Cocktails

Ticking Bomb– A Pomegranate Cocktail

07/12/2012

I was trying to come up with a clever name for this cocktail. And I finally ended up on “Ticking Bomb,” not for any ominous reason, but because the French word for “pomegranate” is “le grenade.”

(Did you know that the reason why “grenades” are called “grenades” is because of this French word? All the insides of grenades are little pellets, much like pomegranate seeds.)

Now the reason why it’s “ticking”? That’s because this is a riff on a sloe gin fizz.

1 ounce sloe gin
1 ounce gin
pomegranate juice to fill

In a highball glass, pour the ingredients over ice.
Stir to mix
Garnish with anything you want!

I garnished mine with some nifty star-shaped ice cubes. Found the tray in the $1 bin at Target. Major score.

(Also, “sloe” is not a typo. Sloe gin isn’t cherry or blackberry flavored; it’s it’s actually flavored by the sloe berry. Sloe gin is technically a liqueur, as it has a high sugar content and a low alcohol by volume, or ABV. Sometimes, the flavor is heightened with some almond extract, but most sloe gin that you find is, well, cheap, and not that fancy.)

Regardless, this is a cocktail with some nice sweet/acid balance and is a really great summertime drink. Cheers!

Pin It

{ 6 comments }

Cocktail Friday: Birthday Cake Cocktail

07/05/2012

The name of this cocktail is not “birthday cake.”

But… look at it! It’s so pretty!

It’s not fair that I found this cocktail– that looks like pink lemonade and tastes like birthday cake– in a book called Drinkology. And that Drinkology told me its name was…

The Kretchma.

I mean, seriously?! Its name has “retch” right in the middle of it! Something so pretty should not remind you viscerally of, well, you know.

But I mixed it up once I read the descriptor– a light, pink concoction that reminded the writer of birthday cake. Here are the ingredients:

1 ounce vodka
1 ounce white creme de cacao
1/2 ounce fresh lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon grenadine
lemon wheel or twist to garnish

In a shaker over ice, combine the ingredients, except for the garnish.
Shake until pale and lightly frothy.
Strain into a martini glass, or a fancy little number like I did above
Garnish with your lemon accoutrement.

I can’t be the only person that loves the look of squeezed lemons, can I?

It’s the universal sign for “fun times have been had here.”

But yes, this is a light and easy to drink cocktail that smells like chocolate and really, really does taste like birthday cake!

I just refuse to call it a “Kretchma.”

Happy Friday, everyone!

Pin It

{ 4 comments }

Happy Fourth of July

07/04/2012

After all the (deserved) outrage over Aaron Sorkin in the last week, his treatment of women on his shows and his downhill slide into back into adolescence, I always think of this scene, written for Allison Janney, in one of the first seasons of The West Wing.

As most of you who come here often know, I’m a feminist, a liberal and I try to be outspoken in this time of unprecedented regression on women’s rights. In America, it’s heartbreaking to think that we’ve suddenly become a nation that’s devoted to taking away the rights of its citizens, rather than granting them anew.

And then– yes, I do think about this piece of barely-veiled fiction. This kind of barbarism happens every day, in other nations that we do call our allies. I hope that one day we’ll stand up to these people and get them to stop. I know that many of us ask our government to take action on a regular basis (and maybe one day they’ll listen?).

But in the meantime, I’ll be happy that I live in the United States and that I am a woman, a citizen, a person here. I do consider myself a patriot, and I do get warm and fuzzy feelings on Independence Day. Because– at the very least– we’re a nation that for seven years allowed a critic of government and society to speak openly and freely on a major network, without jailtime and retribution. And that show was amazingly, wholeheartedly feminist.

{ 1 comment }

Sparkling Sweet Tea

07/03/2012

National Iced Tea day was a few weeks ago, but it’s just starting to warm up here in LA. I know that everyone else in the country is being stifled under super-hot hot heat, so I wanted to re-post a recipe I did last summer, for a different kind of sweet tea.

Seeing as how I’m marrying a Texan, I’ve gotten a crash course in sweet tea in the past few years. I drink tea “like a Yankee,” David says. I like my tea bitter AND with lemon. He, on the other hand, makes some epic sweet tea. It’s a process. I process I still do not know.

But I do know how to make syrups. And so, I decided to make a tea-flavored syrup to be added to club soda for a sparkling riff on sweet tea!

2 cups strongly brewed Earl Grey Tea. I really like Twinings, as I find it to just have that authentic bergamot flavor.
1 cup sugar

Boil the tea and sugar until reduced by half
Cool completely
Store in an airtight container for a few days

And here’s what I did with it: Sparkling Sweet Tea: Add 1/4 cup Earl Grey Syrup to a tall glass…

Add some cubies… Top with club soda or seltzer… Stir and enjoy!

Now, this tea isn’t for the diabetic in your family– you’ll notice that it sunk to the bottom of the cocktail and didn’t blend with the club soda until I mixed it. This is straight-up syrup, that would probably also be very good on top of vanilla ice cream!

Pin It

{ 0 comments }

Photos From The Weekend

07/01/2012

Pretty much had the best weekend ever, guys.

It started on Wednesday, actually– as Wednesday was David’s birthday! We spent the evening in, just having cake and enjoying his birthday present to himself– all the gear he needed to start making bread from scratch. I’ll have a bread making post later this week, but here’s a pic of his cake:

Clearly I purchased this sucker. He wanted an ice cream cake!

Next day, my parents came in to town AND it was my mom’s birthday! Dad bought us all dinner at Susan Feniger’s STREET, which was sooooo good, I didn’t take any photos, except of our “amuse bouche,” the name of which escaped me, but it tasted like spicy Rice Krispie Treats, made with cous cous and curry powder…

The show-stopping dish from our evening was the much talked about Kaya toast, which was a toasted coconut jam sandwich that one dipped into a runny egg and soy sauce. It was *beyond* delicious.

On Friday, David had to work and my Dad had to go to some meetings, so Mom and I chilled out. Started the morning overlooking Marina Del Rey, from my parents’ hotel room.

After, there was much shopping. Got distracted and again, declined to snap photos. Mom bought me a cute top from Anthro and a sa-weeeeeeeeeeeeet kelly green linen blazer from Nordstrom. Photos forthcoming.

Then, Mom and I played tourists and sauntered down the Santa Monica Pier. Best part of the pier? The seagulls.

I have to learn to be a better blogger and snap more photos of my daily jaunts. I wish I could share more of my epic weekend with you guys!

I can’t even stress how awesome it was to have a nice, relaxing weekend with my parents in town! I miss them tons and tons and tons. I’m happy to say I’m going to be vising them in October for my Dad’s birthday, so at least it won’t be *too* long til I see them again!

How was your weekend?

Pin It

{ 2 comments }

Cocktail Friday: Raspberry Wine Spritzer

06/21/2012

White wine spritzers are, for a lack of a better term, retro.

Super popular in the 1970s, they sort of fell out of vogue around the same time people realized that white Zinfandel was an aberration against all of human kind. But spritzers are starting to come back– back with other “retro” drinks like sangria and anything containing gin or bourbon.

I am not so secretly hoping for a giant tiki cocktail resurgence. ¡Viva the Singapore Sling!

Spritzers are an essential summer drink. Because they’re sippable, cold, fruity– and the alcohol is cut in half by the fact that 50% of your cocktail is club soda.

I remember my mom telling me when I was off to college that there were two drinks that are easy to drink but wouldn’t get me so drunk at a bar that I’d lose my bearings: white Russians and white wine spritzers. Invaluable advice.

So, here are your ingredients for the above cocktail:

Club Soda

Fresh Raspberries

Fruity/acidic white wine. I wouldn’t use a Chardonnay or a Viognier for a spritzer; the buttery-ness of their oaked flavors would be strange cut with club soda. I ended up using a Domino Wines Pinot Grigio, which you should be able to find for about $6 a bottle.

In a glass, carefully muddle a handful of raspberries.
Add about 2 ounces (2 shots) of white wine
Top with club soda, about 2 ounces.
Swirl gently to mix, add whole berries to garnish.

This entire drink gets more delicious the longer it sits. This would also make an excellent party punch, as you can combine a whole bottle of wine, a whole bottle of club soda, and a pint of mushed up berries in a pitcher and stir– a pourable, perfect cocktail, especially for Fourth of July!

Since this is a casual cocktail, you can even add ice cubes if you really have to cool down during the weekend. (This is a hint to all of you East coasters who are battling 100* temps right now!)

What are your favorite hot-weather cocktails?

Pin It

{ 1 comment }

A Feminist Wedding

06/19/2012

So, it’s official. David and I are planning a “traditional” wedding. We don’t have a date or a space or even a guestlist at this point, but we are really set on making something happen– with a party, d’accord.

After really sorting through our wants and how we would want to celebrate it, we realized that an elopement would be weird, a destination wedding wouldn’t be the most efficient use of our money, but a “traditional” wedding doesn’t seem to fit right, either.

See this? This ain’t gonna happen.

not surprisingly, this is unrealistic and from Martha Stewart.

I will probably not be wearing white, there probably will not be flowers, and chances are David and I will not be standing in front of people sitting in ugly chairs and tell each other how much we couldn’t live without each other.

I’m not a princess, nor do I ever want to be one. This day isn’t 100% about me. (It’s 90% about me, har de har har, and 10% about cake.)

Like chocolate-mint cupcakes.

My dad isn’t going to “give me away” and David isn’t buying me.

I’m pretty sure that, for the last sixteen months or so, I’ve been grouchy about getting married because traditional wedding ceremonies and sights are all signs of a transaction. I recall when I told my parents we got engaged, my dad said to me, “Well, I wish he’d asked for permission.”

My response was something along the lines of, “Are you fucking joking?”

I love milestones, but I’m not a big fan of the tradition of purchasing a wife for future breeding. I won’t be saving any cake for a year, to use as my child’s birthday cake. (That’s the reason why it’s tradition to save your top layer– by the time you hit 12 months of being wed, you should be celebrating a baby.) David and I already have a blender, so we don’t need to “outfit our house” with presents.

But man, do I love throwing a party.

I wonder how one goes about re-writing the wedding process as a feminist. I kind of want to have our commitment involve a high-five, which is something David and I do on an embarrassingly frequent basis. I have to admit that I’ve been obsessing over The Offbeat Bride Tribe website.

I have been pinning wedding ideas for a while, and I think all I’ve come to realize is that I’m broke, and I want to swear a spangly gold dress.

Now, I know that all of you probably march to the beat of your own drummers, too. So I’m curious to hear how you broke with tradition to have your own weddings.

{ 8 comments }

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →