Squid Mixes: Vodka Cooler

A vodka cooler is exactly like a gin cooler (see this post) apart from the obvious replacement of gin with vodka.  My recipe came from The New York Bartender's Guide. 

"I feel cooler already," said my wife after the first sip.

A Window Above: Blue Train

Piece: "Blue Train"
Writer: John Coltrane
Original Release: 1958
Album: Blue Train

While my era of choice for rock music hovers around the late 1960s/early '70s, the jazz I favor generally came out of the late 1950s.  Charlie Parker, the Beethoven-esque idol of nearly everyone who came after him, died in 1955.  The trouble with bebop, the style championed by Parker, was that it was so darn fast most people couldn't play it.  It was the jazz equivalent of break dancing: undeniably dazzling but unsustainable as a dominant cultural force due to the high degree of difficulty.  So jazz's evolution after his passing, while maintaining much of bop's harmonic thinking, slowed significantly in tempo.  Miles Davis was the lead voice of the new trend and playing with Miles was a sure path to stardom.  Without a doubt, the most important musician to pass through Miles Davis's band was saxophonist John Coltrane.

There's still a lot of Miles's sound in Blue Train.  Coltrane would develop his own voice more fully with Giant Steps, released in 1960.  Most jazz seems esoteric to 21st century ears but I have found the title track to be relatively accessible for my students.  The opening hook is strong, evoking a spy movie or some such.



Want to hear all of the songs I have featured in a convenient playlist?

Enjoy: A Window Above

What are you listening to these days?

Squid Mixes: Mimosa

As has been our family custom in late August, our daughter recently went to visit her grandparents in DC on her own, giving us a weekend just the two of us.  We miss her but we also enjoy taking advantage of the opportunity for some quality couple time.  This year, we planned a spa-at-home day: salt scrubs, foot soaks, face masks, hand massages and... mimosas!

There isn't much to a mimosa: orange juice and champagne in equal parts.  I got my recipe from The New York Bartender's Guide.  They were most refreshing.  For me, there is always something a little weird about the initial taste of orange and grape combined, as if one or the other has gone off somehow.  I guess my brain still expects to taste pure orange and it's not quite.  I always get used to it, a most pleasant beverage indeed.

Care to listen to our Spotify playlist for the day?

A Perfect Love

I crowd-sourced this one via Facebook, asking my friends to offer suggestions for the perfect love song.  I've gotta say, the resulting compilation is enjoyable.  Please feel free to suggest additions in the comments below.

State of the Blog 2018

“There is more in you of good than you know, child of the kindly West. Some courage and some wisdom, blended in measure. If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”
- Thorin's final words to Bilbo, The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien 

It's been a nice year at The Squid.   I don't have much tinkering in mind for Year 10, apart from digging deeper into the topics I'm already exploring.  Perhaps in so doing, I can do my part to help inspire a merrier world.

I'll definitely be continuing with the cocktails, furthering my own education in mixology and sharing what I learn.  I have a couple of non-fiction books about cocktails on my TBR shelves and some interesting looking recipe books on the wish list, including one for mocktails.  Our daughter's delicious non-alcoholic mixed drinks were a central theme of our Europe trip this summer and it would be fun to make more of our own.  I also need to be better at ordering cocktails when we're out.  I tend to be a beer man at restaurants, cold draft brew being so wonderfully refreshing.  But recently we were at Kitchen Table Bistro and I wanted a vodka martini instead with my oysters.  I didn't even understand all of the questions the bartender asked me about my preferences.  Thank goodness, my wife was on hand to translate.  Guess I need to learn the lingo while seeking out the best Manhattan in northwest Vermont.

As A Window Above enters Season 2, I am looking to bring a little more diversity to the mix.  I've gone pretty heavy with the classic rock and soul so far.  I genuinely love both, of course, but there's a lot more interesting music out there and I'm eager to write about it.  

Want to hear all of the songs I've featured in a convenient playlist?  Enjoy:

A Window Above

Finally, a little musical treat to kick off the new year:

Squiddies 2018

The Armchair Squid turns nine years old today.  It's time to hand out some hardware.  And the Squiddy goes to...

Biggest Surprise: A Willing Accomplice

There is always excitement in bringing a new cat into the house.  Every feline brings her own quirks.  One knows to expect the unexpected.  Who would have thought that The Scamp, newly acquired in February, would catch on so quickly to my blogging needs?  Getting a cat to pose for a photo, ever, let alone on command is unusual to say the least.  I make no claim to expert cat training skills.  The kid just gets it.  I set the drink down on the floor, she comes running over.  Hasn't even tried to sneak a sip.


Biggest Disappointment: Losing the Lug

One quiet Saturday, while my wife was out of town, I went down to the basement and heard the sound of suffering coming from the storage room.  Sure enough, there was The Big Lug, our beautiful Russian blue tom, lying on the floor and clearly struggling.  I rushed him over to the vet but he was too far gone.  They put him down upon arrival.  15 years is a long time to share a home with anyone.  He was well loved and sorely missed.
 

Best Read, First Time Category: The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carré

It is a classic of the genre for good reason.  There's no glamor at all in the tragic tale of Alex Leamas, a longtime British operative.  In fact, he wants out of the game.  But the Secret Service has one more job for him.  He's just an ordinary guy with an extraordinary job.  His girlfriend?  Just an average woman who fell in love with the wrong guy at the wrong time and so gets caught in his same trap.

Their story could have happened to anyone.  That's exactly why it works.  So good.


Best Read, Re-Read Category: Winning Chess Strategies by Yasser Seirawan

It was nice to end the summer with a chess book and Seirawan is always charming.  Now, if only I had time to play.


Best Comics Find: March by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell

Charlottesville was over a year ago now.  The story of race in America hasn't gotten any easier.  But at least people are talking.  March is the graphic novel, autobiographical account of U.S. Representative John Lewis's personal history in the Civil Rights Movement.  So far, I have only read the first book of three but the others are on the shelf and I'm looking forward to them.


Athlete of the Year: Stan Musial (1920-2013)

By nearly all accounts, Stan the Man was one of the kindest superstars baseball has ever seen.  Numerous players, stars and journeymen alike, tell stories of how Musial went out of his way to welcome them to the Majors by name, even those who played for the other team.  This really says it all: he earned his nickname not in St. Louis where he played for over 20 years but in Brooklyn, home to the Cardinals' most hated rivals.  The Man turned Ebbets Field into his private pinball machine and they loved him anyway.


Best Family Adventure: Europe

We took a two-week to Europe over late June/early July:  Paris, London and Edinburgh.  We have some dear, old friends in London so reconnecting with them was the highlight for me.  As cities go, though, I'll take Edinburgh: small, manageable, easy to get away from the tourists.  Just as important this summer, it wasn't so damn hot.

My wife and I had both been to Europe before but for our 14-year-old daughter, it was the first time.  Every place we went, she was sad to leave.  That was really what I wanted: to give her a taste of the adventure so she would be eager to explore more on her own someday.

On the Coffee Table: Winning Chess Strategies

Title: Winning Chess Strategies
Author: Yasser Seirawan

A chess game is a story, protagonist and antagonist in a struggle both brutal and elegant.  Over the years, I have learned strong openings, the beginning of the narrative.  I can build a solid pawn structure, get my pieces to effective positions and protect my king.  But in every game, I tend to reach a point where I must ask myself: what do I do now?  I'm good at satisfying conclusions, too.  Give me an endgame puzzle and I can probably solve it.  But how do I get there?  The middle game has always been the source of greatest mystery to me.  I always marvel at superior players who know exactly what to do and how to do it.  Naturally, that's why they beat me.

The answers lie in strategy.  If one can understand the basics of strategy, and when to apply which appropriately, one can win the middle game.  Fortunately, Syrian-born American chess champion Yasser Seirawan is ready to help.  In Winning Chess Strategies, Seirawan builds on the force, time, space and pawn structure concepts he introduced in Play Winning Chess (reflection here).  New and expanded principles include making the most of a material advantage, stopping enemy counterplay and the creation of targets.  In general, positional play requires paying attention, formulating clear objectives and limiting the opportunities available to your opponent.

It struck me that winning a chess game is all about controlling the narrative.  After all, if your opponent is always forced to react to what you're doing, s/he stands no chance at furthering his/her own cause.  We see the same game played politically all the time.  Of course, it's one thing to know this, quite another to understand how to do it.

Seirawan, a positional player himself, includes a lot more of examples from his own games than he did in previous books.  While this could come across as arrogance, he humbly includes a couple of his games where his strategic errors led to his downfall and also admits when he failed to capitalize on early-won advantages.  Once again, I thoroughly enjoy the personality he projects as a writer.

I have to admit that I have not played much chess over the past several months.  With the school year about to begin, it's difficult to imagine that changing but I'd certainly like to get back to playing more.  Reading baseball books makes me want to watch more baseball.  Reading chess books makes me want to play more chess.  In the end, all I really wish for is more time to read.  Alas, summer is nearly over.

Squid Mixes: Gin Cooler

The cat days of summer...

A gin cooler combines gin with sugar and sparkling water, a lemon peel to garnish.  My recipe came from The New York Bartender's Guide.  The preparation was a little unusual in that one combines the gin and the sugar in the bottom of the glass even before adding ice.  Presumably, it's a nice way to keep the sugar from being too grainy and actually gets evenly mixed in with the rest of the drink, a frequent issue.  The end result tastes like a lightly sweet seltzer, certainly not as strong in flavor as the gin and tonic I made for my wife.