For Mr E

Now you've got me going. I have been re-arranging my work space and getting all paid-work stuff out in to another bookcase so I can consolidate and tidy my non-paid writing space. While toiling, I kept in mind to watch out for a certain book on a certain topic.

A few years ago, I bought MARTINI, a memoir by Frank Moorhouse. I have never read, never much looked at it but I liked having it, knowing I possessed a book that was entirely a love-letter to martinis.

This is the table of contents:

Martini city
The story
The pageant of learning
Email to Ophelia in New York
The venerated craft
A captivating observation
The question of coldness
This thing called gin
The vodka option
The lost vermouth
A disturbing observation
The breast: the bra: the glass
The olive and the lemon tree
The diamond: the pearl: the acorn
'The olive on the toothpick gives the drink an axis'

Don't you just love it? The mention of 'this thing called gin'. Is he going to be pro or con? And the coldness; Mr E you are specific about coldness. And finally, the olive versus the lemon (I guess) is what that section refers to.

Let's see.

Oh wait, there's more. Turned the page, more in the TOC:

They had a date with fate in Casablanca
Liberating the Ritz
The first martini film
The role of the martini in movie-making
A martini matinee
'The orchestra is playing yellow cocktail music...'
Canapés
Scuba and Martini's Law
Mademoiselle and the doctor and the martini
The cocktail dress
The whole question of the drinks' cart
A new drinks' trolley
The souls of animals
The thirteen awarenesses
The mysteries
Where are they now?
Memoir of a story: Story of a memoir

End Pieces
A letter to my drinking companions around the world
The classic martini
Acceptable variations and close relatives of the martini
Martini music
What is this demon? Alcohol and the art of drinking

So much good stuff here. Where to begin?

Deliberation is one of the ingredients of the martini... To care about the martini shows that you know what it is that goes to make that which could be called, in life, fine.

In life, there are drinkers and there are martini drinkers.

The gauge of a sophisticated household is the number of glasses it possesses which are appropriate to the beverage.

(Moorhouse's friend V.I. Voltz, Mahattan identity)

Among many interesting snippets there is this one: Malcolm Fraser was (is?) a martini drinker. Apparently he takes a swig from the bottle of gin, replaces it with vermouth, shakes the bottle and puts it into the freezer for ready-made martinis.

More snippets to follow.

Hemingway's love of drinking

This is an article found at Food Republic
By Chantal Martineau

You may have heard: Ernest Hemingway enjoyed a tipple or two. In fact, the iconic writer liked his drink so much that another writer, Philip Greene, was inspired to pen To Have and Have Another, a book about Hemingway’s drinking habits and the libations that wove their way into his works. When Greene is not reading or discussing Hemingway, he is stationed at the Pentagon, where he works as a trademark lawyer for the Marines. A longtime Hemingway buff, he became interested in cocktails while researching his ancestors in New Orleans, including one Antoine Amedee Peychaud, the pharmacist who invented Peychaud’s bitters. Eventually, Greene co-founded The Museum of the American Cocktail. His book answers, among other things, the burning question: was Papa really the boozehound he was so rumored to be?

1. Hemingway was notoriously fond of drinking, but he refrained from indulging while writing
   When asked in an interview if rumors of him taking a pitcher of martinis to work every morning were true, he answered, “Jeezus Christ! Have you ever heard of anyone who drank while he worked? You’re thinking of Faulkner. He does sometimes – and I can tell right in the middle of a page when he’s had his first one. Besides, who in hell would mix more than one martini at a time?”
2. The mojito was not Hemingway’s favorite drink
   Hemingway lived in Havana and may have drunk mojitos, but their connection to the writer can probably be traced to the marketing efforts of La Bodeguita del Medio. A handwritten inscription allegedly penned by Hemingway on the wall of the now famous bar professing his love for the cocktail is likely a forgery, says Greene, who consulted a handwriting expert. As a diabetic, Papa took most of his drinks (including absinthe and double daiquiris) without sugar. So, the sweet mojito surely would not have been his cup of tea.
3. Hemingway had several go-to cocktails, but his favorite was a dry martini
   The author “thought globally... drank locally,” explains Greene. His characters often drank what he himself quaffed in whatever city he happened to be in while writing. But martinis were a constant, and each seemed drier than the last. In Across the River and Into the Trees, Colonel Richard Cantwell orders a Montgomery Martini: 15 parts gin to one vermouth. In A Farewell to Arms, Frederic Henry muses of sipping martinis: “I had never tasted anything so cool and clean. They made me feel civilized.”
4. Hemingway may have liked his martinis as dry as a bone, but he loved vermouth
   While recuperating from his wounds during World War I, he would ask friends to smuggle bottles of it into his hospital room, writes Greene. Sound familiar? The A Farewell to Arms protagonist did the same: “I sent for the porter and when he came I told him in Italian to get me a bottle of Cinzano at the wine shop, a fiasco of chianti and the evening papers.” One of his favorite drinks aboard his boat Pilar was a Vermouth Panache, a blend of sweet and dry vermouth with Angostura Bitters.
5. Hemingway liked his drinks icy cold
   In a letter he wrote to his publisher, he described using tennis ball cans to make dense tubes of ice for mixing martinis, and was known to freeze not only his cocktail glasses but Spanish cocktail onions to keep them cold. He bragged that the method made “the coldest martini in the world,” and described it as “so cold you can’t hold it in your hand. It sticks to the fingers.”
6. Hemingway did not invent the Bloody Mary
   There are many stories about the origins of the Bloody Mary. One such legend has it that the drink was first served to Hemingway in Paris. As the story goes, his doctors had forbidden him from having alcohol and his wife, Mary, was holding him to it. A bartender at the Ritz mixed him the vodka-and-tomato juice drink, full of booze that could not be detected thanks to the other strong ingredients. Having got the better of his “bloody wife,” the cocktail was christened after her. A number of sources have debunked this myth.
7. Hemingway traveled extensively, but was most at home on a barstool
   From his experiences in World War I and Lost Generation Paris to safaris in Africa and fishing the Gulf Stream, from covering the Spanish Civil War and World War II to chasing German U-boats off the Cuban coast, Hemingway’s life was one full of adventure, Greene reminds us. “Don’t bother with churches, government buildings or city squares,” Papa once said. “If you want to know about a culture, spend a night in its bars.” 

*

I think what I love about this is his sense of ritual. The making of ice from tennis ball cans; the freezing of cocktail onions and glasses. I'm sure he would have cared about the shape and size of the martini glass, the length of the stem. Comme moi.

There is such pleasure in rituals and for those of us who aren't religious (yet who may hypocritically enjoy a bit of churchy stuff like stained glass windows, Christ-on-cross paintings and beautiful hymns) we can also find them in drinking, eating, bathing, sleeping, organising our cans in the pantry and making sure all our coat-hangers face one way in the cupboard. If you can call it a ritual, maybe it's more socially acceptable. No I don't drink my vodka out of the bottle, I like a nice glass, look at me I'm civilised.

wedding wrap up

hello all. i'm not sure what i was waiting for. i guess we came back to earth with a bit of a thud, or i did, just with kids back to school, kids, that three of them, buzzing around and blowing every bit of the magic away.

you know, i love them, love them all, but you can't have a conversation like this with a 10 year old:

me: so, did you enjoy the wedding?

princess: [grabbing my arm] oh, yes. sorry to gush but it was absolutely the best wedding i've ever been to, the food, OH MY GOD THE FOOD, it was simply delicious and hot, all the meals were hot, the servicve was fantastic.

me: i'm glad you had a good time then-

princess: and the MUSIC, it was sooooo good. i loved your first dance, it was funny and so apt, also the last bit, where everyone was joining in, i can't wait to see the video. when do you get the photos?

me: um, i think he said a couple of weeks

princess: well, i can't wait to see them, they'll be beautiful, YOU looked beautiful

get the picture? the conversations went more like when you ask them how school was, and the answers consist of "good" and "i don't know".

but, the venues were spectacular, we got many compliments on the food, music, spectacular surroundings, celebrant, the Dress, how gorgeous the children looked, the family atmosphere and the symbolism of merging these two families.

the weather was superb - mild and summery, it was just perfect.

after leaving the reception in a swirl of dance and laughter we jumped into a car that took us back to the hotel in the city. the one with l'occitane accoutrements in the bathrooms. the one with king suites that are on a corner of the building and overlook the mcg, fitzroy gardens, over to south yarra and the domain, around up the yarra to the arts centre, crown, southbank and eureka tower. we could see out to the ocean, and to the dandenongs and the other hills to the left of the dandenongs. beautiful. we had what i wanted, a lost-in-translation type hotel experience, without the loneliness and angst. we drifted around the city, we ate at oyster, oh god you must go there. the most perfect and simple meal of freshly-shucked oysters, followed by i think a grain-fed beef sirloin on the bone, it was huge, 450g, so much meat i couldn't eat it all but i remember saying it was the best i'd ever had, and a special on the day, with mash potato and we got some sort of greens. dessert was tiramisu served from a huge copper flat pan at the table. the wine, tick. the atmosphere, tick. the service, tick.

oh and we'd started with a vodka martini at the bar.

so a perfect mini-honeymoon.

but then back to reality, and i just haven't been able to bring myself to write about it here. a bit flat i guess but i'm ok. you know when there is a big build-up to something and then it's all over just like that?

but the next thing is the trip, oh excitement much. seriously, there is so much pleasure in looking at apartments in venice on the internet and getting all jiggly and stuff with anticipation.

i've told john i will have sex with him each of the three nights we are in venice if we can get the [more expensive] apartment that i prefer, which is seriously venetian. compared to the others, which could be anywhere, like anywhere, this one is the real deal.

check it.