Cooking with Alcohol: Soundside Swiss Sunset Fondue

I enjoy recipes that are enhanced with alcohol. This
past week, in the Outer Banks of North Carolina with
our friends, we had a request from one of the boys for
fondue night. This child has requested fondue night on
each of our last seven beach vacations. And since fondue
requires alcohol, I an only too happy to oblige him.

Only problem: in the outer banks, you must buy specialty
alcohols like, for example, KirshWasser---the required
element for swiss cheese fondue---only at ABC stores. Which
are few and far between in our soundfront dwelling.
We had to improvise.

What we did have: Rum. And maraschino cherries in syrup.

What we did with what we had: Improvise.

Here is the wonderfully tasty result, that even my picky
eater boy gave a taste. It will have a light pink hue due
to the cherry syrup. Think of the sun setting on the sound
when you see the pink.

Swiss Cheese Fondue with Cherry Rum

1/2 pound run-of-the-mill Swiss cheese
1/2 pound Gruyere cheese (required. Get this at Avon Wine and Spirits)
2 tbsp cornstarch
3 tbsp rum
1 tbsp syrup from maraschino cherries
2 cups cheap chardonnay
1 clove garlic
A loaf or two of crusty, stale french bread
(staleness can be hastened by cubing and placing in a warm oven)
a fondue pot (preferred) or a regular saucepan (bit of a pain)

Cube the bread into 1-inch cubes or smaller.

Cube the cheeses into 1-cm cubes or a bit smaller.

Mix together the rum, cherry syrup and the cornstarch. Set aside
and let meld while you prepare the fondue.

Peel skin off garlic clove. Rub the inside of the fondue pot with
the garlic clove, crushing it a little as you go.

Put two cups of wine in the fondue pot and start it simmering.
Finely chop the garlic, and add it to the wine.

When it is just about to boil, add 1/3 of the cheese cubes.
Maintain this temperature carefully; don't let the wine really boil.

Stir til nearly very well mixed.

Add a second 1/3 of the cheese cubes and stir again until nearly
well mixed.

Add the last 1/3 of the cheese cubes and again stir til nearly
well mixed.

At this point, and while stirring continuously, slowly add the rum-
cherry-cornstarch mixture, and continue to stir, adjusting heat if
necessary, until the fondue has reached a uniform consistency. At this
point it is ready for taste testing.

The taste tester should skewer a bread cube, dunk into the fondue mixture
and see if it is perfect. If it is "not", she should repeat the process. Keep
taste testing it until it is perfect. There is very little you can do at
this point to adjust it. It *will* be perfect, or nearly so. And in a moment,
the rest of your party will devour it. So keep taste testing it while you can,
and tell the folks "yup. It's almost perfect. Just another second or so..."

Serve and watch the feeding frenzy in amazement.

Next time: Chocolate fondue. With, guess what?!, rum!

What a Doll

I love the Ladies. Barenaked Ladies to be more specific.
I'm a huge fan of their talent for not taking themselves
too seriously while writing deeply touching songs about
suicide, loss, relationships and other complications of
life. Here is my favorite BNLadie doing a great solo
performance of a straight-up well constructed song. In
his bathroom.

Hailing Frequencies Open

This weekend, my Chromie homies and I had the pleasure
of performing at the Shoreleave Star Trek convention as
the Masquerade half-time entertainment. The Masquerade
is a costume/skit contest. The half-time entertainment
keeps the room full of sci-fi fans entertained and
occupied while the judges tally their scores. Plenty
of Klngons in the running, and even a Phantom of the
Opera duo. And an amazing Jack Sparrow. They were all
winners in our book.

The guest of honor at the Conn was Nichelle Nichols,
Leuitenant Uhura from Star Trek: The Original Series.
She was gracious, warm, outspoken, chatty and beautiful.
She remembered narrating a planetarium show called Hotter
than Blue, which features our song High Energy Groove.

All the more exciting for us is that we had our Shoreleave
Special Edition of our brand new CD hot off the presses!
It's called Committed, and we still have a few copies left.
go to our Website to get one!


Phew. We're so happy the CD is done we don't quite know
what to do with ourselves. Enjoy the second half of 2007
perhaps.

My "Trifle" Recipe

I admit it: I only have a vague idea of what a "trifle"
really is, and I am far too lazy to visit Wikipedia to
find out. I don't want to let my vague idea become marred by
reality. But I make a mean "trifle" of sorts, and it is an
easy and crowd-pleasing summer recipe. So here goes:

Go shopping for the following:

Sara Lee frozen pound cake (only store it in the fridge)
A couple cans of whipped cream
whatever kinds of FRESH berries you like (say, 2 cups)
whatever exciting alcohol is not in your possession:
(options: apricot brandy, Chambord raspberry liqueur, Grand Marnier,
you get the idea) Could be replaced by fruit juice and almond
extract if you wanna go virgin.

You probably have a big clear glass bowl or dish. Get it out.
Some of us even got "trifle dishes" along the road of life.

A few hours before dessert:

On a deep plate, mix to taste your alcohol.
Maybe 1/2 cup total? Your call.

Cut the entire pound cake into 1 centimeter-sized
little cubes. Then toss them onto the deep plate
so they become alcohol-infused.

When the cubes are moist, but still fairly solid, transfer
to a bowl and add enough whipped cream so that they kind of
stick together.

Meanwhile, slice your berries into fairly small pieces. In
a separate bowl, mix sliced berries with similar combination of
alcohol (say, 1/4 cup booze, your call). Let that meld a bit.
You can mash any blackberries or raspberries for more effect.

Now, in the clear glass bowl, layer in the following order:

-the pound cake mixture
-the berries mixture
-just whipped cream
-the pound cake mixture
-the berries mixture
-just whipped cream

Repeat those layers til you run out of stuff.

Make sure the top layer is just whipped cream.

Add a few artistically placed whole berries right on top.

Serve and enjoy!

Winner's Circle

The Indians, my son's little league baseball team,
won the Greenbelt World Series last night, taking
the first two games (in the best-of-three series)!
And the boy got his first legitimate hit, which
scored the last run of their season. We are all over
the moon delighted. What an amazing way to end your
first year ever in an organized sport, eh?

There was no big party afterward, and if I'd known
that would happen, I'd have spent an hour decluttering
the house and buying beer, wine, nachos and Gatorade
and hosted one myself. But I wasn't even that prepared,
so the season appears to have ended with a whimper, as
one parent after another slowly gathered their brood,
said goodbye as if it were just another game night,
and drove out of the parking lot of 7 Southway court.

I hear there's an awards banquet in September. Maybe
that'll give me enough time to organize a post-banquet
get together on our deck and in our basement. Maybe we'll
even splurge for a foosball table by then!

Go Greenbelt! Go Indians!!!

Time Stand Still

In the movie "Click", Adam Sandler comes into possession
of a remote control which allows him to fast forward
through the dull and boring (according to his
disastrously incorrect assessment) years of his life.
SPOILER ALERT:

He winds up missing his kids' childhoods,
ruining his marriage and wasting his last years with
his parents.


If I had such a remote control, I'd be tempted to hit the
pause button so that the current reality could be frozen
for a good long time. It's summer. We just had a pleasant,
stress-free fun vacation with my Mom. My child is in a delightful
pre-adolescent state in which he is great company, low
maintenance, and likes having me around. His team just last
night won their final play-off game and will now go to the
Greenbelt World Series next week. He is healthy and happy,
with good and nice friends. At work, I have relatively few
deadlines or dreaded tasks, an enthusiastic and good student,
and several interesting data sets to get through which should
produce some nice results in a reasonable time. My colleagues
are all good to work with, and great to know. In aCappellaLand,
our CD is almost done, awesome sounding and looking, and I
believe it will be well received. We just did a benefit
concert last night that we all enjoyed, and we sounded good.
One of my son's friend's dad's was supposed to go to Iraq
but was relieved of the assignment due to a medical condition.
We just found out when we saw him walking down the lane Monday
evening.

In short, this is a special time in which many many things
seem to be going very very well, and it is a pleasure to float
through these days. I want to "freeze this moment a little bit
longer", in the words of Neil Peart in the Rush song "Time
Stand Still". I know exactly what he was talking about.

Baseball Bein' Berry Berry Good to Us

When I was a kid, there was a skit on Saturday Night Live involving a
baseball player with limited command of the English language. His
signature phrase was "baseball been berry berry good to me."

Since April we have become increasingly absorbed into a long
standing old-town institution known as Greenbelt Baseball. With
the boy turning 9 this Spring, he (and we) graduated from machine
pitch to kid-pitch. Last year, I don't think it was even possible
to strike out. They just kept feeding balls into the machine and
aiming it right at the strike zone until a hit was obtained. Then
the many parents on the sideline would cheer and yell "run to
first base. No to FIRST base!!! No the other way, the other way!!!"
or similar. When the kids were fielding, it was quite something
to discover that they were actually paying attention if a hit came
their way. More often, they were playing in the dirt.

Not this year. About 15 minutes into the first practice I could tell:
these kids could really play baseball! Wow. Our team has several
talented pitchers, and they practice drills continuosly. Their two
coaches are very knowledgeable about the game, as well as
amazingly positive guys who each have just the right touch with
the 9-to-12-yr old boy crowd. I was a bit concerned that my boy
would get bowled over by the experience, much like Indianna
Jones must have felt with that six-foot diameter boulder barrelling
down on him. On the contrary, my Mr. Positive Thinking was
visibly delighted to be on a team with "real potential to win
the World Series" as he put it. I was all, like, "Huh? World Series?"
His team is now 12 and 1, with two weeks to go in the regular
season. Perhaps he was onto something that first day.

In addition to the impressive and delightful coaches, baseball has
introduced us to some of the coolest parents around. I've
lived in this town for 14 years but I have not come close to exhausting its
continously flowing potential of new and very interesting friends.
I hope I never do. Many of the folks in Greenbelt Baseball have
been a part of the program for generations. My boy's best friend's
Dad used to play on a team, and his Dad was the coach. And our
coaches? At least one of them was also on that team. And they
aren't the only ones. The city councilman who threw out one of
the first pitches used to play on a team with the coach of one
of the other teams. And it goes on and on. I'm amazed at how
many of these parents and coaches have known each other, and
spent time with each other at this baseball field, for as long as
they can remember. Their lives are tightly woven together for
decades. And yet they easily and warmly let "newcomers" like
us slide right in. That kind of community connection makes it
almost effortless to raise a child here. Surely it makes it seem
virtually worry-free to me. The lines between family, friends
and neighbors here seem very blurred compared to what it
was like in my childhood. And I am very very thankful for it.
It feels like everyone is looking out for everyone else.

I would be remiss if I didn't give a big shout-out to the kids
on the teams as well. From what I've seen, they are all amazingly
respectful of all the adults, and the younger kids. They are
genuinely nice. Know the meaning of the word "teamwork"
and love to play baseball.

So thank you, Greenbelt Baseball, for giving me yet another
reason to deeply adore this town. As someone said to me
a few days ago: "Greenbelt-you either get it, or you don't." I
totally get it.