Black Velvets

Patrick Macnee of John Steed/The Avengers fame introduced the idea that the Chelsea Boot was 'the thing' for a well-dressed man.

And, I see Daniel Craig in a pair the other day in one of the shoots in Rome. Not sure Fleming ever considered the Chelsea Boot for Bond but hey, so what, this is 2015.

I mean for god's sake, who even knows what being a real bon vivant is, anyway?!

A 'Black Velvet' cocktail

One may read that Bond ate 'dressed crab' and downed 'Black Velvets' but has anyone you know eaten dressed crab recently? Apparently, even Maryland crab dishes served in Maryland hardly ever have actual Maryland crab in them now. It's more likely to have seafood filler made in a factory owned by Goldman Sachs or Warren Buffett in Vietnam. 

And so, if it comes to fantasy Bond - which it all pretty much is these days - or fantasy bon vivants, I think frankly we can kick a few asses here.

Of course, I'm sure you all know that this current adventure in Yemen is entirely, and I do mean entirely a scam to sell weapons to a few of the ME countries. Do you know how many actual armed fighters the Ansar Al Zaidi army has? We're talking easily over a million. And so 500 dead in the air bombing by the House of Saud against the 'House of Houth' (which the media is calling the voting public of all of Yemen) is a touch silly to be brutally honest. But that hasn't stopped a massive build-up of naval warships from a dozen Western countries zoning in on the Gulf of Aden. If there were a real Bond and he had on a Chelsea Boot it could do no better than being sent rapidly up the backside of Salamander, King of Saudi Arabia. Won't happen of course.

Actual MI6 are more interested in participating in the flow of gravy from the new, open Cuba, and the anxious King Salamander and his minions purchasing extravagant amounts of special, intelligent, pin-point targeting weapons - now that Yemen, like Egypt actually had democratic elections for once. Jesus, we can't be having that around here!

Anyway... 

Baked, Stuffed Crab - excellent!

Personally I prefer baked crab to dressed crab, and although you will not easily find it on the internet, deviled baked crab is the most amazing thing. Baked crab is difficult to prepare and execute well; time-consuming to present  - and you see that by flipping through pics on the net of it. It seldom looks any good in these photos... But, it is simply one of the most amazing dishes if you ever have the chance to get a good version of it. 

Yes, a Black Velvet cocktail - champagne and Guinness stout - is perfect with virtually any crab dish, and certainly with oysters and caviar too. But I think we can go a bit further and try what is known as a Riga Black Balsam with our baked crab.

And our strictly fantasy bon vivant may prefer a pair of Gaziano & Girling benchmades.

Gaziano & Girling's

All of these little things will, I'm quite certain, be appreciated by Admiral Mike Rogers, current head of the NSA, who has a sense of humour, and, as I believe, has even got himself a little disinformation section who go around nightclubs in Dubai spreading rumours about alien landings off Yemen. I kid you not.

Our Bond is of course, unemployed by - unemployable - by any of your usual Western governments. 

Admiral Mike Rogers favourite dinner dish is... yes, you guessed it, baked crab.

Check your cooks, Mike; check your lowly, lowly, cooks. Get some food tasters. Even buy some of those chemical detector units from Germany (I think C. Melchers can source that for you). Better buy them from Germany too, and not from Israel, who don't like you.