Homemade Prima Donnas

Jen got me a kit to make homemade gin for Christmas. Since seeing the episode of Oz and James Drink to Britain where James May gets to distill his own gin this is something I have been greatly eager to do.

The Homemade Gin Kit is a bit different than the strange beaker-and-Bunsen-burner contraption but it was frightfully easy to make.


I had to leave for work early in the morning which meant that I texted Jen at 8:30 AM to perform the last task of the homemade gin which was to strain out all of the aromatics and bottle it up.


The result was a slightly green-tinted gin.


After a typical morning of gin-making Jen bundled the babies up and put on the baby sunglasses they got for Christmas to take them out for a stroll. This apparently got the babies even more attention than they normally get when they're not dressed like Tanookis or wearing sunglasses. I'm kind of glad I wasn't there because it's really hard to make your way down the street when every other person is stopping you. Well, every other woman stops you. Men don't seem to give a rat's ass about a cute set of babies.



When I got home from work we put the babies down for a nap and attempted to have a little snack of aged cheddar cheese, crackers, and sour cherry jam with gin and tonics made from the fresh gin. The gin was pretty good. It had slightly more fennel flavor than I'd have anticipated. I'm surprised you could steep that much flavor out of the juniper berries and other aromatics in a mere thirty-six hours.


After about five seconds of enjoying the afternoon Martin was quick to wake up and want to participate in the event. He inspected and smelled my gin and tonic and found it to be satisfactory. This was in keeping with Jen's latest theory that Martin is actually a young Oz Clarke.


There is a striking resemblance. Perhaps we are actually the parents of Oz Clarke and he will later be the recipient of a time machine where he will go back in time and become the world's undisputed wine-tasting champion.


Elliott, on the other hand, just stayed asleep showing off his killer abs to any who wanted to see.


In keeping with my ten-minute meal trend I threw together this casserole exclusively with things we needed to clear out of the freezer. I sauteed some garlic, onion, celery, and red pepper in butter and olive oil then tossed in some Andouille sausage, kale, crumbled cornbread, shrimp, and vegetable stock and baked it in the oven for about forty-five minutes at 350 degrees. The end result was quite tasty. I would definitely make something like this again if I had the ingredients about.


For beer I cracked open this Hefeweizen from Pyramid Brewing Co. It was a fine accompaniment for the first hockey game of the 2013 season.

This was one of the first craft beers I ever had and certainly the first hefeweizen. In the 90s I picked up beers from this brewery because I am a fan of pyramids. It turns out the beer was pretty good too! This hefeweizen is still really good and I am glad I've been able to findly find a source for this beer in this area. It reminds me of the days of my youth where I had virtually no expenses and could actually spend a tremendous amount more money on beer without any negative effects.

I still probably spend more than I should but it might mean that the boys have to go a week without diapers. Everyone has their priorities.


This morning there was a bit of a role reversal and Martin was the big sleeper while Elliott was awake. He was delighted when he realized that this meant he would get to have all of the toys to himself without Martin stealing them all away from him.


Nana STIM has not been feeling well so the boys put together a nice little get better sign for her. While their penmanship is pretty shabby I was nonetheless impressed with their spelling which was spot on. Of course they were too lazy to hold the sign (at least without trying to eat it) so Jen was kind enough to perform this task for them.

Little prima donnas.

The Sweet Life and the Flu

This has been a pretty rough week. On Monday, after a week of feeling just so-so, I came down with the full-blown flu. I know this because I went to the doctor where they stuck a swab all the way up my nose and apparently took some sort of DNA sample directly from my brain which they tested and it told them that I had the flu.

So it was that I was forced to not snuggle the babies for about 36 hours until I was able to maintain no fever for over 24 hours.


Then it was full on baby-snuggling time. Elliott may have looked like he hardly remembered me but it was a glorious moment to be reunited with the Wombats and to not need to use hand sanitizer or wear a surgical face mask.


A lot can change over the course of a work week. The boys seemed to finally reach the end of the line with their six month clothes. They are starting to resemble plump little sausages ready to burst out of their casing whenever we manage to cram them into any six month clothes these days.


Last night, after a fair amount of coaxing, I was able to get Martin to go to sleep before Jen returned home from work. The result was him finding a new sleeping position which is on his stomach, pressed up against the absolute edge of the crib and snoring. This doesn't seem to be all that comfortable a position to me but this is the position he held for ten straight hours without moving an inch.


In between checks to make sure Martin was still breathing I poured myself this Chocolate Bock from Sam Adams. It was light, chocolatey, slightly acidic, and sure to make my father-in-law cringe.

It's everything I could have wanted in a beer last night.



Tonight we gave the Wombats their first taste of butternut squash. I had boiled and pureed some last night after dinner and it went over quite well. Since I'm a fan of lists I'm going to start keeping track of how much they seem to enjoy the foods we're making for them. It's something that only I would be interested in but that's the only reason I ever really do anything.

The Wombats' Favorite Foods (in descending order from favorite to least favorite)

1. Sweet Potato
   
2. Avocado
   
3. Butternut Squash
   
4. Carrot
   
5. Peas
   

While Jen did the bedtime dance with Martin I put together a salad with kale, Marcona almonds, St. Agur cheese, and currants. I made a dressing with fig spread, sesame, tahini, and red wine vinegar. For the main course I boiled some sweet pea raviolis Jen brought home from Murray's Cheese. I made a sauce with rendered bacon, butter, shallots, cream, salt, pepper, and Parmigiano-Reggiano. This mostly just used up things in the fridge that were nearing the end of their useful life, however, it was also delicious. For beer I stumbled upon this gem a couple months back on my winter-beer scavenging trip. It was the N'ice Chouffe from Brasserie Achouffe in Belgium. This is a yearly release from them but my eagle eye spotted the difference on the label and I picked this one out on the shelf which was somehow leftover from 2010. The beer store was kind enough to do the aging for me. The result was a slightly mellowed version of the N'ice Chouffe. It had a cheesy-yeasty flavor, heavy malt, and high alcohol content. Strangely, after two glasses, I hadn't really felt the affect of the alcohol at all. Instead I was merely marveling at my love of gnome-themed Belgian ales.

After a week Jen is now sick and so to are the Womabts. Well, presumably they are sick. Their noses are leaking like wide-open faucets. You wouldn't know that they are sick by their attitudes as they both seem to be having the times of their lives. I guess if I could poop and pee my pants, have people bathe me, and sleep whenever I damned well pleased it would take a lot more than the flu to get me down.

Man their lives are so sweet!

The Baby Who Loved Awards Shows

For the last few days I've been suffering from a pretty bad almost-cold. It hasn't developed fully into a cold yet, but it's been just annoying enough that I need to clear my throat and blow my nose constantly. I'd planned on tonight being the grand tasting of the amazing Christmas gift that Jen got me: Westvleteren XII, a beer I've been trying to get my hands on for years. While my smell and taste don't seem all that affected by the cold, I figured I'd wait until I was back up to 100% for the tasting. Besides, Jen's tooth pain has taken a turn for the worse so I figured it would be best for all of us this way.


We had a good, though exhausting, day with the babies. Jen, suffering from pounding head and tooth pain, pleaded with me in a vulnerable moment to watch the Golden Globes. Awards shows of all sorts are something I hold to be one of the worst things about humanity. However, given her condition and the look of desperation in her eye I easily accepted her humble request.


Making dinner in the past few weeks has been extremely challenging. Even given the entire day to prepare, the best I could come up with for dinner was this: I stuffed a nice little chicken with some leftover meat stuffing my mother brought for Christmas dinner. It's an old family recipe but I've never had it stuffed in a bird before.

It was actually very delicious but the preparation time excluding the time in the oven was about five minutes and it was a struggle to get it done.


For beer I opened this Brune D'Achouffe from Brasseurs R.J. in Montreal, another gift from Jen's father. I think this is the equivalent of the Belgian McChouffe brewed under contract in Montreal. I would not be able to tell that this was the North American version of a Beglian beer. It had all the hallmarks of a Belgian beer, right down to the giant chunks of yeast sediment. It was so chunky, actually, that I passed it through a coffee filter since I was giving some to Jen after her dental surgery and I was worried the yeast might affect her teeth somehow. I'm not basing this on any sort of science, just a strange, idiotic intuition I had.


Martin, as per usual, would not go to sleep. After ten or twenty minutes of screaming we took him out into the living room where it was clear that he, too, just wanted to watch the Golden Globes. We both took turns fighting with him to get him to not watch the Golden Globes but no matter what we did, he would find a way to contort his body in some way to watch.

We then tried putting him in his activity gym and covering it with a blanket so he couldn't watch. Then he started laughing maniacally for a while. After returning him to bed he screamed and screamed and screamed until finally we relented.


We didn't fight it anymore. We just propped him up on the couch, turned up the volume and told him to enjoy the friggin' Golden Globes.

Enjoy, my strange little man. Enjoy.

Three Days, Two Babies, One Missing Tooth

It's been a fairly busy week. The days of cooking a new meal each night seem so distant that I can barely believe that once I cooked dinner at all. Part of me actually considered purchasing Velveeta Shells & Cheese for dinner for a quick and easy meal! That is the meal that got me through culinary school.

Of course I didn't simply make Velveeta Shells & Cheese. I doctored it up with dried basil and hot sauce. That's what an education in the culinary arts does for you!


Thursday night all I could get accomplished was to crack oopen this Corne du Diable from Brasserie Dieu du Ciel! This was another gift from Jen's father on his last visit. My experience with Canadian IPAs is that they are only about 25% as intense as the modern American IPA. American IPAs have gone for such extremes lately that what was considered a hoppy IPA ten years ago now seems like a barely hopped carbonated mineral water.

That being said it was a very enjoyable beer, one of the best from my recent collection of Canadian gifts.


Last night we gave the babies their first taste of carrots. They were pretty excited about carrots. It may not have been quite on the same level as sweet potato or avocado but it did not earn me disgusted looks from Elliott the way the Great Pea Debacle of 2012 had.


To wind down after a wild night of carrot-feeding I settled down with this Winter Lager from Sam Adams. Jen had to have dental surgery earlier in the day thanks to our youngest son and his rock-solid head. On doctor's (or dentist's) orders she had to abstain from any alcohol consumption for a couple of days.

I've had this before but it's another beer I haven't actually had since the 1990s. I spent most of the 2000s convinced that I didn't like Sam Adams beers all that much, particularly their Boston Lager. As my tastes have developed over the past few years I find most of their beers to be pretty enjoyable. The Winter Lager was a nice accompaniment to some quickly-cooked pierogies. Jen put the pot of water on while she watched the babies and there was about 10 ounces of water left boiling by the time we finally got a chance to make dinner.


We topped it off with some delicious ice creams from Steve's Ice Cream in Brooklyn. Apparently this company was founded by the guy who invented the concept of adding things to ice cream and was the person responsible for bringing us Heath Bar Crunch.

I have to admit, I felt a little starstruck being in the same room with his ice cream. What could be more important to American food than putting ingredients in ice cream? The only thing more American would be cheese in a spray can.


After dinner, while I fell asleep on the couch five minutes into a TV show, Jen took the camera into the babies' room to take a picture of Martin's remarkable 180° rotation in there mere ten minutes since being put to bed.


Today while I was at work Jen entertained the Wombats including having the ever-risky nude time. While she took a huge number of pictures this is the least NSFW picture I could find in the batch.


Our friend Gina came over and Elliott was quite taken with her. Martin, perhaps, was even more taken with her as he didn't want to go to bed at all and hung out with us until about 10:00 PM, hours after his bedtime. In fact he had little interest in sleeping for much of the rest of the night either, long after we'd managed to order some Chinese delivery.


While Jen and Gina entertained Martin on the couch I sat down to enjoy one of my stocking presents this Christmas, this Winter Solstice Seasonal Ale from Anderson Valley Brewing Company. I would say this is a pretty good closer for a meal. It has the most pronounced vanilla flavor of any beer I've ever had as well as some winter/holiday spices thrown in. I don't think I've tried any other beers from this brewery before but I look forward to trying more. I always thought their logo was just a moose while I passed by bottles at the beer store. Upon further inspection it appears to be a bear with antlers wearing sunglasses.

Clearly I need to pay more attention because that's one of the truly great logos/mascots in the beer world. Well done, Anderson Valley!

Six Months

Yesterday the Wombats turned six months old. Unfortunately the had a rough night leading into their six month birthday. However, when they woke up they were all smiles.


They are generally smiley as can be in the morning. They seem delighted to have us wake them up in the morning and take them to day care. Unfortunately we got a call in the afternoon that Martin had returned to his earlier tricks and was screaming his head off all day.


This meant we had to divide up. I grabbed Elliott and took him home while Jen took Martin to the late night clinic to get tested out. All the tests came back negative and it was determined that he was suffering from a condition known simply as fussiness. Perhaps he had begun seriously teething. Or, he was just tired of giving his dear old parents a moment of rest each evening.

Our planned six month birthday celebration turned into an evening of consoling babies and ended with Elliott eating so much that he exploded vomit like Mount Vesuvius. This resulted in having to mop the floor, give him a full bath, and burn the pajamas he'd been wearing.


Tonight I was ale to practice my one-handed knife skills and chop up the vegetables for dinner with one hand while I alternately held Martin and Elliott. This was pretty challenging and ended up making dinner be both late and poorly chopped.

For dinner I made this cous cous with garlic, onion, pepper, kale, broccoli, and shrimp. These were all leftover from meals we had during Christmas and New Year's while Jen's sister visited. When it was done I sprinkled some crumbled feta on top and squeezed fresh lemon over it as well. It was a nice, light dish for the new year. While I'm not the New Year's Resolution type I am the Oh-My-God-I-Can't-Keep-Eating-Butter type.


Jen settled back with this 2008 Snap Dragon red wine.


I, on the other hand, had this International Arms Race Zero IBU IPA from Flying Dog Brewery. They had a contest with BrewDog overseas to see who could make the best IPA using no hops at all. This seemed like a very interesting challenge to me so I was very excited to try it. It wasn't all that bitter at all, actually. It was good but not quite what I'd expected. I'd expected them to use something like rosemary stems or something to achieve the bitter taste.

This wouldn't be my go to beer every day but it was a very interesting experience that, perhaps, fell a little short because of the expectations I'd built up for it in my mind.


Today we got a picture of Elliott from day care where it looks like they may have been running a little low on bibs. We were happy to see Elliott not feel confined by standard gender roles. It shows a lot of character for a six month old.

Elliott scoffs at your standard ideas of gender identity.