Celebrate good times, c’mon!

As you may have heard from my ranting and ravings, yesterday was my 28th birthday and I think I may just have had the longest birthday ever what with me being awake for 22 out of those 24 hours that made up my birthday.. But how’d that come to be? Well, it’s a long story, but eh.. Here we go..

I kicked things off by celebrating my birthday at work since I was lucky enough to be working on the night of the 28th and as such spent the first hour of my 28th year sitting at my desk at GLS. Due to this fact, I’d picked up a small cake on my way to work to share with my fat fucking bastard colleagues because as far as fat fucking bastards go, they’re actually a bunch of nice fat fucking bastards.. That and they’re always offering me pieces of cake or whatever whenever they bring anything along, so while I don’t eat cake, I brought some along anyways because I’m just that good of a guy.

Of course, it all turned into a bit of a stealth mission. See, there are a lot of people at work, some of whom I’ve worked closely with, some of whom I kinda know and others I just don’t know and care about. Of course I wanted to share my pretty, little cake with Torben I work with now, but I also wanted to get a few slices down to Tom and Christian, my ex co-workers down in the terminal.. Preferably without everybody else finding out about the fact that I had cake and was sharing. So, I stashed my cake away in a small tea kitchen upstairs and at around 11:30 snuck out to cut off a few pieces, stash them on a plate which I stealthily crept down the stairs with, snuck down a few hallways, into the main terminal building and up to Tom who quickly stashed it away and/or ate it before anybody else noticed anything. I then ran back the way from whence I came, returned to my seat, plopped down and waited things out for about half an hour, waiting for various people who I knew to popping by the office at midnight to do so.. And when they did, I then snuck back out into the kitchen, retrieved the cake, cut off slices for Torben and I and wished myself a happy birthday. Torben did the same and then went and retrieved a grotesquely oversized flag and planted it behind me. I guess from then on the jig was up.. Oh well!

Having thusly celebrated the first hour of my birthday at work, I walked the long, hard way home, treating myself to a couple of hotdogs and a beer from the Shell station along the way which I consumed once I returned home while watching a few episodes of some random cooking show.. Good times! I think my previous post already details what happened then, so I’ll just skip right to my heading to bed at 3:30 AM and trying to catch a good nights sleep.. Which I, of course, failed at completely.. Mainly because of my mom deciding to call me and wish me a happy birthday! Now, let me just say that I have no problem with people calling me and wishing me a happy birthday, I do, however, have somewhat of a problem with people doing so at 5:30 AM on a night where I’ve been working.. I know she means well, though, it’s not her fault our daily rhythms are fundamentally different.

Anyways, once I’d been stirred awake, I absolutely positively just plain couldn’t get back to sleep and when other birthday wishes started pouring in from 7 AM and onwards, I thought fuck it and just spent some time laying about, doing some reading and whatever. I then slowly got up, showered, ground up some top notch coffee beans, heated some fiber rolls and sat down to have breakfast while checking the news.. I then spent the rest of the day just chilling, taking a break from the computer, doing the last bit of shopping for dinner and just kicking back getting things ready and running the dinner drill through my head. At around 2 PM, my mom dropped by to say congratulations and have a cup of tea. For my birthday, she brought me a small batch of Asbach Uralt chocolates which I found really considerate seeing as I love me some brandy, and kinda weird seeing as she knows I don’t eat sweets. She stayed for a little over an hour and we actually had a pretty good talk which is kinda surprising but nice.

At around 4 PM, I seriously got started on dinner preparations, the idea was to get things as far ahead as possible in advance so I’d just have to get the timing part right and throw things together once the guests arrived.. Which would turn out to be complicated enough, but eh.. I’d tried to keep the menu simple with focus on seasonal ingredients: For starters, we’d have an omelette with sauteed onions, fresh tomatoes and fresh basil, served with steamed green asparagus topped with smoked, dried ham, garlic, parmesan cheese and lemon juice.. Oh, and mine and Tina’s home-made garlic bread which we now have everybody hooked on. The main course would be medium-rare beef tenderloin topped with high quality olive oil, cracked pepper and more parmesan cheese, served with a warm potato salad of fingerling potatoes, cherry tomatoes, basil, more olive oil and grilled marinated artichoke hearts.. To that a green salad of rocket leaves, pears, walnuts and even more parmesan cheese, dressed with even more olive oil and some lemon juice.. Oh, and more garlic bread!

The guests – Tina, Christian, Emelie and Zascha – arrived at around 5 PM right as I was getting ready to sear the beef tenderloin and from then on the timing just sorta worked for a change. I got them seated, had Christian help me pour an aperitif in the shape of a Belgian inspired quality ale, which was both tasty and calming and I then seriously got cracking on dinner.. Sorry, I mean WE then got seriously cracking on dinner. See, I’d tried something new for a change and actually recruited the help of Tina with various tasks and we ended up dragging Christian in as well.. So I got to feel like a head chef for once while watching pots and pans and overseeing the general process while I had Tina doing garlic bread and various prep work while Christian beat eggs, took care of the wines, plates, wiped up after me when I’d occasionally spill a liter of two of boiling water over my feet and what have you.. I gotta say that despite grim expectations on my behalf it actually worked out pretty damn well and Tina was both proud and happy to help – not to mention proud that I actually let them help.. And while I was a little stressed out with having five people in the kitchen, three of them doing the cooking and two providing entertainment, I didn’t snap or yell at anybody.. Not even once! Even if Tina thought I did once, I didn’t, I swear!

Good times, and the timing actually was pretty good on most thing so we got dinner on the table without mentionable delays and decent timing between the dishes.. And it turned out rather good, I’d dare say. I thought it was delicious anyways and that the wines to go with it were superb. Tina even claimed it was the best dinner I’d ever cooked and while I somehow doubt that, it still made me feel all warm and happy inside At any rate, it certainly wasn’t a bad meal and it seemed to be joined by all, even Emelie, our vegetarian gone carnivore who was treated to beef tenderloin as one of her first tries at beef in 15 years.. Not a bad start, I dare say!

After dinner, Christian and Tina insisted on doing the dishes at which point I insisted to help in order to speed up the process. This created some amount of friendly arguing and bickering, but it was eventually decided that I could help hang out, drink wine and put things away as I knew (more or less) where they went. Eventually we ended up all five of us in the kitchen with Christian doing dishes, Tina and I bickering about various stuff and drying things off as well as putting them away and Zascha and Emelie once again providing entertainment, good advice and starting off a small spider scare as they discovered a few of my little friends that always seem to hang about my apartment even if I go hunting for them before having people over.. It was good times!

With dinner and dishes out of the way, we sat down to chill a bit, the girls (sans Zascha who was driving) had some more wine, Christian and I had a bit of rum and a few beers and we basically just hung out, talked and had a good time for a few hours. I got a present, too, in the shape of a stainless steel wine/schnapps cooler which hugely fascinated me, not so much because of the wine cooling feature , but more particularly because it actually said schnapps cooler.. Thank you guys.. This is awesome!

Zascha was the first person to give in, which is understandable as she’d have a long, tiring day, and decided to drive home, she took Tina with her who was too tired and hurting to walk home and decided to catch a lift. Emelie and Christian stayed back for a while, waiting for the next train before leaving at around 11 PM. With an hour or so left of my birthday, I decided it’d be terrible to let the last bit of wine go to waste so I sat down and enjoyed one last glass of Roodeberg Red, checked out my insane number of b-day greetings on Facebook (like, thanks!) and listened to a bit of music, winding down completely for a few hours before crawling to bed at around 2 AM.

Another awesome birthday is in the can.. Thank you guys and girls for making it a great, special day for me! And thank you everybody else for the heart-warming birthday wishes..

In Search Of Perfection: All In All, It’s Just SpagBol in a bowl..

Okay, I admit it: Over the years, I’ve done some downright insane and over the top things when it came to cooking.. There was a time I thought Lasagna from scratch was a real project, now things such as veal stock, six hour chili con carnes, demi-glace or dinner for ten made in the comfort of Tina’s studio apartment and tea kitchen pop to mind..

Basically, hand me a complicated cooking task and I’ll be all wound up about it for days on end, researching, comparing notes, checking tips and techniques.. And of course twisting things to my own liking because following a recipe is just plain boring (right? No? Oh well..). This obsession with food and food preparation confuse and bewilder a lot of people, it pisses some people off (because I don’t usually use measurements of any kind and just generally cook things till they’re done, thus making my dishes hard for others to replicate).. But, in the end, it also makes a lot of people happy because they get to enjoy some (usually) good food.

Anyways, I think I have finally found my evil overlord in the field of food science geekery and attention to detail.. In the shape of one Heston Blumenthal. In case you’ve never heard of him, he’s the head chef and owner of the Fat Duck restaurant outside of London which is supposedly one of the best restaurants in the world and one of the few to be awarded three of them prestigious Michelin stars.. On top of this, he’s also insanely funny, knowledgeable, geeky.. And super attentive to details about food. He did a show a few years ago called “In Search Of Perfection” in which he goes looking for the origin of some of Britain’s favorite dishes, spent a few months deconstructing them completely before coming up with his own so-called “perfect” versions of the various dishes. The results are some very entertaining shows containing more food facts than you could shake a stick at, interesting cooking tips, downright geeky explanations of the chemistry of cooking.. And some fuck off complicated versions of classic dishes to boot!

His general concept is that people should be able to recreate the dishes at home. And I guess people could.. But after seeing his version of chili con carne that takes two days to cook or his Tikka Masala recipe using a home-built Tandoor oven, I doubt anyone ever would.. Except me, of course! Because, well, we all know I’m not to be outdone by anybody.. So, while I have employed some of his tips and skills in various other recipes for a while now, trying one of those monster contraptions of his has been a dream of mine for a while now..

The first problem in this grand plan was, of course, figuring out what the hell to cook of his. I’m already well on my way to perfecting a chili con carne recipe of my own, so I couldn’t go into that. His pizza looked too dull for me to try as I already make pretty good pizza myself. There was no way in hell I’m gonna build a Tandoor oven for the sake of cooking Tikka Massala.. Well, I would.. But I’d hurt myself in the process and then Tina and Zascha would be mad.. Then I’d go on to burn myself and they’d be even more mad.. So no! I don’t eat duck, so Peking duck was out of the question and chicken was, again, too dull.

In the end, the only dish I wound up with that seemed both suitable, likable, interesting and doable was.. Spaghetti Bolognese! Now, Spaghetti Bolognese is something I’ve felt very strongly about ever since finding out that there’s actually no such thing as Spaghetti Bolognese.. It’s apparently called Ragu alla Bolognese (after the town of Bologna and the fact that it’s a stew (or ragout)) and is traditionally served over tagiatelle or fettuccine pastas, not spaghetti as spaghetti and heavy, meaty sauces are generally very incompatible. Also, it’s traditionally a very simple dish so the fact that a three star chef would make it utterly complicated.. Well, it at one point both confused, appalled and fascinated me.. So SpagBol it was!

Of course, I’m not about to let just any three stared chef tell me how to do things, and I am, by the way, driven by my firm promise to myself never to strictly follow recipes developed by others.. So my quest started out not with shopping.. But with reading up on the recipe (which by the way is available here if you’re feeling courageous or stupid), reading up on reactions on the recipe, comparing other more traditional recipes, spending more time than I’d like to disclose about considering meat to tomato rations and onion to celery dittos.. And all sorts of jazz! All in all, the research portion of this project alone took me a full day to complete.

Shopping was an entirely different issue all-together. The ingredient list for this dish is grotesque: It features over a kilo of onions, a half kilo of carrots, a kilo of fresh tomatoes, over a kilo and a half of meat (if you do like me and screw up and buy veal instead of beef and thus end up adding both pork, veal and beef to the ragu).. Oh and a splash of Oaked Chardonnay (a bottle ought to do). Heston also goes bonkers and adds things such as tomato ketchup and Nam Pla, which.. I’m sorry.. But.. No! The concept alone of a three star chef adding ketchup to a dish, well, I wasn’t gonna have any of that! Nam Pla I sorta did understand, but I’m adding a lot of salt already, also in the shape of bacon, something Heston strangely enough have chosen to leave out.. Either way, let’s just say that shopping was extensive even if I was rather shocked to find out that I actually had many of the ingredients at hand already.

The cooking process? Well, sheesh.. There was no blood this time around but sweat and tears? Dear God yes.. Slicing and dicing a kilo of onions? It was horrible.. And the pressing heat in the kitchen didn’t make things much better.. The process started some time just around moon and at the time of this writing (8 PM) it still has about an hour of simmering to do. It hasn’t been as tough as I’d actually expected it to be, it’s been mostly a matter of sweating (vegetable, I mean), browning, caramelizing, reducing and waiting.. As well as doing a ton of dishes. The most involved parts have actually been all the chopping.

So, days of planning, extensive shopping and nine hours of cooking aside, I can safely say it hasn’t actually been that bad.. And I’ll (hopefully) soon have another over the top cooking story behind me..

I sure am getting hungry sitting around waiting for this to finish, though, what with the smell of bolognese having filled the house for the past seven odd hour or so.. Maybe it’s time for a drink… Yes, I rather think it is..

Of blonde moments and gay moments

Tina and I both have our moments. She has her borderline dumb blonde moments, and I have my moments where I more or less knowingly engage in a series of actions that may cause the casual observer to question my heterosexuality. Usually, when our weird moments clash, good times and good fun ensues and Saturday was definitely no exception. Now, as a bit of a disclaimer and an attempt to avoid the argument that will most certainly ensue over this anyways, I would like to – once again – state for the record that I consider Tina to be an extremely smart and intelligent young woman. She just has those little moments every once in a while that end up being extremely entertaining because they fit her long, blonde hair so perfectly while clashing completely with her otherwise intelligent personality. I sometimes do her a small favor of not going into details about her blonde ways or little slip-ups on here, mainly when she’s begged me not to – or been a real sweetheart or spoiled me in one way or another.. But, really, when she’s being beyond adorably retarded, there’s only so much I can do to keep it from getting out..  Oh, speaking of adorably retarded, I would, finally, also like to state for the record that I use the words “adorably retarded” and “adorable retard” in the most affectionate way possible.. Right, that’s the disclaimer out of the way, eh?

So, here’s the scenario.. Without going into details, i think it’s pretty fair to say that Tina has been having a pretty hard time lately. This is no the time or media to discuss such things, but I think it’s fair to say she had a lot to deal with including work, her thesis, breaking up with her boyfriend and everything else. She’s been a tough little fighter through it all, but I still couldn’t help but feel that she needed to be spoiled a little, so I convinced her she should spent Saturday evening with me and let me cook her some food and pour her some good wine. Well, she kinda suggested it herself, but I was right on my way to launching an invitation her way when she texted me and asked the exact question I was gonna pose: “Wanna hang out Saturday and have dinner?” I guess that’s just the way we roll.

I kinda spent the next few days planning things and over those few days, plans kinda changed a little as well. Tina asked me if I’d be interested in making the day into a working day with her, and I replied that I’d love to, as long as I could get away with just pretending to work. See, after a 60+ hour work week, I didn’t really feel like spending my Saturday working on my thesis, I would however love to keep her company. So the plan was, then, for me to pop over once I’d woken up on Saturday, she’d do some work, I’d pretend to do some work, we’d have a drink, have dinner, share a bottle of good wine and do whatever we felt like.. But, of course nothing went according to plan.. It’d have been too easy that way.

I kicked things off by oversleeping and I kinda think Tina did as well..I then wasted several hours staggering around, trying to get ready, get some food, get the last bit of shopping done and whatever else I needed in order to wholly confuse myself.. When I finally did make my way down to Tina’s, it was almost 2:30 PM, and I was kinda fearing I’d missed out on a lot – which just so happened to not be the case.. As Tina was nowhere near ahead of me as far as daily chores went. On the contrary. Apparently she’d been out with the girls the night before and one thing had led to another and one shot to a third and so on until she had apparently staggered home at 5 AM in the morning.. So rather than working on her thesis, she was in that wonderful post drunken giddy state of hers. So, I found her sitting around watching a comedy-drama thing on day-time TV about mentally retarded people.. Which, in her state, apparently was the funniest thing in the world – at any rate she spent a lot of time giggling to herself and laughing slightly at the goings on and I spent a lot of time, watching her, head tilted to the side and a puzzled smile on my lips.

As luck would have it, though, we couldn’t just sit around all day and watch retards on day-time TV. We had things to do! Namely, we had to get a tent for Tina who was heading to Italy for a week the next day. So, into Tina’s car we jumped and off we went to a local hardware store to look for cheap tents, bicker a bit about which to get, yell a little at each other while falling over innocent crouching customers and eventually get into a full-fledged argument about whether or not I was allowed to help Tina carry the tent she’d just purchased.. Oh, there was to be a lot of arguing that day.

With tent in hand (I’d managed to snatch it while Tina wasn’t looking), we (or rather Tina) headed out to buy a present for our friend Tine who’s celebrating her birthday Monday (today). Tina got her this gift certificate thing to a local SPA thing which was beautifully wrapped by the nice lady behind the counter in a wrapping leaving no doubt about where the gift was from. Tina pointed this out to the nice lady while I wasted no time in, sarcastically, telling her that she wouldn’t have that problem if she’d just wrap her presents herself like I did. Which spawned another huge argument and a fair bit of pouting and bickering, much to the amusement and confusion of the nice clerk who was merely trying to help. The joke here being that I am so notoriously bad at wrapping things but still do my best whenever I’m buying Tina a present which have led to some pretty ridiculous wrappings, including black plastic bags, tin foil and stapled together paper bags. She enjoys this to a point where my creative wrappings are now a huge part of the thrill for her whenever she gets a present from me, but apparently the suggestion that she could just shape up like me and learn to wrap things properly.. Well, it didn’t sit too well, and as a result, we were still arguing on our way out and even as we got in the car to drive to Tine’s and deliver the present.

As we arrived at Tine’s, we took a small break from arguing to enjoy the sun while waiting for Tine and her boyfriend, Henrik, to also show up. Apparently they’d been out shopping and we’d arrived a little before them, so we kicked back, talked and just plain enjoyed the fine weather for about ten minutes before the others arrived. When they did, we said our hellos and were kindly asked in, an offer we gladly accepted but not before offering to help them carry their groceries from the car, a quite noble task which ended in complete chaos as Tina and I once again exploded in each other’s faces this time in a bitter fight over whether or not Tina was allowed to be an independent , strong woman and carry the heavy bags or whether I was to help her.. Or something to that extend. Poor Henrik who isn’t really used to our loving insults and fights started looking beyond frightened at some point during it all, so I casually whispered to him not to worry, “we’re not dating or anything, we just love to fight”.. Strangely this seemed to do little in terms of calming him down and making him understand. Regardless, he seemed happy with the helping hands.

Having both helped and scared Henrik, we made our way inside and were treated to a grand tour of the house which was under extensive renovation, we then sat down, hung out and talked for a while.. Oh and we had something I’ve never had before.. A smoothie! Apparently a chilled concoction of various fresh fruits and berries, dairy products and ice. A surprisingly flaming concoction for something served so cold, and a treat that, for the first time that day, really made me question my masculinity.. But hey, Henrik was drinking it, too, so I figured it was okay.. So frosty beverages in hand, we wiled away some time talking about our respective theses and our progress on them.. Something that eventually left Tina with a bit of a bad conscience, so we figured we had better drive back and see if we (that is, she) could get some work done on hers.

We arrived back at Tina’s at around 5 PM and she immediately got to work on her thesis while I got to work on making us some coffee and doing the dishes so I’d have some space to work on and some pots, pans, plates and cutlery to dirty while cooking dinner.. Something I got started on immediately after having done the dishes and made sure Tina had coffee, and, well, popping open a cold, canned “Mojito Long Drink” that Henrik had given me.. What can I say? I cook better when I’m not sober.. And I wanted to make sure Tina got a really good and well-deserved meal.. So while she did her best to get some work done, I did my best not to distract her too much while I whipped dinner together.. Which proved hard because A) I’m very good at dropping things and hurting myself when I cook and B) apparently the smells of what I had tried so hard to put together in order to spark her prodigal appetite was driving the poor girl crazy.. Which I took to mean that my evil plan was working.

For dinner, Tina had requested something light, possibly chicken with some sort of salad. I knew to go light because of her recent lack in the appetite department, but other than that I was pretty lost. Eventually, I decided that since I was looking to spoil her silly, I’d go light and partially with what she’d requested and partially with ingredients I know she loved and throw in a little side dish I’d created inspired by her monkeying around on another occasion. So, I went with chicken steamed in vegetable stock and lemon juice with garlic, green onions and chili. Which covered the chicken part. To that I served steamed green asparagus with olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, prosciutto ham and Parmesan cheese. Which covered the light part. Furthermore, for the part of the meal inspired by Tina, I went with a salad of honey dew melon, blazing hot Fatalii chilies and fresh mint leaves, dressed in cane sugar, lime juice, extra virgin olive oil and cracked black pepper. A really interesting combination that I came up with one day after Tina had rubbed her eyes after handling chilies and I was spun into thinking about how to lessen the burn from really hot chilies (I guess we all find our inspiration in our own little ways). Finally, for the part I knew she’d love (other than the obvious addition of her favorite ingredients: chili and citrus juice and the mojitos I made to kick things off), I made some homemade garlic bread which has been.. Well, pretty much an obsession of ours since we first tried it.

I somehow managed to get all of this done using only a single burner, an oven and a fair amount of good luck and cussing. I even managed to time everything perfectly and to keep Tina from having to help which I guess partially made her feel bad, but I do think she also quite enjoyed being spoiled silly. At any rate she seemed very happy with just having to sit down for dinner and a lovely white wine courtesy of my go-to wine guy. I won’t even go into details about how much we ate or the amount of butter and olive oil consumed through these dishes, but I’m happy to see that I saw Tina eat more than I’ve seen her do in weeks, possibly months, so I’m thinking it’d be okay to call it all a success. We actually ended up sitting there for over an hour, eating, talking, laughing, listening to a bit of Rammstein in the background (as you would during any candlelight dinner) and just having a plain good time while working up the courage to get up and do the dishes. Which none of us really wanted to do given that we were perfectly fine with just being full and happy.

We did eventually muster the courage to get up and do so but not before making a little more garlic bread to eat as a reward afterwards. Again, I won’t disclose exactly how much garlic bread was eaten, but there was some giggling at the sight of Tina’s happy, full tummy. But then, neither of us had really been eating anywhere near enough lately, so it was all good.. And at any rate, we quickly got something else to talk and laugh about as Tina turns to me and goes “Y’know, that search feature on your blog, it totally doesn’t work..” I barely have time to go “Wha? No?” before the little one bursts into an insane fit of laughter and starts muttering things along the line of “I’m such an idiot!” – “Are you having one of your blonde moments again,” I ask as she struggles to regain her composure.. “Uh-huh,” she stutters, looking at me almost teary-eyed with laughter.. “I just realized that the reason it didn’t work was because I was trying so hard to do searches in Danish..” Which is when, I too just tear into a fit of laughter.. Coz, Gee-wiz, sweetheart, you’ve been reading my English language blog for going on three years now, it really should come as no surprise to you that you’d have trouble doing searches in Danish.. Even if I admire your persistence in trying and find it kinda cute that you even went through the trouble of doing alternative spellings for Danish special characters.. Better luck next time. I’ve tested it out myself and it actually works pretty well.. If you use English search terms!

So much for the blonde moments, then, but what of the gay ones? Well, as it occurred to me and as I told Tina while we were watching our movie choice for the night (which just so happened to be “The Sound Of Music”), it occurred to me that I was having the least heterosexual day I’d had in a long, long time.. What with kicking the day off with smoothies on the couch, then Mojito chased by a dinner consisting mainly of steamed asparagus, melon and fruit juices, and then, now, just for good measure sipping chilled white wine while watching “The Sound Of Music” .. I mean, seriously, had it not been for the heavy metal backdrop and the pretty female companion, it would be this kinda behavior that would make people seriously question my sexuality.. Which is why I say that Tina has her blonde moments, and I, apparently, have my gay moments..

I can explain the whole “Sound of Music” thing, by the way. See, Tina has a thing for that musical.. And I have this book called “1000 movies to see before you die” which mentions “The Sound of Music”, so naturally I had to see it, and naturally I’d told Tina some time ago that it would be her responsibility to see to it that I got to see it. So when she suggested it Saturday, I jumped right on it.. That explains everything, right? Alright, okay, maybe not, but that’s just how I roll.. And it was a surprisingly good musical.. Which led to a lot of purely heterosexual discussions of the “her voice is really soothing” and “what a beautiful dress” varieties. The latter centering around a wedding dress worn near the end of the movie about which I remarked that it was indeed pretty but I wouldn’t dare drink red wine in it to which Tina, in yet another tired and adorably retarded blonde moment pouts and remarks that “Well, sorry, but there were a lot of shots last night, a lot of really good food and wine tonight and it really is quite a tight fitted dress, so I can’t really help it..” A statement which confuses me profusely for all of five minutes before Tina realizes I was talking about the dress in the movie, it’s whiteness and the ease with which one could stain it, and I, on the other hand, realize that Tina thought I was talking about her summer dress and poking fun at the fact that  her otherwise slim stomach was looking a little bloated after me force feeding her. A little on the defensive side, I reckon But it did go to prove that we were apparently both pretty tired at this point after a long day of fun, bickering and both blonde and gay moments, so when the movie conveniently ended not too long after (who’d have thunk it’d be over two hours long anyways), we decided to call it a night, said our goodbyes and I headed off, nearly forgetting not only my bag and my laptop but also the remaining dinner ingredients – something that Tina thankfully pointed out to me as I was on my way out the door – blonde moment, anyone?

Either way, I then grabbed my things, said goodbye again and this time headed home for good through streets filled with drunken idiots and loud youngsters, homewards bound. To get some sleep, which I never got because while I’d been nearly falling asleep in Tina’s bean bag chair, I apparently wasn’t feeling sleepy at all once I returned home, so instead of going straight to bed, I stayed up till like 5 AM, talking to random people on MSN, watching a few shows and wasting my time on Facebook.. Insomnia is such fun!

Bah.. Thesis, schmesis!

It has been brought to my attention that working on one’s thesis does not necessarily have to be all bad. It’s all just a matter of creating the right settings for the experience. See, we’re still facing some unusually high temperatures here in Denmark, so work is probably the last thing on peoples’ list of things they’d love to do at this moment.. Which probably goes to explain a rather whiny status update of mine on Facebook which read something along the lines of me being much more in the mood for mojitos in the sun than thesis and work.

Well, as could probably be expected, it took Tina all of ten minutes to pick up on it and make a comment that she thought that mojitos in the sun and thesis writing would compliment each other nicely.. And, well, one thing begat the other and suddenly the comment threat warped into us setting up a “date” for the next day – that next day being Friday – involving thesis writing in the sun, sunbathing and, of course, mojitos! As if it were the most reasonable combination ever.. Honestly, I thought it sounded like the best idea ever and didn’t really think much of it until later when I came to remember that my dad frequently reads my status updates as his own little way of keeping in touch. I then realized that me planning a serious working effort involving cute blondes, sun, rock n roll and alcoholic beverages would probably render him either very upset, very confused.. Or just plain proud! I’ve really no idea, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Whatever people may or may not have thought, Friday arrived soon enough and I (having worked the night before) got up at an (for me) unreasonably early hour to pack up my laptop, myself, a bottle of rum, mint sprigs, limes, cane sugar and other necessities to head down to Tina’s for a serious bit of work. I arrived there at around 11-ish and as part of my new lifestyle of not doing more bodily harm to myself than necessary started out by applying a generous amount of sun screen, I then suggested we headed out into the sun.. Which Tina plain refused.. Not until I’d had my morning coffee! I, being pretty uncomfortably hot already, tried to refuse but she’d have none of it an was already in the process of making me up a cup.. She’s right, of course, I get tired, semi-grumpy and more importantly develop strange headaches if I don’t get my morning coffee. Tina knows this and as such she insists and makes me coffee.. Talk about knowing each other too well?

Either way, after a not so enjoyable cup of coffee which however served its purpose, we grabbed our stuff, a few blankets and headed downstairs and outside onto the community lawn to set up camp, boot up our laptops and get cracking.. I set the mood with a summer playlist I had lying around on my iTunes and we had a pretty entertaining time of chilling and doing some work, only interrupted by our constant shifting around caused by the baking sun and our constant chase for at least a bit of shade. We were soon joined on the lawn by some bloke who was apparently out to chill and looked at times more than a little confused by the rowdy youngsters who had now taken to listening to Slipknot and Rammstein while chilling happily and working away. A strange combo, admittedly, but hey, that’s how we roll!

His wonder probably only grew by around 12:30 PM when I loudly proclaimed “Fuck it, I need a drink” and went up into Tina’s apartment to pick up some glasses, some ice, and a makeshift cocktail shaker that I fabricated from a half gallon plastic pitcher (having actually forgotten my own shaker at home). With these things in hand, I returned to our base camp (which may or may not have shifted location in the time I was gone), started muddling lime with the bottom of a soda bottle, added the sugar, mint, and ice, shook best as I could without destroying myself or the drink.. Then added soda and served us up a couple of beautiful mojitos.. Which turned out to be just what we needed on this Friday afternoon at 12:40 PM! I mean, honestly, when do you NOT need a mojito?

With these drinks in hand, we managed to keep our spirits high and the creative workflow going  for another few hours before hunger set in instead of thirst. As it turned out, Tina had the perfect solution for this problem – and even more spoiling in store for us – as she went and reheated some of last night’s dinner which had consisted of salmon, pasta, ricotta cheese, rucola and other good stuff all mixed up and served in the sun.. Yum! You’d think this would be a pretty damn good working day already, and you wouldn’t be wrong in assuming so, but it actually got better as we managed to squeeze in a bit of sunbathing before both of us eventually had to head off to take care of our day jobs (or night jobs so to speak).. Well, fast forward a few hours and this is when the story warps into a tale of how spoiled of a bastard I really am..

See, at around 11:20 PM, I’m stuck at GLS, doing god-awful, boring sorting of various papers just for the sake of having something to do on a really, really slow night when a text ticks in from Tina saying “You’re not off for a while, are you?” I reply that “No, I’m not really supposed to be, but I was thinking of seeing if I could get out early since there’s nothing to do.” – “Well,” the kind girl informs me, “I’m heading home from the theater, how about you find out?” .. It was all really simple from there, I asked her for two seconds, finished up what I was doing, dashed upstairs to where Torben was sitting and asked if there was any chance he could manage the rest of the night alone as sweet Tina had just offered me a lift home. His reply was something along the lines of “Fucking go.. Go for it!” which I told Tina, and exactly seven minutes later, I jumped into the passenger seat of Tina’s little car and together we set off towards downtown.

“Here’s a crazy thought,” Tina said, as we were sitting there in the car homeward bound, and by then I already knew what was coming: “How’s about we drive by a gas station or whatever and get us a goodnight beer?” – “Awesome,” I merely replied, “I think you owe me one anyways!” “Yup,” the blonde merely quoth and pulled the car off the road and into a gas station, disappeared for about five minutes and returned with proof of just how good a girl she really is.. She’d gotten of course not only a single beer, but a six-pack, that was somehow to be expected with the two of us. But not only that, she’d gotten Carlsberg because she knows I prefer that over the Tuborg she usually drinks. I’d have gone with Tuborg because I know she usually plain refuses to get Carlsberg if faced with options, but apparently she wanted to please me. and make me happy, so who the hell am I to complain?

With beer in hand, we continued on, chatting happily of things to come. “Oh, I need something to eat, too,” Tina remarked, “but what.. I’ve got pasta.. Tomatoes, sun dried tomatoes, rucola, etc, etc, etc.. Can’t you just get free access and use your imagination?” – “Well, I was gonna say,” I replied.. “Give me five minutes with your fridge and I’ll see what I can do. It’s the least I can do in return for bailing me out and giving me beer.. Well, that and share the jägermeister I’ve stocked in there with you!” – a statement that merely made Tina go “Ohh!” and beam with more happiness than I’ve seen out of her for ages.. The adorably retarded girl sure loves her food and her jäger!

We arrived at Tina’s not five minutes later where Tina quickly popped open a beer for each of us, popped the rest in the fridge and set about doing the dishes while she let me search the fridge and pantry for suitable ingredients for some midnight pasta (which is bordering on becoming a tradition for the two of us). I settled for some whole grain pasta and a sauce of sun dried tomatoes, fresh tomatoes, garlic, fresh chilies, thyme, balsamic vinegar and sugar.. And a bit of vodka and cream thrown in for good measure.. And fresh basil.. And, of course, loads of freshly grated Parmesan cheese.. Which must have turned out quite successful because while it’s not uncommon for me to hear Tina go “Yum!” and smile, it is in fact rather unusual for her to do it after EVERY bite! So I guess I did well, there was even some talk of understanding of Klaus once having licked the pot after eating one of my dishes.. Anyways.. Glad you liked it, babe

Having gotten our full of pasta with creamy tomato goodness, we sat around for a few hours just talking, drinking beer and being merry.. And had our jäger shots of course! After some bickering and arguing about who would get the miniature bottles from the fridge.. We eventually decided to settle over a game of rock, paper and scissors which eventually made me go fuck it, forfeit and get the damn bottles after Tina started playing random, unknown wild cards such as “fire”.. But who cares. There were no real losers in a game of “whoever loses, gets jäger shots for the table!”.. Eventually, at around 2:30 AM (which is ironically shortly after when I’d originally have been home, had Tina not come to my rescue), I decided I was getting old and tired and needed to get home.. Which I then did, arriving home a little later than I usually would after a Friday work night, but a lot more full and a little more happy faced than usual  after three beers and a shot..

So, who says working Fridays have to be that bad.. Honestly.. I could come to enjoy them if they were all as awesome as this!

Whisky In The Jar!

No, I didn’t spell that wrong.. Thin Lizzy might like Whiskey with an E, but I prefer Whisky with a Y and no E.. As in Single Malt Scotch Whisky.. Particularly of the Islay variety, a rather unique strain of whisky from the wind swept, small Scottish island of Islay which are generally known for their distinct smoked flavor owing to a production process which involves smoking the malt over a peat fire.. Me, I loves me some smoked flavor so naturally this is right down my alley..

And apparently even more down my mom and her boyfriend, Klaus’s, alley.. As they’ve actually spent the last week or so touring the island of Islay and participating in the yearly Whisky Festival taking place there.. Needless to say, I think my mom and Klaus are total bastards.. Well, not total bastards.. But bastards to at least some extend.. A great extend. Okay, I’ll stop now..  Anyways, I must’ve quite vocally expressed my jealousy and dissatisfaction because they had almost just but returned once they summoned me for dinner, tall tales, pictures and what was to be a few unique experiences.. An offer that I willingly accepted, even going so far as to decide I’d play the role of the better man and bring them a curiosity from my recent trip, in the shape of a rareish Belgian beer, and a few stories of my own.. And of course the batch of French onion soup I’d promised Klaus earlier and the production process of which I cursed to high heavens in an earlier post.. The idea was then that my mom and Klaus would provide the rest of the dinner experience and, I figured, wine, coffee and the likes.

All in all, it was a huge success. We kicked things off with an aperitif in the sun on my mother’s terrace  in the shape of Campari and soda which wasn’t really my thing.. But then, I really never fancied bitters. To go along, we shared a few tales from our respective journeys after which I spun the story into mine an Tina’s trip to the Beer Mania store in Brussels and presented my pièce de résistance in the shape of a large bottle of Mea Culpa beer I’d purchased at that very store. A beer that’s apparently the brain child of the owners of the store and is brewed especially for this particular store.

This, of course, raised a few eye brows with the beer lovers in the crowd, all three of us, and a few smiles as well once we got to corking it a sampling the goods. It turned out to be nice, lively, sparkly, light, crisp and refreshing with a distinct wheat-like freshness plus notes of citrus and light spices (coriander?) to it. Definitively a hit on a warm summer day, and just about every bit as good as I’d been led to believe it was gonna be. I’m not sure if it was Zascha or Zeb who first recommended this to me, but thanks! And Zascha, no leaving Brussels for you.. Coz, like, I need to come visit and bring home more beer!

Ahem, anyways, after beer and more tall tales, we figured we’d better get dinner ready, so we heated up some onion soup and some cheese toast while firing up the BBQ and sipping some Rosé wine. Again, the onion soup apparently brought joy, especially with Klaus, who was caught between dishes licking out not only his bowl, but also the pot which had been used for heating the goodness.. Hmm, I chose to take that as a compliment. Tina, upon being informed, seemed a little upset, though, as she was apparently hoping for leftovers.. Which she should have let me know in unmistakable terms and she’d have gotten some.. Next time, babe, promise

Klaus, upon finishing licking stuff, spent the next hour or so working his magic on the grill serving up sausages and grilled pork tenderloin.. So good! But it wasn’t until dessert.. Which was really just coffee, that he produced the really good stuff, and pulled out a bottle of limited edition 16 year old Bruichladdich cask strength whisky pulled directly from the cask by him and my mother not three days earlier. This beast (bottle 510 out of only a 1000 to ever be bottled) weighed in at just over 56% alcohol by volume and was about as feisty as it was rare. Smoky, pungent and with a raw edge of alcohol bite to it.. In a really good kinda way. If this sounds weird, it probably is, but it was still an awesome experience none the less to sample a whisky that will only ever be tried by about a few thousand people world wide.

Speaking of awesome, the old couple had another couple of surprises up their sleeves. The first being that my mom had brought home a half bottle of Laphroaig 10 year old for us to sample afterwards. I’ve always hailed Laphroaig as being my absolute favorite whisky thus far and as one of the most unique ones out there. Well, apparently it’s rubbed off on a few people and they were only too willing to pour out a few drams while we spoke about their tour of the distillery. A tour that was of particular interest to me as I, owing to my membership of the Friends of Laphroaig Club, own a small piece of land on their distillery grounds. Klaus, having never head of the gimmick, brought along my deed to the land on their tour of the distillery and not only got to see the land, take pictures and plant the Danish flag, he also managed to create so much awareness and interest among the tour group that they all fell for the gimmick as well and joined the club of land owners. Which apparently so pleased the nice people at Laphroaig that they sent a miniature bottle of their Quarter Cask Edition plus a small whisky glass back home with my mom as thank you and as payment for “lease” of my one square foot of land. Which just goes to show that these people not only make awesome whisky, they’re awesome, too.. A quite touching gesture for a fan such as myself.. Even if I still wish I could’ve been on the tour myself.. Sigh, some day..

By the time of the evening we’d gone through most of the tall tales and odd ends about our various trips and I’d gotten my special miniature as well as samples of good wine, good ale, rare whisky and good whisky in general.. Well, we all sorta started getting somewhat sleepy. A side effect that may have related to neither of us really haven’t slept much, but on the other hand having spent quite some time sampling 40+% ABV spirits, so before things got too tired and rambling, I decided to call it a day and venture on home. I had quite a walk ahead of me after all. It had been a good night, though, full of good talks, good experiences, good samples and awesome gifts, however small.. Hey, when’s the last time you got a personal gift bottle, however small, courtesy of one of your favorite distillers? Right.. I’ve found yet another reason to love Laphroaig

It was only a matter of time; I’ve started a beer cellar!

I’ve gone and done something stupid again.. I didn’t mean to.. As so many other things, it just kinda happened. See, I went down to my go-to wine guy to stock up on a bit of quality wine after going through a rather large part of my stash on the Brussels trip. As always when I’m down there, I spent some time just casually browsing through the store, looking at the selection.. And as always, that turned out to be a really bad idea.. Other than the wine that I needed, and the bottle of orgeat syrup I just happened to stumble upon, I ran into some vintage Thomas Hardy Ales that really peaked my interest. The concept of vintage and aged beers wasn’t entirely new to me. I’d seen bottles in Belgium, too, and heard of the process.. But unlike the Chimay bottles I passed on in Belgium (stupid as I am), I wasn’t able to pass these up…

Which spawned somewhat of a downward spiral that, long story short, culminated in me starting my own beer cellar.. A WHAT cellar, you may ask.. But it’s quite simple, really, see.. Like good wine, good beer too can be aged. We’re not talking your usual lagers here, of course, which are generally a hell of a lot better the fresher they are. No, we’re talking quality brews here, many of them high on alcohol, hops or other preservatives (such as smoke, believe it or not), and many of them so-called bottle fermented beers, meaning that yeast is added when bottling the beers, causing a new fermentation to take place in the bottle over time which may radically change the nature of the beer.

The general idea of these beers are that given the right conditions (mainly a cool, dark place) they’ll continue to change over time, developing new flavors and characteristics for years to come.. Which to me sounds like fun! And has been something I’ve always wanted to play with.. Only, I haven’t ever been very good at no diving into the supply of beers I’ve had at hand.. So, what changed? Well, mainly the fact that I’m already collecting not only single malts and rums, but also other quality spirits and wines.. So did I really need a new area of collectibles? Well, of course.. Why not add quality beers to the mix?!

Also, following an agreement with my house owner, Brian, I’ve stashed the beers in a really remote, cool, dark part of our shared basement.. It literally has a cellar feel to it.. (And was offered to me in the spirit of “hey, anything for a good cause”) and is so relatively inaccessible that I’ll have to really want a beer in order to venture there – at which point I may as well just go to the fridge.. Where I keep the less expensive lager options.

So, to sum up.. I’ve got another real expensive hobby to keep me company.. Beer collecting and beer cellaring. Why? Well, I’ve enjoyed tasting quality brews for a while now and the concept that a specific brew can change character over time.. Well, it seems fun and interesting to me.. So why the hell not? Apparently I really enjoy collecting good and/or rare/obscure alcoholic beverages for various purposes!

But what all goes into a cellar, then? Well, not too much right now.. Did I mention it’s a somewhat expensive hobby? So far there’s a few high alcohol by volume beers from a sampler pack I got in Belgium. Other than that, I’ve picked up quite a few bottles of various brews, some with age on them already and the more notable including:

• Thomas Hardy Ale 2005 (four years old already, is supposed to improve for at least 25+)
• Horn Dog Barley Wine 2007 (interesting name, right? Supposedly really good around now)
• Chimay Bleue 2008
• Trappiste Rochefort 8 (9.2% – a really good beer as it is)
• Trappiste Rochefort 10 (11.3% – a cruel mistress, but also one of my favorite brews of all time)
• Orval (a trappist beer Tina and I tried in Brussels but weren’t too impressed with, I hear it balances out and gains a lot with time, though)

I got at least a few of each – heck, I got four of the Chimays on sale because our local supermarket is retarded and apparently doesn’t know that there’s a substantial difference between a 2008 Chimay and its 2009 counterpart.. And so the basic idea is to sample them over the course of time time and see what happens.. Hey, sounds fun to me.. And also like another really expensive hobby.. But then, I don’t drink nearly as much as I used to, so why not drink better stuff when I do..? Right..? Sounds reasonable enough to me

I Wanna Be A Rock Star!

I destroyed a LOT of things last weekend.. Parts of a patio table, an electric guitar, my brand new Hendrix tee, parts of myself and a home-brew beer.. But strangely enough, it all began quite quietly and nice-like.. With me wandering around on my own at home, enjoying a day off and listening to some soothing Rammstein.. Umm, okay, so it didn’t start entirely quietly, but things were to get a hell of a lot worse.. It all started going downhill when Tina first called at around 3 PM and convinced me that beers in the sun sounded a lot better than goofing off at home. I actually was planning to blow off the beers for a few more hours as to not wind up too drunk and/or weird, but we all know my issues when it comes to saying no to cute blue eyed blondes.. So it should come as no surprise that about 15 minutes later I was on my way out the door to have beers with the guys and gals in the sun at the uni court yard. I arrived there some 30 minutes later, wearing my usual summer uniform of blue jeans and band shirt.. Which for some reason seems to still confuse people, forcing me to explain over and over again that the short, shirtless buzz cut look  just isn’t very metal.. Naw thanks, I’ll take my jeans, band shirt and occasional stolen rock star shades thank you very much.

Anyways, times at uni were good as usual, hanging in the sun with Saxberg, Andersson, Tina, Jakob, Daphne and various other people with a few beers after a while we headed off to a local park for the latter part of a May day party which featured an awesome Danish cover band and plenty of beers.. Plenty for us and plenty too many for others. Apparently some people had been drinking since 10 AM that morning and with us arriving at around 5 PM, the fun of the party for the thousand odd people there seemed split between watching the band and watching the people who’d had a little too much to drink act out.. Which made for a pretty entertaining two and a half hours.. For some of us anyways. Tina and Jakob left half way into the show to get some food, one of Andersson’s friends ended up wandering off not to return until about an hour later when he was too drunk to even relate where he’d been. Others, though thankfully none of our friends, opted for just passing out in front of the stage.. Good times!

Actually, I ended up returning to the Uboat alone after having lost track of Andersson, too, which spawned a few looks as I’d set out with four friends in tow and returned three hours later, beaten, sweaty and alone.. But it wasn’t anything that couldn’t be settled over a few beers.. And a few more.. And some drinking games.. And a stupid bet with Saxberg about whether or not I could drink 4 beers in an hour – which is of course nowhere near as big a problem as the subsequent hammer of drunkenness over the head.. As a result, the next couple of hours were a nice potpourri of goofing off with Tina, Jakob, Daphne and Tommy, greeting random friends, telling Tommy that sure I’d be at his grill out the next day, I’d even love to be in charge of the grill.. And grabbing Daphne by the hair, pulling her head back and jokingly trying to force her to deep throat a scimitar made from inflated, bendable party balloons.. That Tina had earlier scored off some homeless guy at the rock show.. No, I swear, in an odd twist of events that really did happen.. Did I mention we’d been drinking?

All in all, it was really good times.. With a lot of great people! I made it home at some point, too, though I’ve no real idea how and when.. I only know I woke way too late the next day as I’d kinda arranged with Tommy and Jakob to meet up at around 2 PM.. And I woke at like 1:40. Anyways, I texted up Tommy and found out that I was the first he’d actually heard from that day so I shouldn’t really worry too much.

Instead, some of us ended up meeting up at around 3 PM then sending Tina off to work before Tommy, Jakob and I went shopping for greens, meat, coals, beers, some soda and Gin and Tonics for the evening ahead. We then dragged ourselves and our purchases off to Tommy’s where we crashed on his patio thing with a few beers and a Gin and Tonic and kicked back for a while, drinking a few cold ones to keep the hangovers at bay.. As the day and evening trickled on, others started arriving.. First Andersson who was absolutely beaten and scarred from the night before, then Michael and Martin and finally Champ and his girlfriend, Signe..

As they arrived, and we all shared a good laugh over me partially drunk trying to light a couple of fires in rather considerable gusts of wind, we got the festivities under way. I had two grills going, one of which was embedded in Tommy’s patio table. I kicked things off by lighting that one a little too hot and as a result scorching large parts of the wooden frame around it. Not being one to let a single mishap stop me, I then proceeded to overload both grills and as a result dumping a T-bone I was doing for myself onto the coals. Champ was nice enough to go “wash my steak” while I struggled on and eventually got everybody served.. Which kept people quiet for quite some time which I took as a sign that I’d done well.

As we ate, people started complaining about getting cold which I didn’t really understand, but I did agree to move down inside into Tommy’s living room as soon as we’d finished eating.. Which we then did and had a ton of fun with. We hung out for a good few hours until Tina got off work and we greeted her into the flock.. And pretty quickly traded Jakob out for her as he was simply too beat from Friday to go on. We eventually lost Andersson, too, and Tommy wasn’t looking too hot by the end of the night either. I was about ready to go home as well when Michael, Tina, Martin and I started talking about hitting the sleazier parts of town just for shits and giggles. Which pretty quickly turned into a new master plan, but not before I’d been on my back on Tommy’s floor, trying to chug wine from a 3 liter box and messing it up horribly, sending cascades of wine seeping down my cheeks and shoulders and onto my t-shirt.. Where I imagine it mixed well with the spray of beer that’d hit me not too long before as a bottle exploded on me as I tried to open it..

All in all, I ended up leaving Tommy’s with the guys and girl in tow, semi-dry and reeking of beer and wine.. While carrying Tommy’s old electric guitar which he’d let me have on the single condition that I smashed it and took pictures.. Something I decided to do right then and there on the street as we made it outside to what is basically the street walk right in front of Kolding’s most alternative/rock-ish club.. And I did better than just take pictures, I got a video of it as well.. Just to prove the stupidity of it all. And how surprisingly hard it actually is to smash an electric guitar:

After I’d finished and generated cries of both “No.. No!” and “Rock n Roll!!!” .. Groupthink set it.. And drunken groupthink at that.. And we got around to thinking that “Hey, wouldn’t it be the funniest thing in the world if we took the thing bar hopping with us and tried to sell it for beer or drinks?” As a result, we piled into one of the nearest and trendiest bars with Tina looking gorgeous as ever, the guys looking trendy as always and me sporting beer soaked long hair, a wine stained Jimmi Hendrix t-shirt and a smashed up white Fender guitar under my arm.. That I was by then bleeding profusely over as I’d managed to cut my hand on several places on the broken neck. Strangely, security did absolutely nothing to stop us, they merely laughed.. But we did get a few pretty weird looks at the bar.. And nothing much more, so we ventured on on our quest to find more bars.. I even managed to dump the guitar somewhere.. I probably should’ve kept it as as Johan Johansen signature, but oh well, it was getting a real pain to drag around, so I left it outside the next bar en route.. Which was a more sleazier kind of place which was evident by the cheaper prices for the round of beers that Martin bought, the poor live music and the fact that within ten minutes I had to step up and use my drunken logic to get us out of two fights that we nearly got into, including one with the live musician who was in the middle of his set.

And that’s before things even really got crazy. See, someone.. And by someone, I mean Tina.. Got the great idea that since we were already in the sleazier part of time, we should hit every bar down that street (which is like five on a good day) and have shots at each place.. Already running drunk enough to have smashed a guitar and myself, my reasoning stood no chance.. And besides, it’s well known that I have problems saying not to above mentioned cute, blonde, blue eyed girl.. So a deal it was then. Michael kicked things off by walking up to the bartender and ordering 12 shots which we threw down in like two minutes between the four of us, leaving just enough of a pause to almost get in another fight with one of the locals.

We then pressed on, moving a few hundred meters down the street to a respectable establishment called “New York City” which I’ve only been to once and my only memory from that one trip being that the barkeep at the time asked me after my order if I could please pay in cash as “the whole card business was a little too complicated to figure out right then.” They were apparently on last call when we arrived so we barely had time to throw down a Jager shot each – I think.. Tina, correct me if I’m wrong – before moving on to the next place on our route, Domhuset, which was also on last call (a popular trend right around 2 AM, I guess) but they also managed to hand over four of their signature shots – a vile concoction of vodka and pop rock candy.. Which didn’t go well with anybody, but at least they were cheap. We gathered by now that last call apparently was all the rage and since we only had one place left to go, “Kontoret” (The Office), we quickly moved on as it was now exactly 1:56 AM.. And we made it, barely, so we didn’t really have much time to think about what we wanted.. For some reason someone suggested tequila which I went along with despite the fact that I knew it’d suck.. There’s no way what something served in a place like that could be anything other than Sierra tequila and synthetic lemon juice served with age-old table salt.. An assumption I turned out to be correct in, but for some reason it went down anyways.. This being Tina’s round, I’d say she got me back pretty good for the vodka/pop rock mix

Besides our little rock start stunt at our first stop, I’d say Kontored is probably where we created the most confusion out of any place we ventured that night. Mainly because we walked in, all of us, even me – being at least 10 years younger than anyone in the bar, begged our way to four tequila shots, threw them down in an instant and then filed, all four of us, into the ladies’ rest room.. The reasoning being that Tina had said there’d be pictures of naked men out there, and for some drunken reason we all wanted to see that.. Only we neglected to tell this part to anybody, so we just kinda went in there and returned a bit later.. After which we again left the bar and staggered back to our first stop of the night to actually pay or dues and buy one last shot there.. Which I ended up paying for and which turned out nearly twice as expensive as the other rounds that evening because we were now apparently back in the trendy side of town.. But oh well, I could probably afford it better than the rest of my entourage anyways and since I don’t ever really go out on mad spending sprees anymore, it’s all good.

Besides, my reasoning had pretty much stopped working by then, so we just threw down our shots quickly and decided to call it a night which I’m sure everybody would have done after seven-eight shots and a beer in like – I don’t know – just under an hour. I ended up walking Tina home before returning home myself, and I’m reasonably sure she ended up picking up the neck of the broken guitar on the way.. But my memory kinda escapes me a little after two days of heavy drinking.. It was one hell of a fun time, though.. We should do that again some time!

Happy Birthday Tina + Good Eats!

It’s Tina’s birthday today.. At least I’m reasonably sure it is, I only got 8 Birthday Alerts from Facebook today.. Making the grand total of notices stand at 14 for the time being.. Eh.. Silly Facebook!

Well, at least I didn’t forget any birthdays this time around.. Or chimed in a month too early for that matter.. Ahem.. Anyways, happy 26th, sweetheart.. I can’t wait to see how much older, wiser (and/or wrinkly) you’ve gotten overnight

Apparently everybody eats well on Tina’s birthday.. Well, save maybe people in Somalia, but let’s leave it at that.. Either way, I thought I was gonna spoil myself and get some beef sirloin steaks out of the freezer so I could play pretend I, too, had something to celebrate – which I guess in a way I do anyways..

Either way, I’m apparently stupid and apparently tenderloin looks a lot like sirloin when frozen in semi-transparent plastic bags.. So I went and made my whole dinner experience better by actually getting 200 grams of beef tenderloin out of the freezer by accident.. Oh, the humanity!

Either way, I’m keeping really busy with my thesis, chiming in at just over 83,000 characters now – if time permits I’ll post a longer update later tonight detailing your rock star weekend which entailed smashing of not only guitars but also various bodies, t-shirts and, oh right, the pub crawl to end all pub crawls just to top things off.

Sleep deprivation, Murder Ballads and dry martinis

Well, that didn’t go too well.. Of course I didn’t make it to bed in due time last night, of course I juuuust had to finish reading Slash’s autobiography. And of course I had to end up staying up till 5 AM.. And then have trouble sleeping.. And of course I had to have my alarm go off at 10 AM, so that I might be at Tina’s in good time for our little working on thesis adventure.. Oh it was an interesting morning.. I think I might have actually ended up falling asleep in the shower a few times, and I think I might’ve accidentally gulped down my morning supplements with a mouth full of coffee rather than the glass of water I’d set aside for the very purpose.. See? Fun!

Either way, it only took me about two hours total to get down to Tina’s – where I walked right into a right scolding having something to do with me accidentally leaving my jacket behind at home and being too tired and lazy to walk back and get it once I’d made it half way there and realized I was actually a jacket short.. Apparently if I land myself another cold I’m not getting any sympathy or help this time around – I suppose that’s only fair. So, having argued a bit over my well-being, we sat down and walked a bit on our respective assignments which went well, for all of a half hour or so.. When things then went not so well for another half hour – before we decided to just fuck it and go for a walk around downtown and the lake which was rather cozy and colder for some than others, that some not being me.

Having already succeeded in wasting a lot of time that could have been spent working, we decided, once we’d gotten back home, to go for a short drive to drop off some stuff at Tina’s dad’s office.. Which also proved a lot more fun than working. We then drove back home, had lunch, worked for another odd hour or so, before boredom once more got the better of us. At this time, though, the clock was rapidly approaching 5 PM and I had to start heading home to get dinner under way and what not.. And besides Tina had a movie date with Jakob.. So off I went, stopping along the way at a record store to blow some money and some steam. I ended up getting Springsteen’s acoustic “Devils & Dust” album and a couple of Nick Cave records as well.. “Let Love In” which I wanted mainly because it had Loverman on it  (which sadly by some is probably best known as a Metallica cover on Garage Inc) and “Murder Ballads” which I wanted mainly because I remembered it to be an awesome album and it features duets with both Kylie Minogue and PJ Harvey.. So there. Oh, okay.. I wanted them for another reason as well, namely that Cave is playing this year’s Roskilde Festival and I’m pissed about not going.. So there, I said it.

Anyways, I got home, cooked dinner, ate dinner and put Murder Ballads on while I did the dishes. Which is when I was completely blown away as I’d absolutely forgotten all about the sheer intensity, darkness, feelings, melodies and haunting emotions of Nick Cave’s music. Now, I’m not really sure what a strict Christian upbringing coupled with a criminal youth, losing your father at age 19 and 20 years of heroin abuse does to a person, but I’m willing to bet it’s not much good.. Because, really, Nick Cave is messed up! In a really, really good kinda way.. His music is haunting and fascinating.. In that really morbid kinda way that sorta makes you feel freakish for liking it.

And granted, Murder Ballads probably isn’t his happiest work to start with coz, well, the songs mostly center around.. You guessed it. Actually, I think the only song that doesn’t involve murder is the very last track on the album, Death Is Not The Ends (which, speaking of covers, is actually a Dylan cover). In the remaining 9 songs on the album, the accumulated death count rises to a total of 64 which is.. impressive to say the least.

But it’s still a very good album which in some obscure way provided a really nice backdrop for doing dishes.. And even now, while I’m on my third iteration, provides a very good backdrop for sipping a single dry martini (Two measures of Tanqueray, one measure of Noily Prat and a pepper stuffed olive, thank you very much) after a long day and a job (somewhat) well done.. Hey, I did get SOME things done today! Now hopefully this wee drink will help me get to sleep a little earlier than 5 AM!

I’ve done a lot of stupid shit in my life

Accidentally lighting myself on fire while trying to cook a nice, home-made meal for Tina is probably one of the worst.. But, alas, the human torch fire display was but the culmination of a long cooking tale involving, literally, blood, sweat, tears and way too few beers.. I guess we’d better take it all the way from the start, huh?

See, it’s no secret – especially for readers of this blog – that student life is hard, financially, at times.. As such, a freezer makes for a valuable investment as bulk purchases and shopping during sales makes for an easier strain on the food budget.. So, a few months ago, I came across both a bunch of chuck and a small mountain of ground beef and pork on sale at a price which in no way made me think twice about stocking up on about four pounds of chuck and six pounds of ground goodness.

I subsequently spent the next few weeks wondering what to do with this huge pile of meat I’d gotten my hands on.. And suddenly the idea dawned to me that, hey, I was not the only one suffering under a financial strain.. So maybe I should get hold of Tina and ask her if she’d be interested in splitting the expenses if we were to get together and cook up a huge batch of Chili Con Carne and Bolognese. As it turned out, Tina had no real problems with getting some 15 ready cooked meals at the price of DKK 10-15 a pop, so a date was settled dedicated largely to cooking, hanging out and listening to heavy fucking metal!

That very day, as mentioned in an earlier post, came off to a really odd start with my bedroom being invaded by random carpenters at 8 AM.. It also came off to a rather bad start for Tina who wasn’t feeling too well in the morning, but none the less pulled herself together and showed up only slightly, yet fashionably, late.. Leaving me just enough time to not only cut up the chuck and aromatic vegetables before she arrived, but also to sink the tip of my Global Chef knife into my right index finger.. But that was to be expected, it’s how I roll after all.

Either way, with Tina having safely arrived, cooking commenced with great precision and astonishing speed. I’ve always been notoriously bad at letting people assist me while cooking. My dad’s pretty much always been the only person allowed to do so, but I’m by now learning to let Tina help as well – and hey, it only took me five years! So, while I took on sweating vegetables and more or less coming up with a plan for what was to happen, I put Tina on spice roasting duty.. Roasting and grinding your own spices is a good way of getting every bit of flavor and aroma out of spices. When working with really hot, dried chilies, it’s also a good way of inducing tears and coughing.. A small, yet important, fact I’d forgotten all about, but which pretty quickly added tears to our tale of blood, sweat, tears and way too few beers.. But Tina championed through, showing not only great skill in handling a cast iron skillet at about half her own weight, but also at subsequently pounding the shit out of said spices.. Whether the coughing and the tears the spices caused her attributed to her being so eager to grind them finely, I don’t know, but the fact of the matter is she produced a great, fine chili blend.. Which was subsequently added to the browned chuck along with coffee, beer, some chipotle, tomatoes and additional seasoning.

“Can I stir this,” Tina said looking at the fuck off pot of would be Chili Con Carne. “Heaven forbid no!” I replied, not wanting the whole, tinned tomatoes to break up before their bitterness had had a chance to cook out a bit. “Well, aren’t you glad I asked?” she promptly smiled back, making yet another stab and reference to a situation where I may or may not have yelled at her a bit for stirring a pot she wasn’t supposed to. A situation I’ve tried hard ever since to make her forgive and forget.. Something that evidently hasn’t happened yet.

Either way, into the oven the chili went and we then set out on adding said six pounds of ground meaty goodness to another pot in order to build the bolognese. This, in turn, almost turned out a huge mess as I hadn’t really calculated on six pounds of meat and two pounds of veggies taking up a lot of fucking space, so the pot was a bit on the small side, but held up.. Even after adding a bunch of canned tomatoes and a splash of red wine. This splash of wine set Tina off with another spiteful comment as she remarked (in reference to Heston Blumenthal) that she thought real chefs used an entire bottle of wine. My reply was something along the lines of “Fuck you, sweetheart!” as I raised the bottle and emptied it into the bottle. This prompted first a shriek of surprise and then a burst of laughter as she apparently “didn’t think I’d actually do it.” I, of course, held that she’d known me for five years now and should know better!

These small arguments and the addition of a bottle of wine effectively ended stage one of the cooking process and we quickly jumped into stage two.. Reduction, reduction, reduction.. A tedious process which involves simmering dishes for hours on end in order to evaporate water and intensify flavors, and which I consider one of the few things besides wine production and cooking with butter that the French ever got right. The good thing about reduction cooking is that it’s pretty much just a waiting game allowing us to do all sorts of things on the side such as shopping, arguing, talking to my mother who we happened to run into at the super market and somehow convince people that we’re some odd couple of sorts.. Seriously, you yell at Tina ever so slightly from the dairy section some eight meters away to put down the fruit she’s fondling because “No, we’re not getting that!” – and suddenly everybody thinks you’re together or something.. Sheesh!

Safely returned from the store and the prying looks of soccer moms who seemed to be of the opinion that we were undergoing some sort of marital crisis, we did the first batch if dishes, watched an episode of Top Gear, at the fruit I’d obviously not convinced Tina to put down.. And then sent out to do some more crying! See, Tina really wanted French onion soup and I’d promised I’d cook  it for her some day.. So what better day than that very day? Now, the good thing about French onion soup is that it’s good.. The rather bad thing about French onion soup is that the production process involves peeling and cutting well over two pounds of onions.. Which was okay for Tina who was wearing contacts but started to kinda get to me in the end.. The suffering I endure for the people I love!

Either way, it was all soon over because as luck (and logic) would have it, peeling and cutting onions is a much faster process when you’re two at work rather than when you’re doing it alone. So, into the pot the onions went and into the living room we went while the onions were allowed to sizzle away and caramelize on their own. I spent the time by properly schooling Tina into the black arts by forcing her to watch “Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey” which I figured it was about high time for her to watch as she’s starting to really get into metal (which both in some strange way both fascinates and scares me) and the movie really helps define and explain the ways of the metal.

After the movie and after the onions had met some Chardonnay, some beef broth and various herbs, it was time for Tina to go on with her active chores if the day.. Namely going to the gym.. Which left me in charge of finishing off the various dishes we had cooking and cook up a few more as Tina had left me with the responsibility to figure out dinner.. And wine, most importantly! Her only request was that we have a bit of the soup for starters.. So off to the store I went, again, and looked for something that’d go well on top of onion soup and white wine.. Chicken somehow became the obvious choice.. I had some leeks left in the fridge from earlier.. And well, leeks’ best friend in the world would probably have to be.. Bacon! (believe it or not!).. So, chicken over fried bacon and leeks in a light cream sauce featuring plenty of black pepper, chardonnay and Noily Prat it was.. Topped with cheese and raw leeks, of course.

Granted, chicken is a bit of a gamble with Tina as I’m still guiding her onto the goodness of chicken.. So, my genius plan was to mix up a Mojito for her as she arrived back, get her tipsy, then lay down the plan! A plan that worked just beautifully, coz, well, a well-made Mojito is one of the few tricks I know, and will admit to using, to get my will over Tina.. Lasagna is another, but that’s another story.. Not that I think she’d really mind the menu anyways, but I kinda wanted a Mojito, too, so there.. And what a hit that was, prompting compliments from Tina as she arrived back and inducing comments such as “pre-made drink mixes is for fucking idiots who don’t know what they’re doing.. Which is why I’ve got you!”

As it turned out, the menu was approved, too, without much fuzz and she did seem impressed with my borderline ritualistic way of preparing French Onion Soup.. Which went all well up until the point where the bowls with croutons and cheese on top had been under the broiler and I were to evacuate them from the oven, using my fancy oven mittens courtesy of my grandma.. For some reason, I wasn’t really paying attention to my doing so rather than grabbing the bowls, I thrust both hands onto the broiling elements of the oven, not really realizing anything was wrong until I saw the look on shock on Tina’s face and started smelling something burning. 

“This is a problematic result,” I proclaimed as I pulled a burning mitten out of the oven, blew out the smoke and started to laugh and crack jokes at my own stupidity, not realizing that my other hand was, in fact still on fire.. Tina, apparently now used to my ingenuity in finding new ways of hurting myself, didn’t really say much as I struggled to beat out the fire in my mitten-clad left hand with my own right hand.. Now freed of its mitten.. She simply shook her head, going, “only you would do something like this..” “Yes,” I acknowledged, after having fought down the flames and finally gotten the little soup crocks out of the oven.. “But look, I made cute, little starters.”

So, that was the fire aspect of the tale of blood, sweat and tears.. And still, the only damn beer involved was the one that went into the Chili.. But no worries! The last cooking procedures were about done and we spent the rest of the night more or less feasting on French Onion Soup, Chicken with Fresh Pasta, expensive Chardonnay.. And Rammstein and Slipknot.. Y’know, to add to the sophistication.. Or whatever, it was good times.. But all good times have to come to an end and at around 0:30 AM, we decided we’d probably had enough so we set out on bagging the large amounts of freezer food we’d prepared over the course of the day, threw half of it in a bag for Tina and I then walked her home before making my own way back home for a bit of rest and some much needed sleep.. Which, I’m happy to say, was in no way interrupted by unknown carpenters.