Two Posts in a Day?! Adapting a Mark Bittman Martini

Okay, okay, okay, okay. So, like, some friends were really encouraging when I shared my post from earlier today, so I'm taking another break from my adulting to write myself some blog content! Whaaaaaaaaaaaat! (Warning: I don't want to plagiarize the New York Times, or its most famous food columnist, so I don't actually provide the recipe in this blog post. If you want to LEARN, go somewhere ELSE today!!! I mean, stay for the entertainment, but leave to Google/library/bookstore the recipe.)

I've only had about 5 gin martinis in my whole late-30s life so far, because they're pretty new to me. But now that I know what they taste like, I've decided that I quite like them! But in particular, I mean dirty gin martinis, because I am surprisingly smitten with olive brine. Who knew I'd like a savory drink?!

So, I don't own any cocktail books yet, but my copy of Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything has a basic martini recipe in it, so I decided to assemble one tonight in the spirit of writing to entertain my friends. Because what's a hobby without an audience?!? (I joke. I know plenty of folks who have hobbies without an audience. I'm just very social and like to entertain my friends, hence this blog!)
Full disclosure: I created the martini before sitting down to write, so I feel a little tipsy while I'm writing this, which is normally not how I do things. I am usually so sober it's like I'm double-sober! So sober!!! But right now, I am tipsy. Which is okay, because I'm not in substance use recovery and even my pharmacist has said it's okay for me to have a drink now and then. Besides...

OLIVE BRINE IS PROBABLY VEGAN!!!!!!!!!!

I'm not vegan, but I'm trying to consume more vegan foods throughout the day, to try to water down my milk-and-cheese habit. I love cheese dips, I love cream sauces, I love brie, I love mac and cheese, I love quesadillas, I love nachos, I love pizza, I love certain yogurts, I love various ice creams, I love that cheesy salad dressing I wrote about earlier today, and etc etc etc it all affects my cholesterol profile, which is elevated due to - according to my doctor today - medications that I take for some stuff that I don't want to write about here. So this cholesterol kick I'm on is... is... is probably not a good way to justify enjoying a bit of gin, and I really don't want to ruin this evening for myself, so let's just say that I know it's hypocritical to, like, um. Hang on. I don't want to write if I'm going to write about this! Time to reel myself back in.

Ni kcab flesym leer ot emit.

As it were.

Okay, getting back on track!

So, imagine that you were me like twenty minutes ago, when I got some really encouraging feedback from some friends, and then I remembered that I bought some martini olives and I didn't know exactly how to use them. So I got out my cookbook and got to "work" making myself a small martini! Mark Bittman's recipe didn't use olive brine, but I've SEEN martinis with olive brine in them get prepared, and I've sipped those martinis happily, so I assumed based on some other Googling that I should use the same amount of brine as vermouth. It didn't really taste like enough of either of those, so I just dumped in a ton more olives and told myself to learn to love the drink, which I learned pretty quickly, because it's a fucking fancy cocktail, and I'm not known for being particularly picky. Like, a little picky sometimes, but not suuuuuuuper picky.

Anyway!

Here are some photos:

Umm, how do I pour the 3/4 cup of gin into the tiny cup?!? Rather, THIS is how I did it. Yay!

So, like, I added a lot of olives, okay? Think of Pepper Potts in Iron Man I requesting all the olives in her martini. I think even SHE would be confused by the number of olives I selected in this drink! So, I've done something even more extreme than even the pilot of Rescue armor would do, when you think about it, really. (Comic books!)

Glamor shot of the martini next to the cookbook!