Umami Mart

We’re a couple weeks into 2011 and many of you are still hopeful about staying true to your resolutions. Although last year I did my best to aid you in detoxing from the holiday gluttony, this year my intentions aren’t so pure. Rather than fortify your resolve, I’m here to steer your ship back to the harbor of iniquity. How you […]

Halloween’s only a few days away and many of you still haven’t bought or made your costume, or worst yet, haven’t even figured out what you’ll be dressing up as.  Unfortunately I can’t help you in that department. However where I can be of assistance is in figuring out what to serve at your party–or […]

  As far as Summers go, this was one of the best in recent memory. My first trip to Tales of the Cocktail, a new puppy, and all around nice, scorching hot weather made this season a tough act for Fall to follow. But alas, we have arrived at Summer’s twilight here in New York: […]

  Every few years or so it seems the brains of the folks down in Arizona (aka God’s underwear chafe) burst with a brilliant idea that seems to justify the rest of the world’s perception of them as backwards ass, gun-toting, cactus-chewing clodhoppers. In the early 90s they decided they’d rather not recognize the Martin Luther King, […]

  I have yet to come across a cocktail that epitomizes the adjective rustic like the Caipirinha does.  Derived from the Brazilian Portuguese word caipira (meaning “country people”), even the drink’s name references its rustic nature.  Some refer to the Caipirinha as the cousin of the Mojito.  My liquor-warped brain sees it slightly differently. To me […]

So you say it was a tough year, huh? Well, look at it this way: you’ve almost made it out of this Millenium’s first decade. And what a decade it’s been. I mean, this was the decade that the internet hit puberty and really came into its own; the decade that gave birth to Google—do […]

Christmas is nearly upon us, and while most folks are building jolly snowmen and merrily singing carols, every year there are those who wake on Christmas morning to the sad realization that they had been placed on the naughty list, with only a few lumps of coal in their stockings as their best hope of […]

At some point very soon you’ll feel like you’ve filled your noggin with too much nog from all the holiday parties throughout the month. Before you reach the point where the three letter word ‘egg’ begins to conjure four letter word thoughts, I’d like to share with you a few recipes for delicious egg-based relatives […]

Every now and then I come across old cocktail recipes that have little to no history or lineage to trace back to; bona fide boozy bastards, where all background checks turn out goose eggs. They’re listed in a few old cocktail recipe books, and if you do an internet search you’ll have no problem coming […]

“A good Sherris-Sack…ascends me into the brain; dries me there all the foolish, and dull, and crudy vapours which environ it, makes it apprehensive, quick, inventive, full of nimble, fiery and delectable shape, which delivered o’er to the voice which is the birth, becomes excellent wit.”–Shakespeare’s Falstaff It would come as a great surprise to […]