FUSSYlittleSTUFF Open For Business
Instead of your normally scheduled wine post, today I am fulfilling a long-standing threat to provide you access to T-shirts, baseball caps and water bottles emblazoned with the FUSSYlittleBLOG logo.
Declare to the world that you know what is good.
I have also made a few minor changes to help you navigate the shopping area of blog. Now on the list of links on the right hand column, is a category called Buy Stuff.
There you will find a link to the FUSSYlittleSTORE which continues to grow and offer a variety of cookware, barware, books and comestibles. I am proudest of the selection of aromatic cocktail bitters, which are difficult to find even in larger cities than Albany (where they have proven to be impossible to find.)
FUSSYlittleSTUFF has a home there too. Please take a look, and let me know what you think. If there is gear that you would like emblazoned with the FUSSYlittleBLOG logo, drop me a line, and I’ll design something just for you.
The link to Penzeys Spices has also moved to this new location. Some people like to buy local. And I do too. But for spices I buy from Bill.
Enjoy the rest of this beautiful weekend.
How Cheese Came Into My Life: Nana Needs Her Cheese
For those who did not tune in last several Saturdays, this is part five of an ongoing series about how I got so fussy and my ongoing love affair with cheese. Yes, it is a bit self-indulgent. But it does trace one path of my epicurean journey, and give credit to those who got me here.
One of those people is my Nana.
My father’s mother was always been an inspiration. It was she who taught me to eat lobster. It was at her parties where I wolfed down classic hors d’ouvres, like scallops wrapped in bacon. It was her chopped liver that makes me swoon (ok, the chopped liver she bought from the best deli in Great Neck).
If I know what is good, it is only because my Nana knew what was good first.
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The Profussor Responds – Big Week
This feels like a big accomplishment to me, but this is my first blog, so what do I know. But this past week, less than three months out of the gate, the FUSSYlittleBLOG blew past 10,000 page views.
You all have posted over 300 comments. I have written over 60 fussy posts. And it would seem we are gaining momentum. Weekly page views are now about double from when the site launched.
Thank you for your ongoing support, and please keep mentioning the FLB to your friends, family and coworkers. You can also help me spread the word by posting links to articles on your Facebook and Twitter feeds as the spirit moves you. FLB merchandise, T-shirts, baseball caps, and water bottles should be available shortly.
But without further ado, onto the questions:
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The Cocktail With No Name
New cocktails are being invented all the time. Classic drinks based on obscure, extinct libations are being reborn as dedicated distillers are recreating liqueurs that have long been out of production. It’s an exciting time to be a drinker.
It would seem that all the drinkable combinations and permutations of widely available ingredients already have cocktails named for them. For example:
– Rye and Sweet Vermouth is a Manhattan
– Scotch and Sweet Vermouth is a Rob Roy
– Gin and Sweet Vermouth is a Gin and It
And it works with holding the base spirit constant too:
– Gin and Curacao and pineapple is a Hawaiian Cocktail
– Gin and Curacao and lime is a Pegu Club Cocktail
– Gin and Curacao and lemon is a White Lady
Surely Raf will chime in on the subject and I suspect he will nitpick why these drinks aren’t similar at all. But you get the idea.
But recently I stumbled onto a very simple combination of spirits that was delicious and does not seem to be included within the cocktail canon. And while clearly a few people have tried this drink, nobody as far as I can tell has named it. And certainly nobody is out there promoting it.
That is, until today.
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At Least It’s Food
Everybody knows that I care a lot about food. Some of you may know that I used to work in advertising. And a subset of those people will be aware I worked for far too long on the Taco Bell account.
And before you ask, no, I had nothing to do with the Chihuahua. I came on soon after the brand abandoned the popular but ineffective mascot.
Still you may be asking yourself, “How could our Profussor spend his waking hours promoting a fast food company that went against everything he believed in?” And it’s a fair question. If you buy me a drink I’ll tell you the answer.
One morning in the shower, before my first big client meeting, I was stricken with panic. “What will I say if someone asks about my favorite menu item?”
My mind boggled.
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Why Would I Trust Michael Milken?
Michael Milken, the man known as the Junk Bond King in the 1980s, would not be a man from whom you would think I would take food advice.
But he would not have been the Junk Bond King if he were not very persuasive. And that is indeed why I listened to his food advice. Plus the potential reward far exceeded the risks.
I read this article on him in Esquire magazine, and here is a brief synopsis of what it said. Milken had a personal chef make healthier versions of his favorite foods. These replications were so good that he claims to have tricked people into thinking they got the real deal when instead they were given the healthy alternative.
One of these dishes was the Reuben.
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Warming Up To Dim Sum
Everyone has to try something for the first time. Sometimes these events happen in early childhood and are forgotten. Other times they happen in high school and sear themselves into your memory forever.
The later was the case for me with dim sum.
Raf took me to my first dim sum experience when we were in high school. You should note that this was in Miami, which was not widely known for its Chinese food – beyond the sizzling steak and honey chicken at Canton. All the same, Raf being the fussy food guy he was even back then, took me to the best, most authentic place in Miami. I think it was called Tropical Chinese Restaurant.
There are a few dishes I still remember explicitly. The steamed BBQ pork buns and the sticky rice wrapped in a lotus leaf really stand out, mostly because they epitomized the entire experience. I felt, on the whole, that we were being fed yesterday’s leftovers, repackaged in several types of gummy starches.
After that experience I had little interest in trying dim sum ever again.
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Glasses for the Masses
Do wine glasses matter? Yes, they do.
Should you think yourself a philistine if you drink out of a tumbler? Hell no.
And how can those two statements possibly exist in the same universe? I’ll tell you.
Having nice wine glasses is all about enhancing your enjoyment of wine. The key phrase, of course, is “your enjoyment.” Not mine. Not Robert Parker’s or Kathleen Lisson’s or even William Dowd’s. Yours.
Last month I wrote a post that went into detail about my experience in trying the same wine in different shaped glasses. And the truth is that the shape of the glass does change your impression of the wine.
But in reality, it is simply not practical for most people to have multiple sets of wine glasses in every possible shape.
If it’s Saturday, it must be time for another part in what seems to be a never-ending saga of my love affair with cheese.
If you are reading this, it is either by accident and you haven’t read the past three posts where I talked about my fussy childhood, college and post college experiences with cheese. Or you did read those and are just a glutton for punishment.
Today we may very well inspire you to seek out a local cheesemonger again. Or at the very least reconsider what kind of comestibles you serve at cocktail parties.
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Let’s Get Small
Making cocktails requires a lot of ice. I am always amazed at how much ice I go through when I am mixing up drinks. An entire tray of cubes can easily be consumed by two cocktails in the Fussy household.
After all, ice goes into the glasses, with a little bit of water as well, to chill them down. And additional ice goes into the mixing tin. After everything is said and done, even more fresh ice may be added to the drink as well.
Some drinks get shaken. Other drinks get stirred. There is a difference, and you should know it. If you don’t you can read all about it here.
And these days there is a lot being done with using different ice for different jobs. My favorite example is the one very large glass-shaped ice cube used to cool down a short drink without much dilution.
But one goes through all of these orchestrations to satisfy one cardinal truth: cocktails should be cold.
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