Smorgasbord #4

Witness, Beatles, Clarified Milk Punch

Hello friends! This is Peregrino, a newsletter about the journey. And welcome to another edition of Smorgasbord, a self-service buffet of ideas.

Remember how I said, “I feel like it’s been go-go-go for a couple of weeks now”? Well, your boy was burning the candle on both ends, and his body finally gave out. I slept most of Sunday and Monday and started to feel human again on Tuesday.

Props to

Diana Cantu

for being the best nurse and holding the fort while I was out of commission. She gave me Umcka, which I didn’t believe in at first, but I have to say I’m a convert now.

Thanks be to God, I’m on the mend now but running behind on “40 Before 40.” Still, these are the things that I found interesting this week. Let’s go!

---

How many?

I was out for lunch with my coworkers, and I asked one of them how old his child was. He asked if I had any children. I told him I had four. A third person asked me how many of them were planned. Without hesitating, I said, all of them. This was a day after I disclosed that I was starting my day a bit late because I was going to Mass for a Holy Day of Obligation, and this person jokingly said he was testing my Catholicness. If he thinks four kids is a lot, imagine what he would think of some of the families in our parish that have north of seven children.

It was an excellent opportunity to be a witness. It reminded me of this quote by American author and friend of C.S. Lewis, Sheldon Vanauken:

The best argument for Christianity is Christians: their joy, their certainty, their completeness. But the strongest argument against Christianity is also Christians —when they are sombre and joyless, when they are self-righteous and smug in complacent consecration, when they are narrow and repressive, then Christianity dies a thousand deaths.

How true is this? Let’s be part of the best argument.

---

Now and Then

I have watched this documentary several times now. It amazes me how Machine Assisted Learning (MAL) helped finish this song five decades after John Lennon recorded a demo in a cassette recorder at his apartment in The Dakota. It felt like a “nerds to the rescue” moment when Peter Jackson’s team could isolate John’s voice.

The way that Paul talks about John and George moved me. Imagine you meet two of your lifelong friends at age fifteen, and you become a world phenomenon in music. Long after both friends are gone, you get one more chance to make music with them. That’s fascinating.

---

Clarified Milk Punch

I have written about my love of cocktails before, and the note above is part of the evolution of this hobby. I started adding booze to milk, not in a White Russian way but in a clarified milk punch way. What is that, you ask?

First, there was milk punch, which consisted of milk, a spirit, sugar, and vanilla extract. Eggnog, for example, is a kind of milk punch. It was all the rage in the 18th century, especially since some people started curdling the milk and separating the solids from the liquid, among them Benjamin Franklin, which produced a smooth, shelf-stable drink. Rounding off harsh spirits and a longer shelf life sounds like a win-win to me.

Before I knew this, Diana and I went to Khla, an Asian-inspired cocktail bar, in downtown Phoenix. I ordered a “Silk Road,” which consists of bourbon, brandy, rum, Thai tea, orgeat, coconut, and soy milk. I was expecting a Thai tea orange drink; instead, the liquid was clear. “What is this sorcery!?” I thought.

Me, holding a “Silk Road” while clinking glasses with Diana.

Okay, but how do you do the thing? I found this article where Daniel Villa—bartender at Supperland in Charlotte, NC—explains how he experimented with dehydrated milk powder. His process doesn’t require any citrus to curdle the milk because dehydrated milk is already broken—but still capable of love—and separating the whey (liquid) from the casein (solid) is easier.

Rehydrated Toasted Whole Milk

1. Preheat your oven to 275 F.

2. Spread 40 grams of Hoosier Hill Farm Whole Milk powder on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper.

3. Toast for 15 minutes.

4. In a saucepan, bring 8 ounces of water to a simmer. Then, whisk in the toasted milk powder with a pinch of salt. Remove from the fire, let it rehydrate for 5 minutes, and wait until room temperature to use.

Toasting the powdered milk will impart the cocktail a brown butter, almost dulce de leche flavor. If you want to skip toasting it, mix 40 grams of milk with 8 oz of warm water.

Clarified Milk Punch Old Fashioned

The idea behind milk punch is to make a batch, bottle it, keep it in the fridge, and have it ready to serve. It won’t spoil. From the recipes I have seen, you can use between half or even a third part of milk to achieve this effect. If you look at this recipe, there are 23 ounces of booze, and it only calls for 8 ounces of milk, so you can scale it up or down depending on your needs/preferences.

To make one Old Fashioned, I used:

• 2 oz bourbon

• 1 bar spoon demerara syrup

• 4 dashes of Angostura bitters

• 1 oz rehydrated toasted milk

Stir all the ingredients together, and you’ll see how the milk solids start separating from the liquid within a few minutes. I poured the cocktail into my pour-over with a rinsed filter. The first few drops were a bit cloudy, but I didn’t mind. I could’ve probably used another glass to catch the clear liquid and dump the cloudy bit on top again. It took a while to filter—about 15 minutes—especially after the casein settled at the bottom. So, I would recommend making batches to justify the effort.

Once filtered, stir over ice until cold and enjoy!

---

Sobremesa

1. Did I even explain what “sobremesa” means?

2. Do you talk about your faith in your workplace?

3. What’s your favorite Beatles song?

4. Who is your favorite Beatle?

5. Are you making a clarified milk punch this weekend?