The Chanteuse

Chanteuse (flute)
4 oz sparkling wine, spl absinthe, 1/2 oz pernod, 1 cube sugar, peychaud's
soak sugar cube in peychaud's
pour absinthe and pernod over it through a slotted spoon
top with sparkling wine
drop sugar cube in bottom

The Chanteuse has a couple of origin threads. One is my friend Cumorah, who used to work at the bar next door to mine, and is a culinary-school-trained chef and a big fan of Pernod and anisette in general. The other is an Iron Bartender competition that I lost (albeit closely) a few months ago at Tiger Tail in Ballard. The secret ingredient that evening, which we were obliged to use in three different concoctions, was Marteau Absinthe, a French-style absinthe made in Portland, Oregon. Marteau was the semi-official sponsor of the competition that evening (they did, at very least, donate a case of the stuff for us to use).

Since I don't smoke or drink and swear unconvincingly, symmetry is my only vice.
-Richard Powers, Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance

Draining the Swamp in my Innards

Some what know me well know that once a year or so I give over my bad habits and try and give my corpus a chance to clean itself out and set itself straight.  Last year was the intestinal flora rebalancing diet.  The year before was the allergy elimination diet.  Both were hard, and took several weeks, but did wonders for my body, which I appreciated, since I've only got the one and it's lost a touch of its native resilience what with the punishment and the aging and such.

This year I'm going back to my roots, and working my way up to a fast.

I've done several over the years.  It's a nice way to give my body a break from digestion and let it process out some buildup.  There's a fair bit of controversy over the practice, with the western medical establishment pretty decidedly anti- on the one hand, and many individual anecdotes on the other side quite fervently pro-.