Give Me a Slug o' Booze!

Technomic has come out with its restaurant trend predictions for 2011. Now, I've never heard of Technomics before but, by their name, I assume they have something to do with technology and economics. I'm clever that way. Why they're talking about adult beverages, I haven't a clue. But I like adult beverages so I'll bite. 

"Adult beverages, from retro cocktails and high-end spirits to craft beers will get more play in appropriate markets." (Photo: Thinkstock)

So the Mad Men craze is still going strong. And influencing what we drink. With the exception of craft beer, as every man in 1964 drank Pabst Blue Ribbon. Women did not drink beer at all and instead had to chug cough syrup and vanilla except for Betty Draper and her ilk, thin as rail women who could work some undergarments and pearls to their best advantage.

I like adult beverages (yes, I am repeating myself). Sometimes I enjoy going to BevMo and fantasizing about all the high-end liquor and craft beer I would buy if money was no object. You see, the appreciation for alcohol was ingrained into me from youth. My Great Uncle Charles, Helen's brother, a crusty Baltimore born-and-bred codger who loved to drive his huge white Caddy with red leather interior and laughed in a way to betray that he smoked way too many cigarettes, taught me at two or three years old to ask for adult beverages. 

"Lauren, what would you like to drink?"

"Give me a slug o' booze!"

He thought it was really funny. 

At four or five, I could serve the Jolly Girls their cocktails made to order. I could also concoct an old-fashioned, muddling fruit with the best of bartenders. My parents often took me to their favorite piano bar, The Eager House, where special attention was paid to me, where I sat in a special bar stool, drank umpteen million Shirley Temples, and had songs sung just to me by the piano player. I was princess of the Eager House. 

As I light tonight's drinking lamp in preparation for Friday cocktail hour, why don't I share a few concoctions to ready you for 2011. 

1. The Classic Martini 

"I'm not talking a cup of cheap gin splashed over an ice cube. I'm talking satin, fire and ice; Fred Astaire in a glass; surgical cleanliness; insight and comfort; redemption and absolution. I'm talking a martini" --Anonymous

2 1/2 ounces top shelf gin                             

1 1/2 teaspoons dry vermouth
1 lemon twist or cocktail olive

In a shaker half-filled with ice cubes, combine the gin and vermouth. Shake well. Strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with the olive. I like a little olive juice splashed into the shaker and prefer my martini with a blue cheese olive. And, sacrilege, schmacrilege, I prefer substituting the gin with premium vodka as gin makes me mean and I am not a mean person. Belvedere works nicely. Absolut if you're slumming it.

2. The Manhattan

Although many legends exist as to the origin of the Manhattan, many involving Lady Randolph Churchill (Winston's mum), one

 urban legend suggests that the drink was named "Manhattan" after the city's sewage and water system, which ran brown at the time. Ew!

1 3/4 ounces Crown Royal Reserve (or other premium whiskey)

1/2 ounce Sweet Vermouth

1-3 dashes of Bitters

Combine all ingredients in an ice-filled cocktail shaker, strain into a chilled glass, garnish with a Maraschino cherry, and serve straight up. A Dry Manhattan substitutes Dry Vermouth for Sweet and is garnished with a twist. A Rob Roy uses Scotch Whiskey rather than Canadian or Bourbon.

3. The Old Fashioned

The Old Fashioned  first made its appearance in the 1880s at the Pendennis Club, a gentlemen's club in Louisville, Kentucky. Invented by a bartender at the club, it was popularized by Colonel James E Pepper who brought it to the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City.


3 dashes bitters 
2 orange slices
1 sugar cube
3 ounces blended whiskey
1 maraschino cherry


In an old-fashioned glass, muddle the bitters and orange into the sugar cube, using the back of a teaspoon. Almost fill the glass with ice cubes and add the whiskey. Garnish with another orange slice and cherry, Serve with a swizzle stick. Substitute brandy for the appropriately named Brandy Old Fashioned. The Old fashioned is a favorite of the hunky but flawed Don Draper on "Mad Men".

4. The Daiquiri

The term daiquiri comes from a beach near Santiago, Chile. An urban legend suggests it was invented by a group of American mining engineers who ran out of gin. It is nothing like the sicky sweet frozen frippery ubiquitous on chain restaurant menus everywhere.

• 8 parts white Cuban rum
• 2 parts lime juice
• 1 part simple syrup

Shake with lots of finely crushed ice and strain well into a chilled cocktail glass.

5. The Sidecar

The Ritz Hotel in Paris claims to be the origin of the Sidecar invented around World War I by Sam "Suck It" Treadway.

• 8 parts Cognac or Armagnac
• 2 parts lemon juice
• 1 part Cointreau or Triple Sec

Pour all ingredients in a cocktail shaker over ice. Shake well and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a twist.

So there, make yourself a cocktail, sit by the fire, and discuss the future of plastics together. Cheers!

Hey Sweet Potato, I could eat you with a spoon!

When I was a little girl, Helen, or Gramma as I called her, would hug me tight and declare that I was so sweet, she could eat me with a spoon. Which, looking back, was very loving and wonderful in that way that only grandmothers can convey; but, at the time, it frightened me. I had all sorts of mental images of my grandmother, who was a tall, big-boned German woman, wielding a giant grapefruit spoon and plunging it into my short, small-boned American body like a deranged zombie.

I assumed it had to be a grapefruit spoon as it needed sharp edges and a point to really dig into my my flesh. Unfounded fear is all in the details. 

But we're here to talk about pie, aren't we? Thanksgiving is in exactly a week. And I am scheduled to work that day. Which does not please me. So let's pout and make sweet potato pie. With bourbon, some in the pie and a slitch on ice for the baker.

Sweet Potato Pie is similar to pumpkin pie in the fact that is indeed orange and uses similar spices and flavorings in its recipe. But a sweet potato is a tuber while a pumpkin is a squash. As an aside, sweet potatoes are not yams but were mislabeled as such by growers who thought we were too stupid to know a sweet potato was not the same as regular potatoes. Because there is nothing worse than baking what you think are russets and discovering that your chives and bacon bits are useless. Yams are a completely different genus and species, are native to Africa, popular in Latin American dishes, and very sweet. They can also grow over seven feet long which would be damned difficult to manage in my kitchen.

To my taste buds, sweet potatoes are richer and slightly more sugary than pumpkins. But canned pumpkin puree is ubiquitous this time of year and one actually has to bake and mash sweet potatoes. How inconvenient. We're making pie with them regardless.

Or irregardless as Helen would say. She loved collecting malapropisms and using them for her own amusement so that someone, meeting her for the first time, would not realize that she knew the correct word or phrase.


Let's bake!


This recipe is courtesy of Paula Deen and FoodNetwork.

Old Fashioned Sweet Potato Pie

Recipe courtesy Paula Deen

Prep Time:

20 min

Inactive Prep Time:

--

Cook Time:

1 hr 55 min

Level:

Easy

Serves:

6 to 8 servings

Ingredients

• 2 cups peeled, cooked sweet potatoes
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 1/2 stick melted butter
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract or 1 to 2 tablespoons bourbon
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 cup milk
• 9-inch unbaked pie crust
• 3 egg whites

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

For the filling, using an electric hand mixer, combine the potatoes, 1 cup of the sugar, the butter, eggs, vanilla, salt, and spices. Mix thoroughly. Add the milk and continue to mix. Pour the filling into the pie crust and bake for 35 to 45 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Place the pie on a rack and cool to room temperature before covering with meringue.

For the meringue, using an electric mixer, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form; beat in the remaining 1/4 cup sugar 1 tablespoon at a time. Continue beating until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is glossy and stiff, but not dry. With a rubber spatula, spoon the meringue onto the pie, forming peaks. Make sure the meringue touches the crust all around. Sprinkle with a pinch of granulated sugar. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, or until delicately browned. Cool and serve.

What I did right: I added extra vanilla, a dollop of bourbon and a generous pinch of nutmeg. It seemed sacrilege to not use nutmeg. When beating the meringue, I added a 1/4 tsp of cream of tartar, doubled the amount of egg whites, and beat them to soft peaks with a hand mixer in my clean copper bowl. Nice and high, that's how I like my meringue.
What I did wrong: See Butterscotch Cream Pie.
What I thought of it: Yum. More complex than pumpkin pie, different in that it's topped with meringue instead of whipped cream. It's lighter and better for you. After all, nutritionists at the Center for Science and the Public Interest ranked sweet potatoes #1 in nutrition, outscoring the next highest vegetable by over 100 points.
How I'll tweak it next time: I think I'll make two. Teenage boys, you know.

The Rediscovery of Sweet Corn Cake

With many thanks to Julie Delio.

Many moons ago, when we had fewer children and animals to husband, Hubby and I treated ourselves to the occasional brunch at Kiva Grill. This upscale New Mexico-style restaurant across from the no-longer-new Marriott in the La Jolla/UTC area of California featured amazing cuisine unfamiliar to me at the time. Amongst the delicious blue corn tamales, the red or green chiles, the posole, and the pork adovada, lay a hidden yet simple gem, Mexican Sweet Corn Cake. Not quite a pudding but not a bread either, it's sweetness provided the perfect foil to the spiciness of its accompaniments. 

Note from Helen: "I don't like spice. All that pepper makes me choke." Coughs for emphasis. 

We loved the sweet corn cake. We emptied multiple chafing dishes of sweet corn cake. Because of that love, The Kiva Grill went belly up as their corn cake costs became too high to stay in business. I may be slightly exaggerating but they did, in fact, close down and I, in fact, had babies and sat on the bed for a year with a pillow on my lap practicing the football hold while nursing twins and never went to brunch again. But I digress.

Years of fun and chaos passed with nary a thought to the aforementioned corn cake until a recent sojourn to Texas, state of great cuisine in which each and every Anglicized/mispronounced city demands in its charter that a Tex-Mex and a barbecue restaurant must exist for every 10,000 people at a minimum. The lovely and gracious Julie Delio served as hostess and, on my last day there and after an interesting tour of downtown Fort Worth, the cattleyards, and the barrio, we ended up at an upscale New Mexican restaurant serving Sunday brunch. And there, there amongst 10,000 salsas and meats aplenty, a beacon from my past shone. Right in front of me, Sweet Mexican Corn Cake. I did my Meg Ryan in Harry Met Sally impression right then and there but I was not, repeat, I was not faking it. 

Home, I searched the internets and tubes and discovered the following recipe. Today, I tried it. What follows are my thoughts and critiques.

Recipe was submitted by Lee Ann Clarke to the allrecipes.com website.

Sweet Corn Cake

Rated: Submitted By: Lee Ann Clarke Photo By: Christina Prep Time: 15 Minutes Cook Time: 1 Hour Ready In: 1 Hour 15 Minutes Servings: 6

"Corn flour, or masa harina, is available at many larger grocers. Here it blends with corn meal, sugar, butter and cream in this luscious pudding-cake."

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 cup butter, softened 1/3 cup masa harina 1/4 cup water 1 1/2 cups frozen whole-kernel corn, thawed

1/4 cup cornmeal 1/3 cup white sugar 2 tablespoons heavy whipping cream 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

DIRECTIONS:

1.	In a medium bowl beat butter until it is creamy. Add the Mexican corn flour and water and beat until well mixed.
2.	Using a food processor, process thawed corn, but leave chunky. Stir into the butter mixture.
3.	In a separate bowl, mix cornmeal, sugar, cream, salt, and baking powder. Add to corn flour mixture and stir to combine. Pour batter into an ungreased 8x8 inch baking pan. Smooth batter and cover with aluminum foil. Place pan into a 9x13 inch baking dish that is filled a third of the way with water.
4.	Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven F (175 degrees C) oven for 50 to 60 minutes. Allow to cool for 10 minutes. Use an ice cream scoop for easy removal from pan.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © 2010 Allrecipes.com What I did right: I didn't try to "healthy-up" the recipe. Helen always said butter makes it better and, pounds schmounds, she was dead right. I used polenta instead of regular cornmeal which I think gave it more bite and I used half and half because that's all I had and I was too lazy and unshowered to drive 16 miles to the grocery store. What I did wrong: I prepared it in the Kitchenaid stand mixer which was overkill, not enough batter for such a large bowl without the handy dandy scraping beater blade that I don't own.  Next time, I will use one medium and one small bowl, my right hand, a fork, and a spatula. I suppose one could use a hand mixer if creaming butter with bare hands makes one squeamish. Personally, I need the extra moisture. Also, I did not use hot water in the water bath which prolonged the cooking time. What I thought of it: After I clean the corn kernels from behind my ears and in between my toes because I felt compelled to bathe in it, I'll let you know. In other words, Meg Ryan in Harry Met Sally all over again. And again without the faking it. How I'll tweak it next time: I don't need to do a damned thing to it but I might add chopped hatch chiles or bacon bits to add a little salt and spice but, as Helen was wont to say, that would be gilding the lily. BTW, another wonderful discovery in Texas? Shiner Bock. Which I could also bathe in but, for now, I think I'll drink some and watch football. It is Sunday, after all.