Just doing my bit to lower the product cost

Or, as I think of it, being filled with virtue.  And absinthe.




Over the past few years I've developed a fondness for cocktails, like, f'instance, the Wild Irish Rose that I had at Arena Stage when I went to see Ah, Wilderness! which is Irish whiskey and grenadine with a splash of lime juice and topped off with club soda.  And very, very yummy.*


My friends are patient with me and generally treat my fondness for antique beverages the way they do my fondness for referring to the clothes under my clothes as "underpinnings."***


But an article in the March 26 edition of Time magazine**** about mixing Victorian-era cocktails with molecular gastronomy caught my eye with this:

For all the suspenders-wearing, Bettie Page worshipping, retro-countercultural aspects of these bars, the cocktail renaissance was started not by a whiskered young idealist but by cost-conscious industry tycoons:  the late Joseph Baum and his partner Michael Whiteman, who created some of the world’s top-grossing restaurants (including Windows on the World) and took fast food courts to Europe and Japan. In 1985, when they were mulling the relaunch of the legendary Rainbow Room, they started looking into 19th and early 20th century drinks, in part because they knew the modern value of a good cocktaiL “It makes a festive beginning for the guest and for the owner carries a product cost of between 15% and 18% [of the menu price] with close to zippo labor cost,” Whiteman says. “This compares with food that typically has a product cost of around 27% to 33% and labor cost of another 30% to 35%." While you may need only one bartender, the kitchen has to have an army of dishwashers, busboys servers and cooks. “A really good cocktail,” Whiteman says, “will marry well with a restaurant’s first courses so people will order a second rather than automatically shifting to lower-margin wines.”  Those kinds of calculations help explain why most good restaurants have a bar—and why many of them work up a bar menu just to feed drinkers and dawdlers. 

I certainly realized that all the fun libations were not suddenly all over menus just to please me (they could please me more simply by not adding flour to dishes I could otherwise order...) and I certainly knew that the mark up on booze is never far from the owner's thoughts, but I didn't realize exactly how much I was helping the bottom line by asking for a Side Car.  




* Of course, when I'm part of a group and want to order something that requires no explanation, my go-to drinks remain Scotch (or whiskey) up with rocks on the side; gin & tonic; a Tom Collins; a Martini; or a Shirley Temple.**


** No, not all in the same evening.  Of course not.  Don't be silly.


****I would link to the article, especially as it has a video of a rather steampunk device (a "balancier") that makes "teeter-totter tea," but their website is a pain and a half, so no.


**** And I was rather touched to see that Eddie Bauer had named their new line of sheer tops "underpinnings."*****


**** Yes, of course, I bought some.  Darn cute they are.

Energy Circle

A common tradition in community theater - especially community theater involving children - is the "Energy Circle": the cast and crew gather together in a big circle and hold hands. After a few words about having a great show and maybe a suggestion about staying focused, the Director squeezes one of the hands s/he is holding. That person then squeezes the next person's hand and so on, sending the energy surge around the circle, all the way back to the person who started it.

My role in The Best Christmas Pageant Ever is playing one of the Church Ladies, a small group of women who serve as the critical, judgmental Greek Chorus. When the Director announced the Energy Circle and one of the Stage Managers came to round every one up, one of the other Church Ladies asked if that really included the adults. Yep.

So I told the Stage Manager that I would participate, but she should know by now that the real Energy Circle in my life is the rim of a Martini Glass.

Valuable lessons from Old Time Radio

"It's the olives that do it, not the Martinis!"

Johnny Dollar in "The Confidential Matter" episode of Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar

From my Scottish tenantry

Dear Friend of Laphroaig -

Our country's great national holiday is upon us. It's St. Andrew's Day, celebrating the patron saint of Scotland.

Though St. Andrew never made it to Scotland while he was alive, he holds a special place in the hearts and minds of the Scottish people. Legend states his relics were secretly transported to Scotland during the Middle Ages. And during the late 8th century, King Ungus reportedly saw a cloud in the shape of a Saltire (the St. Andrew's Cross on the Scottish flag) before battle. He pledged that if victory came to his forces, St. Andrew would become the patron saint of Scotland.

Now, festivities, feasts and events mark the November 30 celebration of St. Andrew's Day in Scotland and around the globe. As a Friend of Laphroaig, consider this e-mail an invitation to our party in Islay. If you can't make it here, gather your friends together at a bar or your home, open a bottle of Laphroaig and toast the patron saint of Scotland, St. Andrew.


Old Scottish Blessing - If There is Righteousness in the Heart:

If there is righteousness in the heart,
there will be beauty in the character.
If there is beauty in the character,
there will be harmony in the home.
If there is harmony in the home,
there will be order in the nation.
If there is order in the nation,
there will be peace in the world.
So let it be.


Slàinthe,
Simon Brooking
Master Ambassador, Laphroaig

Still not buying the t-shirt though

Alert friend Lori found a piece in the City Paper about the gluten-free options at Nationals Park. My favorite sentence, of course, was this one: People with [Celiac] can’t process gluten and are thus condemned to order many T-shirts celebrating this fact. And, of course, there are links to the Cafe Press's Celiac Couture Collection.

I should note that the Beltway Bar at the Park is also stocked with gluten-free treats in bottles...

And maybe I can stop by the Noah's Pretzels in Gaithersburg on my way to the theater this weekend and try one for myself.

Yup, that's pretty much it.

The next time that Kris is in the DC area, he should come to dinner with Mattie and me. Wildfire (in Tysons) has a darn good gluten-free beer.




Thanks to Gluten-Free NYC for the link.

How to get rich doing community theater

Our props team and running crew for Arcadia have to provide an ongoing supply of stuff for us to carry around, including a decanter of wine (Septimus) and a glass of wine (Valentine). On dress rehearsal night during scene 7, Sasha (Septimus) opened the decanter and I learned that we would be using real wine. Effective way to get the color right, I guess.*

So Sasha and I drink a few sips from the same glass but Patrick (Valentine) has his own glass. On opening night, I noticed that his glass, which he carries on, was pretty full. Being the sort of low, base person that I am, I promptly bet Patrick a nickel that he couldn't finish that glass during the scene. "Get your nickel ready," was his reply. No cheating, so he couldn't start drinking it before he went on.

Not surprisingly, Patrick, for all his bravado, could not drain several ounces of wine in a scene where he's doing most of the talking. About physics, no less. My job in that scene is to listen to and prompt more physics talk, so I could have more or less polished off his wine, my own, and a fair bit of the rest of the decanter, had I so chosen.

My only real reason for posting this story, of course, is to tell the entire internet that I won a silly little backstage bet. And to tell the entire internet that Patrick owes me a nickel. When he pays up, I'll update this post. So if two hundred years in the future, you are reading this and there is no update, go ahead and assume that Patrick still owes me a nickel.

Update: Patrick is a man of honor. And a gentleman and a scholar. The nickel has been paid.


* My recipe for making stage red wine is Cranberry juice with a couple of drops of blue food coloring. Just FYI.

Make mine a Bronx

Perhaps because they've never tried one, the Sidecar got left off of this list of 5 Cocktails that Deserve a Comeback. A tragic oversight, especially as it could easily have replaced the Black Velvet (ick) or the Stinger (Cary Grant or no Cary Grant).

I've had a Manhattan but still need to try the Bronx and the Rob Roy*, a.k.a. the "Scotch Manhattan." The word left out of the recipe on MSN is, of course, vermouth.

Another cocktail that uses orange bitters is the RAC Cocktail, which someone I know first had in Paris. He liked it enough to acquire his own bottle of orange bitters. I have a bottle (rather ancient, but hanging in there) of regular bitters but if I end up liking the Rob Roy enough, I may have to add the orange variety to the liquor tray.

Here's the recipe, provided by Beefeater:

R.A.C. Cocktail (created in 1914 for the Royal Automobile Club)

40ml London dry gin
25ml Noilly Dry
25ml Noilly Rouge
5ml grenadine
dash orange bitter

Stir ingredients over ice. Strain into coupette, then garnish with a cherry and orange peel.

*although I've already had both a Roy Rogers and a Shirley Temple.

"Drinking"

Some folks from the office and I went out for Happy Hour on Thursday. I ordered a Scotch and Soda which, when it arrived turned out to be lightly colored soda water. Disappointing as a drink, of course, but seeing as I was going to rehearsal after Happy Hour, probably just as well. (In fact, it was weak enough that I could have another. And so I did.)

Nonetheless, I still described to the people sitting near me as "practicing Safe Scotch."

NVTA 2007

After the NVTA one-act festival awards last night a few of us went off to the 4 Ps for a "post game" drink/bite to eat. Sure, we all have food and booze at home, but then we couldn't do the always enjoyable "analysis" of the evening.

The upside of the awards was that - from what I heard about the shows I didn't see and what I remember of the ones I did - I think that the judges largely gave the right awards to the right shows.* Not 100%, of course, but that never happens. And the show that I loved a lot and thought was done excellently by all concerned copped some of the big awards, so I regarded spending $10 to get to applaud for them again as money well spent.

The downside was that the judges largely got it right and what's more fun than insinuating that the highly respected, volunteer judges who put in a hours and hours of work and generally find something positive to say no matter how wretched a show might be and who are taking those hours from their actual work lives as theather professionals, what's more fun than insinuating that they must clinically insane crack-addicted drunks and then trashing the horrible shows one hated that got a bunch of completely undeserved honors because now those untalented maroons are going to prace around like they just got Tony awards, not that they would know good quality work yadda, yadda, etc, etc.

Ahhh. Good times.

Anyway, we got settled in and ordered and because the 4Ps carries my favorite Scotch, I got to order m'self a Laphroaig (pronounced, La-froyg), a simply lovely, smokey, peaty masterpiece that should never be drunk any way except neat. Yummmmmmmm. (I first heard about it in a Dick Francis book and decided to try it and unlike some other things that I read about in books and then decided to try, the Laphroaig worked out very well indeed.) None of the ladies had ever tried the Islay Blesssing, so I passed mine around, creating a bond in us that may last for all time. The men were drinking beer, so we don't have a bond with them.

When I go the Maryland festival or the Eastern States, I don't know folks as well, so the socializing is always lighter, maybe more superficial. To really get into the fine print of these sorts of things, your local festival is the way to go. Like family reunions, it's much easier to raise the eyebrow to one's sisters and cousins about the in-laws than it is to one's third cousin-once-removed about yet another branch. Of course, it's safer to keep the subject of that sort of thing the long deceased reprobates who feature in the colorful stories, I guess, but who's going to do that?

Art and artistry may be the foundation of theater, along with dedication and teamwork, but the pillars are definitely the drinking, the flirting, and the gossip. At least they were last night.

*I know a lot of very talented people who participated in the festival and did not receive a bunch of nominations/awards. If you are one of them and read this, I think you're great, really great, and deserve all kinds of awards. Stupid judges. What do they know? A travesty, that's what it was. Just a travesty. Okay? Okay.

**Note: Of course, none of us would ever do that. Theater isn't competitive. Theater people are only kind and generous. And we can only admire the bravery and dedication that goes into putting on a show anywhere ever. Any snarky comments made at these sorts of gatherings should only be used for comarison purposes. This blog post should not be construed as recommending a particular course of action. Should you wish to do a post-show analysis, the advice of a competant professional should be sought.

The Kennedy Center comes through for me

The Kennedy Center is hosting a 1940s thing with posters of blown up Life magazine covers, reviews of 40's music, and (best of all) cocktails at the refreshment stands in addition to the usual wine and coffee. They have a lovely system where you can pre-order and pre-pay for your intermission treat. Reduces the line and the pressure on them and allows me to simply walk up and pick up my coffee or what-have-you and thus have time to drink the coffee before I have to head back in.

David remarked that I really should have been around for the theater of the George S. Kaufman era - 3 acts and 2 intermissions. Long intermissions at that, so you could go to the bar across the street. Sigh. Time travel, where art thou?

Although one theater pal did tell me that he mourned the closing of a certain bar/restaurant near a certain theater because if the show was dire - and he's a harsher critic than I am, so I suspect that to him a lot of them were pretty dire - he could leg it to the bar during intermission, get a Vodka, and get back in time for further suffering. But I digress.

Anyway, I was so charmed at the idea of cocktails that I immediately jettisoned the idea of pre-ordering coffee and pre-ordered a Sidecar because I'd never had one before.

What, I hear you ask, is a Sidecar? Well, DrinkBoy gives this history:

Colin recites that the Sidecar was developed during WWI, when a certain regular cusomer arrived at the Ritz on his motorcycle (replete with sidecar), and asked the bartender for a cocktail that would help take off the chill. The bartender was caught in a delema, a drink to remove a chill would appropriatly be brandy, but brandy was traditionally an after dinner drink, and his patron was wanting something before dinner. So he combined cognac, cointreau, and lemon juice to mix a cocktail whos focus was on the warming qualities of both the brandy, and the cointreau, while the lemon juice added enough of a tartness to make it appropriate as a pre-dinner cocktail. So a properly made sidecar should betray its roots as a drink that warms your palate if not your bones.

The Kennedy Center listed the ingredients as Hennessy Cognac, Triple Sec, and lemon. Others say Brandy, Cointreau, and lemon juice. A quick Google search will find lots of recipes, plus the helpful information that Cointreau is basically a triple sec, which means that it is an orange-flavored liqueur that has been thrice distilled. You learn something every day if you pay attention. Some recipes suggest frosting the glass with sugar.

What did I think? I think I have a new favorite drink! The sugar rim is not optional in my opinion, by the way. I don't have enough expertise to say if Cognac is preferred over Brandy or if Cointreau or any given triple sec is best. I just know that I liked that drink. I'm going out with friends tonight, so I think I'll have another. We'll see if Barnaby's is up to that challenge.

Come to think of it, I have Hennesy Cognac and lemon juice at home. Time to buy some Cointreau.

The ballet was nice, too.

Why I don't drink much

"Hearts full of youth, hearts full of truth, six parts gin to one part vermouth." -- Tom Lehrer

I'm not much of a drinker for a bunch of reasons. My usual when going out with friends is to ask for a cup of coffee with a shot of brandy or a "scotch and soda, kinda light on the scotch." And, no, I never ask for the good stuff if they inquire about a brand. I ask for "something cheap that tastes good with a bunch of soda dumped in it." Because it's wrong to pollute good scotch with mixers. I nurse it and then I might have a second, but often my second drink is a cup of coffee. And, of course, the result of asking for a scotch and soda, kinda light on the scotch is that I end up with about 1:1 of scotch and water. (Scotch and water. That's so wrong.) My Mom taught me to mix drinks at about 3:1 where 3 equals mixer and 1 equals booze, by the way.

Anyway, last night David and I went out after seeing a play and I decided to have a scotch and failed to ask them to go light on the scotch. Well, there was actual soda instead of tap water in it (hurray!) so I probably downed it a little more quickly than usual. It was probably about a 4:1.

And then I ordered another. Why? I dunno. Just felt like it. About half way through that one, I cocked my head to the side in response to something David said, and I felt my face go numb and brains slide slightly to the left. David said "What?" and I said "Wheeeeew" with a nice rising then falling pitch. And just enough cresh/decresh for seasoning. "Am I driving us home?" he asked. "Oh, yeah" was the reply.

Now everyone knows the classic stages of drunkenness: happy, horny, depressed. But I seem to have taken a slight detour and found a new stage: tape recorder. David and I had earlier touched on him running lines with me when we got home. He figured that I was now in no state to do that. Ha! I was so! So I started running everybody's lines, picking random scenes. And, I regret to say, acting out some of the blocking in the parking lot. Not my blocking. Mary Ann's blocking. Well, only a little of that because David hustled me into the car at that point. (Thanks, Sweetie!)

A few more "Wheeews," some giggling, a demand for a bedtime story, a large glass of water, and couple of aspirin later, I was sound asleep. No hangover, thank goodness.

Our friends will put up with all kinds of reactions to booze and forgive us. Especially if it makes the kind of story they can embarrass us with later. But no one wants to see Leta's one-tipsy-woman production of The Man Who Came to Dinner. So maybe I'll just have coffee for a while. At least until the show closes.