Thoughts and Ideas

Thoughts and Ideas

Took a nice long day of driving just to get out, away from the computer, and see some old and new things. Of course, the thoughts surrounding all of the work that’s been going on here were numerous. I’m really trying to post on a semi-regular basis here – 1) to chart the very re-beginnings […]
January 4, 2026 • 3 min read
Thoughts and Ideas

Thoughts and Ideas

Took a nice long day of driving just to get out, away from the computer, and see some old and new things. Of course, the thoughts surrounding all of the work that’s been going on here were numerous. I’m really trying to post on a semi-regular basis here – 1) to chart the very re-beginnings […]
January 4, 2026 • 3 min read
First Post

First Post

I’d like to start things off by wishing you all a happy new year! Though many are not aware of it, the website actually went live – although shielded behind an access gate, with a generic welcome page that you’ve probably seen by now, and likely never will again if you’re reading this – yesterday, […]
January 1, 2026 • 4 min read
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Welcome,

This is, for me, a space to share my style of food, and the central role it plays in day-to-day life, presented in my ideal modern, urban aesthetic; a digital culinary multi-sensory experience.

To the left and above (or above, if on mobile) you’ll find the latest journal posts, and below you’ll find the latest posts from each of the sections I split the site up into; Recipes, Menus, Reviews, and Guides.

Everything is presently, in early 2026, a work in progress – many things are missing but will be added in soon!
This is, for me, a space to share my style of food, and the central role it plays in day-to-day life, presented in my ideal modern, urban aesthetic; a digital culinary multi-sensory experience.

To immerse yourself fully and get in the mood, to share in this frame of mind, go grab one of my playlists to enjoy in the background as you browse around.

To learn more about this blog, how I’ve put it together, and where the inspiration came from, be sure to check the about page above.

To the left and above (or above, if on mobile) you’ll find the latest journal posts, and below you’ll find the latest posts from each of the sections I split the site up into; Recipes, Menus, Reviews, and Guides.

Everything is presently, in early 2026, a work in progress – many things are missing but will be added in soon!
This is, for me, a space to share my style of food, and the central role it plays in day-to-day life, presented in my ideal modern, urban aesthetic; a digital culinary multi-sensory experience.

To immerse yourself fully and get in the mood, to share in this frame of mind, go grab one of my playlists to enjoy in the background as you browse around.

To learn more about this blog, how I’ve put it together, and where the inspiration came from, be sure to check the about page above.

To the left and above (or above, if on mobile) you’ll find the latest journal posts, and below you’ll find the latest posts from each of the sections I split the site up into; Recipes, Menus, Reviews, and Guides.

Everything is presently, in early 2026, a work in progress – many things are missing but will be added in soon!
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Recipes

Martini

There are few drinks as freighted with expectation as the martini. Order one and you invoke a century of cultural mythology—Bond’s specifications, Parker’s warnings about three, Churchill bowing toward France while pouring gin. Yet beneath this accumulated lore lies something more elemental: a drink whose enduring appeal stems from radical simplicity and the precision it […]
4 min read

Kir Royale

In the third season of Emily in Paris, the titular marketing executive finds herself newly unemployed and nursing her professional wounds at the Place de la Concorde. Her former colleague Luc orders her a Kir Royale—”the perfect drink to sip and do nothing as the Ferris wheel turns,” he tells her. The moment is quintessentially the […]
4 min read

Aperol Spritz

The Aperol Spritz achieved global ubiquity not through superior flavor complexity but through perfect timing. When Instagram arrived hungry for photogenic content, and millennial travelers sought accessible markers of European sophistication to show off, this Venetian aperitivo was waiting—sunset orange, effortlessly elegant, requiring neither bartending skill nor challenging flavor commitment. The drink’s origins are modest: […]
3 min read

Kir Royale

In the third season of Emily in Paris, the titular marketing executive finds herself newly unemployed and nursing her professional wounds at the Place de la Concorde. Her former colleague Luc orders her a Kir Royale—”the perfect drink to sip and do nothing as the Ferris wheel turns,” he tells her. The moment is quintessentially the […]
4 min read

Aperol Spritz

The Aperol Spritz achieved global ubiquity not through superior flavor complexity but through perfect timing. When Instagram arrived hungry for photogenic content, and millennial travelers sought accessible markers of European sophistication to show off, this Venetian aperitivo was waiting—sunset orange, effortlessly elegant, requiring neither bartending skill nor challenging flavor commitment. The drink’s origins are modest: […]
3 min read

French 75

There’s something peculiarly modern about ordering a drink named after artillery. When Harry MacElhone created the French 75 at his Paris bar sometime around 1915, he wasn’t being subtle about the reference—the French 75mm field gun had become synonymous with devastating precision, and the cocktail promised similar impact. What’s remarkable is how this drink, born […]
3 min read

Martini

There are few drinks as freighted with expectation as the martini. Order one and you invoke a century of cultural mythology—Bond’s specifications, Parker’s warnings about three, Churchill bowing toward France while pouring gin. Yet beneath this accumulated lore lies something more elemental: a drink whose enduring appeal stems from radical simplicity and the precision it […]
4 min read

The Last Word

In the taxonomy of forgotten drinks, few have experienced as dramatic a resurrection as the Last Word. This equal-parts cocktail disappeared so thoroughly from American consciousness that its rediscovery felt less like revival than archaeological excavation. The drink emerged during Prohibition at the Detroit Athletic Club, credited to Frank Fogarty, a vaudeville performer, around 1915. […]
3 min read

Sidecar

Two establishments claim credit for the sidecar’s invention, both in cities where expatriate Americans gathered to drink legally while Prohibition transformed their homeland into a speakeasy nation. Harry’s New York Bar in Paris stakes one claim; the Ritz Hotel in London asserts the other. The most commonly cited origin story involves a military captain arriving […]
3 min read

Manhattan

The Manhattan is a drink that lies. Not about its contents – those remain admirably straightforward – but about its origins. The most popular legend places its creation at the Manhattan Club in the 1870s, supposedly commissioned by Jennie Jerome (Winston Churchill’s mother) for a banquet honoring presidential candidate Samuel Tilden. It’s a tidy story, […]
3 min read

Boulevardier

Harry McElhone’s genius, if we can call it that, lay not in invention but in substitution. Working behind the mahogany at Harry’s New York Bar in 1920s Paris, the Scottish bartender took the Negroni—barely a decade old—and swapped bourbon for gin. That single modification, made for his friend Erskine Gwynne (whose magazine The Boulevardier chronicled American […]
3 min read

Negroni

Count Camillo Negroni could not have known, when he asked his bartender to strengthen his Americano with gin at Florence’s Caffè Casoni in 1919, that he was inaugurating a cocktail that would define Italian sophistication for the next century. The modification was simple—equal parts gin, Campari, and sweet vermouth—but the gesture was radical. Where the […]
3 min read

Old Fashioned

When Louisville’s Pendennis Club bartenders began serving whiskey “the old-fashioned way” in the 1880s, they staged a quiet rebellion. As American saloons descended into ornate punches and elaborate concoctions designed to mask cheap spirits, the Old Fashioned emerged as correction rather than innovation: good whiskey needs enhancement, not disguise. The name itself—coined by drinkers requesting […]
3 min read

Cosmopolitan

Few drinks have traveled a stranger path from ignominy to icon than the Cosmopolitan. What began as a questionable concoction at gay bars in 1980s San Francisco—rail vodka, Rose’s lime juice, Rose’s grenadine—became the defining cocktail of millennial sophistication before settling into quiet permanence. The transformation happened in 1988 when Toby Cecchini, working at the […]
3 min read
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Reviews
Shake Shack

Shake Shack

I’ve developed a complicated relationship with Shake Shack, which is probably exactly what they want. These kind of relationships are tense, but strong. The place occupies that peculiar tier of burger joints that emerged sometime in the last decade or so – not quite McDonald’s, definitely not a $40-burger steakhouse, but hovering in that artfully […]
5 min read
Condado

Condado

I have a confession: I’m kind of obsessed with finding out why this restaurant is called Condado. Not in a normal “oh, I wonder” kind of way, but in a “I’ve spent an embarrassing amount of time Googling this” kind of way. Because condado just means “county” in Spanish. County! Like, the most boring administrative division […]
5 min read
Condado

Condado

I have a confession: I’m kind of obsessed with finding out why this restaurant is called Condado. Not in a normal “oh, I wonder” kind of way, but in a “I’ve spent an embarrassing amount of time Googling this” kind of way. Because condado just means “county” in Spanish. County! Like, the most boring administrative division […]
5 min read
Shake Shack

Shake Shack

I’ve developed a complicated relationship with Shake Shack, which is probably exactly what they want. These kind of relationships are tense, but strong. The place occupies that peculiar tier of burger joints that emerged sometime in the last decade or so – not quite McDonald’s, definitely not a $40-burger steakhouse, but hovering in that artfully […]
5 min read
See More in "Reviews"
Guides

Cocktail Calculations

Mixology is an art form, but knowing how to make cocktails is only half of it. In fact, I’d wager that it’s the easier half. Knowing how to choose the right cocktail matters just as much, maybe more. A well-made drink at the wrong moment – too strong for the occasion, too light for the […]
6 min read

The Many Levels of Trying

The first time someone told me I wasn’t “really vegan,” I was mid-bite into something I probably shouldn’t have been eating. I can’t even remember what it was now – maybe cake at a celebration, maybe something grabbed in desperation at a gas station. What I do remember is the feeling: equal parts defiance and […]
5 min read

The Many Levels of Trying

The first time someone told me I wasn’t “really vegan,” I was mid-bite into something I probably shouldn’t have been eating. I can’t even remember what it was now – maybe cake at a celebration, maybe something grabbed in desperation at a gas station. What I do remember is the feeling: equal parts defiance and […]
5 min read

Cocktail Calculations

Mixology is an art form, but knowing how to make cocktails is only half of it. In fact, I’d wager that it’s the easier half. Knowing how to choose the right cocktail matters just as much, maybe more. A well-made drink at the wrong moment – too strong for the occasion, too light for the […]
6 min read
See More in "Guides"

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