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Lightly Toasted: Chronicles of the Friday Night Cocktail Club

 
Dec. 9, 2009 1:56 pm 
Updated: Dec. 10, 2009 9:53 am
 Seventeen-thousand years ago, had you been wandering around in that field where I’m pictured below (beside the enormous “K”), you would almost surely have benefitted from scuba gear, as well as from an unusually lar MORE
my illegible chalkmap of WA, showing the columbia river, the flood route, gap, and walla walla
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Tasting a barrel of Cab at Tamarack Cellars
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holding up a stone at K Vintner, Walla Walla, WA
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The Bunkhouse, Abeja, Walla Walla, WA
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Dec. 5, 2009 8:06 am 
Updated: Dec. 8, 2009 7:47 pm
Seventy-seven years ago Sunday (December 6), a senator from Wisconsin, John J. Blaine, drafted the amendment to the Constitution that would repeal Prohibition. To celebrate, pour yourself a stiff one and let’s have us a little Prohibition Quiz*: 1) Which amendment to th MORE
 
 
Nov. 20, 2009 10:56 am 
Updated: Nov. 22, 2009 5:03 pm
The chatter begins around late August. Where’s Thanksgiving this year? Seattle? Portland? Idaho? Tucson? And every year it’s the same. It doesn’t matter who’s hosting, at the first hint of family getting together, SLS and I quickly volunteer to do the cooking. To the ears of parents and… MORE
 
 
Nov. 12, 2009 4:06 pm 
Updated: Nov. 21, 2009 9:18 am
Back when America was just a pup, it was seriously awash in booze. I’m talking late 18th, early 19th centuries, when people were regularly drinking with the dawn and carrying on well into the evening, when presumably they fell on their noses. President Thomas Jefferson, for one, was sure that… MORE
sick and wrong
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Nov. 5, 2009 10:38 am 
Updated: Nov. 8, 2009 4:31 am
Nobody wants to play with me. It all started a couple years ago, when a friend, Joyce, sent me the published version of a food trivia game she’d created and sold to Chronicle Books. It’s called “Foodie Fight,” and it’s a truckload of fun. I enjoy learning things accidentally, under the cover MORE
 
 
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Oct. 28, 2009 10:35 am 
Updated: Oct. 29, 2009 8:06 am
I don’t do well at Halloween parties. I don’t know why. They should be easy. Halloween parties come with built-in conversation starters: costumes. But I think I just prefer smaller, more intimate crowds. Costumes are distracting. Plus I’ve had bad luck. I went to a party once as Sideshow… MORE
in my country, a black cat stirring your martinis on halloween is considered good luck.
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Oct. 19, 2009 1:42 pm 
Updated: Oct. 26, 2009 7:08 pm
I’m happy that science keeps saying such nice things about red wine. It’s like when a stranger mentions she likes my mustache or my rodeo belt buckle. It’s nice, it’s affirming, it makes me feel good about my choices, but it’s not entirely necessary. I’d drink the wine, I’d wear the belt buc MORE
 
 
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Oct. 9, 2009 5:31 pm 
Updated: Oct. 13, 2009 11:22 am
Something is sucking the light out of the sky around here. Autumn in Seattle, and it feels like the end is upon us. Probably we’ve done something to insult the universe, again. About now, we Seattleites share a collective dread; it’s the awareness that there are maybe a handful of days left… MORE
 
 
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Sep. 25, 2009 11:36 am 
Updated: Oct. 9, 2009 7:02 am
That title's not a boozing reference. It’s a reference to how I was smashed into on my bike yesterday morning by a larger, metal-ier vehicle. A minivan, actually. I’m fine, but as I was flying over the minivan’s hood, gliding into that surprisingly elastic space that stretches out… MORE
 
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Sep. 20, 2009 4:50 pm 
Updated: Sep. 20, 2009 5:01 pm
Over the long Labor Day weekend, the Friday Night Cocktail Club made preserved brandied peaches. My job was to wait  around until most of the preparation was complete, and then swoop in and float some brandy over the tops of the gently cooked, jarred fruit. The r MORE
Brandied Preserved Peaches
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Peach-infused simple syrup
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Peachy Old Fashioneds in mustache glasses.
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My Profile
Lorem Ipsum
 Supporting Member (Click to learn more about Supporting Membership)
Home Town: Seattle, Washington, USA
Member Since: May 2008
Cooking Level: Intermediate
Cooking Interests: Slow Cooking, Italian, Nouvelle, Mediterranean, Healthy, Gourmet
Hobbies: Biking, Photography, Reading Books, Music, Wine Tasting
 
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About Me 
My wife and I and our two devilish kittens live on Capitol Hill in Seattle. A few years ago, I got a masters in gastronomy. I'm a food/wine writer here at Allrecipes. I’m also blogging about cocktails and tasty cocktail appetizers.
My favorite things to cook
We cook fairly simple dishes using fresh local ingredients that we pick up at the Seattle farmers market. My favorite thing is making a nice slow-braised or long-roasted something on a lazy Sunday afternoon. I like cooking with wine (in the dish and in the glass...and in the cook).
My favorite family cooking traditions
My mom never liked to cook, but she did well despite herself. Her mother, my omi, was from Munich and made delicious rouladen, sauerbraten and other traditional German and American dishes. Always bins and bins of home-baked cookies at Christmas. Wonderful rye bread. And beer. Opa would say, "Brotzeit ist die beste zeit."
My cooking triumphs
We’ve made the signature timpano dish from The Big Night a couple times. And for Thanksgiving 2007, we made Turducken. My wife and I are always volunteering to cook the big holiday meals with the family. We mix a signature cocktail, and get down to it.
My cooking tragedies
I made Thanksgiving Dinner for myself once when I was snowed-in in Denver. I nearly burned down the neighborhood.
 
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