my cashflow is very sporadic and I can never rely on accounts
receivable coming in on time so I get really tight if I'm
overdrawn even though I have a good line of credit and then
splurge a bit AFTER the cheque comes in.

once in a while I have to practice what you preach.

The house had been dry for a week and we were stretching out cheap
cuts of pork with black beans and rice (not a total hardship if one
has a good Cuban recipe and lots of garlic, chilies and cumin).

The prices of garlic and cumin are up, so that
might be saddening for the next round of hardship.

So I just closed a big sale, wiped out the OD and restocked pantry
and fridge with Wray and Nephew Jamaica Gold, Ungava gin (been
thinking about it ever since Shawn mentioned that brand here
favourably), Creme de Cassis, lemons, limes, a grapefruit and a
pineapple (tiki time), along with some steaks, jumbo shrimp and
lovely cheeses.

And it's a great feeling - like coming to the end
of a long and boring walk down a desolate road. Or
those 17 days in the hospital this January.

when Canada flirted with prohibition briefly [...] Quebec
stayed wet [and] when Canada recently considered banning
raw milk cheeses, Quebec stood firm in resisting that move.

With that evidence, it's up to la plus belle province,

Those Pepsi swilling web-foots do have their good points. [g]

I knew a guy who used to take his family on these
marathon car trips across the country, between home
in Coquitlam sometimes as far as the Maritimes and
back, and he used to describe how the food changed
as soon as they crossed the border into Quebec, so
from Nova Scotia they'd try to hold it, as it were,
across New Brunswick until they hit Degelis or
something like that, and there would then be feasting
and fun for a few hundred miles to load up on good
experiences for the remaining 2000 miles.

Raw milk cheese is perfectly safe if aged at least 60 days.

Raw milk cheese is 99.9% perfectly safe in all circumstances.

I'm not sure what the rules are in France but in Canada cheese must
either be aged at least 60 days or be made from pasteurized milk.
Of course that's if it is being sold. If you own a cow what you do
in your own kitchen is your own business.

If you own a cow with TB you're in enough
trouble already.

Where I grew up there was a small independent cheese factory not far
away that turned out some very nice Cheddar. If you were known you
could always buy young raw milk cheese at the back door for cash.
It was commonly referred to as bootleg cheese. Mom wouldn't allow it
in the house as she had had a bout of TB as a child which was
attributed to raw milk but I disobediently ate it at other people's
places all the time.

And didn't die. Or even get a substantial cough.

tuna and chickpea bhaji
cat: snack, Indian, Chinese

Chinese?

Source: moi

Uh, OK then.

What did you expect?

So I have all these tiki drink ingredients on hand and started
pondering how to start off. I hadn't had a pina colada in decades
and had been reading about the Painkiller. Apparently it was
invented as a morning drink, a hangover cure, by a Daphne Henderson
at the Soggy Dollar Bar (which still exists, I just googled it) in
the Sandcastle Hotel at White Bay on Jost Van Dyke island in the
British Virgin Islands.

Tonight it's the Provocateur bar, where I think
a Chocked is in my future, as I sometimes like
weird sweet drinks, followed by a Rittenhouse Rye
as a palate cleanser, which is available at a
"chockingly" reasonable rate. http://provocateur-hotel.com/downloads/provocateur_barkarte.pdf

Title: Painkiller and variations
2 oz Pusser's Dark Rum

That's more like a minor ache soother.

The first one I made, I inadvertently reversed the ratio of orange
and pineapple juice. Then I made one the "right" way. I also used
gold not dark rum and unsweetened (canned) coconut milk. My final
version which I was quite happy with:

The gold not dark would make a considerable difference,
the coconut liquids also; the reversal of juices not
so much.

1/2 oz Fireball cinnamon whisky
Fireball is nasty straight up no matter what the Millenials claim
but can be nice in some mixed drinks in VERY modest amounts.

Had a beverage at breakfast (!) today that might be
interesting in a tiki drink - banana juice cocktail,
which is 25% bananas and the rest sugar water, which
is worse for you but cuts the cloyingness and weird
texture of the pure fruit. This was at the Cosmo Hotel
Berlin, whose breakfast offered cheeses and cold cuts,
which I didn't eat any of because of having overdosed
on sodium last night, fresh pineapple, watermelon, kiwi,
strawberries, cherries, apples, pears, nectarines, and
extremely good croissants. Nuts of all sorts. Eggplant,
tomato, pepper, and cucumber pickles (I didn't have any
for the sodium hit). Odd juices, including a vegetable
medley whose greenness I could smell from a foot away.
All organic.

Le provocateur
categories: booze
servings: 1

2 oz Maker's Mark
1 1/2 oz Mathilde Poire
1/2 oz DeKuyper Peachtree Schnapps
1/2 oz fresh lime juice
2 ds bitters
Garnish pear slice

Pour all ingredients in a shaker full of ice.
Shake vigorously for 20 sec. Strain into a
chilled martini glass. Garnish with a freshly
cut slice of pear.

Maker's Mark via thecocktailproject.com
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