This was the rich, floral, earthy, bitter but sweet complexity reminicinet of savoring smells in a pipe shop or tabacco vendor.

I asked one of the head bartenders where I work to help me concoct a complimentary drink with the Jefferson’s, although I felt it was really a fine sipping bourbon on its own. He helped me build a peach-infused Manhattan-style cocktail. We cut and infused slices of peaches and orange peel into the bourbon and let it sit for three days. We used that as our base with some Martini D’Oro, Barbeque Bitters (I have no idea where he got that), another ingredient I cannot recall right now, and a garnish made from a brandy-soaked cherry wrapped in a string of orange peel and skewered along with a grilled peach slice. He mixed it up and served it in a martini glass and pronounced it an “Atlantan Manhattan”. He couldn’t have thought about the name for very long. It was really good, but the infusion of peach masked the other subtleties of the bourbon, and the orange peel infusion gave the tongue a bit of burn, as citrus oils are wont to do. I give the drink a thumbs up, although it is a bit more complicated than anything I would make again.

I used the boubon to make Bourbon Chocolate Mousse in Spicy Chocolate Shells for a dinner I did recently. I melted chocolate and a little butter in a water bath, then stirred in some strong coffee and a generous portion of bourbon. I let the heat from the water bath steam off the alcohol, then whisked some egg yolks and sugar over the water bath ‘til they were sabayon’d, then cooled them and folded them into the chocolate mixture. Then I folded in my whipped egg whites and vanilla and put the mousse in the cooler. I had wanted to scoop little balls and dip them in cayenne and cinnamon-spiced chocolate, but the mousse wasn’t cooperating and I realized I should have frozen it. I ended up piping stars onto a sheet pan and freezing those, then telling my helper to dip them in chocolate. She instead drizzled the chocolate over the top. They turned out okay, and the flavor was chocolate and bourbon, but nothing spectacular.

This is a goal I could see taking a couple of years to complete. There is a growing movement in the bourbon-producing market for “handcrafted” and “small batch” blends of bourbon whiskey. A few years ago I used to do dinner parties with a guy who was a liqour distributor, and instead of wine tastings, we did scotch tastings. He would bring four or five different brands of scotch whiskey and take the guests through the nuances and flavors, explaining it the same way a sommalier would a fine wine.

I’ve long thought about doing a dinner series that featured a bourbon tasting, not only as a sampling at the beginning of the evening, but infusing and including various bourbons into the ingredients of the meals. Fine bourbons can have just as delicate and sophisticated a bouquet and layers of flavor as scotch, or even wine, for that matter. I fine-tuned my idea when I read about people who were doing beer-tastings with microbrewery beers.

I don’t think there are any rigid rules about what constitutes a small-batch bourbon. Small batches can be made by the big distributors as well as small artisianal distillers. A “small-batch” could consist of up to 20,000 barrels in inventory, although most tend to be much, much smaller. Some artisan distillers have as little as six barrels in inventory. While Kentucky is still pretty much the Bourbon King, craft boutiques are popping up across the country, from New York to Washington state. People who have been fans of just sitting and sipping and evaluating bourbons have been investing in equipment and aged oak barrels and creating their own specialized concoctions. Some age only for a year, but on the average they age 6 – 9 years, even 12. In the right glass, in the right environment, you can pick up all the delicate shades of caramel, vanilla, peach, apricot, apple, smoke, leather, oak, grain, and the stinging caress that lingers on the tongue.

I’m a relatively average guy, I think. I don’t have much in the way of champagne tastes or caviar dreams. I can be as happy with a burger and fries as with an audacious dish of micro-gastronomy. I have sucked down watery swill and hearty home-brewed beers. I have certainly knocked back my share of hard liqours, bourbons at the top of the list. While I don’t mind a raw and rowdy romp with Gentleman Jack now and again, I prefer these days a quite evening at home with a select and rare brand, going slow and easy, getting to know each other, appreciating the finer qualities. Or maybe I desire to be a kind of redneck connoisseur, or to have a passion for something I can share and by snobby about.

Reviews will be pretty simple and straight forward, with no regimen for posting. A brief review of the bourbon and its distiller, then notes on a straight tasting, a blended tasting (be it water or soda or juice or whatever), and a way to use it in food. It might just be an idea of how to use it and not a tried recipe.

I expect this will take a while because small-batch bourbons are kind of expensive. An average bottle is around $50 and there aren’t many bourbon tastings around here that I know of. Going to a general bar probably won’t be very condusive to consideration and reflection, either. Maybe down the line I can meet other bourbon samplers and we can swap notes along with bottles of unfinished whiskey. I think that might be a much more civilized way to make friends. Nor is it my intention to indulge in monthly bottles of alcohol. Try is the key word here; sample, partake, taste, not imbibe or abuse.

So, with a little homework and research and careful consideration, and definitely with a budget to consider, I’m off to start my little tasting ring, population 1. Cheers.

Last year I met up with a guy I used to work with at another job. We were both temp’ing for a chef and doing some simple, rather mundane work. The other temps around us had settled into their glacial pace, trying to do as little as possible in the time allotted. That was not how Alan and I worked, and soon we seperated ourselves from the pack and took on larger and more laborious chores. Case after case of vegetables fell beneath our flashing knives, and we kept calling on the chef for more work, more work.

Alan was working very hard to keep up with me. He’s one of those chefs who, as the years have gone by, has moved away farther and farther from those simple skills and talents that are fundamental in our industry. He’s gained knowledge and skills in other areas, but his basics have gotten rusty simply because he doesn’t use them very often.

That is something I have never allowed to happen to me. Every pot of rice I boil, every cucumber I peel and dice, every tomato I blanch and concasse, every tenderloin I clean… I do it with the same practiced motions I have been using for years. Part of it comes from training others, and I have had to demonstrate for a lot of people how to break down a chicken or mince garlic or chiffonade basil. And I have had to demonstrate to people that no matter how fast they think they are going, they can always go faster. To do that I have to be faster. This was a pretty simple discipline I adopted after reading a former Navy SEAL’s autobiography. He detailed how SEAL training endlessly focused on the fundamentals, and over and over again the repetition of basics. He described how SEALs went through target practice daily, day in, day out, regardless of weather or circumstances or other obligations. SEALs shot round after round after round, day after day, week after week, month after month. He said these were very perishable skills and that it was necessary to keep them constantly honed so that they would be instictive when the time came. I also used to date a dance instructor who arrived at all her classes 15 minutes early to warm up with basic steps. She went through them before the students arrived, counting in her head, stepping with expert precision. Basic, basic steps, done over and over again. I asked her why she bothered with beginner routines before every class and she muttered something about muscle memory but I don’t think I got it at the time. I do now, and I practice the basics myself, every day.

An exhausted Alan finally mentioned that as hard as he could try, he could not keep up with me. And he had been trying. His technique suffered from his speed, too. He said that everywhere he went, his goal was to always be as fast and efficient as the guy next him. But he just couldn’t keep up. I told him I’d let him in on a secret. While his goal was to be as fast as they guy next him, my goal was always to be faster than the guy next to me. Even if just a little bit. I saw him last week when he worked on one of my events. He said that he remembers what I said, and he tells other people the story, too. Awesome. I am an inspiration. Bleh.

I’m still wondering how I can express that kind of deliberate commitment, that kind of disciplined repetition, to my work and to practically nowhere else in my life. If I followed a basic routine tenet in my daily life, how much more accomplished might my life be? If I did, say, 25 pushups every day, every single day, regardless of circumstances, like a SEAL, I’d have a chest of iron instead of one that makes a good pillow for my wife while we watch TV. If I read 1 chapter a day of a book that could have a profound impact on my way of thinking, instead of half an hour of television, how many books a year could I have read, and how much knowledge might I have gained? If I diligently set aside a certain amount of income every two weeks without fail, put it into an interest bearing account or IRA, what resources might I have in 10 years? Enough to travel for 6 months? Enough to make a downpayment on a business? Enough for security and choices?

Every day I pull out a cutting board and I cut something. Or I boil or grill or sautee or blend or mix something. When I’m not at work I still go to work in my head. I drive myself against a clock even when there are no deadlines, just so I will be practiced and ready when there are deadlines. What prevents this kind of steady discipline from benefiting other parts of my life?

That is not to say I don’t have daily habits. I habitually oversleep or stay up too late. I habitually overeat and occasionally drink too much. I put tasks off until the last minute on a daily basis. That routine is ironclad. I do things to impede my weight loss and fitness goals every day. I squander cash regularly, without thought. I make other bad choices, knowing they are not in alignment with the things I say I truly want. That is the kind of discipline I seem to have in abundance.

Right now, in the column next to this text box, 43T has a quote from Confuicius that says: “Men’s natures are alike; it is their habits that separate them.” It is my habits and my misplaced discipline that separates me from who I keep trying to be. I used to think it was necessary to make one huge change and just one day stop being who I was and “become” the person I wanted to be. Now I think more and more that it is a process of making small, almost insignificant changes in my daily life that slowly distill me from who I am to who I want to become. And I don’t think it is so grand a thing as turning myself inside out to be someone else. I think that by changing a few things, doing a few things regularly, a handful of things, I could, over time, be someone different. Every day taking a minute or two to hone my blades, giving myself a routine project and a deadline, and insisting on proper form and technique, running through the kill-house popping shots at targets until it is instinct, repeating basic steps again and again until they become muscle memory, performed unconsciously…

The days are going to pass, no matter what choices I make. I pretty much know what things will look like a year from now if I keep letting my personal self-disciplines slide the way I have. But if I chose to do one beneficial thing 365 times, I cannot imagine how my life would look then. Or if I did 5 things 365 times. That would be 1,825 little changes. And if each change were measured as an ounce, that would be 114 pounds of change in just one year. Can I summon an ounce of effort, every single day, to be a better version of myself? Can I keep coming up with reasons not to?