Just Rewards

To reward myself for my brilliant HTML wizardry, I decided to go make myself a Bloody Mary. It IS my day off, (even tho' I will be going in to work??) so keep your superior disdain to yourself, Prudence!

That is when I realized I had not shared any food or drink recipes in this blog for some time, and that it has gotten a little grim in here. Really, even though I do write about and think a lot about some heavy shit, I am a very lighthearted person with a huge streak of hedonism running through my self-created poverty.

I perfected this Bloody Mary recipe at the beach with LoverMan a couple of years ago, and then improved it considerable since then. Because it has so many ingredients, you make a bigger batch to share, no fewer than three coctails, and if it's more than just me and LM, or even if, I will often double the recipe.

First, peel a big clove of garlic, mush it a bit, and spear it with a wooden toothpick. Put it into a quart jar that has a tight seal lid. I use a big pickle jar. Shake Tony Chachere's Original Creole Seasoning 13 times into the jar. This is the secret ingredient. If you don't have a can of Tony's, go back to the grocery store. Grate fresh peppercorns into the jar, about 1/2 teaspoon. Add one cup of (ideally) Monopolowa (my favorite) or Tito's (LM's favorite) vodka to the spices, and swirl it around. But really, you can use any crappy vodka you want, it won't affect the taste much, but it may give you a hangover. Add the juice of half a lemon and half a lime, and a splash of the juice of Peperoncini peppers or green salad olives. Then in go four capsful of Lea & Perrins Worcesterchire sauce. If there are vegetarians or vegans involved, you can substitute Braggs Liquid Aminos seasoning for the Lea & Perrins, which has anchovies in it. Sorry if you didn't know that before and would rather not think about it. Swirl it all around. Notice I put the seasonings in first with the vodka. That is because the alcohol extracts the flavors better that way. Now, finally, add two cups of spicy tomato veggie juice. My favorite is Knudsen's Very Veggy Spicy.

If you can wait, let the whole thing sit in the fridge for awhile. It really improves with age, especially that speared garlic! The one I'm drinking now was leftover from when LM and I were at his fishing cabin, ref. "Bass Attitude and Beet Wisdom."

Serve on ice with a stalk of celery in the tumbler. Spear olives, a Peperoncini pepper and/or coctail onions on a wooden toothpick and stick this into the top of the celery stalk, so that the celery terminates in a stack of edible "beads."

There is absolutely no reason to wait til you have a hangover to make this drink.