Ask the Food Fairy!

“Drinking to the point that you have a hangover the next day is kind of like taking a peaceful drive through a majestic countryside only to arrive at your destination and find your wife nailing your best friend.”

That’s the funniest way I’ve ever heard this put – courtesy of cracked.com.

In researching these recipes, I came across a little blurb about Holiday Inn coming out with a whole line of non-alcoholic drinks that’s “an industry first.” Which it really is, and I’ve never understood why. Alcohol is not the tasty part of a drink, y’all. Most of those ingredients in fancy mixed drinks are there to mask the flavor of the alcohol. That’s why it’s always strong flavors like ginger or citrus or chocolate.

I love all those flavors, but why throw in the alcohol? Granted, I have zero interest in getting drunk: it doesn’t feel good during, it doesn’t feel good after, and even back in college I was too concerned about always being “in control” to want to drink. There were still times that I way overused in college, but they just served to confirm that I didn’t want to do that.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t want fun, interesting stuff to drink! I am always reading the descriptions of cocktails on menus and thinking “Wow, lemon and sugar and zest, that sounds great!… Oh right, except the gin and vodka.” And what better day than New Year’s Eve to explore and share some real drink recipes with you all?

Photo credit: Risa Bear via Flickr

This one was featured in last week’s meal planning kits of recipes from the Gold Rush era. That’s the California Gold Rush, 160 years ago! I remember drinks like switchel appearing in the Little House on the Prairie books by Laura Ingalls Wilder – whenever Pa and all the hired men were working out in the field, they’d drink something that sounded nasty made with vinegar and water. Maybe sugar was mentioned. I don’t know if they had ginger to add, off in the middle of the country back then, but I think it really makes this drink delicious. Like an old-fashioned ginger ale.

Switchel

½ cup light brown sugar
½ cup white wine vinegar
¼ cup light molasses
1 teaspoon ground ginger
2 cups water

Mix together the first four ingredients, then stir in water. Serve chilled.

You know what else reminds me of those books, every time I hear of it? Yellow jackets. Remember when their cousin was acting out all over the place and got tangled up with a nest of yellow jackets? And they had to cover him in mud (which draws out the toxins) and wrap him up in a sheet (to keep the mud on)? Well, apparently someone named a cocktail after it!

Yellow Jacket

4 parts pineapple juice

4 parts orange juice

3 parts lemon juice

Shake and strain out over ice.

I’m sure it wasn’t really named after the scene in those books, but that’s my only association with it. The drink is undoubtedly less painful than the sting! Or do yellow jackets bite? I think one bit me during a company picnic once… we had a great citrus-marinated chicken that they were all over, and I did okay maneuvering around them until I tried to brush off something I felt tickling my finger and it bit me. Fair enough, I suppose. But I wasn’t very happy about it at the time.

My vote for “most hilarious name” has to go to the “Virgin Mary”. Or maybe that should just be “most unintentionally gross name”.

Photo credit: BitchBuzz on Flickr

Virgin Mary

Equal parts tomato and cranberry juice

1 tsp. lime juice per serving

Hot sauce and pepper to taste

Wouldn’t you think a Virgin Mary should be, I don’t know… Jesus-ier? Maybe a traditional drink of Bethlehem? Or blue, or something?

But the mocktails that just virginize a standard cocktail are not my favorites. They’re the -tinis of the mocktail set. You know, like an appletini, a mintini, a scotchtini – just a mindless variation on a theme, created more often because it’s expected than because it tastes good. When I pick a mixed drink, I want it to be there because someone thought those ingredients really went well together.

I find that I can trust the New York Times to think hard about food, and they have some good insights into mocktailing. In one recent article, Melissa Davis suggests using tonic water:

“Made from botanicals and quinine, which gives it its distinctive bitterness, it can transform even the most mundane fruit juice into something sophisticated, especially if you use a less sugary brand like Q or Fever-Tree. At Franny’s, Nekisia Davis, a manager, makes tonic water with cinchona bark (quinine), lavender, chamomile and plenty of fresh herbs. Zipped up with lime juice, it’s one of my summer favorites, boozy or dry.”

She also wisely observes that “A mocktail should be the grown-up in the crowd, a complex drink with just enough sharpness or bitterness to set itself apart from anything cloyingly twee.”

The extreme end of that fascinates me:

This said, no amount of passion fruit purée will hit the spot for cocktail purists of the dry martini ilk. For them, Sheridan Square in the Village offers what might be the most restrained mocktail in town, the Mineral Cocktail. Made with Badoit sparkling water, mineral drops and mineral water ice, it’s the brainchild of the chef Franklin Becker and the bar manager Rainlove Lampariello, designed to be healthful, light, and easy to knock back.

I haven’t sampled one, but Mr. Lampariello swears it tastes “like putting a pebble from a river in your mouth.”

I am dying to try that, but the middle ground between the drinks that are basically fruit juice and the ones that are basically rocks is what interests me the most. I see all the incredible, fascinating explorations being done by mixologists – lavender-infused simple syrups! verjus! pomegranate in everything! – and I wonder why the same work isn’t being done with regular drinks. We do all of this with food and with alcohol, but rarely with that middle ground: liquid food, food in drink form, just regular drinks. How about this?

Verjus Cocktail

Simmer a grape juice made from wine grapes until reduced by half. (These are increasingly common in upscale grocery stores; Navarro Vineyards sells theirs online.) Mix equal parts verjus and sparkling mineral water; flavor to taste with the concentrated grape juice, anywhere from a few drops to a teaspoonful.

Jennie Love at Eat. Drink. Better. came up with a vanilla-rosemary spritzer that works just as well (or better) without vanilla vodka, commenting that “Fresh rosemary and a vanilla bean steeped in a warm simple syrup make a heavenly perfume and an even more divine taste senstation.”

Vanilla Rosemary Spritzer

1 large bunch of fresh rosemary (5-6 stems)
1 vanilla bean
3/4 cups sugar
1 cup water
Club soda
Crushed ice

In a saucepan over medium heat, combine the rosemary (reserve a few of the tops of the stem for garnish), vanilla bean, sugar and water. Bring to a gentle simmer for 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool for at least an hour. Strain the syrup into a jar or other container and chill until ready to use.

To make the cocktail, [pour about 2 ounces of syrup into the glass and fill the rest] with club soda. Adjust ratio according to taste. Garnish with a sprig of rosemary and serve.

(makes enough syrup for 6-8 drinks)

The Bay Gourmet has some wonderful insights into this drink genre, including an awesome idea for “persimmon beer”:

“Crush ripe, crisply firm Fuyu persimmons and strain them for their juice. Add verjus and a few drops of strong tea made with hops. Adjust proportions to taste. This produces a wonderfully smooth and balanced beverage with a faint, refreshing sourness and just enough of a bitter edge to be appetizing.”

(Check out the instructions in there for the olive essence cocktail and the ocean cocktail… definitely more adventurous than I have seen at any bar, or than I was planning to be. But now my curiosity is piqued!)

Back on the sweeter, but still intriguing, side is a rosewater cocktail. Try this:

Bouquet of Roses

Rosewater simple syrup:

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup rosewater

3/4 cup sugar

Heat and stir together until the sugar is completely dissolved; let cool.

For each cocktail, shake together:

1/2 cup sparkling water

1 tablespoon rosewater syrup

1 teaspoon grenadine

That recipe was adapted from a mocktail in the fabulously fussy Storybook Woods which was garnished with pink rose petals and rimmed with pink sugar. It’s a good idea to keep presentation in mind as you make any of these: serve them in gorgeous glasses, garnish them with twists and slices of related ingredients, decorate the rims of sweet or sour drinks with colored or flavored sugars, put the glasses in the freezer before making the drinks so they come out beautifully frosty.

The consensus in many articles was that non-alcoholic drinks need all the bells and whistles they can get to stand up to their alcoholic brethren; personally, I think that any fancy plating we can do is a great gift to ourselves and our guests, no matter what we’re making.

This week’s boxes and meal plans feature New Year’s recipes from all over the globe. Ghana, Ireland, Japan, the American South…. It was a lot of fun researching what different cultures eat.

The groceries for the premium meal plans run about $40-$50, depending on where you are and what you have on hand, so with the $15 meal planning kit your meals for the week are $55-$65… and with no wheat, and lots of veggies and protein, it’s a super-healthy and delicious way to start off the new year:

Herring in Sour Cream (Germany)

Eating herring at midnight on New Year’s is supposed to be good luck – so save one just for that! The omega-3s and omega-6s packed into these little fish are bound to bring you good health, too.

Photo credit: Wordridden on Flickr

Cotechino con Lenticchie (Italy)

So many of the dishes that different cultures use to celebrate their new year are aimed at bringing in the bucks. In this case, the round green lentils symbolize money, while the delicious sausage symbolizes the abundance and good fortune you must have to be eating sausage whenever you like!

Sanshu-zakana (Japan)

This is just part of the elaborate boxes of New Year’s dishes that people eat at this time: the o-sechi, a ton of food in three or four lacquered boxes that allow people to go for several days without having to cook! (Hey… a lot like using these meal plans!)

According to the Japan Times, the kuromame (a black bean dish) is “for the blessings of health and the ability to work; seasoned dried small anchovies, tazukuri — for fertility in the field; and prepared herring roe, kazunoko — [are] for maternal fertility and abundance of generations.”

Photo credit: _e.t. via Flickr

Yam Fufu with Stew (Western Africa)

As a local restaurant review put it, “the fufu reaches a soft, fluffy consistency between mashed potatoes and whipped cream. You eat it by using your right hand to pluck morsels off the mound in your bowl. Then you dip the fufu into the stew and delicately flick it into your mouth. Don’t chew, just swallow. ‘Once you get used to it, it’s a very sensual food,’ [Ghanaian food expert] Osseo-Asare says.”

In “Things Fall Apart,” Chinua Achebe writes lyrically of the fall Yam Festival, when “old things of the past year are ritually discarded and thrown out in anticipation of a new yam and new year.” Different cultures in Ghana and Nigeria celebrate this in slightly different ways; for example, in Ghana it is also known as the “Homowo” or “To Hoot at Hunger” Festival. Yam fufu is, of course, a highlight of this celebration.

Fatt Goh (China)

Moist, fluffy little cupcakes traditionally made with rice flour. If they puff up while steaming, you will puff up yourself with good luck and prosperity during the coming year! And hey, if not, you still have delicious cake to eat.

The groceries for the basic meal plans run about $20-$30, depending on where you are and what you have on hand, so with the $15 meal planning kit your meals for the week are $35-$45… and damn is it getting yummy in here:

Fatt Goh again (China)

Yep, this meal plan has the same little cupcakes. They’re also called huat kueh, if that helps you at all! But here, you get to eat them every day. Cake for breakfast?! That’s a VERY happy new year! And then:

Photo credit: jetalone on Flickr

Stuffed Cabbage Rolls (Hungary)

So many of the dishes that different cultures use to celebrate their new year are aimed at bringing in the bucks. In this case, the cabbage leaves symbolize money, and the meaty, colorful filling symbolizes all the prosperity and abundance we want on other levels too.

Photo credit: Sheila Miguez

Boxty (Ireland)

“Boxty on the griddle,
Boxty in the pan,
If you can’t make boxty,
You’ll never get a man.”
Whether or not that’s a goal of yours, boxty is a delicious, hearty way to ring in the New Year. Besides, potatoes stave off scurvy. You don’t want scurvy, do you?

Hoppin’ John (American South)

The black-eyed peas symbolize coins, and the dark leafy greens simmered alongside them represent riches and good luck. A little bacon or other pork product tossed in for flavor symbolizes prosperity. Oh yeah – and it all tastes great too! I especially love how creamy the black-eyed peas get; it makes such a good contrast with the slight crunch of those greens.

Happy New Year’s to those who celebrate it this week!