The Pantry and Its Discontents

Always wanted one and can't believe I haven't shown it to you in all these years: the pantry. It's a miserable little closet vacuumed out now and then, scrubbed and dusted I think only once in 15 years and I made somebody else do it, and only items in glass, armor-like plastic, or metal are shelved there because paper towels and napkins, and even newspaper used as shelf liners got shredded into mouse nests. (Never, ever say to me, "Poor little mousie.") There's also some extra flour in big tough plastic 5-gallon jugs that used to hold Demetrius's protein powder, but I bet you are looking at my liquor shelf.

In early 2012 I drank my first martini in Florida sitting at a bar packed with people age 80 and older at happy hour, and I told the lady next to me it was my first martini and she yelled, "Hey, it's her first martini!" and everybody hooted and hollered and toasted me like it was 1929, and I was so thrilled with how drunk I got that when I returned to Missourah I threw a martini party. I taped some martini recipes down on the table, bought an aluminum shaker and went to a liquor superstore, my first, to hunt all the ingredients--I'd heard of vermouth but didn't know exactly what it was, nor "simple syrup" either--got olives, lemons, tons of ice and had the party, and haven't made myself a martini since.

Then I bought some Missourah bourbon after I got a free sample that really sent my head to Mars. I read about how fun it was to drink bourbon with a boyfriend but my boyfriend at the time did not drink hard stuff and to this day I have the two bourbon-type glasses I stole from his kitchen thinking how romantic it would be to drink bourbon with him, and haven't had another drop. I also keep a half-bottle of Johnny Walker Red somebody gave me to take home after a party, Sobieski Polish vodka, Ketel One for the vodka martinis I never make, some flavored vodkas (because I drank them in Poland; lemon vodka in my freezer; a whole bottle of Polish caramel vodka I bought in Chicago; what was I thinking?), Serbian slivovitz (plum brandy; equivalent of moonshine; I am the only one of my friends able to drink it) and J&B, my favorite scotch because of how it takes the edge off and makes me hear violins, and I keep saying "tomorrow I'll have a drink and watch a movie," but I never do have that drink because I don't sleep well after evening drinks and tomorrow, always, I have to get up early, exercise, work and so on. And I drink best with others.

What are the all the beans and tomatoes for? Emergencies. Also have stuff in there I don't know what to do with, like a jar of red Russian caviar. Maybe I'll open it and see what happens.

Luck of the Coffee Drinker

Used to be, Mom bought our clothes at Robert Hall and food at the A & P supermarket, home of lost or now rare enchantments such as the Spanish Bar Cake and red tins of Eight o' Clock Coffee, alongside the foreign and fascinating adults-only object (pictured) resembling a nautical speed control but engraved with weird, haunting, perhaps mystical words; Mom never used it. Today I stock only 2 brands of ground coffee: Eight o' Clock, and Chock Full o' Nuts. These passions are old, deeply set, and based solely on the names and packaging. At eight a.m., all things are possible; I still believe that. Out east, the franchise "Chock Full o' Nuts," so named because it started as a chain of roasted-nut shops in Manhattan, has sold coffee and pastries since 1932. In New England I became addicted to Chock Full coffee, rare and expensive in Missouri, consistently available at only one classy St. Louis grocery at $6-$8 for a small can. I remedied this by ordering a case of the regular coffee direct from Chock Full; the green-lidded decaf was harder to find.

I drink more of the decaf now, when I can get it. The last tin I bought is tagged $6.49. So last week in a supermarket in House Springs I'm stunned to see the "marked down" shelf holding 5 cans of Chock Full decaf at $2.99 each. Ecstatically I bought them all. It was the best luck I had all day.

Selling it here isn't easy because the Chock Full franchise, still active, never extended west of Chicago and the name causes folks to believe the coffee contains nuts. It does not.

It might be the "o"s in the middle of Eight o' Clock and Chock Full o' Nuts  that have so entangled my coffee-drinkin' heart.

Beer: It's Not Just for Breakfast Anymore

This isn't a native Missouri beer, but us all down here like a cold one no matter what the label on it, and the advertising folks seem to know that in the Show-Me State you show us a beer and we'll drink it, and they seem to be appealing to us and our kind, and you know what? It's time for my weekly Sunday morning beer.