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Month: January 2018

Wednesday Shakespeare: Infinite Jest

Wednesday Shakespeare: Infinite Jest

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For those of you who are familiar with Shakespeare’s Hamlet, you know exactly why there is a skull in the picture above, and you know exactly which character I’m writing about today. For those of you who did not read the play or were not necessarily fans of Hamlet’s histrionics, I’ll explain in just a few minutes. Many of Shakespeare’s tragedies deal with the concept of death, but none has a main character that ponders the subject quite as much as Hamlet does. The play opens with him having …

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Monday Booktails: Callaloo Cooler

Monday Booktails: Callaloo Cooler

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This week’s Callaloo Cooler is from the tiki cocktail book Smuggler’s Cove by Martin and Rebecca Cate, owners and co-founders of the famous tiki bar of the same name in San Francisco. I love this book for several reasons. It’s comprehensive. It covers everything from the history of the tiki movement and the first of the classic cocktails that would become its signature drinks, right up through the modern renaissance that’s occurring right now. It’s loaded with recipes (at least 100 of them) that are …

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Friday Musings: Shapeshifter

Friday Musings: Shapeshifter

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I’ve noticed lately that I seem to spend lots of time wrestling with the truth. In fact, my New Year’s resolution involved me choosing to believe in daydreams instead of accepting things at face value. I justified it by telling myself that I was keeping my heart open and trusting in the universe. Bad move. The universe had other plans. “You’re going down,” it said. “And here’s a nice flower pot to break your fall.” But I digress. That was last week’s post. I think that many of us ponder the truth on a daily basis, …

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Wednesday Shakespeare: The Apothecary

Wednesday Shakespeare: The Apothecary

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Today I’m starting a new Wednesday series that will focus on some of my favorite minor characters from Shakespeare’s plays. First up, the apothecary from Romeo and Juliet. Why do I find this emaciated man with the bushy-eyebrows and tattered clothing to be so fascinating? For starters, he is absolutely crucial to the way in which the play tragically ends, so much so that many Shakespeare scholars consider him to be more of a plot action device than a real character. If you’re struggling to …

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Monday Booktails: Twentieth Century

Monday Booktails: Twentieth Century

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For this week’s Booktails post, I’m sticking with Around the World in 80 Cocktails by Chad Parkhill, and paying a visit to Chicago, Illinois, not terribly far from last week’s destination of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Dating back to 1937, the Twentieth Century cocktail was created by British bartender C.A. Tuck, who borrowed the name of a luxury train line that ran from Chicago to New York in the early part of the 20th century. We don’t associate train service with much in the way of opulence these days, but …

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