This “beer product,” which is to beer what Velveeta is to cheese, proved to be an interesting drink in my house. My husband had expressed an interest in it after I shared Jacki’s opinion so; I bought him some and stole a sip.

All of that is said to lead to this – No foodly thing goes on my table without some enhancement from me. Even take-out is not safe from my improving hands – and neither is this beer.

Chelada-Maria Brunch

We start with preparing the Chelada to fit into this scenario. If you are a purist, just stick it in the coldest part of the refrigerator and skip this part.

Chelada Maria

2 cans Chelada

1 ripe summer tomato

dash celery seed/salt

1/8 tsp sea salt

washed, sliced, fresh lime

Peel and finely dice the tomato, press through a sieve to remove seeds and pulp. If you like those things, just squish the diced tomato in your hands to make as much juice as possible; either way, put it into a pitcher and add the Chelada. Mix in the celery seed/salt and sea salt, stir,

Stick into the refrigerator to stay cool until time to serve in Pilsner glasses.

What is super-cute is to freeze a basket of grape tomatoes and pour them into the pitcher as ice cubes. If you don’t do that, just put regular cubes into a small zippie bag and add those to the pitcher to keep everything good and cold.

Serve with chilled vodka and shot glasses so people can spike their drink as desired. Put the lime slices out for people to add as they wish; pickled green beans and okra are also nice additions.

This beer, even in my “improved” incarnation is a sprightly beverage with a light character that can be mismatched if you aren’t careful. You can’t assume that its vegetable-flavored bottom note will work with brats or steak; this is a more rarified brew.

To that end I offer a menu to match that has very little to do with recipes and is more about food choices.

Chelada Platta

Basic Avocado Salad

10 grain toast points

Brie

Cucumber spears in Lemon

Lox Rolls

Sliced Anjou pear

Avocado salad is a fancy way to say ripe avocado cut into 1” chunks tossed with lime juice, salt and pepper.

Buy some Pepperidge Farms whole grain bread, toast til slightly dry and cut into triangles. It needs to be able to stand up to a brie being spread on it. Speaking of which, just get some of that Ille de France brie from Publix, it is fine in this context.

The actual quality of the cukes matters less when you augment with lemon, just remember to seed the cukes if the seeds are hard.

You’ll need to make your own lox rolls?

Lox Rolls

Standard packet of sliced, smoked lox

2-3 tbl capers

3-4 tbl cream cheese

pkt fresh dill, rinsed (1/2 tsp chopped for recipe)

½ cup thinly diced red onion

Mix items 2-5 gently together, spread evenly over lox slices, roll up and slice pin-wheel style. Serve with a small dish of horseradish for the hot heads. It is pretty to sprinkle the extra dill on the serving plate.

Mazal Tov!

You could slice some crisp Roma tomatoes to act as palate cleansers but be sure to toss the apple and pear with a scant amount of lemon juice to keep them from browning.

I hope you enjoy this little pairing from us and look forward to having you come see us at girlontap.com.

I have enjoyed writing for the Harbinger. I love writing and the opportunity to write creatively for a deadline again has been a gift.

Now for the good entertainment. Last night my friend and I went into the city to North Beach S.F. We established Cobbs comedy Club and saw Charlie Murphy. That cat is funny. His opening comic Paul Farmer AKA Freez Luv is very funny. I believe he is opening for Charlie next week in Orlando at HRL. Charlie talks about, well Charlie. He talks about boning, male egos, celebrities, racism. I never laughed so hard in my life. It is a high recommendation to see him and his buddy Paul next week at Hard Rock.

I hope I have not bored yall but at least I did an entertainment review. Peace out until next week when my TV tray is back in Altamonte Springs.

“when can I expect a 200 word essay on Politics”

I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. I figured he thought I really was lilmike. So I said

“ummm what?”

The Jaf said that he wanted me to write 200 words for the next issue of the Harbinger. I didn’t know what to think. Either the ‘Kewl Kids Club’, an elitist club that likes to play inside jokes on people, was setting me up…. Or he really wanted me to write something.

After thinking it over I figured I’d give it a try.

The Jaf said I should think of a name but I really suck at that so I asked him for some suggestions. He came back with

“Proper Gander”

“A skewed View”

And

“Velvet cooter”

Yeah ok , it wasn’t velvet cooter but it was velvet something.. I liked it.. But I liked the other 2 choices more. I couldn’t pick between them so I said “screw it.. From here on out it will be know as…

“Proper Gander”
(A skewed view)

With the name out of the way I found out that I had a real problem. One that I didn’t know if I could fix. It seems as though I can go on and on and on about things (I know, right) and a 200 word limit was just way too restricting. Try as I might I couldn’t get my ‘rants’ down to 200 words. So I went to The Jaf and asked him what to do. His answer.. “Just write whatever and use however many words you want, I’ll find a space to put you” (we were using a newspaper column format back then)…… after I got the approval….well, history was made.

I’ve written about politics, rednecks, disasters, gay things, black things, retarded things , happy things, sad things , scary things, sexual things and of course Bush administration things. Hell I even wrote a sonnet. I have had a great time doing it every week or every other week or whenever I can. I don’t know if I have a ‘following’ anymore than any of us do. But I would still be doing it even if I didn’t. Why The Jaf and The Despot picked me I’ll never know… was it because of an elitist joke? Did they just need someone to fill a space? Or were they really interested in seeing what I’d do…. I still don’t know the answer to that and I don’t care. I’m just glad I was asked.

The Harbinger is going the way of dinosaur now. I’m sad to see it go. I have a routine of getting my Sunday morning coffee and clicking on the ‘Harb’ and reading it to start my day. I will miss that. It’s become a routine that I enjoy immensely so I will savor being able to this one last time today. Everyone who is or has ever been a part of the Harbinger has put their time and alot of effort into their words in the hopes of amusing, informing, predicting, comforting and feeding us all.

Thank you!

In case you are wondering what I am going to do with all these pent up words I will have now.. Or in case you are saying “Oh shit, ekg doesn’t have an outlet anymore.. Mommy, I’m afraid” Don’t worry, The Despot has been kind enough to offer me a space on the front page of Muchedumbre. I don’t have a set schedule yet but I have something to say pretty much all the time. (no, really HA!) So stop by and say “Hi” whenever you get a chance…. Or if your Fred send some **** my way on the weekends when you have nothing better to do but read a few entries.. J

Mickey, Geoff, Jacki, Sean, and everyone else who made the Harbinger possible… Thank you for everything you’ve done. Thank you for giving me the opportunity and the place to vent a little. It’s been a great ride and I’m sorry to see it go. My personalized desk name plate will always sit on the top shelf of my desk and I will always be grateful you included me in your endeavor.

(Btw, at this point . I am at 688 words…So ya see, I couldn’t do 200 if my life depended on it! HA!)

(and check the links )

We already burned it down…

I have too much stuff going on to edit the Bing anymore. It makes me sad, but, don’t worry, the great writers of the Bing will live on!

Check out the front page of muchedumbre.com and read the carefully chosen words of EKG!

Check out girlontap.com and feast your eyes on the booze and food fest that is JackiOh and Woozxyl.

Check out muchedumbre.com/enigma and look at the beautifully shot photographs of MLG.

Check out skunkape here.

If any of the other writers have pages for our loyal readers to catch up with them, leave them in the comments.

I’ll miss the Bing and I wish all the great writers many successes.

Anyways, I need to get to planning the luau …bitches.

When our beer teacher poured it into my glass, the beer was a cloudy red-y/orange, with a small head that quickly dissipated. I don’t have Bloody Marys very often, but when I do, they smell just like this beer. So does tomato soup.

Luckily, I love tomato soup.

Surprisingly, I also loved this beer.

It was salty, but not too salty. The beer taste cut the tomato taste just enough for it to be more than watery tomato soup. I didn’t get a clam taste from it at all. The carbonation is more fizzy than regualar beer, but it was fun and enjoyable with this “beer.”

Now, I wouldn’t drink it at the beach or in other normal beer situations, but it would be a perfect morning after breakfast beer.

Check out the menu my fellow girl on tap, Wooz created just for this unique beer!

I almost can’t wait to get hungover so I can drink it again!

4/5 pints

According to US, Steven Tyler has checked in to the same rehab where Dr. Drew did his show from. The band had currently been promoting the guitar hero game that’s named after them.

Rules Of Hell, a box set of Dio’s on again, of again years with Black Sabbath is in production stage. Dio and Tony Iommi are the architects and it wiil be four remastered discs of the appropiate Sabbath albums. Live Evil is a double disc. The two are also working on a brand new album which is not due till some time in ‘09. The two will also be touring with the Metal Masters in August, along with Judas Priest, Testament and Motorhead.

Ozzy is doing one lone fest this year. It takes place at The Pizza Hut Park in Dallas. Other performers include Jonathan Davis, Hellyeah, Seven Dust, Serj Tankian and Shadows Fall.As of today, a ticket price has not been announced but they will be available on ozzfest.com on the 31^st.

CC and CBS have not taken the success of online radio without notice. By the end of the summer they will have matched or surpassed their rivals. CC is also interested in expanding the Pandora model.

A recent poll showed that 21% prefer internet listening due to the greater variety. 17% like it for the simple reason that many of the aufio choices, besides music, are simply not available anywhere else. 14% liked the greater access to music.

In online file sharing, the soap opera with no name, a concencus appears to heve been reached. From Australia to the UK(they’ll be dancng in the streets). Some of the governmental opposition includes not spying on consumers. France is considering a three strike proposal, Israel has blocked it’s citizens from connecting to servers outside of their country. Hmm, I thought Israel kind of had larger problems, but that’s just me. The cat is so far out of the bag that there is really no point in governments waisting time and money on the issue. I’ve heard other people express a similar sentiment to this:I’ve been enjoying from Montreal for a number of years and I finally purchased one the Cd’s yesterday. I’ve done that many times with groups and singers who I otherwise wouldn’t have ever had the occasion to hear. While it’s not of zero concern to artists, their main revenue is from merchandising and concerts. How else could you explain Foghat still being round?

It’s amazing how some bands that haven’t had airplay in easily 30 years, are still around. Before Greg Lake was in ELP, he was in King Crimson. You might say they are a grandparent to bands like Dream Theater. Their songs were often so long that an album would only have five songs. All their releases have a common theme, story or idea that ties the whole thing together. I went through a very long period of not liking what I considered artsy, fartsy music. I’m glad I got past that because it’s entertaining and educational at the same time. While I was searching around for some modern day equivalents, I ran across Ayreon and Symphony X, you might like them if you enjoy that type of music, originally considered progressive rock.

If not a grandfather, then certainly a great uncle of grunge has a new release available. Mudhoney’s new one is called, The Lucky Ones. I haven’t heard the group Islands yet but they sound interesting and have a new release out which BB kind of gives a mixed review to.

Darkside Of The Moon remains in the top 50 of the pop chart after all these years. Pop, meaning anything that continues to sale light years beyond most records.

Starbucks has all but eliminated it’s musical venture. The one time forty employee strong division has dwindled to less than a dozen. No doubt the economy is having an effect on fancy coffee and shit music.

The Police will be doing their final(?)reunion show this summer in NY. They will be donating one million for trees in in NYC.

Motley Crue will be touring from July 1^st till Aug.31^st. STP began May 17^th and will keep going till October 26^th, barring some unforeseen incident.

Until next time, I’ve been Mr Z, and this is what passes for a column on the internet.

]]> http://muchedumbre.com/harbinger/archives/485/feed http://muchedumbre.com/harbinger/archives/474 http://muchedumbre.com/harbinger/archives/474#comments Sun, 11 May 2008 14:23:15 +0000 JackiOh http://muchedumbre.com/harbinger/?p=474 Taurus: Watching a frat boy realize just what he put his dick in!
Gemini: Fuck you lady, that’s what stairs are for!
Cancer: Exes getting STDs!
Leo: People taking pleasure in your pain!
Virgo: Watching a vegetarian being told she just ate chicken.
Libra: Ain’t it fun to watch figure skaters falling on their asses?
Scorpio: What’s that, some kinda Nazi word?
Sagittarius: We provide a vital service to society!
Capricorn: The world needs people like you and me who’ve been knocked around by fate.
Aquarius: Right now you are down and out and feeling really crappy.
Pisces: Don’tcha feel all warm and cozy, watching people out in the rain?
Aries: When people see us, they don’t want to be us, and that makes them feel great.

Schadenfruede