Super Cocktail Time + recipes

I have this annoying habit of skipping our Friday night (or Saturday night, as the case may be) cocktail hour if I have a race in the morning.

Which I did, this last week.

So, when Bubba came home from work all ready to Cocktail the Fuck Out, as he so gently put it, while spiking his laptop on the dining room table and ripping his shirt off, he was none to pleased to find me sipping off a beverage devoid of the telltale G&T lime wedge.

"What? No cocktails? This is bullshit."

Agreed.

But, while I may not know much (evidently not enough), I do know that alcohol is dehydrating and so I avoid drinking the booze before I race by at least 24 hours. Sure, I don't drink enough water to counterbalance the stunning shriveling effects of one Gu, but I know not to compound my monstrous errors by having fifty drinks the night before I have to run around for 6 miles.

Sometimes I'm not completely retarded. I guess that's what I'm getting at.

And so I drank my water and Bubba drank his bourbons and we went about our pizza night like no big deal. We also watched our body weight in Heroes and so I dreamed about lizard people and being electrocuted by a snotty blonde, but whatever.

But when Saturday afternoon rolled around, after the race and its fries and the lion's share of my whining had passed, Bubba declared Saturday evening to be Super Cocktail Time during which he would light the fire pit, start the grill and we'd drink more than our usual 1 or 2 drinks because I'd skipped out the night before and was now in arrears in the way of cocktails.

I had, somehow, offended Cocktail Time and that was unacceptable to all involved. Especially my store of gin that was apparently offended sitting all unloved in the bar.

And because of the big post-race lunch I'd had I thought I should probably begin to reintroduce nutrition to my body and I don't care who calls ketchup a vegetable (or fries or pickles for that matter), my body knows a real vegetable when it sees one, so I couldn't be messing around.

Hence forth came the greenGREEN salad and some grilled leeks. Recipes which I will provide here for your dining and farmshare killing pleasures. And I guess it's worth noting that you don't have to run 6.2 miles and/or eat a nutritiously-vacuous lunch in order to enjoy it.

greenGREEN salad
Recipe by moi
Serves 3

Ingredients
1/2 head of green leaf lettuce, leafed, cleaned and chopped
2 lbs of fava beans, shelled, quickly boiled, de-husked
4 radishes (french breakfast and cherry bomb work nice), chopped
2 stalks of green garlic, white and light green parts sliced
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper

To make
In a bowl, toss: lettuce, fava beans, green garlic and radishes with olive oil, salt and cracked black pepper. That's it. Not much of a recipe, but there you go. It's very green. Especially if you serve it in a green bowl like I did. There.

Grilled Leeks
Recipe by moi
Serves 2

Ingredients
2 large leeks (1 per person), sliced in half and rinsed REALLY WELL
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper

To make
Start your grill (gas or charcoal), and while it's heating up, brush the cut sides of your halved leeks with olive oil and throw on some salt and pepper.

Line the grill with a doubled over piece of foil large enough to accommodate your leeks and allow them to grill along with whatever else is cooking - or for about 10 minutes. They're done when the cut side has begun to caramelize.

Serve with grilled tilapia and the greenGREEN salad and some bread or not.  But, if at all possible, it should be eaten in front of a raging fire pit which is burning the remains of an old broken pallet that's been bugging the crap out of you lying in the yard for a year and a half.

Good times.