John Wulff

Making cocktails is fun. Came up with this one last night when Courtney asked for an herbal beverage.

Ingredients

• 1 small sprig of rosemary, 2 or 3 inches long, for garnish
• leaves from 1 large sprig rosemary (dozens of leaves)
• leaves from 1 sprig parsley (4 or 5 leaves)
• 2 TB sugar
• juice from a quarter of a lime
• 4 oz Dry Fly Washington Wheat Vodka

Directions

1. Put leaves, sugar, lime juice, and 1/2 oz vodka in mortar and pestle. Grind until sugar dissolves and rosemary looks well pulverized.
2. Pour mortar's contents into cocktail shaker filled with ice along with remaining vodka. Shake vigorously.
3. Strain into chilled martini glass and garnish with small rosemary sprig.

One of my favorite breakfasts: poached eggs in a nest. I've been ordering this for years at Roses. Recently my dad started making it at home. Inspired by him, I gave it a try. It went very well!

Recipe:

1. Grate potatoes
2. Squeeze the heck out of the shredded potato (make a ball with your hands, squeeze) to remove as much moisture as possible
3. Toss salt and pepper with shredded potato to taste, add green onions if you'd like
4. Heat skillet medium-low, add butter, heat should be well below smoke point, butter should NOT burn/brown
5. Evenly distribute shredded potato in hot skillet, lightly pack
6. Flip potatoes when nicely browned, add more butter for new side (To keep potatoes from breaking up cover pan with cookie sheet and flip skillet/cookie sheet so skillet ends up upside down on the cookie sheet. Slide the potatoes back into skillet.)
7. While potatoes finish browning poach egg(s)
8. Plate and enjoy!

Disappointed by the quality of store bought blue cheese stuffed olives I decided to make my own. It’s so much more enjoyable to have a stuffed olive with MY favorite blue cheese than the generic “blue cheese” pre-packaged olives use. I used Point Reyes Original Blue. It’s creamy texture blended well with the cream cheese. I’m also a big fan of St. Agur, I’ll try it next time. But, it’s a little thicker so it may not spread as well.

Ingredients

• 1 10oz Jar Pitted Green Olives
• 1oz Blue Cheese
• 1oz Cream Cheese
• ~10 Peppercorns (adjust to taste)

Directions

• Mix equal parts blue cheese and cream cheese until completely combined.
• Microwave mixture for about 20 seconds until just warm so it will spread easily.
• Spoon mixture into plastic bag, forcing into one corner of the bag.
• Using scissors, cut off the tip of the corner of the bag, making a peppercorn sized hole.

• Drain the olives, reserve their brine in original container.
• Squeeze cheese mixture into each olive and return to original container.

• Add a peppercorns to olive and brine mixture.
• Let sit for a few days (time for peppercorns to season olives and cheese to mellow).
• Enjoy in a martini.

Update on March 22, 2009: Made them again, this time used canned olives (not in a glass jar, canned in metal can). Turns out canned olives are much smaller than the fancy pitted green olives that come in a glass jar. They still turned out all right but they’re awfully small. I recommend springing for the larger, glass jar, pitted green olives.

I started with two 1.5L jugs of apple cider. I poured half of each jug into a saucepan with 2 cups of white sugar and 2 cups of brown sugar. I simmered the mixture until the sugar completely dissolved. Then I let the sugar cider mixture cool to 105 degrees fahrenheit (the yeast I used operates best between 101 and 109). I added 1 packet of champagne yeast to the sugar cider mixture and gave the yeast fifteen minutes to “bloom”.

Then I poured the remaining cider out of jugs into an empty pitcher. I poured half the sugar, cider, and yeast mixture into each jug. Then I topped off each jug with the cider in the pitcher. (I had about two cups cider left over. Courtney mixed it with some cinnamon tea, it didn’t go well.)

Finally, I topped each jug with a balloon and pricked each balloon with a needle. (The balloons act as a poor man’s airlock to keep bacteria out while allowing gases to escape.)

I’ve read it can take anywhere from 3 weeks to 9 months for optimal fermentation. I’ll test one jug in three weeks. Depending on how it tastes the other jug will either be opened in 3 weeks and one day or in 9 months.