Cooking with Steven Chinese cooking for college students

Me and My Brandy

I am not an alcoholic, but I do so very like alcohol.  I am not a connoisseur by any means, like I can't tell the various grades of vodka and I do not care for their origin -- I mean, ethanol is ethanol.  However, I do like my brandy, at least the few that I know and can recognize.

Brandy & Chocolate. Photo by Steven P.S. Cheng.

Food is about memory, and I grew up with brandy.  Every year, since before I can even remember, during the festivals -- Chinese ones, that is -- I would get a tiny little shot of X.O. or V.S.O.P. brandy that's been sitting in a bottle for over 20 years.  They're usally Rémy Martins (Centaur ready to launch a javelin), Martells (a dove), or Hennessys (a weird arm made out of what-looks-to-be rope wielding an axe).  It's hard not to like brandy if you grew up knowing that when you were born, your dad negotiated with a jewelry tycoon in Hong Kong and found you a coin from 1888 (I was born in 1988) with Queen Victoria stamped onto it, decided that your name has to have Chinese characters full of the water radical due to superstition, and that a bottle of brandy as old as you are awaits you when you get married.  But the hype and myth and history aside, brandy simply tastes so good!  Even if you don't drink it, pouring a little into a snifter glass and smelling it is quite pleasurable.  If you have crystal glasses -- Amazon has it, surprisingly, at a low price -- gently tapping them together and hearing the way it resonates is enjoyable too.  Of course, doing all of the above with soft light, good music, and great company makes for an unbeatable experience, especially on cold winter days in FRIGID! Williamstown.

So, for those of you who drink a lot to get drunk, but don't really like to get drunk, but end up getting drunk anyway, and moan the lost of cash alongside the lost of will to not get drunk, I do suggest investing in a decent bottle of brandy.  Forget bad beer and cheap vodka.  Brandy's strong, so hopefully you wouldn't drink it like water, and would have a better time sipping it than chuggin' shots of vodka.  Also, the state-run Vermont liquor stores have sales and it's way cheaper than the Spirite Shoppe down on Cole Ave.  I got my V.S.O.P. Rémy Martin for under $40 in Vermont, which is really a bargain.   All that said, BE RESPONSIBLE!

Ok, at this point, needless to say, there's a love affair between me and my brandy.  As senseless as it is to discuss one's drinking habits, much less to judge it, I link you all to Robbie Williams' "me and my monkey."  I like British-pop every once in a while.

*P.S. Not all alcohol is bad, or at least, not everyone in the alcohol business is bad.  Jean Monnet, the man largely responsible for creating the European Union, and a man who's had his hands in the affairs of WWI and WWII, was by descent, and trade, a cognac salesman.  Voilà, santé.