Sunday, April 24, 2011

Daily Report: Other Than That

I mostly just cleaned today. I watered the flowers. (Just like I promised Mom and Paul, they're quickly dying under my brown-thumbed ministrations.)

I made an appetizer today as part of my attempt to empty out the fridge. Here we have miniature crackers, cheddar, and onion dip made with cream cheese, mayonnaise, and onion soup. Bachelorific culinary score of 6, but minus 2 points for using a recipe on the soup package. Uncle Bob and Paul, when they came for cocktails, did not seem to mind though.

For dinner, I made spaghetti with sauce made from tomato paste, large chunks of bacon, minced jalapeƱo peppers, big onion slices, garlic, and spices. It took about 10 minutes to prepare (not including waiting for water to boil), but only tasted fair. I'll give it a 7 on the originality of ingredients, 6 on the preparation time, and 5 on the taste... so 6 overall.

This evening I made a brandy daisy, a cocktail from the 1870s. In essence, it is a "brandy sour" with a splash of dark rum and orange curacao. Quite a nice cocktail for sipping, if you lean more towards the cognac end of the preference spectrum. (There is also a recipe that uses chartreuse, but that stuff costs $60 a bottle, so I'm sticking with the curacao instead).

After that, I tried a recipe that I found on my local liquor store's (ABC Fine Wine And Spirits) website, called "Reggae". I adjusted the recipe slightly: 1 part vodka, 1 part banana liqueur, 1 part orange juice, 1 part pineapple juice, 1 part grapefruit juice, and a splash of grenadine. Worked out well.

I watched "District 9" on Netflix tonight. Second time I had seen it, and an awesome movie. It actually fills the same cinematic niche that Robocop filled when it first came out. It's fantastic the way it switches from "documentary" to "local television coverage" to "security camera" to "god's eye view" so seamlessly. The location of Johannesburg for the movie is simply perfect, keeping things familiar and alien at the same time. The lead character of Wikus was perfectly cast and written. All in all (the cursing and blood and guts aside) one of the top 10 Sci-Fi movies of the last 10 years.

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