The Sloe Gin Is Done

I poured all the gin off the sloe berries a few weeks ago and HOT DAMN is it good. I can’t remember if it’s the same colour as the commercial stuff but I couldn’t care less. It’s tasty. It goes really well with grapefruit juice and ice, of all things. I’m so enamoured with the grapefruit juice cocktail that I haven’t bothered trying anything else. My last housesitter says he likes it with soda and ANYTHING. I ended up combining all the jars together. The un-sugared jars smelled too strongly of the bad aromas of gin and the sugared jars smelled delightful. Mixed together its just right.

I can see that other people are wondering where to get sloe berries because this blog gets some traffic from searches about sloe berries. I looked high and low and could not find a supplier in North America. If you want to try using dried sloes I would suggest using the phone (strange, I know) to call home-brew suppliers in the UK. They may be willing to ship you some and label the box with something like “totally no fruit in here, officer”, or something to that effect.

Sickles

Day 1 of 2 making sweet pickles. I am sick with a pretty snotty cold. I am washing my hands before starting pickle (or sickle, as I now refer to it in my head) prep. I think the vinegar will take care of any remaining germs.

Anyways. The recipe maddeningly calls for 4 quarts of cucumbers. I am making these notes here so that I can remember this for next year. One 10lb bag of pickling cukes slices into 9 quarts of soon-to-be-pickles, plus a quart of onions means that tomorrow I am making a 2.5x batch of sweet sickles. At the rate my sister and I eat these I bet they will last about six months. (Ask us about the crackers/cheese/pickles-with-the-fridge-door-open diet.)

Tartine Bakery

I totally went there. Twice. First time I ate a sandwich and a chocolate tart thingy and one of each of the cookies. No kidding. I did this in stages in front of different groups of people so as not to worry the locals.

My friends, that was the best sandwich I have ever had. I don’t know why. Fresh bread? Quality ingredients? Setting? Snotty hipster service? Probably all of it.

The next day I went back for a fresh fruit tart with almond filling stuff. I caught some other tourists looking at me in the mirror, I think because my eyes rolled back in my head many times as I was eating it.

I suppose I should start working off those 3000 calories. Diet starts tomorrow and ends as soon as I go on another electro-gastro-trip.

Bike Rave 2.0

The premise is simple. Cover yourself and your bike with lights and shiny things, then go for a ride with a few hundred new friends. Oh yah and periodically stop to dance. Also showcase your road-pop mixing skills.

Miso Gravy

If you live in Vancouver hopefully you have eaten at The Naam. Personally I have eaten there many times but think I’ve only eaten two things on the menu. The first thing has faded in distant memory because the second thing was the Gold Dragon Bowl.

The magic of the Gold Dragon Bowl is, without question, the miso gravy. You can buy miso gravy in a bottle in the store for about $6 a bottle and it will be gone in two meals. I started making my own a few months ago and I won’t go back to buying. Rarely do I go through the process of making the full Gold Dragon Bowl but miso gravy goes on everything. Typical dinner is a starch (rice, quinoa or roasted taters), steamed or roasted veggies (broccoli, beets, carrots), grated cheese, tofu (fried or plain) and a topping of fresh sprouts (bean or alfalfa). Oh yah and a metric crap-ton of miso gravy.

• 4 tbsp miso paste
• 2 c veggie stock
• 1/4 c veggie oil
• 2 tbsp sesame oil
• 1/8 c apple cider vinegar
• 2 tbsp soy sauce (optional substitute tamari)
• 1/8 c honey or maple syrup
• 2 tsp sambal olek (chili paste, i use sweet chili sauce)
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 tbsp grated ginger
• optional 2 tbsp red star nutritional yeast
• flour or corn starch & water for thickening

Mix all ingredients except flour in a small saucepan. Heat on medium until just before boiling. Turn the heat down, mix the flour (or corn starch) and water and add to the gravy until desired consistency is reached, whisking continuously. Cover bowl of yummy stuff with gravy and be happy.

I think leftovers could be stored in the freezer but I haven’t had any leftovers yet so I’m not too sure about that.