I took my first shot at vodka cream sauce this weekend. It was the result of still having about a cup left sitting in the fifth of vodka I'd bought for a party three years ago.
This was easy, and it came out awesome. Also, the alcohol is boiled out, so don't sweat that if you decide to try to make it.
You'll need:
• olive oil
• garlic
• vodka
• cream (about twice as much cream as vodka)
• diced tomatoes (I was feeling lazy so I used a 16-oz can)
• basil, thyme, oregano
• I like it spicy, so I also added some chili paste and crushed red pepper
Roast the garlic in the olive oil. Drain some of the liquid from the tomatoes, and add it to the pot. Bring to a simmer. Add vodka, cream, and spaces, bring to a boil, then bring it down to a simmer. Let it simmer for a while so the alcohol boils out.
Cook the chicken in the sauce so that it absorbs the flavor.
Pour over pasta.
Note: I roasted whole cloves of garlic and left them in. I happen to enjoy my garlic, so no big deal if I had forked a clove of garlic instead of a small piece of chicken. If you're cooking for guests, maybe you want to crush the garlic, or fish it out before adding the vodka and cream.
An email came to me this morning that reminded me of a conversation I had had several years ago, and posted on an old blog of mine. I'm going to recreate that here for you, because it was an interesting night. The conversation was composed on one of those pads servers at restaurants carry around.
The Poet's words are in bold; mine are in italics.
What/and how macchiato?
espresso, dollop of foam.
Why/and how don't these barristas know this —? Cappucino?
they've all been to starbucks. Not macchiatos.
When at [starbucks] I speak the following: "Doppio macchiato, extra dry"
Or ask for SHORT cappucino
[The Poet nods] Café au lait
coffee, steamed milk, even proportions
Mountains?
I'm a fake professional Drinking decaf tea
Kerouac standing@desola-
tion peak updside down
why are we all upside down
That book damN Near put me off kerouac forever
Words? —
The assembled, in their particular order. Never before
Have I stuck with one book for three months
I read all books in random order these days, sometimes moving from the middle to the beginning and then end
these days it's only been working if i swallow them darn near whole. lots of chuck palahniuk
I like bhikku
Not read. trying for fiction. been TOO many years
Poetic language theory Wittgenstein, speak-ing about gradation of language utilitarian, vs. litererary —
language — particularly the language of politics — has been fascinating me of late
it is a class of language all its own a very researched, intended
AND spoken in words that don't mean the things they are purported To express
— maybe silence answers languages longing
if silence = lack of WORDS and MOVEMENT, (NOT) the dictionary definition: lack of sound
— yes, inner silence, in which sounds exist as they will, word not as they never have
Not named; but can inner silence negate the need/desire for communication in the form of language? Will we [NOT] want still, to find words, even in our minds, to describe that which we feel?
we are void, and within there is no mind — but
(flip)
in the event we need to achieve "communication" information is, therefore directly perceptible
How, then, can such communication be conveyed — as in, with intent?
by merging with intent intent precedes will
must we then will our intent in varying directions, to be absorbed by only those the communication is intended for?
How does space describe direction?
it does not. content leaves source bound in direction, must pass through space to reach recipient; intended or not
— So, by be-ing mergéd w/intent, which is pure existence — absolute — intent is the:form=content, then the answer is seen as; how does the presence of the universe make our presence within it known —
this is progress of consciousness. this is the only communication
(flip)
(the apperception of) Love.
Love i see, understand, feel, convey without intent; convey sometimes without intent and there-fore, communication without intent [may be] love (is?) but with, more perceptibly love — though perhaps hate — and only that which is intentionally conveyed can most assuredly be almost un-love, but for the unconveyed
indifference
I understand that Love is awareness of various focul points the know-ing of how to move between such it is as the greater "intent" it is the know-ing same love to the universe is aware—ness, impersonal
what is a "person loving" anyways? I AM
the Universe
person loving = all, in their purest, knowing, un-knowing, whichever, both, universe (or not)
You're born, you die, and in between there's maintenance.
— Tom Robbins
The being born thing kind of happened to me, and the die thing is going to happen to me as well, so ostensibly, I'm probably in charge of the maintenance thing. I mean, one of the three isn't too much to ask of someone, right?
Clearly, I'm not real good at the maintenance thing. I watch my weight do weird things, I've been known at times to develop odd sleeping and eating habits, and I'll put my body through athletic feats it's not at all interested in. And after that, I get on my bike and ride 10 miles.
Dumbass.
So I've been eating better and trying to get on a regular sleep schedule (no TV's helping that, as it happens – not only am I not tempted to stay up and watch another History Channel special, I haven't been laying on the couch all day).
And I'm asking the good people down at to help me out with the stupid crap I do athletically.
When I wrote about my first visit, I mentioned that Melissa Heavener had found something in my hips I couldn't feel, and as I drove downtown Saturday morning for an hour-long session, I found it: my left hip was against the seat back, but my right hip wasn't anywhere close.
Melissa did a lot of work on my hips and lower back, and I feel like I'm learning to move again.
In general, actually, I'm learning a lot about my body. Where things are, where things were, where things are returning (hopefully).
And I'm learning something about massage therapy, which as a field is something new to me (it's relatively new as a specialty in general, actually). It's really an athletic challenge, and Melissa told me that most therapists can handle only 20-25 hours of massage work a week. Which, by the way, is a lot. Imagine if you spent three hours a day, every day, at the gym, not including your stretching, warm-ups, cool-downs, and refueling/rehydration breaks.
You'd be on the low end of that scale.
That's just crazy talk.
Anyway, I'm paying a lot more attention to my posture. And I may restructure my workstation at the office (although I've put it in a fairly comfortable setup, it turns out).
takes care of her neighbors' cats sometimes.
Which is great, because one of those neighbors is , a trumpeter with the , who came up with some tickets to last night's concert, which featured , and .
All three men were Londoners, and were contemporaries for a while.
The night started for us at for dinner. As we waited for a table, we met Lou Lemos, director of the women's choir that performs from backstage during the Neptune movement of Holst's The Planets.
Lou explained to us the timing of that direction. The conductor is leading the symphony, which is a fraction of a second behind the conductor, because you have to react to what you're seeing. Lou is backstage with a monitor, watching the conductor on a delay that's a fraction of a second behind the symphony.
And since he knows the choir will be a fraction of a second behind him, he has to direct a fraction of a second ahead of what he's watching on the monitor.
Elgar's opened the night. It's a bit of a ride, but if you tried to pronounce it, you might have realized it comes out sounding like "cocaine," which is apparently how they were spelling it before Daniel Webster's work made it back across the pond. This explains the ride.
Something I learned from the program: cockney sounds suspiciously close to cockaigne. As in, those dumb lower class schmucks are high all the time.
Guest conductor , who directs the Austin Symphony, showed more movement in front of that piece than you typically see on any four treadmills.
There was then a lot of shuffling around, and when the dust cleared, we were left with strings and flute soloist for Jacob's .
I thought it was fun. Libby, not being a fan of the flute – and being a fan of percussion, which was conspicuously absent – appeared pretty closed to violence. (Not really. But she wasn't happy with it.)
During intermission, a screen came down to prepare for some NASA visuals to accompany Holst's The Planets (here's , which can be rather regal).
I'm a fan of the piece, which apparently Holst figured would never be performed, so he wrote it for an "impossibly large" orchestra. Then he got all sorts of famous and miserable. The one thing I'm not crazy about is that the Neptune movement, which ends the piece, is like walking into the middle of a Phish concert after walking out of the Rolling Stones – the music's lovely, but it's been straight ahead rock and ballads all night, and all of a sudden you're in the middle of a sea of constantly modulating experimentation.
OK, that was overkill, but pretty artful for a Sunday morning, no?
I'm split between Mars and Jupiter as my favorite planets. I love a dark, evil overture (Mars was John Williams' inspiration for the Imperial theme from Star Wars), but I also love a majestic piece that doesn't wreak of Hail-to-the-Chief-like pomp.
This multimedia performance has been done a lot across the country, and while I like the idea, well, as someone who does some imagery and knows what's possible, I wasn't a big fan of the rear-projection visuals.
An animation flying out from earth to each of the planets at the start of each movement was pretty cool. But from there, it went downhill. A close-up of the planet being performed rotated in the background (except Saturn and Neptune, which were still images), while various photos and illustrations of the planet, or a Mars rover, or stars or the Milky Way, or whatever, were laid over the backgrounds, with no manipulation done.
Envision, if you will, having an 8x10 photo on the floor, and then laying a 4x6 on top of it.
The music was amazing, but honestly, for a nearly 2.5-hour program, I would have preferred a 7:00 start time to an 8:00 start time. In all, I'll give the evening an 8, although I have to say bonus points were included for the company.
We finally managed to get all the model releases signed, and we can now present to you the video. Check it out, pass it along, embed it on your blog, donate to the cause, get these kids a skate park!