I'm sorry, Fay. Much peace to you and your family. I hope traveling to be with them will be hassle-free.

Also wishing you hassle-free travel, Fay. Your poor mom.

Going back to quester's question, the dryness of a martini is determined by the ratio of vermouth to gin. The less vermouth then the more dry the martini is. Martinis got progressively more dry over the second half of the 20th century until people were barely including the vermouth. There's been a backlash against that approach trying to get back to the original formulation.

There really isn't a "wet" martini, but there is an older variation called a perfect martini which uses sweet vermouth.

And because it felt out of place with the previous post,

I'm not as interested in food as you are, certainly - I'm baffled by all the folks who talk about their food all the time! Happy you're happy, of course; I just don't get people who are so into food. It's great to have a fine gustatory experience, but for every meal? someone else would have to be cooking it! Anything that takes me longer to prepare than to eat annoys me; it feels like a waste of time. I can fry an egg and get on with my business. (People are dying of shock right now, aren't they?)

Zen is me, sort of. I have some supertaster tendencies, to the point that I have developed a pre-emptive comedy routine about preferring white food. Bland is better, for me, because bitter, sour, or sharp flavors turn me off foods instantly. I like subtle herbs, plain steamed veg, white rice: jasmine, basmati, or grocery store plain white, meats braised, broiled, baked or grilled in a few herbs, garlic, lots of black pepper, and no esoteric flavors or spices. I'm not unadventurous, I do experiment and taste, it's just that most flavoring, including a lot of ethnic ones, are too strong for me to enjoy, and too tiresome to cultivate mere tolerance.

I have a problematic relationship to food, anyway. If someone could provide a pill or a blender powder to provide all necessary nutrients, I'd be thrilled to never give food another thought again. I have to approach most meals obliquely, eat while distracted and not allow flavors to overwhelm me, or my stomach fists, my jaw locks down, and it's water only for several hours after.

Thinking about food: shopping, storage, prep, following recipes, thinking about and comparing recipes, sitting down and savoring food--those are all things I'm capable of at times. But not all in one meal, and not frequently. I do better either preparing and serving or accepting what's put before me.

And I can't help being mystified by others' preoccupation with foods and enjoyment of their prep, combination, presentation and consumption. But then I take a step back and remember that *I'm* the odd one here, and I smile and shut up about it. Mostly.

If someone could provide a pill or a blender powder to provide all necessary nutrients, I'd be thrilled to never give food another thought again.

Yeah, the thought of that is really sad for me. Doesn't make me sad for you! If it was available and worked for you that's totally cool, of course! It would make me sad if it was the only food option available to me.

If someone could provide a pill or a blender powder to provide all necessary nutrients, I'd be thrilled to never give food another thought again.

This. Along with the hypersensitivity to tastes that means I prefer bland and subtle, and the food issues in general. It's an autistic spectrum thing. The Girl, with her Mediterranean and Middle Eastern tastes, gets a bit bored with this. She's very patient with me, all the same. And she's learnt to add her ridiculous quantity of chillis after serving my food. Sometimes I wish I enjoyed food more. Then I open another can of baked beans and stop worrying about it.

There's been a backlash against that approach trying to get back to the original formulation.

eep! The original formulation was 3/4 vermouth and included bitters.

The original formulation was 3/4 vermouth and included bitters.

As I love both vermouth and bitters, this is not a problem in my eyes.

The original formulation was 3/4 vermouth and included bitters.

Interesting! I'd like to try that sometime. I had my first Old-Fashioned this weekend, at the bar of Nashville's super-swanky Hermitage Hotel. I forget exactly what was in it, but it did have bourbon and bitters. It was tasty, though a little too sweet for me; I wouldn't have been able to have more than one.

Perhaps I need to try some high-quality vermouth.

there is an older variation called a perfect martini which uses sweet vermouth.

In college I waitressed at the country club where our condo was located. One night a neighbor of ours was in, and he ordered a perfect Manhattan. Well, I had no idea what that was, given that I was 21 and only drank beer and Beam. I mean, I had heard of a Manhattan, but not a *perfect* Manhattan. So I assumed our neighbor was asking for a Manhattan made perfectly. And I made a joke about throwing out all the imperfect Manhattans.

And, one explanation later, I knew what a perfect Manhattan was and I felt like a perfect rube. Ever after that point, I just repeated customers' orders verbatim to the bartender and waited to see what it was I was serving (90% of the time it was mugs of beer, and 9.9% of the time it was wine or liquor or mixed drinks I had heard of; the remaining .1% was the shame-inducing perfect Manhattan).