WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW ....

 Does the world need another book about the martini?

No, probably not. But I do.  Very much indeed. That’s how the Psychogourmet Martini Library thrives and grows and becomes more authoritative.

 

And so we welcome Alice Lascelles’ Martini, subtitled  “the ultimate guide to a cocktail icon,” though of course we all know there’s no ultimate in these matters.

Anyway it’s a damn fine book, with terrific photographs by Laura Edwards, and if Alice Lascelles’ author bio is to be believed, she’s a heck of a girl.

One very important detail: she obviously understands the importance of the glass in which the martini comes, and on her Instagram feed she’s posted photographs of some of her favourite glasses such as these:

And blow me down – I’ve got some glasses very much like that, although admittedly whereas mine are just black and gold, hers are multicoloured.  

Am I bitter and envious? Only a little.

 

And then rearranging the Martini Library, as you have to do when you get a new acquisition, I realized I had this ancient (well 1966, revised 1969) and somewhat distressed volume.  

It’s Booth’s Handbook of Cocktails and Mixed Drinks by John Doxat. This is not a name I’m very familiar with, although I do know that he too wrote a book, evidently not the ultimate, on the martini.  

I can’t say I’ve used Doxat’s book much, but looking at it last week I saw there was a recipe for a cocktail called the Adonis, not a drink I was at all familiar with, though it’s all over the interwebs, and it’s not in any sense a martini, but this being the season of alcoholic experimentation I decided to give it a try.  It requires two parts sherry to one part vermouth, with a dash of bitters.  It looked like this.

 

Adonis photos by Caroline Gannon

And damn, it was really good, really very surprisingly good.

         It’s no substitute for a martini of course, but that’s because nothing is.

GOTTA LOVE YOUR MOTHER

I’ve been continuing to read and enjoy Fuchsia Dunlop’s Invitation to a Banquet (I admit that my fingers keep wanting to type Invitation to a Beheading).

 

And I’ve been especially taken with something she describes called “Loving Mother’s Dish.”

The story goes that there was once a woman whose son travelled to Beijing to sit the imperial civil service exams.  While waiting for his return she prepared his favourite dish, a slow cooked stew of pork and eggs.  

But travelling in imperial China was no better than traveling on British railways and the son didn’t get back on the day he was expected.  She took the stew off the stove, went to bed, and got up next day and simmered it some more on the second day. 

Again the son didn’t arrive so she stewed it some more, but he did arrive on this, the third day. Dunlop writes, “the stew had been heated up three times, and the meat was inconceivably tender and unctuous, the sauce dark and profound.’? All of which I can believe.  But what about the eggs?   

         I have never eaten an egg that’s been stewed for three days but I think the end result would not be profound in any ordinary sense of the word.

       I haven’t been able to find a recipe for “Loving Mother’s Dish” but I did manage to find this on a website called fooddelicacy.com 

It’s braised pork belly and eggs in soya sauce: the cooking time is an hour and 15 minutes.