Oh, for an Opposable Thumb

with an opposable thumb he could sip a martini too. 

RITUALS

I like a certain amount of ritual. Ritual is comforting. It unites people in purpose, allows them to celebrate their commonality even in the midst of diversity, and all but eliminates the sometimes nasty surprises that punctuate the rest of our lives.

I remember pointing this out to a young woman at a party when I was in college many years ago. She had just handed me a joint, which was traveling around the room from person to person. I saw it coming. I knew what to do with it. It dawned on me in the midst of it—it was not my first toke at this particular party—that the familiarity of the process was as comforting as the drug itself.

“Don't you think it's interesting,” I asked, “how ceremonial this is?”

“Ceremonial? You mean smoking dope?”

“Yes. It's practically sacramental. Everyone does it the same way. There are conventions. Differences are just variations on a theme. Deviation is frowned upon.”

“Huh?”

At this point I realized that, not only was the young woman already beyond understanding my insight, the fellow next to me was studiously frowning upon my deviation from accepted practice. I was waving the joint around in the air while I tried to explain myself when I should already have passed it along to him.

He may also have been thinking that I was trying to leverage high-toned philosophy into a romantic dalliance with the young woman in question. Possibly it was lost on him that my philosophy was lost on her. In any event, I passed the reefer along and quit talking for the duration of the party. No dalliance happened.

Some years later, when I had given up marijuana as the idle pursuit of the young and stupid, the senior partner of the CPA firm I was working for invited me to his church for Easter services. His church was a brand new structure of glass and steel nestled into several thousand acres of reclaimed Florida orange grove. It was huge and imposing and had attracted a large flock of faithful contributors.

By this time I was already a devout practicing Catholic, and so I was reluctant to spend any time in a Protestant church where I was sure to hear something that would offend my papist inclinations. The senior partner was trying to be persuasive.

“It's really going to be impressive,” he said. “There will be a complete orchestra, and a guy is going to come up out of the floor of the sanctuary on a white horse—just like the second coming in Revelations.”

“Sounds spectacular,” I said. “but it also sounds a lot like pageantry. I actually prefer something a little more liturgical.”

The senior partner never treated me quite the same way after that exchange. In retrospect, I probably should have tried to sound a little less superior, a little less judgmental. I had managed to denigrate the man's religious sensibilities, which were at least sincere if somewhat misguided.

My preference was for the familiarity of ritual—in this case a remembrance of and celebration of Christ's Resurrection from the tomb and the cementing of the Paschal sacrifice. The partner's preference was for a spectacle that embraced the Apocalypse as well as the Resurrection. Nothing says triumph quite like a guy on a white horse.

On the other hand, nothing turns religion into a circus quite like bringing animals into church. I think it's just asking for a surprise calculated to test your faith beyond its endurance. A horse in church is just one step removed from poisonous serpents, and vipers in church are just one step past full-on crazy.

I bring all this up because I have been thinking about rituals (again) lately—since my wife pointed out that I have made a ritual of preparing my morning latte and my evening martini. She said that I seem to enjoy the process as much as the resulting beverages. She is exactly right. Each one has assumed the Zen aspect of a Japanese Tea Ceremony for me. There are precise steps in a precise order, and if I'm somehow forced to diverge from the established way of things I get flummoxed.

first time out with my new
espresso machine. aficionados
will note that I didn't know
what I was doing yet.

A proper latte requires, in my world at least, nine vessels and about 15 minutes. I have to drink it in less time than it takes to make it or it will get cold. I have a manual espresso press, so I have to use separate mechanisms to heat the water and the milk. I need to heat fresh, filtered water in a tea kettle. The milk and a little stevia to sweeten goes into a Pyrex measuring cup, which is microwaved for 80 seconds. The milk is then foamed with a foam pump. When the water boils, I pour some into both the espresso press and the cup I will drink from to warm them up. My big cup won't fit under the filter basket, so I need to use a separate small ceramic pitcher for the final pull. I warm this up too. With everything properly warmed, it's time to pack the coffee into the filter basket. I buy whole beans, and grind them myself—40 seconds in the grinder does the trick. I then pack the ground coffee into the filter basket, reattach the basket to the press, add hot water (now properly just off the boil), and pull a double shot into the ceramic pitcher. Now I pour the coffee into my warm cup, and add the hot foamy milk. Final step is to stir it all together and enjoy.

I fully understand that for most people this is one hell of a lot of work to go to to get one simple cup of coffee. My response is: 1) it's not a simple cup of coffee, and 2) if you don't enjoy the process you're missing the point.

A proper martini at my house only requires six vessels, and the process goes a lot faster than the construction of a latte, but it is somehow more ethereal and satisfying in the end. I don't think this is solely because 'spirits' are involved.

I've written elsewhere on my blog about how I make a martini. You can read more about it HERE if you're interested. What's important to know is this: I swear to you that I can stand next to another person making martinis, and even though we both use exactly the same ingredients in exactly the same proportions, added in exactly the same order, our martinis will taste different. I like to think that mine will be better, but that is probably just a matter of personal preference.

I think that there is a fourth ingredient to a proper martini, beyond gin, vermouth, and garnish, that is not measurable nor discernible. That ingredient is where the ethereal comes into play. I don't even know what it is. It may be love. It may be purity of heart. It may be reverence for the ritual. I don't know, but I do know that whatever it is, it makes a difference, and that difference shapes a lot of my life.

I'm not about to abandon the rituals I've embraced, and at my age I'm probably not going to embrace any new ones either. This doesn't mean I won't change. I certainly will. Change for me has its own attendant rituals, which, practiced with sufficient reverence, render it more charming than surprising, more celebratory than fearsome. I'm happy to change, but I still don't like nasty surprises. Whatever changes I make, you can be certain that I won't be riding a white horse or bringing any vipers to church.

Cocktails with Bean

My dog, Bean, continues to grow more civilized as time passes. So it is with me too, I suppose. We both look to cultural conventions to help knock off our rough edges. Bean's latest nod to sophistication is the preprandial cocktail.

 My usual dinner-time routine is to feed Bean, start dinner for us humans, and after I've got things simmering, to build myself a martini. Regular readers will know that I prefer mine shaken vigorously with ice until my hand hurts from the cold. When I'm finished with the shaking and the martini is poured into a chilled glass, the cocktail shaker is full of melty ice cubes infused with a bit of gin and vermouth. Several weeks ago I started giving a few of these to Bean to enjoy while I'm sipping my drink. He loves ice cubes - always has - but this ritual sharing of well-chilled martini juice has apparently elevated his enjoyment to a whole new level.

My long passed cat, Russeau, who lived to be twenty, used to lick the olives in the bottom of my empty martini glass. I thought this curious when he first did it, but over time it became a bonding thing between us. I love olives myself, but I was willing to forego the pleasure of eating them in order to provide Russeau his own modest enjoyment. It's sad that Russeau and Bean never met. I think they would have enjoyed one another's company.

Anyway, the thing about Bean and the ice in the cocktail shaker is that now he is refusing to eat his dinner until he's had his cube-tini. He'll nibble around a bit, biding his time and checking on my progress, but he won't commit to the food in his bowl until I give him his ice. If he gets tired of waiting, he will go have a lie down until he hears the cocktail shaker rattling the call to mess. Then he gallops into the kitchen for his wee taste. Who'da thunk this possible? I don't know, but I gotta tell ya, it's just one more reason to love my dog.

The Aimless Martini

THE AIMLESS MARTINI

This is a martini that pretends not to know what it is all about, but which achieves that sublime aimlessness with an air of sophistication and assurance. Half way through your second glass you will attain a sense of entitlement that cannot be eroded by realization of your actual station in life. On a really good day this feeling will last until the end of the glass, but while this window of opportunity is open for only a short time, it is open very wide.

• Fill a martini glass with cracked ice and water
• Fill a cocktail shaker with cracked ice
• Add 2 measures of quality dry gin, 1 measure of vodka, 1 measure of dry white vermouth, and a splash of scotch whiskey. (You can play with the scotch here according to taste. Blended scotch is fine. A smokey single malt like Laphroaig or Lagavulin add a whole new level of complication. For something completely different, try Loch Dhu, the black whiskey.)
• Cap the shaker and shake vigorously until the cold begins to make your hand ache
• Empty the ice water from the martini glass
• Strain the martini into the glass
• Garnish with 2 kalamata olives, pitted and stuffed with scotch soaked golden raisins. (This is the soul of aimlessness. This is my invention. You can't buy these anywhere. You have to make them. You have to start the day before you are going to use them so it requires a concentrated and purposeful brand of aimlessness. Use the scotch you are going to use in the drink itself. Cover a handful of golden raisins with the scotch and let sit overnight. Stuff the raisins by hand into fat, pitted kalamata olives. This requires some finesse when the raisins are plumped up with scotch. Do this before you start drinking...just saying.)
• Enjoy responsibly

Day 71 - The Perfect Martini

          There was nothing on the boards worth applying to today. I applied to two postings anyway. I just want to make something happen. I’m not going to be happy with this process until someone somewhere flies me someplace for an interview. I hate to fly, but I need that level of commitment from a prospective employer just to get comfortable with the idea that I am still a marketable commodity. All these young recruiters with ADHD who are telling me that I am marketable do not have any credibility with me. I don’t think some of them even know what marketable means.

          I posted another article with Triond. This one is a recipe for a gin martini. I love a proper gin martini. I used to drink malt scotch, and still do on occasion, but I have a friend in Oklahoma who turned me on to martinis made with Bombay gin and I’ve been hooked ever since. My friend drinks scotch in the winter, switches to martinis in the spring and back to scotch on his birthday in the fall. I did that for a while, but I don’t switch back and forth according to seasonal dictates anymore. I just stick with the martinis year round. I rarely drink more than one; never more than two. I find that anything more than two completely undoes the level of sophistication and civility imparted by just enough martinis—in my case just two. Here is the article I posted:

THE PERFECT MARTINI

A philosophical guide to (and recipes for) the most sophisticated, sublime, and American of cocktails

There are probably as many perfect martini recipes as there are martini drinkers—an unusual state of affairs when you consider that the drink has only two basic ingredients. It is hard to imagine, though still true, that something so simple could have so many and such a wide range of outcomes—from heavenly to truly appalling.

Conceptually the perfect martini is a fairly static and well established thing. In execution however, perfection becomes mercurial, ethereal, elusive…impossible even. Two bartenders with the same recipe, the same utensils, and identical ingredients will invariably produce noticeably different results. I believe that a martini in the making is capable of absorbing the philosophical and cultural sensibilities of the maker, and that the flavor of the finished product is as dependent on these as it is on chemistry. For this reason it is important to make a martini with love in the heart. One should neither build nor drink a martini when one is feeling the slightest tinge of self-loathing. And neither should one ever offer a martini to someone for whom he or she does not feel the highest and purest affection.

Another important point to consider is that the modern martini has lost its cache of sophistication. It has come to be regarded as a catapult to oblivion rather than a culturally refined beverage. For the uninitiated the martini has come to symbolize the problem-drinker’s drink—a brutish concoction whose purpose is to rocket the imbiber to a whole other galaxy of reality. This appears to have started with the misguided attempts of wags and sots to humorously portray vermouth as an enemy of the “dry” martini. In a strange twist of events that have ruined the classic martini and very likely contributed to the decline of civilization, these jokes have, over time, become cocktail gospel.  You’ve no doubt heard them. Here are two:

·        Fill a glass with gin and wave the cork from a bottle of vermouth over the surface

·        Fill a glass with gin and whisper the word “vermouth” to it

Vermouth is not the enemy. In fact the martini is meant to be a marriage of gin and vermouth—a harmonious union that recognizes and celebrates the contributions of both ingredients, the enjoyment of which is greater than the sum of its parts. The gin imparts notes of juniper and pine and strength of character to the drink, while the vermouth refines and civilizes it, knocking the rough edges off the gin and producing a result that a friend of mine once described as “the best thing I ever put in my mouth.” The martini is all about sophisticated flavor, not stupefying potency. That it is ultimately capable of knocking you on your backside is a quality that adds to the drink’s mystique. It should be taken into account and respected, but not surrendered to.

The real secret to a perfect martini: don’t be afraid of the vermouth...and don’t forget the love.

Here are my two favorite recipes:

Martini with Olive

This is my usual martini as I like something a little savory—especially before dinner.

• Fill a martini glass with cracked ice and water
• Fill a cocktail shaker with cracked ice
• Add 2 oz. of gin (I prefer Bombay—the lower proof white label variety as opposed to the Sapphire) and ½ to 2/3 oz. dry white vermouth. Note this is a ratio between 3 to 1 and 4 to 1.
• Cap the shaker and shake vigorously until the cold begins to make your hand ache
• Empty the ice water from the martini glass
• Spoon three small or one large pimiento stuffed olive(s) into the glass
• Strain the martini into the glass
• Enjoy responsibly

Martini with a Twist

I love this one on special occasions. It is nuanced with sweet citrus notes, and has a clean and exceptionally refreshing finish.

• Prepare sufficient lemon twists to garnish all the martinis you intend to make. I use a potato peeler to get paper thin slabs of peel with none of the white pith that imparts a disagreeable bitterness to the drinks. I then use a sharp paring knife to cut the slab into long thin strips—about 1/16^th inch wide and as long as you can make them. This makes an elegant curl of peel in the glass, and does not overpower the drink with lemon oil. You can’t get this kind of twist at most bars, and the result is generally a ruined drink. Once I pointed out to a bartender that if I had wanted lemonade I wouldn’t have ordered a martini. He wasn’t very agreeable after that, but then neither was his martini.
• Fill a martini glass with cracked ice and water
• Fill a cocktail shaker with cracked ice
• Add 2 oz. of gin (I prefer Bombay—the lower proof white label variety as opposed to the Sapphire) and ½ to 2/3 oz. dry white vermouth. Note this is a ratio between 3 to 1 and 4 to 1.
• Cap the shaker and shake vigorously until the cold begins to make your hand ache

• Empty the ice water from the martini glass
• Add splash of Triple Sec, Cointreau, or Grand Marnier to the martini glass, swirl it around to coat the inside of the glass, and discard
• Strain the martini into the glass
• Garnish with a twist of lemon peel
• Enjoy responsibly

Again, we’ll see what happens.

Float Trip

Let's take a break from the aimlessness of joblessness, and explore the roots of aimlessness as the philosophy of peace. For your consideration: a poem I wrote for my wife on the occasion of our 11th wedding anniversary in 1994.

FLOAT TRIP

Me and my China Doll

bob and turn on the flood,

adrift on the float trip of our lives.

Sometimes

abused by storms,

shunted by currents,

scorched by the heat of our ambition

in strange places far from what we dreamed.

Still

we stop at marvels and beauty,

explore together where we may land,

and

rejoice in the kisses of angels,

which we share like candies,

gorging our grins.

Because

we are one

always

and we know

we cannot be sunk.

(c) 1994 Jonah Gibson

It would seem that I already knew then what I'm learning now, but didn't know what I knew. Aimlessness in its seminal form. 

Exciting new developments in aimlessness coming soon. Look for:

• aimless apparel
• aimless gift items
• the aimless martini