Deus Mortus

Well I can't speak for the entirety of Europe, but accounting for the parts I visited I can tell you that's a rather large lie, company's here don't flaunt the artificiality of the products as much as American products do, but that doesn't make them any less artificial.

That was just a thing of beauty, I had never heard of this pepin guy, but I guess I'll be checking out some of his stuff, but that just made my day...

I come from Holland, here they don't even try to hide, as long as it's cheap, generally it doesn't matter if it tastes like soggy newspapers. There have been some improvements lately, but trust me, we are as much in the crapper as the rest of the western world.

With the seasonings that sounds more like a fish cake than what I think of as a "fish stick" (silly name, isn't it?). Fish sticks, to me, are pieces of fish with a crispy breaded coating, like mini fish'n'chips without the chips. My mom used to prepare frozen boughten ones and I remembered them as being delicious, crispy and good. So I recently bought some frozen major brand ones (Gorton's, I think), followed the directions and ended up with dreadful fish sticks -- soggy and whiffy. Ugh. Seems different country's have different fish sticks, I remember mine as coming out of a frozen box from Captain Iglo. I recently had them again and they were bloody awful. Fish sticks as you describe them are generally sold here as well - fish, fish sticks being the chicken nugget of the sea.

Generally speaking I just grab leftovers from any white fish I might have, mince them and quickly bread them with panko. I use a simple tartar sauce with it. I know fishsticks can be made very luxurious, but I prefer them as the leftover sponge they are, usually I'll also spike them with some aromatics (capers are a favourite) mostly just what I have laying around.

Knowing my girlfriend, I assume it is something a bit sweeter then Maraschino, something that would hide the bite from the Vodka, thus I am assuming cherry juice, especially since she visited during cherry season there.

Well last night I tried the strawberry screwdriver and while it was appreciated, she remembered yet another piece of the puzzle, apparently the cocktail also contained something cherry. If I would have to guess probably cherry juice. I have always found the idea of girly drinks interesting, now to my taste buds they are abominations send down by an angry deity, yet when giving it the proper chance almost everyone seems to like them, including the boys. They are a really safe sweet taste, that has more in common with candy then liquor. I have also noticed that people drinking these cocktails, eventually "graduate" to some more, let's call it mature, drinks. So I never got what people found so horrible about these drinks, they are the introduction to the world of drinks for many people...

Oh dear god, marrow and eggs, you sir are a genius! I am going to try this straight away, that sounds so bloody good!

I have just bought a Kai Shun Santoku knife a few weeks ago and I haven't stopped cutting things all day long, only stopping when my girlfriend is here, because she tells me it freaks her out to see me smiling at a knife like that.

I have been searching for the perfect cocktail for quite some time now, not for me, as a good sidecar works wonders upon my taste buds. I am searching for the perfect cocktail for my girlfriend and the worst part is, she has already drunk it. A few years ago she was visiting her family in Poland and had a cocktail made with a considerable amount of strawberry vodka, since then I have been attempting to recreate it. Sadly she can't tell me much except that it was made with (presumably strawberry) vodka, was rather sweet, tastes like strawberries and it had quite a kick. If anyone knows of a cocktail that reminds them of this, I would be quite grateful.