The Drunken Cookbook for the Drunken Blog

Well, well, well. It looks like I have another cookbook to review.

Another Blogging for Books book came, and this one seemed perfect for my blog: The Drunken Cookbook from Milton Crawford. What better book to get drunk and review than a cook book made for drunks.

I received the book a few days ago, right before a trip to Santa Barbara with my family. WHAT PERFECT TIMING. I flipped through it looking for the perfect food to make for my family once we all got wasted, which should easily be the second we arrive at our house.

The book is hilarious. The author warns you several times to not get too drunk and try to cook. They also have several tests to administer to determine what level of drunk you are, i.e. what level you can cook. (I accidentally forgot to take one of these tests.)

So, I picked a recipe that seemed relatively easy and relatively delicious: Char-Grilled Vegetable and Cheese Quesadillas with Fried Eggs.

Now comes the hard part.

EVERY SINGLE DAY SINCE WE ARRIVED IN SANTA BARBARA WE HAVEN'T BEEN HUNGRY ENOUGH TO EAT SINCE WE'VE GOTTEN DRUNK. I blame Thanksgiving.

Finally, today, we took a trip to wine country and went to a vineyard and drank all day. After an hour back in the car, where we each took a nap, I started slaving away at the stove.

I forgot to take the quiz to see how drunk I was. Seeing as I made the food SOMEWHAT successfully and didn't burn this rental down, I'd say that I didn't need to.

The recipe was super easy to follow. I basically just looked at the ingredients and did what I wanted. Quesadillas are not hard, so I enjoyed a few glasses of wine while I cooked. My family sat in the other room eating cheese and crackers.

Basically, the most difficult part was chopping. Knives are dangerous.

After chopping up a bunch of veggies and toppings, you throw the veggies in the oven and burn them. Then you start making quesadillas. Then you fry some eggs. This is a lot easier the fewer people you have to cook for. I was cooking for five so it was super annoying and everyone seemed cranky that it was taking so long.

I made quesadillas one by one and the second I walked into the dining room, I wanted to cry. Every single person had the most MISERABLE look on their face. Apparently, they "ate way too much cheese while waiting." Fucking drunk people.

Throughout the "meal" I heard things like, "Well, I ate around the vegetables." "LOOK. I FINALLY ATE THE WHOLE THING." "Do you really want me to eat this until I puke? Because I will." AND THESE WERE MY PARENTS.

I thought it was pretty good, but I was surrounded by dickheads who hated everything. Clearly this was not my best effort. I think that I would make this again for people, but starve them before serving.

Onto the rating system:

Do I talk about this book a lot when I'm drunk?
Well, for the past few days, I made a big fucking deal about having to get drunk and make food for people based on a recipe from this book. And every time I was drunk I kept asking people to get hungry so I could cook. So yeah, sure, for the past 5 days, I've talked about this book A LOT while drunk.

So would I recommend this book while drunk?
I think it's a pretty good cookbook for drunk people, so probably. It's funny and easy to follow. I would just make sure people like meat. There are A LOT of meat recipes in here, so I don't know how much I'll use it. But yeah, I'll recommend it to my drunk, meat friendly friends.

Time to go get into the hot tub and drown my sorrows in more wine.

Oh, and here are some pictures of everyone looking ready to die:

EAT: Drunk Dinner Party

HELLO DEAR READERS!

You are in for a treat.

Wait. Can I say "readers" when I only know for certain that I have one?

Correction: Dear Reader, (You know who you are.)

You are in for a treat. This is an ULTRA SPECIAL DRUNK BOOK REPORT, DINNER PARTY EDITION.

Let's start at the beginning. I got this new cookbook (for free, I feel like I must share that pertinent information) and decided the BEST way to review it was to pick several items and cook them for my closest friends. Oh, and get drunk in the process and then paraphrase all of the conversations from the party and write my review immediately. So here goes:

I got this cookbook, Eat by Nigel Slater. It's a pretty solid premise. I think it's referred to as fast cooking. I LOVE FAST COOKING, ALREADY SOLD. The book is separated by how things are cooked: on the stove, in the oven, on the grill, DESSERT. Just kidding. That last one isn't how it's cooked. They guy clearly got lazy in the naming strategy here. Regardless, it's kind of a cool idea.

AND OH DEAR GOD, THIS BOOK IS HILARIOUS. Each section starts with this INSANE DESCRIPTION of how/why/when/where/what this category. I can only provide excerpts to explain how incredible they are:

"There is an intimacy involved in eating food while holding it in your hands. An intimacy you cannot get from the cold steel of a knife and fork or even a pair of wooden chopsticks."

"You melt a slice of butter in a wide, shallow pan. When bubbles appear around the edge you slip in a fillet of fish and slowly let it cook, spooning the warm butter over and over. You watch the flesh change from pearl white to snow white and see the edges turn pale gold. You toss a salad or steam some green beans. You open a bottle of wine."

"We trap in the steam they produce, encouraging them to cook more quickly. Sometimes, the lid is on tight, so no steam escapes; other times it is left at a jaunty angle, like a cap."

JESUS CHRIST, NIGEL ARE YOU DRUNK??? THIS IS SO AMAZING.

Dear reader, have you watched much How I Met Your Mother? All I could think of when I read these ridiculous write ups was this scene:

ANYWAY. I decided to pick a few recipes and make dinner for a bunch of friends. I picked an appetizer, an entree and a side. There were A LOT of recipes to choose from. One thing this book does not lack is a lot of delicious sounding meals. I finally narrowed it down to:

Fig and Goat Cheese Focaccia - "Crisp bread. Melting cheese. Sweet figs."

Smoked Haddock with Lentils - "The calming quality of smoked fish and cream."

Eggplant and Chickpeas - "A textural thing."

(The quotations are the ACTUAL descriptions from the book. I wish I were joking.)

I doubled all of the recipes because they were only meant for two. I actually kind of like that idea for a normal, every day meal. (COOKING FOR ONE OVER HERE.) But for this it was kind of annoying because I was trying to cook for six. Another thing that was weird is that there weren't really instructions or specific measurements for most of the ingredients. It was more like, "Hey! Use a few carrots." "Cook the fish in this liquid." "A little oil should work." For someone like me, A TOTALLY EXPERIENCED, AMAZING CHEF, this didn't bother me because I typically use recipes more like GUIDELINES and do whatever the fuck I want. But for anyone else, this might be annoying. Like, how long do I cook the fish? How many carrots do you want me to use? What the fuck do you mean by a little oil should work? Do you want me to use a lot of oil? PLEASE ELABORATE.

With that said, all the recipes were pretty easy. I spread out making shit throughout the evening so I could get my drink on and socialize with my friends. I think I started everything at 5pm and finished at 7:30. Not too bad for 3 separate items. And I didn't really feel stressed or overwhelmed by any of the recipes I made. It was all, "Go grill this eggplant." "Toast this bread." Very small potatoes kind of stuff (that's a cooking pun, you're welcome).

The dinner party itself was also hilarious. We spent most of the time talking about weird sexual acts, fecal transfers, masturbation techniques, and NRBs. You know, your typical conversations. Things like, "That's not a Hot Carl. That's a Steaming Cleveland." "Why do men always jerk off together?" "What part of that is a communal activity?" "What's the weirdest thing you've ever seen in a bathroom?" "I knew this guy that could cum without cuming. He just taught himself how." "That guy should teach a seminar. Cum is so messy.""Oh fecal transfers. They're basically the human centipede, but scientific," Seriously, I think this is the most grown up dinner party in all of existence.

Mixed in were a few, "YUMMMM"s and "MMMMMBOY"s and "THIS IS THE BEST FUCKING MEAL I HAVE EVER HAD OMG JAYNE YOU ROCK MY WORLD"s. Everyone agreed the fish was the best part. I wasn't crazy about the eggplant, it needed something else, but everyone else seemed to like it. Or they were being polite. Oh and the focaccia was AWESOME right out of the oven, but not as good later in the evening. (Oh, P.S. totally use truffle goat cheese if you can find it. It adds a new layer of awesome to the party.)

Several bottles of wine and all the dishes I own dirtied, I'd say it was a successful party.

So the rating system: Would I recommend this book while drunk?
This is kind of a weird question because I'm not really walking around recommending cookbooks to people while I'm wasted (or ever). BUT I would definitely be like, "Oh shit, I made this bomb fish the other day. You should definitely make it some time if you like bomb fish." So yeah, I'm going to say that counts.

Would I talk about this book while drunk?
I would definitely talk about this dinner party and the food I made which would then lead to talking about this HILARIOUS book. Seriously. I have reread so many of these intros and just died laughing. I think if I'm ever in a bad mood, I will just read these section intros to cheer myself up.

 My only regret of this dinner party is that Nigel himself couldn't come and describe all the food to me. I bet he has a great voice.

OH AND TAKING THIS POST TO A NEW LEVEL. HERE, TAKE A LOOK AT SOME PICTURES: