Very Cold, Very Dry

When the pandemic hit (I know, trigger!), we decided to try and make being quarantined a little more fun (ironic as “quarantine” and “fun” really don’t go together, but you did what you had to do to get though one of the worst periods of our time) by designating Friday nights as “FriDDDays” (yes, you have to pronounce every D!). This refers to Guy Fieri’s popular Food Network show, “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives”, or as fans call it “DDD”. Fieri goes to restaurants across the US and even internationally (I have thoughts about this, but that’s for another day) and tries dishes from establishments that, you guessed it, are either a diner, drive-in or a dive. On Fridays, we would make diner themed appetizers and meals, from nachos to homemade pizza and burgers, watching Guy drive around in his red corvette, eating giant sized burritos in towns you’d probably never go to unless you’re on a road trip. It’s a great show to unwind and inspired us for our weekly FriDDDays meal recipes.

We also needed an official quarantine cocktail, combing to cheers to as we get through another week, and Martinis became the clear winner.

Even after our country got back to a sense of “normalcy”, we made this a weekly tradition. It was something we always looked forward to.

Fast forward 4 years later, we have grown out of Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, and renamed “FriDDDays” to “Food Show Fridays”. Pretty obvious with the name, but we watch a variety of food shows. Bourdain Parts Unknown, Stanley Tucci Searching for Italy, and Americas Test Kitchen have been our recent faves.

So get your martini ready, your favorite food show playing, and let’s get into Martini Fridays (Yes I realize it’s Saturday, but life got in the way, so here we are)!

A Martini That’s On My Mind:

The martinis we have on our porches. The weather has been so erratic – rain, humid, hot… not ideal for being outside. I can’t wait for that perfect cool evening, the breeze flowing through your face, a deep indigo sky, and the low hum of the highway. We’ll get one of those soon, right?! RIGHT?!

My Favorite Gin of the Week:

This gin takes me back to going to Black Angus, a chain steakhouse that only has a few locations on the West Coast, with my grandparents. They’d order Beefeater martinis on ice with olives. My grandmother always would let me have her olives. I wish I was drinking martinis with them now.

Music I’m listening to:

Moondance Van Morrison

This 1970’s album is a quintessential classic. While the title song, Moondance is great, my favorite is Into the Mystic. It’s perfect for those summer porch evenings (whenever they’ll exist again).

As always, let me know your summer music recommendations!

My martini icon this week is…

Alton Brown

I listened to his video about making the perfect martini. He’s very particular, like me, how one should be made. There are a few things he does that I’m very curious about. Most notably, he freezes an ice cube, consisting of 2 tsp of vermouth and 1 tsp of water. He drops that into the glass, pours in 3.5 oz of gin, has pitted olives for garnish, and then waits two minutes for the vermouth/water cube to melt a little before drinking. This seems like a lot of work, and I like to be able to eat my garnish. I’ll have to make it and give my opinion here, but in the meantime watch his video here. Have you ever made his martini?

Other musings:

• The best part of drinking a martini is taking the first sip.
• The worst part is when your martini is finished. Thankfully you can make yourself another one tomorrow.
• After drinking many martinis at restaurants, I’ve noticed it’s very easy to make a mediocre martini, hard to make a decent one, and even more difficult to make a great one. Bit of you master your homemade recipe, you’ll never be disappointed.

Well, that’s all for this week. Send me a message, a comment below, questions…I’d love to hear from you! Please stay cool!