in the red {les culinettes}

After a few months’ hiatus, les culinettes (a potluck dinner club of like-minded ladies) was back in full force a few weeks ago with a red-themed dinner at Emily’s beautiful Woodbridge home. Because of the length of time that passed since the last dinner (September! yoinks…), we were all extra-excited and inspired this time around. Since the green-themed dinner went over so well, Emily decided to do a similar theme but with red food. Once again, I was impressed by the variety and breadth of people’s contributions- red pepper hummus (Emily), an African curried chickpea stew (also Emily), Spanish stuffed ancho chiles (Abigail), a salad with lots of red accents (Meghan), beet ravioli with brown butter & sage (Sarah), roasted red pepper & tuna tapas (Amy), fries with homemade ketchup (Christina), a red onion vegetable tart (Molly), and even cherry-pomegranate bourbon jello shots (Molly again)! You’ll forgive my phone photos, I hope… I forgot to bring my camera, but can’t resist sharing some shots of this amazing food.

I had a bunch of pitted tart Michigan cherries in the freezer left over from some Beau Bien jam-making, so I offered to bring dessert. I made a buttermilk ice cream, and to go on top, cherries in a light syrup infused with vanilla and a touch of cinnamon. I thought it might be nice to have something to soak up all the sauce, so I also made shortcake-type biscuits, and sprinkled them with a little red sugar to get in the spirit of things. By the time we got to dessert, I was shocked anyone had room left, but then again, I always am! Luckily everyone rallied, since it would have been a difficult dish to take home for later.

Sarah had a couple visitors in town from Chicago who were couch-surfing for the weekend, so she asked if she could bring them. Of course with that much food, it was almost a relief to have extra mouths to help us eat it. I was seated next to Romain, a visitor from Berlin who is spending a few months in Chicago. We chatted about European vs. American schools, travel, and how cheap cities facilitate art and musical creativity and entrepreneurship (he’s originally from an industrial town that also has suffered from lost jobs and subsequently abandoned areas of town). It’s always interesting to see Detroit through a first-time visitor’s eyes, especially one from another country; the point of view around here can verge on myopic (tending to eternal pessimism on the one side and relentless boosterism on the other) and it’s great to get some perspective.

Dessert was served with some exciting news from one of the guests, which I won’t divulge here but which had us all toasting and cheering. Ending the evening on that high note, we bundled up and headed to our cars with the warm glow of contentment.

If you can’t wait for tart cherry season (and who could blame you), try to hunt down some frozen tart cherries for this. You could use sweet cherries, but I’ve always found them rather insipid for cooking, and the tartness of the sour cherries pairs so well with the buttermilk. I used this ice cream recipe from Smitten Kitchen via Claudia Fleming’s book The Last Course, using 6 egg yolks and adding about a half teaspoon salt, and a recipe for shortcake biscuits from Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook.

Tart Cherry Sauce for Ice Cream
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1 lb pitted tart cherries and their juice (fresh or frozen and thawed)
½ cup sugar
1 vanilla bean
pinch of cinnamon

If using fresh cherries, place them in a bowl with the sugar, mash lightly with a fork, and allow to macerate 30 minutes or so, until they begin to release their juices.

Place cherries, sugar and vanilla bean in a medium saucepan. Simmer gently until the cherries begin to break down and the liquid becomes slightly syrupy, about 20 minutes. Remove vanilla bean and add a pinch of cinnamon to taste.

Serve warm over buttermilk ice cream and shortcakes.

soup swap III: a porky good time

A couple weekends ago, the soup swap was brought back to life after a one-year hiatus. What were we thinking, skipping a year? I do not know. My only excuse is that we moved last January and at the time, I probably didn’t think the house was “ready” to have people over. I can’t say that it’s that much more ready now- we still have a long way to go and the list of home improvement projects is long- but fortunately I’ve forced myself to get over it and lower my standards; otherwise, I’d never have any guests!

It’s a well-known fact that a little pork can enhance just about any soup, and we found it amusing that everyone’s soups, without specifically planning it that way, had pork in them. Michelle’s was the meatiest, a pork and tomatillo stew with big chunks of tender, falling-apart meat. Kate brought a delicious split pea with bacon, perked up with the addition of fresh rosemary. Molly made a hearty chickpea and sausage soup with some Hungarian sausage she’d been gifted from a neighbor, and Sarah made a fantastic wonton soup with homemade, pork-filled dumplings.

I was torn on what to make and, as before, prepared two soups- one to eat for lunch that day and one to take home. I had found a borscht recipe in Molly O’Neill’s One Big Table* that used slab bacon as the meat rather than beef, and I just happened to have some homemade un-smoked bacon in my freezer, so I made that as the soup to swap. For lunch, I created a soup that brought together elements of Eastern European peasant food (or at least, what I imagine it to be): sautéed cabbage, leeks and mushrooms in a light chicken and mushroom broth, with kasha (buckwheat) for an earthy flavor, and venison & pork meatballs. The final touch was some homemade yogurt stirred into each bowl for a little tang. It went perfectly with the homemade crusty rye bread Molly had brought. For dessert, I made a rustic apple tart- no recipe, just thawed out some graham cracker dough from the freezer, made a sort of custard from eggs and yogurt, sugar and cinnamon and poured it over sliced apples. Because of the yogurt, the custard didn’t have a perfectly smooth texture (the ladies said it reminded them of bread pudding), but that didn’t bother anyone.

I kind of fell down on the job this year as compared to soup swaps past, where I photographed every soup and posted recipes for each one. I’m going with the excuse that I now live with a hungry male and the soups disappeared much faster than they did when it was just little ol’ me consuming them. Not only that, but ironically my schedule as a freelancer has, so far, left less time for blogging and photography than before! But as you can see, I did snap some photos of the borscht and will provide that recipe. I hadn’t made borscht in a few years but I had a pretty specific taste memory of what I wanted, so I used the recipe from One Big Table and tweaked it a bit, using the same ingredients but altering some quantities (more beets, less potato) and the cooking method (dirtying only one pot instead of two). I like my borscht to have a nice punchy sweet and sour flavor, so I added quite a bit more vinegar, and used my homemade red wine vinegar instead of the white vinegar called for. The only other change I’d suggest is cutting the carrots in something other than matchsticks, unless you have pro knife skills. It took me half an hour to cut 2 carrots! D’oh.

Anyway, borscht recipe below, and here are links to the previous two soup swaps if you want to check out those recipes. And of course, I highly recommend hosting a soup swap of your own: you get a fridge full of soups and only have to do the work of making one, and all that time you save can be spent in a pleasant afternoon eating, chatting and sipping wine with girlfriends. Total no-brainer.

*Incidentally, as of press time this great cookbook is on sale for 60% off- get it while you can!

Beet & Cabbage Borscht with Pork (adapted from One Big Table by Molly O’Neill)
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½ lb salt pork or slab bacon, preferably unsmoked
2 quarts beef broth or bouillon
2 small or medium onions, roughly chopped, ok to leave skins on
2 bay leaves
1 Tbs neutral vegetable oil or olive oil
1 lb beets (about 3 medium), peeled and shredded
2 medium carrots, cut into matchsticks (or small coins)
4 garlic cloves, minced
½ small head green cabbage, cored and shredded
1 cup crushed tomatoes
2 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, scrubbed and cut into ½-inch dice
kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
sour cream for garnish
chopped fresh parsley, dill or chives for garnish

In a Dutch oven or other large, heavy pot, cover the pork with water by 2 inches, bring to a simmer, and cook for 20 minutes. Remove the pork and pour out the water. Return the pork to the pot with the beef broth, onion and bay leaves. Bring to a simmer and cook about 2 hours, until tender.

Transfer the meat to a cutting board. When cool enough to handle separate the meat from the skin and fat, and chop into bite-sized pieces. Strain the cooking liquid and discard the solids; reserve the liquid.

Heat the oil in the pot over medium heat. Sauté the beets and carrots until they begin to soften, about 10 minutes, adding the garlic after about 5 minutes. Raise the heat slightly and add the cabbage; cook, stirring frequently, until slightly wilted. Add the tomatoes, potatoes and reserved cooking liquid; bring to a simmer and cook until the potatoes are done to your liking.

Add the meat, sugar and vinegar to the pot. Stir well and taste for salt and pepper, adding as needed, and add vinegar to taste– you’re aiming for a nice balance of sweetness and acidity. Beets and carrots are quite sweet, so I added much more vinegar than the original recipe called for (I used ¼ cup as opposed to 1 tablespoon), but taste and adjust based on your own preferences.

Serve with a spoonful of sour cream stirred in, and garnish with chopped herbs of your choice.

smoked salmon deviled eggs for book club

For the last 4 years, I’ve been in a book club with about 5 friends. The members have shifted slightly, with a couple people leaving and returning because of school or other commitments, but the core group has been meeting every few months since spring of 2008. We’ve focused on classic literature for the most part, but have also sprinkled in some sci-fi, current fiction, children’s literature, and will soon add a graphic novel to our list.

I always look forward to our meetings, which combine spirited and sharp but unpretentious discussion of the books with wine, friendly company, and typically some good snacks! Sometimes we meet at a restaurant or café, but more often we meet at someone’s house. The last meeting was at Ian & Michelle’s, and Ian had made profiteroles with caramel sauce; the one before that was at Sarah’s and we had smoky, marinated grilled shrimp and other goodies. See what I mean?

Last weekend it was my turn to host. I wasn’t sure what to make because the meeting was at an odd time of day (1pm); I didn’t know if people would have just eaten lunch, or if I should plan to serve a light lunch. A serendipitous combination of eggs on sale plus a small piece of smoked salmon led me to this combination, a variation on some tuna-stuffed deviled eggs I did last year (those were good, but I have to say these were way better). The eggs were on sale because they were a little older- i.e., perfect for hard-boiling (less fresh eggs are much easier to peel). The salmon was too small a piece to serve on its own, but a perfect size to lend its flavor to the egg filling. Add some crème fraîche, capers and shallot or red onion and you’re in business.

I also put out a salad of equal parts roasted squash and beets dressed with lemon juice, shallots, feta and parsley. Super simple but beautiful to look at, and a great flavor combination, the sharpness of the shallot and lemon balancing the sugar-sweet beets and squash. With a couple other contributions from my guests, it ended up being a nice little spread. Food was noshed, wine and tea were sipped, and art history books were consulted as we tried to find images that corresponded to the culture the book was about (we had read Things Fall Apart, about the Igbo people in Nigeria at the start of colonialism).

Despite some people having “already eaten”, the food got pretty well demolished. I’m just noticing that I’ve gotten through this post without really mentioning just how very awesome the eggs turned out, but suffice it to say that I don’t think I can ever go back to “plain” deviled eggs. With the brunch-y combination of smoked salmon, capers and onion, these would be great as part of a brunch buffet if you wanted to serve eggs without having to keep them hot… I can just taste them with a bloody mary. For those of you who partake in football-spectating, they’d make excellent finger food for a certain upcoming big game. Or, you could always start a book club.

Smoked Salmon Deviled Eggs
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1 dozen large eggs, preferably not super fresh
3-oz piece of hot-smoked salmon
⅓ cup crème fraîche (you could try subbing sour cream or labneh)
juice of half a lemon (or more to taste)
3 Tbs capers, drained
¼ cup chopped red onion or 1 large shallot, minced
salt & pepper to taste

Put the eggs in a pot large enough to hold them in a single layer and add enough water to cover completely. Cover and bring to the boil. When water reaches a rolling boil, turn off heat and let eggs sit in hot water, covered, for 12 minutes. Drain and cover in cold water. You can crack the shells to get them to cool faster. When cool enough to handle, peel, cut in half lengthwise, and gently scoop the yolks into a medium bowl.

Allow yolks to cool to room temperature. Mash well with crème fraîche and lemon juice until no lumps remain (for a really smooth, fluffy texture, use a stick blender). Stir in the onion or shallots and capers. Flake the salmon and fold in; do not overmix. You want the salmon to be incorporated but to retain some texture. Taste and season with salt and pepper- how much salt depends on how salty your capers and salmon are- and additional lemon juice, if needed. Stuff the egg whites with as much filling as they’ll hold (if there’s a little left over, consider it the cook’s treat). If desired, garnish with a little minced fresh parsley or paprika.

Detroit food blog bloggers

we got married

It’s been a month and a half since Marvin and I tied the knot on a beautiful September day in Detroit. I’ve been meaning to share, but it was such an overwhelming experience that I needed to process and digest the day first; to savor and keep it to myself for a little while. Besides, the hardest posts to write are the ones where I have the most to say… where to begin, where to end, what to edit in and out.

Challenging as it may be to distill the event into a handful of photos and words, this blog is about the role of food in all parts of my life, and there are few food-related occasions more important than a wedding feast! Sharing a meal, your first as husband and wife, with all of your closest friends and family members… quite a few of whom happen to be pretty particular in the food and drink department. Add to that our reputation as bon vivants and aficionados of good eats, and the bar was set pretty high.

I knew from the get-go that I didn’t want a standard catered meal with a choice of “chicken or beef”. Most of the reception venues around town had in-house caterers or required you to work with a certain caterer, so those were out. We wanted to do a pig roast, but where? The answer presented itself when we went to the Ford Piquette Plant (T-Plex), now a museum, to do a group photo for Gourmet Underground Detroit. I started chatting with Pat, a full-time volunteer, who told me about some of the other weddings and events they’d held. I knew right away from her attitude that this was the right place- she was pretty much willing to let us do whatever we wanted with the space, and the price was right.

We got the meat locked in- a pig roast by J&M, a farm out of Almont, MI (I’m heartbroken that no one to my knowledge took any photos of the pig- if you did, please send them my way!!), and mesquite-grilled chicken from Los Gallos in Southwest Detroit. But what to do for side dishes? I knew I didn’t want to go “barbecue” or picnic-style sides; not that I don’t like coleslaw and mac & cheese, but for this special an occasion, I wanted something a bit less ordinary. I checked with a couple caterers and the prices were ridiculous, so I approached my friend Will Branch, who owns Corridor Sausage Co. Although he doesn’t do catering on a regular basis, I knew that he had catered events here and there in the past and the food was always great. Plus, instead of picking from a set menu of items, we were able to totally customize things by meeting with him and his partner Tenley Lark a couple times to brainstorm and then refine the menu. It was really a collaborative effort, which worked out well- we wanted to contribute ideas, but trusted Will and Tenley to carry out their vision for the actual recipes. We ended up going with a slightly tropical/Latino theme, incorporating dishes like arroz con gandules (Puerto Rican rice made by Marvin’s family), black beans, chimichurri sauce, pineapple-jicama salad and corn on the cob with ancho-lime butter (which I was afraid to eat, not wanting to tempt fate with staining my dress!) along with a couple summery items like heirloom tomato salad and green bean salad, taking advantage of the local harvest.

Will and Tenley did a great job with the hors d’oeuvres as well as the side dishes- this is Will’s forte, as most of his catering gigs have been cocktail parties. They did mini Spanish tortillas de patatas which they cut into little circles and served with a dab of creme fraiche, dates stuffed with blue cheese and Corridor Sausage’s lamb merguez, and the classic combo of melon and prosciutto, using the ham that I cured earlier this year (which we affectionately began referring to as “the nuptial ham”).

If the bar was set high for food, it was even more of a challenge in the beverage department- how to do drinks on a budget for that many people without serving swill? Luckily, thanks to some friend connections, we were able to get the wine and booze at near-wholesale prices, which helped immensely. We also saved money by offering two signature cocktails (a Manhattan and a Rum Swizzle, created for us by Dave at the Sugar House) rather than a full bar with standard mixers. Jarred helped out with wine suggestions that would compliment the food and please a large cross-section of palates. For beer, we went local with Bell’s Lager of the Lakes and hard cider from Motor City Brewing Works.

The evening wasn’t without hitches- we ran out of cava (3 cases- damn, people!) in less than an hour; a couple friends (Hi Evan! Hi Dave!) had to pitch in with bartending; dinner was slightly earlier than Will had planned for because people were  wandering upstairs to their tables ahead of schedule (maybe something to do with the booze running out?); but the guests didn’t seem to notice anything amiss; luckily, the unique setting was enough to distract them from any small snags. I found it really hard to just step back and enjoy myself and not go into Hostess Mode (“We’re out of cava?!” “There’s no water on the tables!”), but once I sat down, I tried to relax, mostly successfully. Given the fact that our reception venue had no kitchen or catering facilities, I think everyone did a remarkably good job!

After we were announced, we decided to cut the cake and do the first dances right away to buy Will and Tenley a little more time to set up the buffet. Dick, a volunteer at the museum, had the cool idea to wheel our cake out on the back of an antique flatbed truck. It was positioned in the back of the room and as soon as we walked in, they brought it to the center of the dance floor for us to cut. My mom had decorated the truck with “Just Married” signs and streamers… very cute! Our cake was from Pinwheel Bakery in Ferndale and we did two flavors, coconut cake with lime cream (like a curd but not quite as intense), and pistachio with chocolate and dulce de leche. I told Ann, the baker, to do whatever she wanted with the design of the cake since I was suffering from decision fatigue at that point and didn’t really care what it looked like. I was pretty happy with the result- to go with our “vintage travel” theme, she created little postcards to decorate the cake- although it was kind of funny because all night I had people asking about our trip to Hawaii (we’re actually going to Spain, but Hawaii would have been nice too). I didn’t get a chance to have a piece of cake, but all of the guests were raving about it; based on our tastings prior to the wedding, I have no doubt it was fabulous.

As most married couples will probably tell you, the evening was a blur. By the time we made the rounds of all the tables, it was probably 10:00 or 10:30- time to finally let loose a bit! My sympathies go out to brides like my friend Diane, who said she was so busy talking to her guests during her reception that she never got to dance at all. I don’t think that would have even been an option for me, since people kept dragging me onto the dance floor. Even Marvin, who “doesn’t dance”, was out there most of the latter part of the evening. A couple of those Manhattans may have had something to do with it! I was happy to see our guests working up their appetites for the taco bar we put out as a snack, pairing the leftover roast pork with some salsa and guacamole from Mexicantown’s Honeybee Market.

I don’t think there’s any other event in life that you prepare for so much in proportion to its actual duration. I wish I could have slowed down time to be able to remember more details. Instead, I mostly remember a series of impressions rather than distinct moments. Luckily, the photographs (taken by our talented friend Elizabeth Conley) help to recall specific points in time. But even watching short video clips, it still seems dream-like, as if I’m watching someone else and not us.

Now that the wedding is over, I thought I would have so much more free time, but I’m just as busy as ever, mostly with planning this year’s Detroit Holiday Food Bazaar. Life marches on! I also have our honeymoon to plan, which I strategically booked for April so that I could have something else to look forward to after the wedding was over. Besides, I actually enjoy travel planning, and wanted to savor that experience without it being all mixed up with wedding stress and deadlines.

In addition to menu planning/ overseeing the food and drinks, I also designed my own dress, tea-stained the lace and my shoes, made about 100 jars of jam (with help from Molly) for the favors, made the place cards and table signs (names of French streets in Detroit), got old family wedding photos together for a display, and took care of several more details I can’t even remember anymore. Although going the DIY route was more work than I could ever have imagined, in retrospect I don’t think I could have done it any other way (ahem… control freak… ahem). I’m actually glad that I didn’t realize how much work it would be when I started, because I probably wouldn’t have gone through with it! In the end, though, it was worth it for all the people who told me it was one of the most memorable and unique weddings they had ever been to. Unless you’re a super-organized Type A person and you start way ahead of time, I wouldn’t recommend doing this type of wedding or event without at least some help- I hired MeMe Design & Events to assist with some of the design and decor elements. She was mainly in charge of the room layout/ draping and put the tables together, but did so much more, coordinating vendors and taking care of lots of little details I may not have thought of. I also had help from many family members and friends- you know who you are, and thank you all from the bottom of my heart! I very literally could not have pulled it off without you.

There’s so much more I could say about the day, the planning, what worked and what didn’t, but this post is already running long- if anyone has questions or wants advice on planning a wedding or event, though, please ask away in the comments, I’m more than happy to share my trial-and-error experiences!

All photographs in this post courtesy of EGC Photography.

summer tomatoes and a savory zucchini bread {les culinettes}

Summer tomatoes may seem like an odd thing to post about right now, as most other North American food bloggers are fully in fall’s sway. But now that I have this silly wedding business behind me, I’m catching up with a few odds and ends- blog posts I’ve been sitting on; photos I’ve been meaning to edit; recipes I wanted to share. Besides, the particular recipe I have for you today- a savory zucchini-tomato bread- is actually more suited to this time of year, because who wants to turn up the oven on a sweltering August day? (Oh, that’s right, I did.) This bread, though- if you still have a glut of zucchini but are tired of sweet zucchini bread, this is the ticket. It’s rich, eggy, cheesy and perfect for a cool fall day, and it keeps for a few days because of how moist it is. Also, if you’re grabbing bushels of Roma tomatoes to make these roasted Romas, this is a great use for them. Mine were from last year (roasted and frozen in olive oil) but they held up beautifully. If you don’t have tomatoes you can throw in a handful of black olives, or even a little diced ham.

The last meeting of our cooking club took place on August 12 and as we have a seasonal bent, we celebrated the tomato. Once again, I wondered how we would pull off 8 or so dishes with the same ingredient in common and not have it be “too much”, and once again, I needn’t have worried. From just-picked to barely cooked to long-simmered to roasted, the permutations were as creative as they were delicious. Sarah skewered fresh tomatoes with melons, basil and mozzarella for a salad on a stick. Molly puréed tomatoes from her garden with peaches and a little yogurt and garnished it with tarragon for a chilled summer soup, a riff on a Mark Bittman recipe. Amy, ever the fancy-pants (I say this with the utmost admiration!), stuffed squash blossoms with seasoned diced eggplant, fried them and set them on a bed of barely-cooked tomato sauce. Heavenly.

Speaking of heavenly, I want to digress just for a moment here to talk about our hostess Abigail and her stunning Ann Arbor home, which you can see a tiny glimpse of in a couple of these photos. I hope it doesn’t embarrass her if I say that I was absolutely enamored with her house and its decor, a perfect blend of old world/antique and whimsical modern. The house itself is in amazing condition, with original woodwork throughout, a gorgeous fireplace and many other cool details. And the landscaping- let’s just say gardening is Abigail’s labor of love, and it shows. Much of Abigail’s decor, including the “most beautiful chandelier in the world” (as she told her husband to convince him they needed to buy it and ship it back) was purchased during their time living in Italy. I’m guessing the heavy linens on the dining table were of European provenance as well- you just can’t buy stuff like that at a department store.

Of course it’s no surprise that such impeccable taste would carry over to the kitchen. Our hostess made two knockout dishes, one an appetizer with multiple components, the other a homey potato gratin (in a vintage enameled casserole, no less). The appetizer was composed of a whipped chive goat cheese and a deeply savory tomato-shallot-vinegar compote topped with a basil leaf, on little almond biscuits. The sweet cookie-like biscuits were unexpected but totally worked. It was a struggle not to devour too many, as we all wanted to save room for dinner.

It’s been well over a month since this dinner and I’m struggling to remember what Emily and Meghan brought- please forgive me, ladies! I believe the roasted tomatoes with capers and mozzarella were Meghan’s contribution, and Emily brought a simple salad of tomatoes from her garden. She was understandably much too busy to prepare anything more complex (not that she needed to anyway), as she was getting married the following weekend. Congratulations Emily! I don’t think I would have even been able to attend any social events the week before our wedding, as I was so busy taking care of last minute details, but she seemed much more organized than I.

As usual, we had a grand old time eating, drinking and making merry. We were privileged to have been joined by Abigail’s old school friend Chiara, who was visiting from Brooklyn on her first weekend away from her kids. I hope we showed her a proper good time. Kids, if you’re reading, she was fighting back the tears pining for you the whole time. Really!

Some say a bride experiences a let-down after the wedding, when there is no longer a big event to focus on, and the attention dwindles. I don’t feel this way in the slightest, at least not yet- on the contrary, I’m really excited to have time once again to cook and have dinner parties. I will of course post about the wedding very soon, once I get our photos and have some time to digest everything, so to speak. The ultra-short summary is that we had the time of our lives and the food was to die for. But I can’t wait to get back in the kitchen, so here’s hoping we’ll plan another Culinettes party ASAP!

Savory Zucchini Bread with Roasted Tomatoes and Parmesan
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The inspiration for this recipe is the savory “cakes” served in France as part of the apéro (pre-dinner drinks and snacks). The first time I made it, I used roasted tomatoes and black olives, but wanted to adapt it to make use of the overabundance of zucchini in gardens and markets at the end of summer. The results are a delicious departure from sweet, muffin-like zucchini breads.

Prep: 20 minutes
Yield: 2 large loaves or 4 small loaves

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
5 ounces Parmesan or other hard cheese, grated
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
5 large eggs
1 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup olive oil
2 cups shredded zucchini
1 cup roasted Roma tomatoes, cut into bite-sized pieces
1/4 cup grated shallot or onion
2 tablespoons minced fresh rosemary (or other fresh herbs of your choice)

Preheat oven to 400°. Grease 2 loaf pans or four mini loaf pans.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, cheese, salt and pepper. In another medium bowl, lightly beat the eggs with the wine and olive oil. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour the egg/wine mixture in. Slowly mix the dry ingredients into the wet until fully incorporated; do not over-mix. Lumps are fine. Fold in the vegetables and rosemary. Divide the batter evenly among the pans and bake until the top is golden and crusty and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 45-50 minutes for small loaves and an hour for large loaves (please note that I didn’t make large loaves so I can’t vouch for the timing- keep an eye on them and test to be sure).

snippets

For those of you who are married, this wins the Obvious Statement of the Year award, and for those of you who are unmarried, take heed: planning a wedding is a LOT of work. Like, feels-like-a-second-job amounts of work. And for someone like me who basically does have a second job (or two or three, depending on how you count freelance work, being a landlady and running a micro-food-business), I barely have time to breathe let alone blog. For those who opt for a “regular” wedding at a place where it’s X amount per head all-inclusive, there’s still plenty to keep you busy (my sister went this route last year and still, a few months out, found herself wishing she had planned a small destination wedding instead). But when you capriciously decide that you want to have your reception at an old Model T museum, with no kitchen or staff, that doesn’t regularly host large events, you’re dealing with a whole new level of coordination.  My chest gets tight just thinking about it.

Somehow in the midst of all this, I’m managing to squeeze in little snippets of normal life here and there- a Sunday supper of grilled salmon with scape pesto; a weekend visit with my mom and sister; a restaurant meal with my old high school friend Kathy and her husband Garrett (longtime readers may remember my posts about my stay with her in Portland, and making her family’s Chinese dumplings).

When Kathy announced a couple months ago that they’d be in Ann Arbor for a couple days and wanted to meet for dinner, I didn’t have to think too hard about where to go. Grange is a restaurant which friends have raved about for its commitment to only serving local, seasonal food and its excellent cocktail menu. We were particularly wowed by the house-made charcuterie platter (trend trifecta- there were even pickled scapes! but who cares because it was REALLY GOOD), which included whipped lardo among its decadent treats. For dinner, I had pork loin on a bed of greens with pickled strawberries. The dish had minor flaws, but the pork itself was juicy and had a nice fatty layer indicating its non-industrial “other white meat” origins. After dinner we went next door and had a couple un-fancy drinks with Fred, another old friend from college. It was an evening that made me happy and wistful at the same time- I’ve met so many great people at different times in my life but despite the brave new world of online social networking, it’s nearly impossible to keep up with them all in any meaningful way. I’m just thankful for times when I do see old friends and we’re able to pick up without awkwardness,  as if no time had passed.

Speaking of things to be grateful for, my family has been so supportive and helpful during this busy time! My mom and sister were in town visiting a couple weeks ago and I was glad I was able to find time to cook them a meal. I deep-fried some stuffed squash blossoms from the farmers’ market, grilled a grass-fed flank steak, roasted some beets and dressed them with a scape & pistachio pesto, and heated up some pasta with fresh tomato sauce I’d made a few days prior. We had a nice leisurely summer supper, nibbling on cheese and salami and white bean dip, then moving outside for a glass of L. Mawby (a sparkling wine from the Leelanau) and the squash blossoms (I took Melissa Clark’s excellent advice about moving the deep fryer outdoors). As dusk settled in, we  migrated back to the dinner table afterward for the rest of our feast.  The roasted beets were so sweet they tasted like strawberry candy, and despite her aversion to the garish magenta roots, my mom consented to trying a bite. Their green tops were chopped and sautéed with some kale for a slightly bitter counterpoint to the beets’ intense sugar. We lingered over these and a few bottles of wine, and after dinner (partially thanks to said wine), Amanda coerced me into getting out an old photo album and reminiscing about a trip we took to New York almost exactly a decade ago, just two weeks before 9/11.

Even on weeknights, every once in a blue moon we have an evening where we’re both home at dinnertime (no small feat with two freelancers in the house) and we take time to make a “nice dinner”. Now, don’t get me wrong- by “nice” I don’t mean complicated- we’re still far off from having that kind of time. I just mean a meal that we wouldn’t hesitate to serve to company, once we can actually have people over again. For example- a beautiful piece of wild salmon, smeared with the aforementioned scape pesto and grilled. If memory serves (yes, it was that long ago! sigh…), we had kale and grilled cabbage on the side, two of our current favorite vegetable sides. The cabbage was simply shredded, tossed with salt, olive oil and smoked paprika, and the kale was bolstered with a paste of anchovies and preserved lemons, with some red pepper flakes for good measure. Incidentally, my dangerously crowded pantry may look like overkill to some, but it’s a saving grace when it comes to cooking anything worth mentioning on a tight time budget.

Tonight I will be working, testing and developing waffle and popover recipes for a client in my 90+-degree kitchen and wishing I was grilling or eating a nice cool salad or chilled soup. But such is life right now. We’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programming after September 17th, and meanwhile, eat lots of wonderful summer meals for me!

it’s so easy eating green {les culinettes}

In June, I had the honor of hosting les culinettes, the cooking club I’ve been participating in for the past few months. Back then- a whole month ago!- my schedule was just free enough to accommodate a dinner party, but as the weeks fly by and freelance work* and wedding planning have been ratcheting up, blogging has sadly been relegated to the back burner (non-intended food pun, I swear).
*I’ve been developing and testing recipes for holiday food the last several weeks… strange but fun!

But rather than lament my absence here, I’d prefer to reflect on what was a beautiful balmy spring eve with good friends and great food. Our theme was “green”, in honor of fresh green vegetables finally being in the markets. Seems funny to think of it now, with temps in the 90s all week, but in mid-June we were just starting to see peas, asparagus and the like. Several people did use spring vegetables in their dishes, but the menu was surprisingly diverse, with others interpreting the “green” theme more loosely.

I had gotten up at 7am that day to get the house in order; in addition to cleaning, I wanted to hang a few pictures and curtains (nothing like company to get you motivated to do things around the house… I should entertain every weekend, I’d be so productive!). I was a machine all day, with just enough time to start getting my dishes ready as the dinner hour approached. Fortunately the theme wasn’t the only thing that was loosely interpreted, as most of the ladies arrived about 45 minutes after the appointed time, giving me a welcome opportunity to chill in the kitchen with a glass of wine and prep my food a bit more leisurely.

We decided to break up the meal into courses and eat the first round outdoors- it was one of those warm evenings with the barest of breezes, that elusive weather we long for in the depths of winter’s chill and summer’s scorch. The food was sublime, in every way a worthy match for the splendid weather. For appetizers, we had pea pesto and pea hummus on crostini made by Meghan, and a gorgeous grass-green fava purée topped with feta and kalamata olives that Abigail made with favas from her garden. The favas, which we spread on Zingerman’s baguette (only the best!), had the most amazing velvety texture that I was obsessed with, and a little spicy kick.

Also served in the first half of dinner were pieces of flank steak with an uber-garlicky, emerald green chimichurri that Sarah made, and a shrimp dish in a light citrus sauce with basil and capers brought by Amy that I had to force myself to stop eating so I’d have room for the remaining two courses. She had gotten the shrimp at an Asian grocer and they were huge and tasty; their heads lent flavor to the sauce, as well as providing some mid-meal entertainment.

As it got dark, we headed inside as the mosquitoes started to make themselves known and spoil an otherwise lovely setting. Marvin had cleared off our little patio (the previous owners had seen fit to use it as storage for a large pile of logs for the fireplace), and set up a table for us as well as some string lights to lend a bit of ambiance. Thanks hon!

There was a short respite from eating while the ladies chatted in the kitchen and I prepared my dish, mussels in a simplified coconut green curry sauce. We ate those with gusto while waiting for the pasta water to boil for the final course of the evening, Molly’s homemade spinach pasta with peas and asparagus. The pasta had a wonderful chewy al dente texture and Molly shared that she uses a bit of spelt flour in her recipe (note to self for future pasta making endeavors). A salad of cucumber and avocado with lemon, probably the easiest salad in my repertoire and so refreshing in hot weather, accompanied. I put cucumber slices in our ice water, too- a nice change from the usual citrus. (And what can I say, I’m a sucker for a theme!)

Our designated dessert-maker Jess was out sick so we missed out on her green tea desserts (those in Detroit can sample her wares here though), but we were all plenty sated by the end of the meal. It being Friday, some of the ladies had worked that day and we petered out a bit earlier than our usual midnight-ish, but between the food, the company and the perfect temperatures I wouldn’t have changed a thing. Greatly anticipating our next gathering chez Abigail to fête the venerable summer tomato!

Mussels in a Quick Green Curry
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I threw this together on the fly because I had some kaffir lime leaves to use up. Technically the summer months are not supposed to be a good time for mussels, but the ones I purchased were fine. If you’re unfamiliar with purchasing, storing or cleaning mussels, this article is very helpful. This sauce could be used to simmer a pound of shrimp or scallops as well if you don’t want to wait for mussel season again. To make it a meal, just add some rice and a grated carrot or cucumber salad.

2 lbs mussels, washed and debearded
1 large shallot lobe, minced
1 medium garlic clove, minced
6-8 fresh kaffir lime leaves
½ tsp brown sugar
1 cup coconut milk
2-3 serrano peppers or similar green chiles, de-seeded and minced (more if you want it spicy)
a dash or two of fish sauce
about 1 Tbs neutral vegetable oil
a couple Tbs each chopped cilantro, basil and/or mint for garnish (cilantro is essential; the basil and mint are nice touches if you have them. If not using one of the herbs, increase the others proportionately.)

Heat the oil (enough to thinly coat the pan) in the widest and shallowest pan you have that has a lid. Add the shallot, garlic and all but 1 Tbs of the peppers and sauté over medium heat until the shallot becomes translucent. Add the coconut milk, sugar  and lime leaves. Cook at a very gentle simmer for about 20-30 minutes to infuse the flavors, stirring occasionally. If the sauce gets too thick, add a splash of water, or cover the pan to prevent further evaporation. After the sauce has cooked down, season with fish sauce to desired level of saltiness.

Raise the heat to medium high and add the cleaned mussels to the pan. Cover the pan and cook, shaking the pan a few times to allow more even cooking. The mussels are done as soon as they have all opened. (There may be a few stragglers that don’t open; these should be discarded.) Sprinkle the fresh herbs and remaining chiles on top of the dish and serve immediately in shallow bowls with some of the sauce spooned over.

Serves 4-6 as an appetizer or 2-4 as a main course.

les culinettes

A few months ago, I got an email from my friend Sarah, inviting me to participate in a cooking club with about 5 or 6 other ladies of her acquaintance. Although I hesitated to add more commitments to my already busy schedule, I’m so glad that I did- these gals can cook!

Although I was unable to attend the first dinner (I think I was playing a show that night), I received a charmingly decorated envelope in the mail from my friend Amy, who had gotten crafty and made us all little badges that said “les culinettes”. I was smitten.

Luckily the next dinner presented no such scheduling conflicts, so a month or so later I got myself to Meghan’s adorable Victorian home in Corktown, where the theme of the evening was “peasant food”. I think any actual peasant would have just about keeled over knowing we considered wild boar ragù, fresh oysters and Pasta Kerchief “peasant food”, but hey, a loose interpretation of the term is fine in my book if it means I get to eat incredible food.

I had gotten back into town that day from a trip and had no chance to shop or cook anything too involved, so I brought a simple green salad and some kale and sweet onions sautéed in olive oil with garlic and red pepper flakes. There was boar ragù, a beet salad, vegetarian chickpea stew, Scotch eggs, oysters, pasta kerchief, and a gorgeous apple pie. Meghan’s son Cass was (reasonably enough) concerned upon seeing the lot of us, worrying aloud that “those ladies are going to eat up all of the pie!” (Turns out he need not have been concerned- after gorging ourselves on the dinner smorgasbord, we tragically only had room for small-ish pieces of pie.)

The problem, if it can be called such, of a potluck like this is that unlike most dinner parties that feature one or two fancy “centerpiece” dishes and then more humble sides to go along with them, almost all of these dishes were showstoppers in their own right. The Scotch eggs were perfectly browned and crunchy; the ragù deeply savory and tender; the pasta kerchief delicate and rich and utterly delicious. I left feeling like if I never ate again, I could die happy.

About six weeks later, the group met up again, this time at Jess’s cool high-ceilinged second story vintage flat above a gallery in Corktown for a curry-themed dinner. I’m still awaiting copies of the photos from this gathering, having remembered my camera but forgotten to insert the memory card, but hopefully I’ll post on that eventually (along with the recipe for an awesome and easy Malaysian goat curry I made). Meanwhile, if you’re looking for a snazzy spring dish, I highly recommend that Pasta Kerchief recipe, which I’ll be cooking myself at the first opportunity.

We’re getting together again this Friday and this time I’m hosting- I’m a little nervous as this is the first time I’ve had more than one or two guests over in the new house and I still feel like we’re not “ready”, but what better excuse to just dive in. Besides, if this dinner is anything like the others, everyone will be concentrating too much on the food to notice that we haven’t hung curtains or that the bathroom tile needs re-grouting. Right? Our theme this month is “green”, and I was afraid we might end up with mostly vegetable dishes,  but there’s talk of flank steak with chimichurri, ceviche, spinach pesto pasta, basil curried mussels and green tea desserts. Can’t wait to see what the ladies will rustle up!

Thanks to Sarah Burger for photos- we were both taking pics with her camera and I no longer know who shot what, but some of the above is her handiwork!

of bacon & bloodies & scheezeballs

I’m absolutely not fronting when I say that, in all that pertains to food and drink, I have the most amazing bunch of friends EVER.  In a mere 6 months, we’ve gone from small, loosely organized gatherings, to  cider and Bordeaux tastings, to full-on day-long bacon-and-bloody mary smorgasbords that get mentioned in the New York Times.  Holla!

The inspiration for Bacon & Bloodies came when I received a package from the generous folks at Nueske’s which included, among other goodies, 3 different types of their bacon!  I suggested to the gang that this might be a good excuse to throw a bacon-tasting, and because bacon is sort of a breakfasty morning item, why not throw some bloody marys in the mix?  My friend and business partner Molly gamely agreed to host at her lovely Lafayette Park condo.

We sampled several varieties of bacon, including the aforementioned Nueske’s (regular, “uncured”*, and pepper bacon), Niman Ranch (2 kinds, I believe), Benton’s, Link 40, J&M (a local bacon), our friend Kim’s homemade bacon, and probably a couple more that I’m forgetting.  Each had their own qualities to recommend them- some smokier, some meatier, some nutty and mild.  We didn’t do anything as scientific as to take notes; the bacon was just passed around like hors d’oeuvres as it came off the grill (courtesy of Jarred the grill-meister, who had a couple cast-iron skillets going for a few solid hours).

*Megan, the lovely PR person from Nueske’s, explained to me that although the USDA requires them to label the naturally cured bacon as “uncured”, it actually is a cured product.

Because the party started at 1pm, it ended up being more of a grazing/potluck type thing rather than a brunch.  I had little trouble deciding what to bring, based on a Twitter conversation with Todd in which he made fun of Molly and I for our nostalgic enjoyment of Win Schulers’ Bar-Scheeze.  I remember loving the stuff as a kid, bright orange and fake as it was; while it certainly pales in comparison to real cheese, it tasted absolutely complex when Velveeta was your benchmark.  I decided, naturally, to make a homemade cheese ball in homage to the Scheezeballs of my youth.  The funniest thing was that although I used top notch, all natural ingredients, people at the party admitted that they had initially avoided it thinking it was fake cheese!  Hehe, more for me.

How to sum up a gorgeous October day in a few words? I’ll let the photos do most of the talking, but some of the highlights were the homemade pickles several people brought for bloody mary garnish, Todd’s pan-fried Cajun chicken livers, a wonderful Georgian cheese tart made by our friend Megan, and the steaks Molly and Jarred busted out around hour 6 of the party, with a phenomenal chimichurri sauce Molly made (she lived in Argentina and I will definitely be getting that recipe to share with you all!).  I also made a cinnamon-honey ice cream which I hope to post about soon.  Meanwhile, scroll past the remaining photos for a cheese ball that will please even the scheeze-haters.

Win Schuler’s-inspired Scheeze Ball

1 lb good-quality sharp cheddar, shredded
8 oz. cream cheese at room temperature
2 Tbs prepared horseradish, or more to taste
few dashes hot sauce such as Cholula or Tabasco
few dashes Worcestershire sauce
1/2 cup chopped pecans (other nuts may be substituted as desired), or a bit more if needed
5 strips bacon, cooked until crispy and crumbled (optional)
milk, as needed

Notes: This recipe is very loosely based on a Paula Deen recipe, but I modified it to taste more like Win Schuler’s. Paula calls for 1/2 cup milk; I didn’t find it necessary to achieve the texture I wanted, but if you feel the mixture is too firm, you can add milk a tablespoon or two at a time as you mix the cheeses.  If not using the bacon, you may need more nuts to completely cover the cheese ball.  The recipe yields a fairly large cheese ball, but can be halved if necessary.
Directions: Place all ingredients except the nuts and bacon into the bowl of a stand mixer and mix until completely smooth.  Place the mixture onto a large piece of plastic wrap and form it into a ball.  Refrigerate until firm, about 2 hours.

About 15-20 minutes before you want to finish the cheese ball, prepare the coating: in a dry skillet, warm the nuts and bacon (if using) over low heat to gently toast the nuts and re-crisp the bacon.  Transfer to a paper towel and let cool.  Put the nuts and bacon in a bowl or pie plate and roll the cheese ball in the mixture, pressing it into the cheese until the ball is fully coated.  If not serving immediately, wrap again in a clean piece of plastic wrap and chill up to 24 hours.

building a basic home cocktail bar: a tutorial

I’m excited to present simmer down’s first guest blogger, my friend Evan Hansen of the blog UndergroundDetroit.com.  Evan is a connoisseur of classic cocktails (among other things) so I asked him to outline the basic elements of what one would need for a beginner’s home cocktail bar. Take it away, Evan!

My first “cocktail” was bright green, probably a mixture of Apple Pucker, Midori, and some sort bottled juice. That first drink was also my last for many years, with only the occasional gin and tonic passing my lips. Then a few years ago, I was handed a cocktail glass containing gin, fresh lemon juice, and maraschino liqueur.

Life changed.

Now I order boxes of spirits from across the country to make drinks with names like Lucien Gaudin, Captain Handsome, and Lion’s Tail. There must be four dozen different products in my home bar now, and I’ve traded the Chernobylesque green of Midori and Pucker for the hazy purple of Crème de Violette and fresh citrus. And at the risk of sounding completely arrogant, the resulting drinks are pretty damn awesome.

Friends will occasionally ask how to start a decent home bar without having to initiate a raid on the local party store or buying up the entire shabby chic liquor cabinet collection at the local Pottery Barn. Fortunately, it’s pretty easy.

The “Essential” Spirits

I suppose there really are no truly essential spirits, but making a few classic drinks and having flexibility to experiment a little do require that you own some basics.

Consider acquiring these eight (only 8!) to start:

Spirit	Recommended Brands	Notes
Dry Gin	Beefeater, Bombay, Tanqueray, Plymouth	I usually keep more than one gin — something clean like Plymouth for martinis and something more robust for mixing like Beefeater. If you’re going with only one, Beefeater is great for the price.
Bourbon	Buffalo Trace	The best value in base spirits might be Buffalo Trace. A near unanimous winner in our blind bourbon tasting. Eventually, you may find that you’ll use more rye whiskey than bourbon, but bourbon is cheaper and easier to find in Detroit, and for starting out, it covers all your basic drinks.
Rum	Mt. Gay, Appleton, Bacardi	I like Mt. Gay white rum. Like Bacardi but cheaper.
Tequila	El Jimador, Xalixco, Sauza	Start with a blanco tequila. A lot of folks go with a reposado or anjeo (aged) tequilas because they’re smooth, but when you’re using tequila mostly for margaritas, I actually prefer a bit of an edge, and a 100% agave blanco like El Jimador is both dirt cheap and delicious.
Triple Sec	Cointreau	It’s pricey, but Cointreau has more orange flavor than other triple secs and the right amount of sweetness for mixing. Plus it’s easy to find. Never substitute Grand Marnier as it has a brandy base that adds way too much caramel flavor.
Maraschino Liqueur	Luxardo, Maraska	Maraschino is a delicious cherry liqueur used in several classic cocktails. There are only two brands readily available; both are good.
Dry Vermouth	Noilly-Prat, Dolin	Detroiters can’t get Dolin, but since reverting to their European recipe for sales in the US, Noilly-Prat is perfectly good.
Sweet Vermouth	Carpano Antica, Punt e Mes, Dolin, Boissiere	If you gag when you think of sweet vermouth, you’re not alone. Martini & Rossi has killed the reputation of this absolutely necessary class of fortified wines. Antica Formula and Punt e Mes are made by the same producer but are drastically different with Antica showing an intense herbaceousness. Boissiere is a good inexpensive option.

You’ll note that there’s no vodka on my list. Vodka’s a good spirit to have, and it’s necessary for some classics like the Moscow Mule. But since vodka wasn’t popular in the United States until late 40s, there aren’t a lot of classic recipes calling for it. Besides, it’s a neutral spirit, and we’re all about flavor, so stick to the big four base spirits to start – gin, whiskey, rum, and tequila.

Additional Ingredients

Ingredient	Notes
Angostura Bitters	A few dashes of bitters can really change a cocktail. Angostura is the most widely used aromatic bitters product and an absolute necessity.
Orange Bitters	Orange bitters add a great note to a lot of classic drinks. Brands include Angostura Orange, Regan’s, The Bitter Truth, and others.
Fresh Citrus	Fresh lemons and limes are a must both for the juice and to use the peel as a garnish. Oranges and grapefruits should be added to the rotation eventually as well.
Tonic Water	You really only need this for gin and tonic when starting out. After all, your guests may expect it. But tonic can be used in other clever ways with more ingredients. Try buying Q or Fever Tree tonic instead of Canada Dry or Schweppe’s.
Cola of Good Quality	High fructose corn syrup dulls taste buds and tastes like crap. Buy good cola — I like Fentiman’s Curiosity Cola, but even the Mexican version of Coke which uses cane sugar is good.
Grenadine of Good Quality	Grenadine is supposed to be pomegranate syrup. You’d never know it if you taste Rose’s Grenadine. Buy a better brand (there are lots, but Stirrings has become the most readily available) or learn to make your own.
Cherries of Good Quality	Look for cherries without artificial coloring. Nothing natural and edible is colored like Ronald McDonald’s hair.
Egg Whites	Egg whites are a “must” for a lot of classic drinks, and I like to use them in my whiskey sours. Shake them with the other ingredients but no ice to form a nice frothy emulsion and then shake with ice to finish the drink. Pour it out and drink a nice full-bodied, frothy cocktail. Egg white is the texture king!
Simple Syrup	Make your own and put it in any bottle or jar you have around the house. Equal parts sugar and water, heated, cooled, and stored should do the trick. You can make sweeter syrups later by using more sugar, but this works to start.
Fresh Ice	Ice can ruin your drink if it’s handled improperly. Old ice tastes of freezer funk. Ice that’s too small or too cracked can dilute your drink prematurely. Try to use ice that’s only a few days or maybe a couple weeks old at worst. I’m partial to ice made in silicone trays that create perfect cubes. Find them at Sur la Table

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With the spirits and mixers above, you will become hero – a hero in a world of restaurants and bars that serve only sugary neon drinks that end in -tini. Among the many classics you’ll be able to concoct are Aviations, Bourbon Crustas, Margaritas, Martinis, Manhattans, White Ladies, Mojitos, Daiquiris, and Martinezes. And Clover Clubs, Pegus, Ward 8s, Gimlets, and Whiskey Sours. And plenty of others.

Tools

To make decent drinks, one really only needs a shaker, a strainer, and a spoon. After all, you can stir or shake a drink with the bottom half of a shaker, and a basic strainer gets most of the undesirable bits of ice and fruit pulp out of a drink. But to make great drinks, it gets a bit more elaborate.

• Cocktail shaker
• Mixing glass
• Spoon
• Hawthorne strainer
• Jigger / Measuring cup
• Vegetable peeler
• Juicer
• Muddler

Here are some general rules for the above equipment:

1. Measuring: No matter how good you are at eyeballing amounts of spirits, never, never, never skip a proper measurement when making a drink. It doesn’t make you look talented; it makes you look like you enjoy bad drinks. If you have a traditional jigger, the big end (actually called a jigger) should be 1.5 oz and the small end (called a pony) is 1 oz, make sure the measurements are accurate. I had a jigger that was actually 1.75 oz on one side and 1.25 on the other, which I discovered after a week of strange drinks. Measure out some water in a measuring cup and see if your jigger is accurate. Or better yet, get a tiny measuring cup like this awesome one from Oxo.
2. Shaken vs. Stirred: James Bond couldn’t order a drink to save his life. Shaking is a faster, more efficient way of chilling a drink because of the intense contact between the ice and the drink. But it also makes your drink cloudy. So only shake drinks that are already going to be cloudy, including anything with citrus juice and egg whites. Martinis, Manhattans, and other all-spirit drinks should always be stirred – unless you’re a British spy with a license to kill. Then you apparently do whatever you want.
3. Shaking: A lot of bartenders recommend that people buy a “three piece” shaker to start. You’ve seen them: It’s a large metal tin with a strainer that snaps on the top and a lid that covers the strainer. And if you have one, go ahead and use it. No sense spending more money on a new shaker. But the built in strainers tend to form ice dams and can make pouring the drink a pain. They also tend to be on the shorter side, which means that there’s not as much room for the ice to move around with your drink. A “Boston Shaker” (a large metal tin with a smaller metal tin or pint glass on top) or a Parisian shaker (a bullet-shaped two piece metal shaker) makes a much better drink in my opinion. Regardless, when you shake, use whole ice cubes, especially if you have a larger shaker with plenty of room for the ice to move. As the ice bounces around, it’ll chip and help dilute and chill the drink. When the shaker is frosty and really, really cold, you can strain your drink.
4. Stirring: Because stirring whole ice cubes takes forever before achieving proper dilution (you want some water in that drink!) and proper temperature (warm martinis suck), feel free to crack your ice before adding it to your mixing glass. The added surface area will help melt the ice faster without clouding your drink like you would by shaking it. If you have a good steel bar spoon, use the back to whack a cube. If you don’t, put the ice in a clean towel and smash it.
5. Straining: A really nice, totally optional piece of equipment to have is a small mesh strainer. Like a standard kitchen strainer but with a diameter of only 2 inches or so. That way you can strain the tiny bits of ice and fruit pulp that can still slide through a Hawthorne strainer and into your drink. But it’s a luxury rather than an essential tool, and if you have a bigger mesh kitchen strainer, you can always use that too.
6. Garnishes: The essential oils in citrus rind will add a distinctive note to your drinks. A peeled garnish is known as a twist, and there are a lot of ways to prepare it. The easiest, though, is to use a standard swivel veggie peeler from your kitchen drawer, draw the blade across the rind hard, and create a large swath of citrusy real estate to add to your cocktail. You’ll want to twist the peel over the drink to spray some of the oils into the cocktail, and you can rub the lip of the glass as well to really get all the aromatics in the glass. Later, you can invest in a channel knife and make long, pretty, spiraling strips of peel, but for now, save the 15 bucks.
7. Muddling: Firmly tapping or striking a citrus peel will help release some of those oils, which is a key component in a caipirinha or a mojito. Similarly, muddling mint adds a lot of flavor to a mojito or julep. When you muddle mint or other herbs, though don’t muddle it so hard as to break the leaf into lots of pieces. Doing so can make your drink bitter as the leaf releases chlorophyll, not just the oils in the herb.

Glassware

Great cocktail bars will sometimes have three or four kinds of glasses in which to serve their various drinks – cocktail glasses (or martini glasses or “coupes”) in which drinks are served “up;” rocks or old-fashioned glasses for short drinks; tall or Collins glasses for carbonated drinks, swizzles, and other long drinks; and sometimes specialty glasses for other cocktails.

So what do you need for starters? Anything that gets the booze to your lips.

Any small rocks glass can hold a drink served up and a drink served on the rocks just fine. So chances are you already have what you really need, but if you want to branch out, start with some cool cocktail glasses. They add a really nice touch to a drink and make even an ungarnished cocktail look swanky and well-executed. If you have a good antique/vintage store nearby, look for cool mismatched cocktail glasses. And as a bonus, older glasses tend to be the right size. I have some really neat looking martini glasses from Crate & Barrel, but they’re big enough that they could be mistaken for the cups at 7-11. And while I admit there’s some appeal to an alcoholic Big Gulp, I’d rather be able to taste three well-proportioned and distinctly different cocktails on my way to inebriation than have to choke down the warm remnants of an eight ounce martini.

Recipes

Some of you were undoubtedly smart, skipping all my preachy cocktail soliloquies and leaping straight down here to the good stuff. While my recipes obviously work for me, they may not be to your liking. If something is too tart, try making it differently, keeping notes on what you enjoy. Even legendary bartenders have their drink recipes altered, and you should feel confident in doing so. In addition to the specific recipes listed below, you should peruse the internet for other drinks to try making. A good place to start because I tend to agree with a lot of the proportions in his drinks is with Robert Hess’ semi-defunct DrinkBoy website. Check out the list of cocktails or search the site by spirit so you can see all the drinks he has using a particular ingredient. Some of the drinks also have corresponding instructional videos that show you how to make them.

Anyhow, here are eight great, easy cocktails using the ingredients I listed earlier. Since most people I’ve spoken with who are new to cocktails tend to view gin with a sinister glare, I’ve listed more gin drinks than anything else. Play around with them and fall in love.

Dry Martini

• 2 oz gin
• 1 oz dry vermouth
• Two dashes of orange bitters
• Stir with cracked ice and strain into a chilled glass. Garnish, if you’d like, with a lemon twist.

Martinis are made with gin, not vodka. The first martini was most likely made with sweet vermouth, and the dry martini is thus made with dry vermouth. Vary the proportions to your liking, but ignore the recent trend to just rinse the glass with dry vermouth and then pour in the gin. That’s a glass of gin, not a martini.

Manhattan

• 2 oz bourbon (or rye whiskey)
• .5 – 1 oz sweet vermouth to your taste (I prefer more vermouth than other folks, I think, especially when using a great vermouth like Carpano Antica)
• 1 dash Angostura bitters
• Stir with cracked ice and strain into a chilled glass. You can serve it on the rocks with a cherry if you’d prefer, but with good ingredients, you may not want to dilute the drink by having it on ice.

White Lady

• 2 oz gin
• 1 oz lemon juice
• 1 oz Cointreau
• Optional: 1 egg white
• Dry shake to emulsify the egg. Shake with ice and strain into a chilled glass.

Clover Club

• 1.5 oz gin
• .25 oz grenadine
• .75 oz lemon juice
• 1 egg white (definitely NOT optional)
• Dry shake to emulsify the egg. Shake with ice and strain into a chilled glass. I’ve seen this garnished with a raspberry floating on the egg foam when served in a champagne flute. Kind of cool, but not at all necessary.

Margarita

• 2 oz tequila
• 1 oz Cointreau
• .5 oz lime juice
• Big pinch of salt
• Shake all ingredients with ice, strain, and pour over ice into a glass. I prefer not to salt the rim, but you can if you’d like.

Cuba Libre

• 2 oz white rum
• .33-.5 oz lime juice to taste
• Cola
• Add the rum and lime juice to a glass with ice, top with cola to taste, stir to integrate the ingrediants, and garnished with a lime wheel or wedge. With good cola, you will never again in your life be able to tolerate another Bacardi and Coke.

Daiquiri

• 2 oz white rum
• .5 oz lime juice
• .25 oz simple syrup
• Shake with ice and strain into a chilled glass. Garnish with a lime wedge or wheel. Experiment a bit: Adding grapefruit juice and maraschino liqueur makes this a Hemingway Daiquiri, which is an amazing drink.

Aviation

• 2 oz gin
• .5 oz lemon juice
• .25 oz maraschino
• Shake with ice and strain into a chilled glass. This was first served to me with a cherry at the bottom point of the cocktail glass, which creates a really red haze at the bottom of the glass. But some folks garnish with a lemon twist floating in the drink. I greatly prefer the former. This drink is also often made with another ingredient called creme de violette. It’s not currently found in Michigan, but if you get your hands on any, it turns the drink sky blue and the name becomes much more understandable.

For me, the psychosis started with the last drink on that list, the Aviation. After trying one, I needed to learn more about cocktails, and that’s what sent me looking for obscure ingredients and recipes for my own infusions and bitters. If you’re so inclined, you can end up with 30 or 40 spirits and a nearly endless array of cocktail combinations worth exploring. But even if not, just picking up those eight basic spirits and a few accessories and mixers will go a long way toward ensuring you’re able to drink well and drink often.