47/52 - All for a side

 

A couple of years ago, I did a different sort of 52-project. I cooked at least one new thing every week. It could be involved and time consuming or a five-minute tossing together of things. It didn't matter as long as I'd never made it before. I wanted to expand my repertoire. I wanted to rediscover my kitchen. And so I did. 

 

I collected recipes from online blogs; I pulled them from my local newspaper; and I worked out of old and dusty cookbooks. The ones I liked I kept and filed away or PostIt noted and scribbled the changes I'd made directly on the page. In addition to my actual books, I have two looseleaf binders full of recipes. One for those I haven't tried yet but want to. The other for successes. 

 

That went on for the solid year clocking in at something near double my personal requirement of 52. The next year I made the goal as well. And then I drifted back out of my kitchen. I'd leave the house before seven and not get home until after eight. I stopped cooking. 

 

A few weeks ago I finally picked it back up again. It started with a personal challenge. Every morning in February, I will have had a breakfast generated at home, even if it's just grabbing yogurt out of the fridge and eating it at my desk at work. I've only missed on day so far. Sundays I cook up a big batch of... something. Pancakes, mini quiches, this amazing coconut-almond quinoa thing and then my daughter and I chew through it the rest of the week. 

 

Dinner has followed. Not every night but a lot more than I had been. I'm being reminded how much I missed cooking and how much I missed menu planning which is ridiculous because said like that, I can see the former but the latter sounds awful. Until you realize that usually means that you have just this one recipe, say a braised endive from your book club book, that you want to try and it snowballs until you're making crab-stuffed flounder with braised endive served with bread and your favorite riesling for dinner on a Sunday night. 

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Blanton’s Original Single Barrel Bourbon Whiskey

Sweet, practically cloying on the nose but is very Willet-like in its flavor profile. It’s sweet and spicy with a flat, malty finish. I liked it quite a bit.

Jefferson Reserve Very Old Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey, Very Small Batch

It smells and tastes—and I promise, I swear this isn’t necessarily a bad thing—like candied ashtray. It’s cigar or cigarette ash, not even smoke, but it’s faint and is complemented by fruity, vanilla-y sweetness. Definitely one of the more interesting bourbons I’ve tried. My drinking companion for the evening and I kept trading the glass back and forth and squinting at each other over it.

Peach Street Colorado Straight Bourbon Whiskey

Pre-ice it’s very… flat. Like old cinnamon gum flat with some charcoal in there. Post-ice it opens way, WAY up. It’s incredibly spicy. More cinnamon than pepper. Still a bit flat on the back end but it was almost a relief after the punch of spice up front.

Leopold Brothers New York Apple Flavored Whiskey

Sweet. Super sweet. Painfully sweet. And very, very apple-y. More like dessert wine than whiskey. Needs to be cut with… anything. Or sipped daintily out of a tiny dessert wine glass. But if you’re cutting it: Water works. Soda water works. Ginger beer works. Ginger ale works but ginger beer complements better than ginger ale.

Big Bottom Small Batch Straight Bourbon Whiskey Finished in Zinfandel Casks and 
Big Bottom Small Batch Straight Bourbon Whiskey Finished in Port Casks

Love! These were both very good. The zin-finished was a knock out. The zin is prominent all the way through, from nose to finish and is has caramel and chocolate notes in it making it like dessert and it’s complementary wine all in one glass. The port finish is more subtle than the zin but still has a multi-layered, dessert-in-one-glass experience.

High West Whiskey Rendezvous Rye

This may well be my favorite rye.