What Else Is New?

Maybe it’s my age, or it might be my temperament, but there aren’t many things that I haven’t done that I would like to do. I did a few of them this week in Las Vegas.

Two of them were little. After most of a lifetime and a lot of breakfasts, I found a new way to have eggs. Have you ever had your eggs basted? You should. Nuff said. The second thing is more by way of an inside joke that backfired. Ask me and I’ll tell you, let’s not bore the whole class.

The third thing I hadn’t ever done before was drink absinthe. It was time for my annual alcoholic beverage, and the bucket list of those is pretty short. In fact, it’s basically absinthe and port. When you put Oscar Wilde and Toulouse Lautrec up against a bunch of paunchy rich old English guys, it’s no contest.

The absinthe process is cool. I have pix of the ice water gizmo, the super neato spoons, and the bottles ranging from gold to the virulent green of “la fee verte”. Our friend and absinthe guru David walked us through it all. He told us about every bottle, about the history of absinthe (some of which we knew, but not all,) and about the wormwood. Robert had Pernod, I sniffed it. That green fairy packs a wallop. I had the Germain-Robin, it was fragrant with tarragon and flowers and somesuch. We watched the ice water drip and the sugar cubes dissolve. We sipped. We were enlightened.

It was a fun adventure, but I still loathe licorice.