I opened the door to the back seat of my car and went to put my briefcase in but saw something out of the corner of my eye and stopped short.
A couple of times a week, when I stop at the convenience store to pick up some iced coffee, I will treat myself to one of the individually wrapped chocolate-covered graham crackers on the counter by the cash register. For reasons that remain obscure to me, I must have bought one, then tossed it into the back of my car the day before.
I picked it up and examined it. Although still hermetically sealed, it had clearly had a rough 24 hours. As it sat in the hot car throughout the previous day, the chocolate had melted. It had been cold overnight, though, and it had firmed back up. Not wanting to waste a gift from Past Me, I ate it before getting into the front seat.
“Look at you!” I said to it, as I unwrapped it. “You had a rough day, but you pulled yourself together, and here you are, back on the job. Thank you. I appreciate your work ethic.”
I was suddenly struck by a rare moment of perspective and clarity. I was standing in my driveway, actively working to validate the feelings of a graham cracker. I had clearly turned some sort of emotional corner.
So now, as I decompress from a week where I, too, feel as if I’ve been melted and refrozen and tossed aside, I would very much like a nice drink. Clearly though, my judgment is somewhat suspect at the moment. It is time to fall back on a classic, one that has weathered decades of this sort of week. Maybe something fizzy.
Sloe gin fizz
2 ounces sloe gin
1 ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice
¾ ounce simple syrup
extremely fizzy seltzer – I like Topo Chico
Combine the sloe gin, lemon juice and simple syrup with ice in a cocktail shaker. Shake thoroughly.
Strain into an ice-filled Collins glass.
Top with seltzer, and stir. If you have a bar spoon — one of the ones with a long, twisty stem — this is a good time to use it.
Garnish with one or two cocktail cherries. If you decide to use one, it will be a special occasion when you eat it at the end of the drink. I like to use two, though. I feel like this whole experience might be a bit traumatic to a cherry, and I like to give it some company.
Sloe gin is a sweet, low-alcohol liqueur. It is not too sweet, though, and could use a little help from the simple syrup to stand up to the lemon juice. The lemon juice, in turn, balances the sweetness and provides brightness to the endeavor. The seltzer dials back the intensity of the other ingredients and provides a spring-like fizziness. This is a delicately sweet, low-octane treat to start your weekend off, giving yourself at least as much validation as you would give to a graham cracker.
Featured photo: Sloe gin fizz. Photo by John Fladd.
I read a lot of travel books — mostly written by confused, bumbling Europeans trying to make sense of life in unfamiliar cultures. I think I like them because I generally feel confused, bumbling around in all cultures.
“Bon jour, mon frère,” someone says to the writer of one of the books. “‘Mon frère,’” he thinks. “Why frère? Why is he calling me his brother, instead of his friend? What’s going on? Am I in trouble?”
“Good morning,” the nice lady at the grocery store says to me, “have a good week.”
“What does she mean by that?” I wonder, for the next half hour.
At any rate, these travel writers say that one of the most frustrating, confusing and ultimately useful phrases that they run into is “Insh’Allah” — “God willing.”
“Will the work be done on time?” “Will I make it through this surgery?”
“Of course.”
Whew.
“Insh’Allah.”
Eek.
I mention this because my poor wife — and pretty much every wife, when it comes down to it, really — has to deal with a similar thing.
“Will you please do this simultaneously important and very easy task for me, please?”
“Of course.” Eventually.
Granted, the “Eventually” is unspoken, but it’s undeniably there.
Which is how we ended up with a basket of elderly blood oranges sitting on our counter, feeling their life force slowly flicker out and leak into the Universe. Nobody in the house remembers how we ended up with blood oranges in the first place. They are beautiful but not easy to do anything with. They aren’t great for out-of-hand eating. They aren’t very sweet. They have seeds. They have a nice flavor and could theoretically make a good marinade or something, but the blood-red color can be a bit off-putting. It really calls for being used in a cocktail.
So my wife was being more than reasonable when she asked me to please, for the sake of all that is good and decent, do something with the basket of blood oranges on the counter.
“Of course, my Delicate Persimmon Blossom.” *Eventually*
My wife sighed with tired resignation, an emotion that has come to characterize most of her interactions with me, her soulmate.
It speaks more to luck, rather than good timing on my part, that I caught the blood oranges minutes before they went bad.
Blood orange syrup
Zest some blood oranges, however many you have. Put the zest into a small saucepan.
Put the pan on your scale, zero it out and juice the oranges into it. Write down how much the juice weighs.
Tare the scale, then add an equal amount of sugar.
Heat the mixture over medium heat, until it comes to a boil and the sugar dissolves.
Remove it from the heat, let it sit for an hour, then strain it.
That’s great, but what do you actually do with blood orange syrup? Aside from adding it to your yogurt, which is great, by the way.
Blood orange tequila fizz
2 ounces blanco tequila – I like Hornitos
2 ounces fresh squeezed lime juice
1 ounces blood orange syrup (see above)
2 ounces ginger beer
Combine the tequila, lime juice and syrup over ice in a cocktail shaker. Shake ruthlessly.
Pour — ice and all — into a large rocks glass. Top with the ginger beer, and stir gently.
Sip cautiously — because let’s face it; you are deeply suspicious about this combination of flavors — and then feel relief and a tiny amount of trust in the Universe seep back into you.
The first thing you will notice about this cocktail is how beautiful it is. It is deep red and seems to make nonspecific but compelling promises to you. It tastes as good as it looks. The blood orange and lime work together to give you layers of citrus flavor. The tequila and ginger beer give it some backbone.
When you’ve had a hard week, when the kids are especially loud, when the other dance moms have gotten on your last nerve, when you find yourself wondering what the point of all of this *gesturing vaguely around* is, this drink will throw you a rope.
Featured photo: Blood Orange Tequila Fizz. Photo by John Fladd.
An adventure with the classic combination of peanut butter and jelly
Typically I would try to start an article on peanut butter and jelly with some sort of hook, like a story about how a Japanese princess drove off 15 ninjas with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, or how a 5-year-old boy foiled a mugging by dropping a jar of peanut butter on a thief in an alley from the 30th-floor window of his apartment. I could tell you a personal story about the philosophical breakthrough I made while eating a spoonful of peanut butter at dawn in an Indian ashram on my 40th birthday.
The thing about those stories, aside from the fact that none of them is remotely true, is that they are unnecessary.
It has to do with the time of year.
Go into any supermarket this week, past the displays of shamrocks and Easter candy, and what do you see? End-cap displays of chicken-noodle soup. Mint Milanos. Extra-large containers of taco chip party mix.
In other words, comfort food.
It is theoretically almost spring. But we all know that even when it comes it won’t be a real, tra-la-la, skipping through the meadow, strewing flower petals type of spring.
It will be mud. Followed by slush. Followed by more mud.
If you are a person who shaves or wears makeup, you’ve seen the haunted look in your eyes in the mirror lately. Do you know what you need?
That comfort food.
And, grilled cheese sandwiches aside, what is the quintessential comfort food?
Peanut butter and jelly.
So let’s peanut butter it up, Skippy.
PB&J Bundt cake
“Cake Gunk” – equal amounts of vegetable shortening, flour and vegetable oil
⅓ cup (75 grams) finely chopped dry-roasted peanuts
½ cup (114 grams) sour cream
1¼ cup (213 grams) brown sugar
½ cup (135 grams) peanut butter
1¾ cup (210 grams) all-purpose flour
¾ teaspoon (3.3 grams) baking powder
½ teaspoon (3 grams) fine sea salt
¼ teaspoon (1.7 grams) baking soda
3 eggs
⅓ cup (76 grams) half-and-half
1 teaspoon vanilla – I’ll be honest here; I never measure vanilla. I add a big glug or a small glug. This recipe calls for a small glug.
¾ cup (255 grams) strawberry jam
17 or 18 (60 grams) maraschino cherries, stems removed
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
PB&J Bundt cake. Photo by John Fladd.
Prepare a Bundt pan – brush the inside surface thoroughly with Cake Gunk (see above), then dust with crushed peanuts. (“But what if I’m allergic to peanuts? Is there something else I can use?” Um, theoretically, graham cracker crumbs, but have you read the title of this article?)
Measure or weigh out the sour cream, brown sugar and peanut butter in the bowl of your stand mixer, or the bowl that you’re going to finish the cake batter in. Now leave it alone until you are ready for it.
Combine all your dry ingredients in a separate bowl. If you worry about such things, go ahead and sift them together; otherwise just stir them together with a spoon.
Beat the sour cream, sugar and peanut butter together into a fine goop. (This is a technical term. If you were using butter or shortening, this would fluff up impressively. But you are looking Betty Crocker in the eyes, knocking back a shot of whiskey and using sour cream. This Bundt cake is not for cowards. In the end you’ll be happy about using the sour cream, but for now you will have to accept that your sugar-fat mixture is not fluffy. It is goopy.)
When your goop is as light and fluffy as it is going to get, continue beating, adding the eggs, one at a time, followed by a small glug of vanilla.
At this point your mixture is pretty soupy. You’ll be happy to know that it’s time to add the dry ingredients, alternating with the half-and-half.
So what’s the big deal about alternating ingredients? It’s not like the cake is going to care, is it?
Actually, it will, but only if it’s got a dark sense of humor. If you dump too much of the flour mixture in all at once, you’ll get a face full of flour, which, theoretically, your cake batter will find hilarious. If you pour too much half-and-half in too quickly, some of it will splash out onto your counter and you will start worrying about whether you’ve thrown off the proportions of your recipe, and again the cake batter — understandably, given that you are about to bake and devour it — will feel smug about.
Scrape the sides of your bowl down to make sure that everything has gotten mixed together, then pour a little more than half of your batter into your Bundt pan.
Bonk the Bundt pan firmly on the counter twice. This is to make sure that there are no air pockets. If you want to, you could wait until you’ve added all the ingredients. In this particular recipe, it might also drive your jam and cherries downward, to what will be the top of the cake, and make visible jam inclusions. In any other cake this would be a bug. In this cake it would be a feature.
Gently spoon the jam in a ring around the Bundt pan, on top of the batter you just poured in. Place the cherries in a ring on top of the jam.
Pour the rest of the batter into your pan, making sure to cover the jam and cherries. Don’t worry about being particularly neat; the batter will level itself out.
Bake at 350 degrees for about half an hour. If you are worried about whether it is completely baked, stab it with a probe thermometer. If it reads over 200 degrees F, you’re fine. Don’t worry about it being overbaked; that’s what the sour cream is there for. It has your back.
Let the cake cool in the pan for 10 to 20 minutes, then invert it onto a plate. I find that I rise up onto my toes as I make the flip, then come down hard on my heels. I don’t know if that does anything productive, but I like to think that it lets the finished cake know that I mean business, and that I haven’t forgotten the whole flour-in-the-face thing.
This is a moist, not-too-sweet snack cake, ideal for sharing with a special friend over coffee. The peanut butter is there, in the background, but isn’t in your face. The jam brings even more moisture and the sweet fruitiness the body of the cake needs. The cherries provide a juicy pop, once per slice.
Could you serve this as an actual dessert?
Absolutely. It’d hit the plate with lightly sweetened sour cream in place of whipped cream.
Peanut butter soufflé
2 large eggs, separated
½ cup + 1 Tablespoon (120 grams) brown sugar
¼ cup minus 1 teaspoon (55 grams) peanut butter
Small glug of vanilla – about 1 teaspoon
Pinch of salt
A lot of people are intimidated by soufflés — making them, eating them, or even talking about them. They seem extra-fancy and a little fussy. And sometimes they are. There is a place for extra fancy and fussy. But do you know what is the least fussy, least fancy food in the world? Peanut butter. Let’s do this.
Peanut butter soufflé. Photo by John Fladd.
Preheat your oven to 350°.
Separate your eggs. Do this over the bowl to your stand mixer or the bowl you will be beating the egg whites in. Put the yolks in a separate bowl. Everyone has their own method for separating eggs. My preference is to break the shell on a flat surface, like a countertop. (This pretty much eliminates small pieces of shell in the bowl that I have to fish out.) I crack the egg open and pour it into my open hand. I keep my fingers just far apart enough that the egg white will eventually release its hold on the yolk and slip through them into the bowl. Remember to wash your hands before and after doing this.
Add the brown sugar and peanut butter to the egg yolks. Mix it well with a spoon. The mixture will be really stiff, so it will be more a matter of mashing than mixing.
Add the salt and vanilla to the egg whites, then whisk them to medium peaks. Have you ever seen a cooking show or competition where a baker beats their egg whites, then holds the bowl over their (or a competitor’s) head to show that they are stiff enough? This is what bakers call stiff peaks. That’s a little stiffer than we want for this recipe. We want them to be the consistency where the TV baker starts giggling and it is just enough to make the egg whites slowly glop onto somebody’s head.
With a silicone spatula, scoop out about a third of your egg whites and mix them into the peanut butter mixture. This is what professionals call loosening up a stiff base. Go ahead and mix everything together. As the mixture becomes more liquidy and stir-able, the doubt you’ve been feeling about your ability to pull this whole soufflé off will ease up by about 15 percent.
This next step is the closest thing to tricky. Use the spatula to scoop out about half the remaining egg whites and put them in the peanut butter bowl. Run the edge of the spatula through the middle of the mess, then sweep it around the edge of the bowl. A tiny bit of the whites will mix together with the base. This is called folding in the egg whites. Even though you can’t see it easily with the naked eye, beaten egg whites are made up of a gazillion tiny bubbles, held together by the sticky proteins in the egg white itself. Remember when your hands felt sticky and gross after separating the eggs? That stickiness is what’s holding those tiny bubbles together. Those bubbles are what’s going to lighten your soufflé and give it lift. By folding the egg whites into the mixture, instead of just stirring it, you are preserving as many of the bubbles as possible. Keep folding until the whites are mostly incorporated with the base.
At this point, your peanut butter mixture should be looking a lot lighter. Your soufflé stress will also lighten up — probably another 15 percent. Fold the rest of the egg whites into the mixture.
Gently spoon the mixture into two large ramekins and put them into your preheated oven.
Bake for approximately 30 minutes. Your oven and mine are probably different by a few degrees, so you might have to make this recipe a couple of times before you perfect the timing. The good news is that even sub-optimal soufflés are awfully good.
Pull the puffed-up soufflés from the oven and serve immediately. The now-baked bubble matrix is proud and puffy, but it will collapse within the next 10 minutes. Serve with a fruit compote; my suggestion is rhubarb (see below).
When most people think of soufflés, they tend to think of delicate, lighter-than-air dishes that require a lot of concentration to eat. These peanut butter soufflés have a little of that, especially when they first come out of the oven, but they also have a substantial, gooey quality that make them extremely comforting. A fruit compote will help give a contrast to the rich, peanut-butteriness of the soufflé itself.
Why are all the ingredients listed in cups and grams? Cups: Everyone has measuring cups. There will probably not be any math involved. You don’t sound like a nerd. Grams: You can measure more precisely. Flour, for instance, can take up many different volumes, depending on whether it is fluffed up, packed down, or if Mercury is in retrograde. After you add each ingredient to a bowl, you can use the tare button to zero your reading out and be ready for your next ingredient.
Fruit compote
This is the easiest thing you will cook this week. It has a “Toast” level of simplicity.
Combine equal amounts, by weight, of frozen fruit and sugar in a small saucepan. This works for almost any type of fruit, but for this particular application I like to use chopped rhubarb; it has a sour acidity to it that contrasts nicely with the gooey peanut butter.
The important thing here is to use frozen fruit. If you have fresh fruit that you want to use, chop it to a size you like, then freeze it. The freezing, while bad for the texture of whole fruit, is perfect for making jams, syrups and compotes. As the liquid inside the cells of the fruit freezes, it forms large sharp ice crystals that pierce cell walls and help the fruit give off more juice.
Cook the fruit-sugar mixture over medium heat. As the fruit thaws, the sugar will help draw out liquid. By the time it comes to a boil, the sugar has dissolved thoroughly. Stir occasionally as it cooks; you might want to help the process along with a potato masher. This is also a good way of separating out cherry pits, if that’s an issue.
When the mixture has come to a boil, remove it from the heat and let it cool. Taste it and maybe add a squeeze of lemon or lime juice to brighten it up, if it needs it. You can use this compote as is, or strain it to make syrup (see pancakes, below). The remaining pulp is excellent on English muffins, or a peanut butter soufflé, if you don’t want it so runny.
Keep in mind that raspberries and blackberries are very much more seedy than you think. You will almost certainly want to strain them and make syrup.
A peanut butter and jelly cocktail
You did a really good job with that soufflé. You deserve a reward.
2 ounces Skrewball Peanut Butter Whiskey
3 ounces Manischewitz Concord Grape Wine
1 ounce fresh-squeezed lemon juice
5 or 6 ice cubes
Peanut butter and jelly cocktail. Photo by John Fladd.
Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker and shake until thoroughly chilled.
Pour, unstrained into a rocks glass. Drink, with a child-like song in your heart.
If you had to guess beforehand, you’d probably think that the Manischewitz would be a little too sweet and that the whiskey would give this drink some backbone. In fact, though the wine is nice and grape-y, the sweetness comes from the Skrewball. In fact, it might even be a little cloying, if not for the lemon juice, which steps in at just the right moment and says, “I got this, Boss.”
This is shockingly good. One of these might turn your day around. Two of them might encourage you to try a new recipe — maybe pancakes (see below). Three of them might bring on some ill-advised, late-night texts. Or a nap.
Peanut butter pancakes with blackberry syrup
Peanut butter pancakes with blackberry syrup. Photo by John Fladd.
So, to make these pancakes the way I really want to, we’d have to run a brunch bar in Las Vegas.
That sounds good to me; it might be our ticket out of here. Tell me more.
Well, OK. It would be really nice to have sourdough pancakes.
Ooh, I’m in. Let’s do that.
Yeah, unfortunately, the batter needs to proof for 12 hours or so. That wouldn’t be a problem in our Vegas Brunch Bar — I’m thinking we should call it Midnight at Schmitty’s — but real people almost never realize they want pancakes until about five minutes before they eat them.
I see your point. Until we get the Vegas place going, I’m going to stick with a boxed mix I like. And who’s Schmitty?
I know a guy, who knows a guy.
And—
That’s Shmitty.
Oh, OK. What about the peanut butter?
Yeah, that’s another thing that will work better in Vegas. I spread some peanut butter on a silicone sheet and froze it, then chopped it up to sprinkle on the wet side of the pancake as it cooked in the pan.
That sounds like a really good idea.
Well, it does, but a home freezer doesn’t really get the peanut butter cold enough. It freezes solid, but because of the high oil content, it melts after the first pancake. We’d have to use liquid nitrogen. That would get it cold enough that a line cook wearing snowmobile gloves and a face shield could drop it on the counter and shatter it into peanut butter shards that she could put back into a bowl of liquid nitrogen until she’s ready for them. It would make a great show.
Aaaand, most of us don’t actually have access to liquid nitrogen, so—
Uh-huh. At home, we’re stuck with using tiny jam spoons to drop dollops of the peanut butter onto the wet side of the pancake.
Does it work?
Really, really well. And then there’s the syrup.
What about it?
We could make it for customers on demand. We could have a buffet of frozen fruit for them to choose from, and they could fill up a bowl with it and we’d make it right in front of them.
And if a customer wanted something special, what could we make?
Twenty-five dollars per pancake.
Peanut butter banana cocktails
The best bananas aren’t pretty.
It’s that simple; people want pretty, yellow bananas, maybe a little bit green at the tips. The ones that don’t have a huge amount of flavor and might even be acidic enough to hurt the roof of your mouth. Ones, in short, that don’t taste very much like bananas.
Photo by John Fladd.
This is what a delicious banana looks like.
No. Not the yellow ones on the bottom shelf.
No. Not the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, though we will get to the peanut butter, soon enough.
The brown bananas with blotches of yellow, sitting in front of the cash register at a convenience store. The ones that look like they have seen too much and lost the will to live. They are the ones that will actually taste like bananas.
And what will you do with one?
Banana rum
1 very ripe convenience-store banana. You want the sketchiest-looking one in the gas station. Pick it up, cradle it in your hands, and murmur to it, “Shhhh. It’s OK. You’re safe now.” This is patently untrue, but lulling your banana into a false sense of security will make this whole process easier.
2 cups white rum
Peel the banana, then muddle it thoroughly in the bottom of a large, wide-mouthed jar.
Add the rum, seal the jar, then shake vigorously.
Put the jar somewhere cool and dark. (I like to put it in the laundry room.) Shake it twice a day for a week.
After a week, strain, filter and bottle it.
This will give you a lovely, slightly cloudy rum that tastes of bananas but is not terribly sweet.
Peanut butter rum
This will use a bartender’s trick called “fat washing.” This exploits a chemical loophole: Any flavor that bonds to an oil will also bond to alcohol. So if you expose something flavorful and fatty — bacon grease, browned butter or, in this case, peanut butter — to a high-proof alcohol, given enough time, the booze will strip away some of the flavor and give it a new home.
Empty a jar of peanut butter into a non-reactive container with a lot of surface area. A glass casserole dish would be ideal for this. Spread the peanut butter over the entire bottom surface of the container with a silicone spatula or the back of a spoon.
Fill the empty peanut butter jar with medium-quality white rum. You don’t want the very cheapest stuff, but the flavor of the peanut butter will cover up any delicate flavor notes, so probably not the most interesting stuff you have either. A bottle of Bacardi or Captain Morgan will do very nicely.
Put the cap back on the peanut butter jar, and shake it to wash out any peanut butter you might have missed, then pour it into your container, to completely cover the peanut butter.
Put some sort of cover over the container — parchment paper, followed by a layer of aluminum foil, perhaps. Put it somewhere out of the way, where nobody will bump into it for a few days.
After four days, carefully pour the rum off into a new container. Filter, and bottle it. It is now delicious.
Two delicious cocktails you can make with these rums
An Elvis martini
Combine 2 ounces each of banana and peanut butter rums in a mixing glass with ice.
Stir gently, then pour into a chilled martini glass.
Garnish with a strip of bacon.
Even better: a peanut butter banana daiquiri
Peanut butter banana daiquiri. Photo by John Fladd.
In a cocktail shaker with ice, add 1 ounce Banana Rum, 1 ounce Peanut Butter Rum, 1 ounce fresh squeezed lime juice, and ¾ ounce simple syrup.
Shake thoroughly, then strain into a coupé glass. Garnish with a slice of lime.
Just as with the banana you used to infuse your rum, you will want to use a lime that has seen a few too many things, one that, if it were starring in a fruit-based buddy cop movie, would say, “I’m getting too old for this.” It might be a little dried up. It might even have started to turn yellow. You want an experienced lime for this.
Your resulting cocktail will be stunningly delicious. You will be able to taste each element — the peanut butter, the banana, Grampa Lime, and the hint of sweetness that you’ve used to make everything mesh.
The world’s best breakfast sandwich
Thanks for meeting with us, Otto. We’re very excited about this project.
The world’s best breakfast sandwich. Photo by John Fladd.
“My pleasure. I’ve always wanted to direct an adaptation of a Shakespeare play. Romeo and Juliet will be a good challenge for me.”
Outstanding! We’re all on the same page. We’ve made a few notes for you on the casting.
“Oh, I’ve got a casting director in mind. I’ve always worked with her and she’s always done really solid work for me.”
Oh, no doubt. We love her. She’s like family.
“And yet, you still have some casting notes for me.”
Excellent! I’m glad we’re all in agreement here. The first part we’ve cast for you — we’re really excited about this — is a bit of a coup. We’ve gotten Helen Mirren to play Juliet.
“Dame Helen Mirren?”
Like I said, we’re really excited about this. Juliet is supposed to be beautiful and Helen Mirren is one of the most beautiful women in the world.
“Yes. Yes, she is. She is also 77 years old. Juliet is supposed to be 14.”
Mirren’s a pro; don’t worry about it. You’re really going to like this next one. We’ve found your Mercutio!
“And who do you see playing him?”
A CGI Scooby Doo!
“Because—”
He’s incredibly popular. This will bring in a whole new generation of Shakespeare fans! We can’t kill him off, of course, but he’ll totally refresh the whole duel scene!
“Ruh-roh, Romeo’?”
See? This practically writes itself!
Details matter, people.
Ingredients
Assemble in the following order:
1 slice of white toast. You’re going to be tempted to use better bread — something with seeds, or fiber, or flavor. Save them for a more conventional sandwich. This one calls for toasted white sandwich bread.
Natural peanut butter — the kind that separates if you don’t refrigerate it. Use the KISS principle here: Keep It Simple, Sandwich.
Pickled jalapeños. Not fresh chilies. Not hot sauce. Pickled. Jalapeños.
A scrambled egg. I make mine in the microwave. Beat an egg in a small bowl with a tablespoon or so of milk or cream, then cook it for 67 seconds. Will it be the fluffiest, most delicate scrambled egg you’ve ever had? Probably not, but it’s the right egg for this sandwich.
Fresh ground black pepper and coarse sea salt.
Believe it or not, this is an excellent sandwich. The spicy acidity of the pickled jalapeños cuts the richness of the peanut butter. The egg gives it dignity and gravitas. Delicious bread would be a distraction, but the crunch of the toast pulls everything together.
“OK, but I can put cheese on it, right?”
No.
“It doesn’t really need jalapeños, does it?”
Yes, it does.
“No offense, but I don’t think I’m going to make this; it sounds too weird.”
Don’t worry about it. This sandwich will be there when you need it. Someday, you will be clawing your way back from a broken romance, or a late night out, or three hours of your life in a meeting that you will never get back, and this sandwich will be there for you.
Peanut butter and jelly sorbet
In our increasingly strident and partisan world, it’s easy to feel alone and bitter. It sometimes feels like we have nothing in common. Black is white. Up is down. Tangerine is a color. Madness!
Is there a common thread to humanity where we can find common ground?
Ice cream.
If someone says that they don’t like ice cream, do not trust them. I’m not saying that they are absolutely, 100 percent, reptilian aliens in a skin suit, but you should really not take the chance.
This is technically a sorbet, meaning that it is made without dairy, so we can’t call it ice cream, but it’s frozen and smooth and peanut buttery. It is a riff on a recipe from David Lebovitz’s The Perfect Scoop.
Ingredients
¾ cup (180 grams) smooth peanut butter
¾ cup, heaping (180 grams) brown sugar
2⅔ cup (660 grams) unsweetened almond milk. I like the vanilla-flavored kind. (Dairy purists can use half-and-half.)
Pinch of salt
A small glug (see above) of vanilla
Jelly or jam for ribbon
Peanut butter and jelly sorbet. Photo by John Fladd.
Add peanut butter, brown sugar, almond milk, salt and vanilla to a blender. Blend everything until it is completely mixed and takes up slightly more room in the blender jar.
Chill the mixture for several hours.
Freeze and churn in your ice cream machine, according to the manufacturer’s instructions. (Or according to what the spirit of Mr. Peanut told you in the dream you had after eating all that questionable cheese from the back of the cheese drawer.)
As you spoon the sorbet into whatever dish you will be freezing it in, alternate between gobs of sorbet and spoonfuls of jelly. I have found that jellies with bright, acidic flavors work best; seedless raspberry is good. I haven’t tried lime marmalade yet, but I have high hopes for it.
Harden in your freezer for several hours.
This sorbet is exactly what it purports to be. It is cold and intensely flavored with peanut butter. The jelly ribbon gives contrast in taste and texture. It is refreshing, both physically and emotionally.
Spring means a lot of different things to different people:
Flowers
Mud
Taxes
Bunnies
Spring Break
When I was a college student, back in the Late Cretaceous, I had strong feelings about Spring Break. I had heard the stories about 24-hour beach parties, bacchanalian excess and overcrowded hotel rooms. I had dreams of going on a proper Spring Break, but each year I ended up broke and crashing on various friends’ couches, teaching them how to make piña coladas.
Admittedly, I was something of a low achiever in college. I was not smooth or popular. I never made the dean’s list. I did not break any hearts. I didn’t write much poetry.
What I did do, however, was master the art of making a piña colada. I prized my blender and through sheer repetition and practice could measure out the ice, rum, pineapple juice and coconut cream by eye, and make a roomful of college students with low standards very happy.
“Who’d you invite over, tonight?”
“Rick, Bob, Hugo, those three girls and their friends.”
“And—”
“And Fladd.”
“Ugh. Really?”
“And his blender.”
“Oh, OK, then.”
From time to time I’m tempted to make one of those college piña coladas, but just as there are television shows from my youth that I won’t watch for fear that Adult Me will hate them, I’ve been too afraid to make one.
But it is spring.
What if I made something that Adult Me would think tasted like spring but at the same time was strange enough that College Me would cautiously approve of it?
I give you —
The Pea-ña Colada!!!
2 ounces pea-infused rum (see below)
1 ounce pineapple juice
1 ounce coconut rum – I like Malibu or Coconut Jack for this.
½ ounce fresh-squeezed lime juice
¼ to ½ ounce simple syrup, depending on how sweet you would like this
Put on your most garish shirt, preferably something that will utterly humiliate your children.
Combine all ingredients over ice in a cocktail shaker. Tell your digital assistant to play “Margaritaville” at Volume 8. (Granted, you aren’t actually making a margarita, but the sentiments are just about perfect for this situation. If you can’t make yourself listen to Jimmy Buffet, ask for something by Van Halen.)
Put the top on your shaker, then shake until the ice cubes — and maybe your heart — break.
Pour, ice and all, into a rocks or small Collins glass.
Don’t make any plans for the rest of the afternoon, because this drink will go down very quickly, get lonely, and call for a bunch of its friends to celebrate Spring Break in your stomach.
OK, with all my industrial-strength reminiscing, I skipped over a detail that you might want to discuss a bit before actually making this drink:
“Excuse me? Pea-flavored rum?”
You heard me. Pea. Infused. Rum.
Here’s the thing: Against all odds, it’s delicious. The peas carry a spring-like herbaceousness that plays really well with the fruit juices. The coconut — which your own embarrassing memories lead you to expect to be too sweet — is actually restrained and tasty. Adult You probably doesn’t want a drink quite as sweet as you did in your salad days, and dialing in the actual sweetness with simple syrup will allow you to make this just perfect for singing really loudly. You might want to call an old friend on the phone and sing loudly to them, too.
Bright Green Rum
Add equal amounts by weight of fresh sugar snap peas and white rum to your blender. Don’t worry about snipping off the little stems and squiggly parts on the ends. Just wash them briefly and throw them into the pool with the rum. Go with a basic white rum for this. I like either Bacardi or Captain Morgan. The flavor of the peas will cover up any subtle nuances that you might want to savor in a top-shelf rum.
Blend the rum/pea mixture on a medium-low speed for a minute or so, so that the peas are chopped up really finely but haven’t been liquified.
Let the mixture rest for an hour, then strain it. It will be a vibrant, please-don’t-ignore-me shade of green. If you are so inclined, filter it through a series of coffee filters, which will tone down the color but leave you with the vibrant, pea-ey taste that you want for a proper Pea-ña Colada.
Featured photo: Pea-ña Colada. Photo by John Fladd.
It was my bragging that brought on my most recent identity crisis.
It was Monday morning, and someone asked what I had done over the weekend. Instead of using one of the responses recommended in the official small talk manual — “You know, same ol’ same ol’” or “Not much; chew?” — I was feeling a little bit full of myself and gave an honest answer:
“I was a little tired on Saturday, and I ended up taking a three-hour nap….”
The response was all I could have asked for — something along the lines of, “Wow. You lucky bastard!” — but it got me thinking. Is this what my life has come to? I used to have dreams and ambitions. I planned to travel the world, get a regrettable tattoo, learn to bungee-jump, maybe act as a courier, delivering a mysterious package to a country ending in “-stan.”
But here I was, bragging — bragging! — about taking a medium-long nap. Even by napping standards, three hours is not all that impressive; I remember crashing for 14 hours once, after a particularly long night. Eighteen-year-old me would be pretty appalled with how I have turned out.
This is a riff on a cocktail by Colleen Graham, in which run-of-the-mill gin is replaced with cucumber gin and the wasabi is bumped up to adventurous levels.
Adventurer’s Cocktail: Cucumber Wasabi Martini
4 slices of cucumber
¼ teaspoon prepared wasabi paste
½ ounce simple syrup
1½ ounces cucumber gin (see below)
½ ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice
Muddle three slices of cucumber in a cocktail shaker.
Add simple syrup and wasabi. Muddle again.
Add gin, lemon juice and ice. Shake thoroughly, long enough to get halfway through a very groovy song.
Strain into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with the remaining slice of cucumber.
Go out and seek adventure, like, I don’t know, fighting for a parking space at the gym or promising your daughter to go with her to the Barbie movie this summer.
Wasabi seems like an unlikely flavor for a cocktail, but surprisingly it’s the cucumber that does the heavy lifting here. The wasabi supports it, linking arms with the lemon juice and providing backup vocals. The sweetness of the syrup brings out the fruitiness of the cucumber.
It’s just really good.
Cucumber Gin
Persian cucumbers
An equal amount (by weight) of medium-quality gin — Gordon’s is my go-to for infusing.
Wash, but don’t peel, the cucumbers.
Blend the cucumbers and gin on the slowest speed in your blender. You are trying to chop the cucumbers finely to maximize the amount of surface area they have exposed to the gin, but you want them to still be in large enough pieces to filter out.
Store the mixture in a large jar, someplace cool and dark, for seven days.
Strain, then filter and bottle this very delicious gin.
Featured photo: Cucumber wasabi martini. Photo by John Fladd.
I look up from a pile of tangerines. “Hey. How are you?”
“I’m good. You?”
I fall back on my stock answer when I don’t really want to think too much about how I actually am: “You know how it is — the power, the money, the respect, the women. Frankly, it would crush a lesser man.”
“I can imagine. Are you finding what you want?”
And that’s when it hits me: What do I want? I have no problems that a rational man would complain about. And I realize that she’s almost certainly talking about my produce needs, not my emotional ones.
And yet—
What do I want?
I’m overwhelmed by an image. I’m on a bamboo veranda, overlooking the dark cyan* waters of the South China Sea. (*I looked it up later on a paint chip.) An overhead fan whooshes. A gentle breeze carries the scent of salt and white ginger. I’m reclining on something made out of teak.
This is all a bit much to lay on my new friend of 35 seconds, so I ask her where the macadamia nuts are.
Sill distracted by my tropical vision, I end up buying pineapple juice and paper umbrellas. It’s February. It’s time for pancakes and tiki drinks.
The pancake part is easy.
Pancake batter should be thinner than you think, as should the pancakes themselves. Fluffy pancakes are a false standard put forth by Big Pancake; go with the thin ones. You absolutely will not regret it.
The syrup is up to you, but there should be a small pitcher of melted butter. As for the cocktail —
Singapore Sling
2 ounces dry gin
½ ounce kirsch (cherry brandy)
¼ ounce cognac
2 ounces pineapple juice
¾ ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice
1¼ ounces cherry syrup from a jar of maraschino cherries
1 to 2 dashes Peychaud’s bitters
1 to 2 dashes orange bitters
2 ounces plain seltzer
Add all ingredients except the seltzer with ice in a cocktail shaker. Shake until the ice starts to break up.
Pour, with your now-cracked ice, into a tall glass — the type is up to you. A tiki mug would work well. So would a Pilsner glass. You could make a case for a clean peanut butter jar.
Top with the seltzer and stir gently. Garnish with at least five maraschino cherries.
The first sip of a proper Singapore Sling is deceptive. You will wonder if you forgot an ingredient. Considering the pineapple and cherry juices, you’d think it would be sweeter. Should it be this pink?
Do you know what puts negative thoughts like that in the front of your brain?
Stress and anxiety. Also, February.
By your third sip, do you know what are losing their grip and slipping down your cerebral cortex? The Negativity Triplets.
This is what you need.
Featured photo: The Singapore Sling. Photo by John Fladd.
I know that I don’t need to remind you of it, but Feb. 2 is National Tater Tot Day. I’m sure you’ve already put up the decorations and picked out your outfit, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to weasel out on you.
I was going to develop a Tater Tot-themed cocktail, made, of course, with potato vodka. I thought about infusing it with actual Tater Tots or french fries. I was working on some solid puns for names. I was even — and I admit this was a personal low point — considering using ketchup as the sweet element.
But ultimately I had to ask myself whether I wanted to subject you, myself, or even a good-quality vodka to this kind of gimmicky cocktail indignity.
So let’s take a big swing in the other direction and make an attempt at class and sophistication. I don’t know about you, but sophistication has proved somewhat elusive for me over the past couple of years. I’d like to explore a Zelda Cocktail.
You know, Zelda.
Zelda Fitzgerald.
The novelist, playwright and artist? She was married to F. Scott Fitzgerald?
No. Not the Legend of Zelda princess.
OK, when she’s remembered at all today, Zelda Fitzgerald is known largely for her struggles with mental health, alcoholism and a really dysfunctional marriage, but for a brief shining moment in the 1920s she was widely known as one of the most beautiful, brilliant and sophisticated women alive. And a cocktail dedicated to her is a little-known classic.
Like Zelda herself, this drink is delightful, with an unexpected challenge. In this case the challenge is bison grass vodka.
You might hear rumors about Żubrówka vodka being illegal — and it was, apparently, for several years — but it is available in liquor stores, if you look for it hard enough. If you aren’t up for a multi-state vodka quest, I’m going to make a substitution suggestion. If you muddle a sprig of thyme when you are muddling the mint for this drink, it will add a subtle herbal back-note that will make a guest stop and wonder what is going on.
Apparently the Zelda Fitzgerald experience was a lot like that — people would be overcome with delight in her presence, only to wonder, just a little, what they had gotten themselves into.
The Zelda
Several sprigs of fresh mint. (As I write this, I find myself writing the word “mink,” which I think would please Mrs. Fitzgerald.)
2 ounces Żubrówka Bison Grass Vodka or the best-quality vodka you have, plus a sprig of thyme
1 ounce fresh-squeezed lime juice
¾ ounce orgeat (almond syrup)
Muddle the mint (and thyme, if you are including it) in the bottom of a cocktail shaker.
Add five or six ice cubes and the other ingredients to the shaker. Shake vigorously.
Strain into a coupé glass and drink while it is very cold.
(Or a lemon, or an orange, or a tangerine, but limes lend themselves to being squeezed; they have the fewest inhibitions of any citrus fruit.)
Method 1 – Pure brute strength
Wash your hands.
Carefully place the lime on a cutting board in front of you. Carefully cut the lime in half.
Center your thoughts, then pick up half a lime, hold it over a bowl, and crush it.
The key here is rage. Naked, blind fury, if you can manage it. If you are a sports enthusiast, or a middle child, this should be fairly easy for you. The pain from previously unknown cuts on your hand will only make you angrier, eliciting even more juice.
Method 2 – An improvised reamer
A fork works well for this. So does a pair of kitchen tongs.
Cut the fruit in half, as before, but this time retain your composure. Insert the business end of the fork or tongs into half a lime, then twist it around, while squeezing with the hand that’s holding the lime. Tell the lime, “You might feel a little discomfort.”
You should be pleased with the result.
Method 3 – A hand-held juicer
Sometimes called a hand-juicer — though that implies that it actually juices hands — this looks something like the love child of a pair of pliers and a tea-strainer. It’s usually yellow or green — depending on the size of the fruit you intend to squeeze — and some models have a second squeezing cup, so you can tackle lemons and limes. It seems very gadget-y and might not fill you with confidence at first glance. It does a shockingly good job of squeezing citrus, though, and has become my juice extractor of choice.
A note on fresh orange juice
If you only need a few ounces of orange juice for a cocktail, a very good option is squeezing a couple of clementines. They have a fresher, zingier taste than orange juice from a carton, and they are roughly the same diameter as a lemon, so they are relatively easy to squeeze. I have found that after I have juiced both halves of a clementine, if I stack the spent carcasses of the two halves in the larger bowl of my hand-held juicer and squeeze them again I can extract a little more juice and theoretically a little citrus oil, which will intensify the flavor of the juice.
A very juicy cocktail
This is an adaptation of something called a Tangipahoa Planter’s Punch that I found in an extremely distressed copy of 1937’s Famous New Orleans Drinks and how to mix ‘em:
Ingredients
2 ounces pineapple/mango juice. Could you use plain pineapple juice? The Fruit Police, or possibly the Tangipahoa Parish Liquor Commission, would probably not come crashing through the window, if you did.
2 ounces fresh squeezed lime juice (see above)
2 ounces fresh squeezed clementine juice. Could you just use Tropicana? That’s between you and your conscience.
3 ounces white rum
½ ounce raspberry syrup (see below). Could you use grenadine instead? I suppose so, if you were a COWARD!
5 to 6 ice cubes
Combine all ingredients into a cocktail shaker, and shake until the ice starts making “I can’t hold it together much longer, Captain” sounds.
Pour into a pint glass and garnish as you see fit.
A lot of tropical drinks have a sort-of generic, yeah-there’s-some-fruit-in-here background flavor. The nice thing about squeezing your own juices into this one is that you can taste each individual ingredient. The lime, clementine and raspberry all step forward and raise a hand if you look for them. The rum stands in the back with hands in pockets, humming to itself.
You know those miserable winter days when all you want to do is sit by a fire, read a book and eat soup? Alternate that with drinking this and lying on the couch and watching game shows. You’ll feel 12 percent more optimistic about life.
Raspberry syrup
Combine an equal amount (by weight) of frozen raspberries and sugar in a small saucepan.
Cook over medium heat. The ice crystals in the berries have already punctured the cell walls, and you will be surprised at how much liquid they give off.
Bring to a boil, to make sure that all the sugar has dissolved, then remove from the heat.
Strain through a fine-meshed strainer, and store in your refrigerator for about a month.
Feature photo: Tangipahoa Planter’s Punch. Photo by John Fladd.
“I’m an attractive person,” you might say. And you’d be right.
“And,” you might add, “I tip well. I don’t ask for anything complicated when we go out — a gin and tonic, or a sea breeze — something fast and easy to make. So why aren’t the drinks I get at the bar very good?
“I mean, they’re all right: gin, tonic, lime; or vodka and cranberry juice. There’s not much to mess up there. They just don’t taste as good as when I make them at home. Why is that?”
This is a good question.
It isn’t about the competence of your bartender. Trust me, she knows what she’s doing. And it isn’t that she doesn’t care; I’m sure she’s a conscientious professional who wants you to have a good drink.
The problem is that you’ve been ordering something utterly forgettable.
Don’t get me wrong. Classics are classics for a reason. There are very few things in life better than a properly made gin and tonic. The laughter of a small child is a petty and grating thing compared to the piney, slightly bitter dance of gin, quinine and lime.
But look at it from your bartender’s position.
There’s a good chance she didn’t expect to be working at all tonight, but Sheila called in sick, so she was stuck. She was able to get a babysitter at the last minute, but this is the first time she’s left her kid with this new sitter, and she’s not sure she trusts the large numbers of facial piercings the girl had.
Then, there’s Stanley, at the end of the bar. He tipped her an extra 50 cents once, a year ago, and ever since then he’s felt entitled to her attention, even during rushes.
Plus, it’s Thursday, which means that there aren’t as many customers as on the weekend, but somehow the bar moves just as much booze, which brings its own set of issues.
All of which is to say, your margarita, rocks-no-salt, probably didn’t benefit from her complete focus and attention.
You know how sometimes you pull into your driveway at the end of the day and have no memory of driving home? That’s how she just made your completely reasonable, utterly forgettable cocktail.
So, what’s the solution?
For the sake of everything Good and Decent in the Universe, please don’t order something obnoxious with a cutesy name. Or anything with 17 ingredients. Or anything that will involve dusting off a bottle from the back of the bar.
What you want is a gin sour.
And what is a gin sour, you ask?
It’s a gimlet, but with lemon.
I sense that you are still staring at me, waiting for further explanation.
OK — a gin sour is one of those very basic cocktails that is a cinch to make, takes 45 seconds and is truly delicious. It has three ingredients: gin, lemon juice, and simple syrup. It uses the same proportions as about six other cocktails: two ounces of alcohol, an ounce of citrus, and three quarters of an ounce of something sweet — the same as a margarita or a daiquiri or a lemon drop.
The difference is, nobody else has ordered one this week.
So, just like stopping for your dry cleaning on the way home makes you pay more attention to your commute, making a gin sour will be just out of the ordinary enough to grab your bartender’s full attention. It’s not difficult, but she will have to keep her mind on what she’s doing.
And you get a very nice drink.
So nice that you will probably start making it for yourself at home.
Gin sour
2 ounces gin (see below)
1 ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice
¾ ounce simple syrup
Combine all ingredients with ice in a cocktail shaker.
Shake.
Strain.
Drink.
So, the question you are probably asking yourself right now is, what kind of gin?
Wanting to give you the best possible information, I made three gin sours last evening, identical except for the variety of gin. The floral gin was exceptional, truly delicious. But so was the version with gunpowder gin; the lemon really played a leading role. The dry gin was slightly more astringent, which gave it a delicious booziness on the back end. You would really have to make a deliberate effort to mess this drink up
And after three of them in quick succession you will be astonished at what sparkling conversationalists your houseplants are.
I’ve got a rule of thumb that makes a deceptive amount of sense.
When you’re looking at used copies of cookbooks, buy the one that is in the worst shape. If it’s badly stained and has torn pages, a broken spine and mysterious burn marks, that’s the one that has seen some action. Somebody was loyal enough to the recipes in it to take it into the belly of the beast. It must have something to recommend it.
Anyone I’ve ever given that advice to has nodded and agreed that this seems really reasonable.
The deception comes into play over time. Over the years, I’ve adopted an alarming number of these battle-scarred books, most of which have gone relatively unused.
A case in point is 1969’s Esquire Drink Book. I don’t remember how it ended up in my cocktail bookcase, but it is a perfect time capsule of Swinging ’60s bachelor drinks.
For example, the Bee-Bee.
Even by the standards of the time, the description of the Bee-Bee is a little tone-deaf, sexism and other isms-wise.
“This will bring on leprechauns and williwaws after the third cup,” he says.
Given that 3 cups of bourbon is 24 ounces of 100-proof alcohol, I suspect that it would be more likely to bring on paramedics and divorce attorneys, and yet—
Classic Bee-Bee
Ingredients
Zest of one lime – one of the really dark, leathery-looking ones
Zest of one orange – just a regular, undemanding orange
1 Tablespoon honey
1 cup bourbon – given how much you are going to adulterate it, probably not your best stuff.
Also, have an instant-read thermometer.
Heat all ingredients to a boil in a small saucepan, over medium-low heat. (The lower temperature will give the alcohol time to strip some of the flavorful oils from the citrus rinds.) Bring to a temperature of about 170º. Alcohol boils off at a lower temperature than water, so bringing this to a full boil will strip off most of the bourbon. (I flamed off all the alcohol from some rum once and “disappointing” does not begin to describe the results.)
Rest for three minutes. This will give the bourbon a little more time to wash the citrus zest. Yes, it will cool somewhat, but you do the exact same thing when you make a good cup of tea. Think of this as extremely dodgy tea.
Strain through a fine-mesh strainer into an Irish coffee glass. To be clear, this is 8 ounces of bourbon and, at 170, the alcohol doesn’t cook off. You’ll want to share this one with a few fellow revelers to stay upright.
Shockingly, this is very good. Dangerously good. The bourbon is mellowed out by the honey and citrus. It tastes comforting. It has subtle butterscotch notes that suggest that maybe things aren’t that bad. That maybe you’ll get through all this. That maybe you should make another cup—
So I guess the question is this: Is there a way of lightening the Bee-Bee up so you don’t end up making a pass at a hat rack, and yet that doesn’t strip it completely of its dangerously seductive nature?
Maybe.
Modified Bee-Bee
Ingredients
Zest of 1 lime – dark and leathery
Zest of 1 orange – calm and demure
3 ounces ginger brandy – I like Jacquin’s
1 ounce Irish whiskey – I like Paddy’s for this. It brings a lot of flavor, without taking itself too seriously.
1 Tablespoon hot honey
½ cup boiling water
And that same thermometer, which has probably been surprised and delighted to find itself in an adult beverage today instead of a pork chop.
Again, heat all the ingredients except the water in a small saucepan, over medium-low heat, bringing the mix to 170º.
Again, rest for three minutes.
Strain into an Irish coffee glass, stir in the hot water.
This version of the Bee-Bee doesn’t taste the same as the original, but it has the same “Hey, buddy, I don’t know if anyone has told you lately, but you are very attractive and have a really great sense of style” quality of debauched, contented comfort to it. (Keep in mind that while only half as dangerous as its big brother, this drink still has 4 ounces of alcohol in it. For either drink, sharing is strongly recommended.) The ginger plays well with the spice of the hot honey. The alcohol is still there and lets you know that it is still there, but it plays so well with the citrus that you hardly notice the number of ill-advised ideas you come up with over the next half hour.
