Morning Comrades! Friday already and whilst this email always aims to end of the week on a positive note, as this one will again, a few words. I have been giving this whole dystopian reality concerning OnlyFans, their creators, Master and Visa Card the brutally vocal and aggressive evangelical minority behind this fascist nightmare a great deal of thought this week. Not because I am a creator or customer on OF but because of the lessons inherent in this past weeks play. To recap briefly, OF decided to kick all sex workers off their platform after receiving an ultimatum from Mastercard/Visa that they wouldn’t be handling their cash due to “moral” concerns - those “concerns” came directly from a very small, but vocal and aggressive evangelical minority in the US that has held a brutal stranglehold in one shape or form since Reagan was going to loose his presidential election and decided to give them a platform. Now, I am all for freedom for all but to be sure I hold nothing but utter contempt for those, and any religious fanatics, and the US is a perfect petri dish to see what happens when you apply the paradox of tolerance to any society.
Following a massive rebuttal from the community of sex workers and their fans that literally made OF a financial success, a loud one and one that was subsequently picked up outside of the twitter sphere, OF pulled a panicked 180. Good. That clearly shows that a unified response against any and all fuckery from the corporate side of anything has the desired effect - read: join a fucking Union. Today. However, two other lessons need to be taken from this nightmare, yet again: Any and all activity that isn’t built on your terms, read: platform, can be taken away from you at any given point without any warning, reason or remorse. Creators like myself and millions of others that depend, sadly, on the monopolized realities of online commerce depend entirely on a few people’s whims. That’s not healthy, let alone good. We all know the discussion points of anti-monopoly efforts, breaking up big tech and so forth.
Furthermore, and this goes deeper into the subject, the OF fiasco shows how powerful a small minority given the right narrative, organization and to a certain degree, financial support, can be. This small religious fanatical community of evangelicals has determined the narrative in the US and to a certain point, the rest of the “west” for 4 decades now. On the same note, Castro started the Cuban Revolution with 70 people. That’s it. I feel that is a very important note to take away from all this. I have always struggled with Leninst Vanguardism as a viable strategy going into the 21st Century, but the tactical realities sure seem plausible. It’s worth thinking about for sure.
On that note, I highly recommend clicking the above image to get to another Verso Reading List that predominately deals with the Far Right, Fascism, Authoritarianism and all the little shits that sit in between. Understanding the enemy is vital for our future and their selection on this topic is absolutely brilliant.
I know I said that going forward I would keep the weekend’s viewing pleasure section down to one video but I caught so much good educational films that week that I have to expand that this week, just by a little. Presented without comment, just watch them.
Yes, we are ending this week with two new recipes from Ana and Tatjana respectively. I always get excited about these and I hope you do too.
Latkes, essentially potato patties originate out of the Jewish Cuisine and whilst this recipe isn’t vegan, it is vegetarian and the vegans among us are most likely clever enough to make this vegan for their diet.
Ingredients:
300g potatoes, 200g zucchini, handfull of chives, 1 table spoon of starch, 50ml olive oil, 30g butter, half an onion, 2 egg whites, a satchel of baking powder, salt, pepper, cinnamon.
Step 1:
Peel the potatoes and let rest for 15 min in cold water and the baking powder. Finely grate the vegetables, onion and then the potatoes and tightly squeeze through a cloth to get rid of the water and starch.
Step 2:
Add the rest of the ingredients, portion into patties and then fry in a heated pan with the oil. You can also make these sweet by replacing the chives with a small spoon of sugar. Eat these with some yoghurt or whatever floats your boat.
Last week felt like a fucking month and today has already been a week - for me at least. At times like this, all I really wanna do is to sit down and unwind with a good glass of something in hand; wine, beer or a stiff cocktail (preferably all three). So in the spirit of this, we're gonna do one of my go-to drinks for when it already feels like a week by noon on Wednesday. It's a twist on a twist, but also one of my absolute favourite things to drink: a WHITE MEZCAL NEGRONI. My good friend, colleague and R&D partner-in-crime Frida and I can easily drink a few of these on a good day. That's just how fantastic they are.
There's no shortage of twists on the negroni. If you remember back a couple of weeks, we started out with a one of them - the Sbagliato. The white negroni is also a spin on the fiery red nergroni we all know. A classic negroni consists of equal parts gin, Campari and sweet vermouth. A white negroni is made with equal parts gin, a gentian liquor and dry vermouth, and is bright yellow in colour. Now our twist on this is to substitute the gin with mezcal. This gives a deeper, more smokey flavour instead of the drier sharpness the gin would normally add – which is also delicious.
WHAT YOU NEED: - Mezcal
- Gentian liqueur
- Dry vermouth
- Ice
- Lemon + peeler
- Rocks glass
- Bar spoon (yes, go buy a real bar spoon)
- Jigger/whatever you've used for measuring so far
HOW TO DO IT:
- Pour 3 cl of mezcal, 3 cl of gentian liquor and 3 cl of dry vermouth into your rocks glass.
- Put the ice in.
- Stir it round 4-6 times with your bar spoon.
- Make a lemon peel. Hold it 6-9 cm away from the glass and bend it towards the glass, so it will spray it's oil into it. Give it a little rub around the rim and side too.
- Put the lemon in the glass.
- Kick back and enjoy your drink!
ON A PERSONAL SIDENOTE:
I love this drink. It is just absolutely delicious. It's boozy, smokey, herbal, smooth, bitter, fresh and slightly floral – depending on your vermouth choice. Now about the choice of dry vermouth: stick with something floral and with a slight sweetness to it. This type is normally labelled and sold as 'blanc' or 'bianco'. I'd recommend going with a Spanish style since they naturally sway more towards the sweeter, floral side compared to the French - like Lillet - for this particular twist. Some Italian blanc/bianco dry vermouths also has that floral sweetness going on.
A gentian liqueur is not something I expect you to have on the shelf at home. It is a crucial ingredient in this weeks drink though and it really does make a nice edition to your collection. Besides this particular twist and a normal white negroni, you can use it a variety of other drinks: spice up your gin & tonics, use it in champagne cocktails, drink it with ice and a soda top off alone, and the likes.
The gentian liqueur came about in the mid 1890's in France, and is made by infusing and distilling the gentian root. It's bright yellow, slightly herbal and tastes more towards the bitter end of bittersweet. I've had guests describe it as having a “distinct herbal, almost medicinal taste, but in a pleasant way” after having tasted it. There's a whole range of different gentian liqueurs like there is
For the mezcal you want to use something that works well as a mixer. I talked a little about the difference between tequila and mezcal last time, and also warned that the rabbit hole only gets deeper and weirder. Mezcal can be made from 30+ species of the agave plant so there's a wide fucking variety of amazing flavours available. I personally love mezcal; in drinks, as neat sipper, as a shot. But just because it's a good sipper with a complex flavour profile, it doesn't mean it goes well in a drink with multiple elements and layers. It's an easy trap to fall into. Remember: the goal is to make something balanced, so every element has to work together.
In regards to ice, use a big single ice cube as you would in an Old Fashioned for example. The advantage of one big ass ice cube is that it melts slower than several smaller ones. It keeps the drink cool longer, but also slows down dilution. You can buy forms for making these yourself and depending on where you live, you might be able to buy big ice cubes as well.
So whenever you feel like it's been a fucking week, when it's only Tuesday afternoon, fret not. Make one of these fuckers, put a record on and sit back. Take a sip and enjoy!
P.S.: I'm soon gonna move into actual stirred and shaken cocktails, so if you want to make those you need to buy some tools within the next couple of weeks. Get a shaker, a jigger and a bar spoon. There's different types of all three. Some serve a purpose, others are more about personal preferences. I personally like working with a Boston shaker (I prefer glass on tin for the nerds) as my base shaker, and a Japanese jigger. For bar spoons I use the shorter ones. Something around 25- 35 cm long since anything above that length just annoys me when working. It sounds ridiculously long for a fucking spoon when reading it, but remember the shaker alone will take up some of it and you still need room to hold it for stirring. It's completely up to you how much you wanna spend and invest on bartending tools. Making anything really is always more fun with the right equipment, but I completely understand if you're not in the mood or a position to drop money on this stuff. I will be alternating between recipes for stirred, shaken and just 'built in glass, nothing fancy but good flavours' for you, so there's something for everyone. Otherwise you always have the option of asking your own local cocktail bar to make their version of the drink for you.
That’s all for this week folks, I will be dropping some incredibly good hot takes into our Telegram Group by the time I wake up and have had my coffee. Until then, have a revolutionary weekend comrades.
Steven.