Taste of victory

Make your own vanilla extract

tasteofvictory — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:13:24 +0000

Pour a pint of unflavoured vodka into a glass bottle and add one or two vanilla pods. Add an air tight lid; it is important to keep well fastened. The bottle must be shaken once a day for the coming three weeks. After three weeks, the extract is ready for use. If you want to, you can strain it using a coffee filter but this is not obligatory.

If you want the extract to be more powerful, you can scrape the seeds from the pod instead of using whole pods. Add both the seeds and the remaining pod-shell to the vodka.

Vin gris

tasteofvictory — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:12:28 +0000

Vin gris is white wine derived from red grapes. The most commonly used grape for making vine gris is pinot noir, but other grapes can be used as well, such as Gamay Noir à Jus Blanc. Gamay Noir à Jus Blanc – commonly referred to simply as Gamay – is a very old cultivar that has been grown since at least the 15^th century. It produces purple grapes and yields large quantities.

In order to make vin gris, you must let the juice run off from the grapes and remove the skins, since you don’t want the skins to add colour (and flavour) to the wine. In most cases, vin gris is created from grape juice that has been fermented in stainless steel tanks. It is typically bottled without ever being allowed to age in oak barrels.

In the district of Champagne, several houses produce Champagne from red grapes using the vin gris process. This is referred to as blanc de noirs, which literary means “white of blacks” in French. Blanc de noirs Champagne is normally made from Pinot Noir, Pinot Meuinier or a blend of both grapes. Other black grapes can be used as well, but only Pinot Noir and Pinot Meuinier are permitted by the Champagne AOC appellation.

The Emperor of these United States

tasteofvictory — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:11:33 +0000

In 1859, Joshua Abraham Norton proclaimed himself “Emperor of these United States”. He would later add “Protector of Mexico” to his title as well. Norton was a celebrated London-born eccentric living in San Francisco, California. He had spent most of his early life in South Africa but moved to San Francisco in 1849 at an age of 30 years.

Joshua Abraham Norton was considered highly eccentric, or even insane, but the citizens of San Francisco still celebrated him and his idea of having the United States Congress dissolved by force. Joshua Abraham Norton also issued decrees calling for a bridge and a tunnel to be constructed across the San Francisco Bay. One of the decrees from Norton was instructions to form a League of Nations and he explicitly forbade any form of discord or conflict between religions or their sects.

Norton was known to appear in a tarnished blue uniform decorated with gold-plated epaulets. The uniform was a gift from officers of the United States Army post at the Presidio of San Francisco. Norton died on January 8, 1880, after having collapsed in the street. During the next day, nearly 30,000 showed up to pay their final homage to their emperor.

Celebrated authors Mark Twain and Robert Louis Stevenson have both used the life of Norton as a base for characters in their books.

WOW animation

tasteofvictory — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:09:26 +0000

I’m not an avid World of Warcraft player myself, but it is hard to resist the charms of these cute little creatures, especially when they sing a song from one of my favourite musicals: Avenue Q. Avenue Q is a musical inspired by the Sesame Street and it has brought us unforgettable songs like “Schadenfreude”, “What Do You Do with a B.A. in English?” and of course – “The Internet Is for Porn”.