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  • Sockee To Me…

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    Mandy looked over at me and said, “Merrrba… gimmin suey sass.”

    I nodded and replied, “Shooba. Yooben neeb hat pemmer doo?”

    Everyone else around the table just stared. Well, almost everyone. Some of them were slumped over in their chairs, or pitched forward with their faces in their plates. The Evil Redhead was among them. In fact, she had been the first to go after staring off into space for several minutes.

    Stir FryI readjusted my chopsticks – all eleven of them, or so it appeared to me – in my hand, then chased a hunk of steak around my plate, batting it from one side, then over to the other and back again. Finally I just gave up, stabbed it with one of the plastic sticks, then spent another three minutes trying to hit my mouth.

    “Nom thiggen…” I muttered, waving the now empty, imitation ivory stick at the watery sauce on my plate.

    “Ahm nobissed…” Mandy said with a nod

    I stared at the sauce for a minute then asked, “Wunner by?”

    Mandy didn’t answer me this time. She had already fallen out of her chair as she passed out and plopped onto the floor.

    Okay, so I guess maybe I should rewind a few frames… Maybe even more than a few.

    You see, we used to have an almost weekly get together with a group of friends, generally on a Friday or Saturday evening. We’d pick a “theme” for a meal, even if it was just potluck, and then cook together, eat together, and just generally hang out together. On this particular evening, as evidenced by the chopsticks in use, the theme was “Asian-American” food.

    Now, I have to admit something here… I haven’t been entirely honest with you in the past. The truth is, in all of the blogs where I have pointed out that the Evil Redhead requires strict supervision in the kitchen, and would starve if there wasn’t something on hand to subject to the timed bursts of a microwave’s magnetron, I’ve been making it sound worse than it is.

    The Tuna Helper incident notwithstanding…

    So, it’s time I come clean: The Evil One prepares the best damn stir fry I have ever put in my mouth. Seriously. No kidding. Beats the holy hell out of Happy China Buffet, La Choy, Mandarin House, ad infinitum. You name an Asian-American restaurant out there and E K will whomp ’em good with her wooden spatulas and Wok.

    Except that one time… And, as you are sure to have surmised, that one time is what this blog is all about… And, to be perfectly honest, it wasn’t ALL her fault. She just started the rice ball rolling, so to speak.

    (Oh, and just so we are all on the same page – Yes, I know Sake is spelled Sake, not Sockee…)

    The evening started out like any other weekly dinner gathering evening. Mandy and I were in the kitchen taking a backseat sous chef role to the Evil Redhead who was in charge of the meal, obviously due to her prowess with a wok. The rest of the crew were enjoying some before dinner drinks and wandering in and out of the kitchen to chat with us. As usual, we were having a before dinner drink or two ourselves.

    Herein lies the problem – by this point in our marriage E K was already out of practice on her drinking AND she was imbibing on an empty stomach. Therefore, about halfway through preparation of one of the stir fry dishes, she crashed. Not hard, but she announced in no uncertain terms that she needed to sit down. This meant Mandy and I had to step up to the plate.

    No biggie. I can cook, we all know that. Should be easy like pie… I mean, E K had the recipe sitting right out there on the counter, and several other folks were more than happy to roll up their sleeves and pitch in as well, lest E K beat them for not helping out. You know how she is…

    Can you see where this is going yet? If not, keep reading… If so, still keep reading…

    sensei sakeI jumped to the stove and took over the spatulas. One stir fry dish was already done, and Mandy was working on a batch of fried rice.

    “Where did you leave off, Legs?” I asked my almost catatonic wife.

    “Soggy,” she mumbled.

    “Soggy?”

    “Uhmmm-hmmm,” she said with a nod. “Sohhhggggeeeee.”

    I ran down the list on the recipe and suddenly it made sense. Sake. Okay, all good. There was a bottle of it right there on the counter, so I tossed the sizzling meat around the wok then added the shot of sake called for on the ingredients. Back to the table I went to finish chopping the veggies.

    “Do you want me to watch this?” Mandy called out.

    I answered over my shoulder as the knife in my hand beat out a rhythm against the cutting board. “Yeah. I’ll be done here in just a second.”

    “Where did you leave off?” she asked.

    “Sake,” I told her.

    “Okay.”

    A few moments later I was tossing the veggies into the wok. However, instead of finding Mandy at the stove, one of our other friends was standing there, spatula in hand, looking somewhat lost.

    “Where’s Mandy?” I asked.

    “She had to use the bathroom. She asked me to watch the stove.”

    “All good, I’ll take over now.”

    “Thanks.”

    E K mumbled something from behind, “Saaahhhhgggeeee.”

    “What?” I asked, then looked at the recipe. “Oh yeah, Sake.”

    I added a shot of Sake.

    I could go on, as it didn’t end there, but I suspect you are all with me now if you weren’t already. Yep… When we compared notes the next day – post hangover, of course – we discovered that a recipe calling for 1 shot of sake had received something on the order of a half bottle of the rice booze and nowhere near enough stove top time to evaporate the alcohol – just enough to get it nice and warm…

    Of course, it all worked out for the best. We all ended up drunk from the meal, so we had plenty of our other booze left over for the next dinner party…

    More to come…

    Murv

  • Dude, She Doesn’t Have Any More…

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    I have a hobby.

    No… Not the one where I dress up in my wife’s lingerie and sing “I’m So Pretty” while playing badminton with the mushroom tripping squirrels in the back yard.

    Errr… Ummm… Forget I ever said that, okay?

    But seriously, I do have a hobby. A couple of them, in fact, and if book sales don’t pick up soon the IRS is going to consider my profession a hobby as well. But, that a different story…

    The particular hobby in question here, however, is Home Brewing. Yeah, the making of drinkable fermented beverages such as Beer, Wine, and Mead. For someone who enjoys cooking as much as I do, well, brewing seemed like a no-brainer in the hobby department. Now, the truth is I don’t get to engage in my hobbies as much as I once did. This whole writing, touring, promotional marketing of oneself thing takes up far more time than I ever imagined it would. But, I still brew up a batch of Beer or Mead when I have some downtime and I’m looking for a fun activity.

    Before we go any further here, I suppose I should define Mead for Brainpan Leakage readers who don’t happen to know what it is… Mead is basically a wine. In its purest form it is nothing more than Honey, Water, and Yeast. Mix Honey and Water, boil, skim off impurities, cool, add Yeast, allow to ferment. From there things can get a bit interesting with variations on the old standby – these being Pyments (fermented with grape juice as an adjunct), Melomels (Meads containing fruit), and Metheglins (Meads containing spices and/or herbs)…

    Miranda Label 001 I have made all varieties of Meads over the years. I have even made Meads fortified with other alcohols, and named after characters in my books. Most notably, Miranda Mead.

    Emblazoned upon the risque label, Miranda Mead carried with it a tagline which read: Guaranteed to hurt you…  Bad… (Yes, I know, It should be badLY. It’s a label, gimme a break…)

    Beneath this was an explanation which went on to outline exactly why those of us involved in the bottling of this particular Mead thought such (which is, of course, why it was named after Miranda in the first place, what with the character being a homicidal dominatrix and all…)

    Miranda Label 002

    Of course, those eagle eyed among you probably noticed the words “Felicity O’Brien Sweet Dessert Mead.” Well, yes, that was the base for the Miranda Mead, what with their intimate connection and all. We won’t go into that here since some of you blog readers may not have read that far in the series just yet. So, the long and short of it is, yes, I created a recipe for a special Sweet Mead which was named after Felicity. Its label even contained the O’Brien Coat of Arms.

    OBRIEN At this point I should add an important disclaimer so that I don’t end up getting a mess of email about this – None of this Mead is for sale or commercially available. It is home brewed for personal use, so please DO NOT even ask. It ain’t gonna happen. Hell, my brother-in-law is an ATF agent, so breaking that particular set of laws would be a doubly stupid move on my part now wouldn’t it?

    So… Now that you are armed with the above information, I have a confession to make… No, not the thing with the lingerie… What I need to admit here is that I really cannot stand Mead. Seriously. It just isn’t my thing. There are a few meads I have had that are drinkable – Miranda Mead being one of them, Moniak another, and a Hot Ginger Mead made by a friend of mine the third. But if given the choice I’d reach for a beer instead. This is not to say that there is anything wrong with mead. It’s just not my thing.

    So, I am sure you are wondering why I would bother to brew something I don’t particularly like. Well, that’s simple. I make it so that I have it on hand for my friends because several of them really do like it.

    A lot.

    In fact, I have one friend in particular who will crawl naked across shards of broken glass, layered on top of hot coals in an unmapped mine field while being chased by starving Basset Hounds just so he can kiss E Kay’s arse to get some… (Some Mead, that is… Not some… Well… You know…)

    Yeah… You heard me. He sucks up to E K who wouldn’t even know where to start in the process of making Mead. Remember the Tuna Helper incident? She may be the Queen Bitch of the Whole F*cking Universe, but she knows better than to mess around in the kitchen. She has a lackey for that sort of thing, namely moi.

    Still, that simple fact doesn’t stop Mike… Just the other day we were having a BBQ and there he sat on our back deck nursing what dregs were left of a bottle of Felicity O’Brien Mead. Just for the record, he has almost single handedly wiped out the entire batch, which means it is time for me to make more. Not that I mind in the least. I’m ecstatic that he likes it so much… But I digress… (So what’s new about that?)

    You see, he had no more finished the last swig from the bottle than he looked up at E K and said, “I really can’t believe that you are XX years old.”

    “What?” E K asked, blue fire kindling in her eyes at the very idea that someone might be implying she is a liar.

    “You don’t look a day over 40,” Mike returned.

    “Dude, you’re in trouble now. She’s only 27,” I told him. Unfortunately, my bid to trip him up fell on deaf ears.

    “42, tops,” he continued, totally unfazed.

    E K, not sure what to make of this, went inside and stood in front of the liquor cabinet angrily tapping her foot until someone had the presence of mind to crawl into the kitchen, mix a drink, and present it to her with much ceremony and the appropriate level of deference to her status as Eebil Queen. Satisfied for the moment, she returned to the deck with her Vodka-Tonic in hand.

    “37,” Mike announced before she’d even stopped moving. “You’re just gorgeous. You don’t look a day over 37.”

    “Dude… A minute ago you said 42,” Johnathan jibed.

    “Yeah, right,” E K replied, then took a sip of her drink.

    You could hear the amusement in her voice, but at the same time you could see in her eyes that she was basking in the glow of his effusive Redhead worship. Still, those of us who know E K well were perfectly aware of the fact that she was trying to figure out what was handy that she could beat him with in case he slipped up and said the wrong thing.

    I wandered down the stairs to the grill and flipped the Bratwursts, then closed the lid and made my way back up to the picnic table. It had been quiet for a few minutes now, but I had no more planted my rear on a seat than Mike looked up at E K and began to gesture.

    “Look at her,” he announced. “I’m telling you this woman is absolutely gorgeous. She doesn’t look a day over 35.”

    “Did anyone else notice that the number keeps going down?” Johnathan asked.

    “Johnathan,” E K replied coolly. “Do you really want me to knock you down and stomp on you?”

    “No ma’am,” he replied.

    “I didn’t think so,” she observed, then turned her attention back to Mike. “You were saying?”

    Mike became even more animated than his normal cartoonish self. “I was saying you’re just gorgeous. You don’t look a day over 32… No… Make that 30. Not a day over 30…”

    Now, remember where we left off folks – 30… This will be important later in the story…

    It was at this particular moment that I spied the empty bottle of Felicity Mead and realized what he was doing. As it happens, his wife, Anastasia, was on the same wavelength with me – what with us both being a little brainpan bent and all – and she spoke up before I had a chance.

    “Mike,” she told him. “You’re sucking up to the wrong person. Kat didn’t make the Mead, Murv did.”

    “I’m not after more Mead,” he objected.

    “Yeah, right,” Anastasia replied. “Sure you aren’t.”

    “Really,” he persisted.

    E K took another sip of her drink and like the ice-cold, redheaded assassin woman she is, went in for the kill. You could see the giddiness in her eyes as she told him, “It’s all gone, Mike.”

    “It’s all gone?” He asked.

    She nodded then grinned her evil grin. “Yes. All gone.”

    mead “Yeah, dude,” I added. “She doesn’t have anymore. You drank it all.”

    He was quiet for a minute then countered with, “Well, that’s okay. I wasn’t trying to get more Mead anyway. I’m serious, just look at her. She really and truly doesn’t look a day over 40…”

    To this day, Mike swears he wasn’t sucking up in order to get more Mead, but I’m a little suspect of that, given how the years seemed to melt away from the Evil One without the help of Botox or even Oil of Olay.

    Not that she needs any years to melt away, trust me. And I’m definitely not just saying that so she won’t stomp on my head. It doesn’t matter, because she’ll find a reason to stomp on me anyway.

    The thing is Mike was so close to the prize it was scary – There was actually another bottle of Mead in the house and if he’d ratcheted her age down to 25 or so she just might have given it to him.

    More to come…

    Murv