Entertainment

November 25, 2009

Food and drink recipes are laced with tastes of ‘the Green Fairy’

Food and drink recipes are laced with tastes of ‘the Green Fairy’

By Mary Therese Biebel mbiebel@timesleader.com
Features Writer
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Looking a bit dazed, John Pacovsky got off the phone in his downtown Wilkes-Barre studio last week and said he couldn’t believe how lucky he is.

“Any time I think it can’t be any crazier, or neater, something comes flying in and makes it crazier,” he said, explaining he’s just found out his artwork will be exhibited next spring in Paris.

“Paris! Paris!” he said. “I don’t know where in Paris, but Paris! This is great!”

Did all this excitement have anything to do with “the green fairy?” Or the potent (138 proof) Grande Absente, Absinthe Originale she represents?

Well, yes.

It’s not that Pacovsky had been imbibing the once-banned aperitif, which is modeled after a Bohemian drink that inspired Oscar Wilde, Picasso, Van Gogh and other artists during “the heady days of late 19th-century Paris.”

It’s just that his paintings, which incorporate green fairies and bottles of Grande Absente into all kinds of settings, are garnering all kinds of attention.

On Saturday, for example, the Book Club of the Westmoreland Club honored Pacovsky at a pre-release book reception for a coffee-table volume of his work, titled “Absente, Images and Tastes of the Green Fairy.”

“It’s a bit of a diversion for our book club, but we’re a book club without boundaries,” chairperson Sharon Naples said, explaining the club usually reads novels.

Instead of a story with a plot, the book boasts 120 images of classic paintings Pacovsky parodied so they could serve as advertisements for Grande Absente.

The work was commissioned by Michel Roux, CEO of the New Jersey-based Carillon Importers. Roux is well-known as a patron of the arts, and it’s his idea to exhibit Pacovsky’s work in France next year.

As for the book, it’s filled with Absente-laced recipes for food and drink, some of which were served at the Westmoreland Club on Saturday.

You’ll also find the fairy manifests herself on page after page.

In a parody of Frank Benson’s outdoorsy painting “Indian Guide,” a whole flock of green fairies flies in “V” formation, like geese, as a grizzled woodsman ferries a life-size bottle of Absente in a flat-bottomed canoe.

In a parody of Fernando Botero’s painting “The Poet,” a pair of green fairies flit over the head of a rotund writer who is lounging under a fruit tree. Just as the poet is heavyset, these green fairies are … well … chubbier than Tinkerbell.

As Westmoreland Club guests nibbled such hors d’oeuvres as escargots with Absente garlic cream stuffed into cherry tomatoes, wormwood-smoked chicken crostini (wormwood is an ingredient in Absente) and Absente-soaked melon wrapped in serrano ham last weekend, they also had a chance to paint on canvas a reclining image of the green fairy.

“I’m surprised how relaxing this is,” Melissa Gaudet of Shavertown said as she painted the fairy’s arm green.

“She’s doing great,” art instructor Gwen Harleman from Arts YOUniverse said as she invited other bystanders to help with the picture.

While Harleman encouraged painting, “green fairies” Audrey Marut of Forty Fort and Carrey Ann Mudlock of Pittston, both decked out in green glitter and white wings, were on hand to encourage people to try the Absente.

Some guests sampled it in various mixed drinks, but most opted for a ritual in which the bartender poured ice water from a fountain over a sugar cube into the Absente, thereby diluting and sweetening it.

The process turns the drink cloudy, which some imaginatively consider “the release of the green fairy.”

“You have to drink it very slowly,” art-lover Virginia Davis warned.

If you want to taste Absente’s licorice-like flavor yourself, here are some recipes for food and drink which are all part of Pacovsky’s book.

The original tomato recipe, you’ll notice, calls for large tomatoes rather than cherry tomatoes, which the Westmoreland Club used.

TOMATO STUFFED WITH ESCARGOTS FLAMED IN GRANDE ABSENTE

For the tomato: 4 large, vine-ripened tomatoes

Bring 2 quarts water to a boil. Cut a cross into the bud end of each tomato. Plunge the tomatoes into the boiling water for 15 seconds. Remove and plunge directly into ice water. Peel the tomatoes, pulling the skin back from the cut cross. Cut the stem end of the tomato off, carefully scoop out the seeds with a spoon or melon baller. Set aside the tomatoes and the tops.

For the garlic cream:

6 cloves garlic, finely diced

1 cup heavy cream

salt and pepper, to taste

Mix the garlic, cream, salt and pepper in a saucepan. Reduce slowly over low heat, stirring until thick.

For the Escargot:

2 tablespoons butter

1/2 cup carrot, peeled and julienne cut

1/2 cup turnip, peeled and julienne cup

3 cloves garlic, finely diced

4 dozen snails

3 tablespoons Grande Absente Absinthe Originale

Slowly saute the carrot, turnip, garlic and snails in butter over low heat until the vegetables have caramelized. Quickly deglaze the pan with the Grande Absente. Flame the Grande Absente by touching a lit match to the edge of the pan.

To serve: Sprinkle salt and pepper into the tomatoes. Place the tomatoes in a 250-degree oven for several minutes. The tomato should be just warm, not cooked. Place each tomato on an individual plate. Fill each tomato with one quarter of the snail mixture. Place the tops on the tomatoes. Garnish with 2 or 3 tablespoons of the garlic cream sauce around each tomato.

CITRUS QUINOA RISOTTO WITH SEA SCALLOPS SEARED IN GRANDE ABSENTE

2 oranges

1 grapefruit

1 small onion

1 bouquet garni (fresh thyme and bay leaf)

1 pound quinoa

3 tablespoons Grande Absente Absinthe Originale

1 quart chicken stock

12 large sea scallops (type U10)

fleur de sel (hand-harvested sea salt)

fresh peppercorn, ground

2 and 1/2 tablespoons olive oil

On a plate, mix 1 tablespoon olive oil, salt and ground pepper to taste. Coat the scallops in the olive-oil mix and bring them to room temperature before cooking.

Meanwhile, finely dice the onion and reserve. Zest the citrus and reserve. Using a paring knife, cut away the skin and membrane from the segments of citrus.

Place the reserved citrus zest in a saucepan of cold water and bring to a boil. Then reduce the heat and simmer 3 to 4 minutes to remove the bitter taste, then drain.

In a 6-quart pan, heat the remaining olive oil. Add the onions, the bouquet garni and the citrus zest and cook until softened, not browned. Stir in the quinoa, then 1 and 1/3 cups of the chicken stock. Cover and simmer until most of the stock is absorbed. Add the remaining stock and simmer until the quinoa is al dente (about 30 minutes). Remove the bouquet garni and keep warm.

In another pan on high heat, add 1 tablespoon olive oil and sear the scallops on one side until they begin to brown. Then turn over and season the opposite side. Add the citrus segments and immediately deglaze with the Grande Absente. (Always use care, as the Absente may flame).

Serve scallops over the quinoa.

GREEN GERTRUDE

1 ounce Grande Absente Absinthe Originale

1 ounce Chambord liqueur

1 ounce peach schnapps

Shake with ice and strain into rocks glass.

ORIGINAL SIN

1 ounce Grande Absente Absinthe Originale

1 ounce Jack Daniels Whiskey

1/2 ounce Cr�me de Menthe, white

Shake well and serve in a rocks glass over cubed ice.

AN AFFAIR IN PARIS

1 and 1/2 ounces Grande Absente Absinthe Originale

1/2 ounce Cr�me de Cassis

3 ounces champagne

Serve in a champagne glass.

ABSENTENI

1 ounce Grande Absente Absinthe Originale

2 ounces Magellan Blue Gin

1 ounce dry Vermouth

Shake well and serve in martini glass with cubed ice.

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