"i'll have a dirty bacon martini, rocks, two pearl onions"

have you ever wondered what mutant baby would emerge from a $20 gallon of vodka, a trip to safeway, and an extreme admiration (well, longing. i am vegetariana, mind you.) of bacon? if so, read on...

every year i make a special liquer around the holidays to bring to parties. the first year i made a coffee and brown sugar (oh lord, the hangover!) vodka which was delicious. the next year i made something similar with the addition of cinnamon and a 100 proof base (too strong!). coffee used to be my go-to, but this year i wanted to experiment with some more creative flavors.

i thought about skittles-, apple pie-, lavendar-, caraway-, shoot, even parmiggiano-flavored liquer! in the end it seemed almost criminal not to attempt a bacon vodka. think of the possibilities: bacon bloody mary, bacon martini, bacon shots! who cares, right!?! anyhow, it's only been a day, but we'll see how this monstrosity turns out come saturday.

ah, delectable bacon in all its thick-cut, smoky glory. i cut the bacon into thin slivers to that once fried up, it would be easy to funnel the tasty bites into a bottle.

i started the bacon out cooking on high to start a good sear. after the fat started to sizzle, i turned it down to medium-low to render as much fat out of it as possible. i had no idea what i was doing, but i figured the dryer the bacon, the less unappetizing fat globules would be floating around in my vodka.

after letting as much grease soak into a napkin as possible, i transfered the bacon bits to a glass container, threw in some peppercorns, and drowned the mixture in (80 proof) vodka.

mmm, bacon-quarium.

so i lied. yesterday i made my pathetic first attempt at bacon vodka. as you can see by comparing today's batch with yesterday's, today i rendered out more fat and cooked the bacon more thoroughly.

these bad boys are getting a good shaking at least thrice a day until it's time to unleash these grotesque mutants on the world. and by "the world," i mean "my friends."

hopefully it won't taste like a fart, but only time will tell.

The Brooklyn

The other day, over a couple great sandwiches at Jimmy John's, Crumyum mentioned he had some tasty mussels at Lark on Tuesday, reminding me that I had some real tasty clams at The Brooklyn on Monday night. They were prepared in a tomato base broth, w/ some corn and spicy chorizo, who's not a fan of the sausage shellfish combo? It was also happy hour so they were cheap and happy hour goes until 6:30. I hate 6pm hh. We also had mini kobe burgers and crab wontons. Burgers were super good, wontons not so hot, they seemed fishy, probably frozen then deep fried. They also have a signature cocktail of the day!

While describing the clams it also reminded me that I had a great steak at the Brooklyn on Friday. I even mentioned to CY, that it may have been one of my favorite steaks in town. I went w/ the Steak Oscar, fillet w/ dungeness crab and bearnaise sauce. I debated between a couple dishes but chose this mainly because of the sides it came w/. Some artichoke gratin--thing. I was not disappointed, steak was done perfectly (so juicy so fabulous) and sides and starters were great too. We started w/ the Vodka and Oyster flight (4 vodkas/ 4 oysters. can't remember all the vodkas but one was Pravda another Ciroc and I've got to say P. Diddy knows what he is talking about). Also got down on some Caprese.

For steaks (and HH apparently) I am a big fan of the Brooklyn. It's not pretentious, menu is solid and straight forward. They have awesome bread and olive oil. Gotta love the oyster thing right? It is not cheap, but who is? And if you are there w/ just two I recommend the captain's chairs were you get to see all the action. Thanks Brooklyn I think you're one of my faves!