Lavender Shortbread Cookies

Much has happened since my last post!  I played a monster solo recital last week, featuring a program that was the musical equivalent of an ironman triathlon.  My wonderful mother flew into town for the occasion, and I was delighted that she could share in the big night and visit with all of my friends. Mom made the most delectable Lavender Shortbread Cookies for the post-recital reception, and it is my pleasure to share these little beauties with you today.

My post-recital parties are usually fairly simple affairs, usually with a few beautiful cheeses, olives and grapes set out alongside some wine.  But Mom wanted to make these lavender cookies that my Aunt Barbara had baked on a recent visit, and I certainly wasn’t going to say no.

Mom and I have a long history of planning post-recital parties together.  In fact, I got my start in the kitchen because of the parties Mom threw for her piano students after their monthly class recitals.  I remember marching into the kitchen during one of her pre-recital baking flurries when I was six years old, announcing that I needed to learn how to bake and that I would help her get ready for her party the next day.  

Heavenly Flourless Chocolate Cake With Rose Whipped Cream and Raspberries

It takes very little to prompt me into celebration mode with my friends.  In addition to birthday festivities, I am always ready to rejoice over creative milestones, finding new jobs and fantastic new apartments, not to mention new loves in one’s life.  Whether it happened to me or to one of my friends, I’ll also happily mark the anniversaries of any of these events with an appropriate beverage, no matter how many years ago the original event was.  A bottle of bubbly lends a particularly festive note to any occasion, but the more significant celebrations call for cake.  Especially when we're talking about a four-layer Flourless Chocolate Cake with Rose Whipped Cream and Fresh Raspberries.

I’m salivating again just looking at this.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I made this heavenly chocolate beauty last week for my 17-year anniversary of moving to New York City.  June Fourth was the very significant day in 1996 when I arrived in town with nothing but a violin, a suitcase of clothes, less than $300 in my bank account, and the invitation to crash on a friend’s couch for the summer. (Thank you forever for that, Lara!) I knew very few people and had no employment prospects lined up, but I knew that I had to stay no matter what it took.  I felt I was truly HOME for the first time in my life. 

New York is undeniably an amazing city, pulsing with a vibrant energy all its own.  I have had creative opportunities while living here that I never in my wildest dreams could have imagined once upon a time, and I am forever grateful. But it is the amazing friends who have come into my orbit throughout these past 17 years who have truly made my life so indelibly rich.  This colorful cast of characters has filled my heart with laughter and great joy, and how could I not throw a party for at least a handful of them each June 4th?

Black Bean & Blue Corn Chopped Salad

I often get in a major rut with particular recipes, repeatedly making a certain dish well beyond the point where most people would get sick of it and move onto something else.  Case in point: I have made my Black Bean & Blue Corn Chopped Salad four times in the past five days.  But I can't seem to get enough of these flavors, so it seems silly not to prepare yet another bowlful of it when I already have the ingredients on hand.

Seriously, what’s not to love? Crisp hearts of romaine provide a base for a colorful riot of diced peppers, tomatoes, corn, cucumbers, pepperjack cheese, scallions, and avocado.  A zingy chile-lime vinaigrette ties the ingredients all together, while a handful of crumbled blue corn tortilla chips push this salad over the top.

 

This has been a long-time favorite salad of mine, and I’ve foisted it on at least twenty different people this week.  It makes a satisfying solo meal, but I think it’s especially perfect for a big crowd of people, especially when that party takes place on the most stunning late spring night on a beautiful roof top.

Minted Sweet Pea Mash

There are certain culinary duos in which the whole is often greater than the sum of its parts.  Fried chicken&waffles, for example, are positively divine any time of day or night.  Apple pie on its own doesn’t interest me, but pair it with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream and I am totally enthused.  Chocolate-plus-peanut butter is one of the joyful pleasures in life.  (Oh come on, who am I kidding?  Chocolate and almost ANYTHING are great together!)  On a less decadent but equally satisfying note, peas and mint are one of my inseparable combinations, and they join together beautifully in this Minted Sweet Pea Mash.

The recipe for this springy green mash was inspired nearly a decade ago by a fabulous bruschetta I had at Otto.  I would never have thought to bind tender baby peas and fresh mint with olive oil to make a silky puree, but I’m so glad that Mario Batali did so that he could put it on his menu.  It truly is a most delightful thing to enjoy atop grilled bread.

The only problem with the Otto version is that it’s only available on Wednesdays, for their bruschetta special changes from one day to the next.  But once I tasted that minted pea puree, I knew my craving wouldn’t be confined to Wednesdays alone.  Sometimes you simply have to take matters into your hands and recreate a favorite dish for yourself at home.

Kale Salad With Peanut Vinaigrette A La Houston's

I got knocked out with the flu this month, which was a major shock since I have the hearty constitution of an ox and rarely get sick. (My last cold was so long ago that George W. Bush was president at the time, the economy hadn’t tanked yet, and Daniel Day-Lewis only had one Best Actor Oscar instead of three!) I was in bed for a week and had no appetite whatsoever, but towards the end of that week I began craving kale in the worst way. I didn’t want just any kale dish; I wanted the Houston’s kale salad with peanut vinaigrette that my friends and I have recently become obsessed with. 

I found this baby red kale at the farmer’s market. Isn’t it gorgeous? It was worth the effort of getting out of bed for the first time all week. 

I know that everyone has a kale salad recipe these days, so much so that it’s a food trend in danger of overkill. I’ve even posted two different kale salad recipes here on Kitchen Fiddler in recent years, but I’m going to give you one more, regardless. And you won’t be sorry that I did, once you taste it for yourself. 

Chipotle Chilaquiles For A Fresh Start

Hello everyone. I am really happy to be back on this site at long last, and I truly have missed being here. I will try to make up for my absence with a plate of soul-satisfying Chipotle Chilaquiles, prepared especially for you. I realize that’s a lot to ask from a single recipe, but once you taste it, I know you’ll thank me.

The reason for my hiatus would take a year’s answer or none at all, and I will merely confine myself to saying that 2012 was Year Of The Major Curveball. There were huge personal upheavals and professional ones too, a year of trying to roll with the punches as gracefully as possible but with varying degrees of success. (As a result, most of my creative projects—such as this blog—got pushed to the furthermost edge of the proverbial back burner.) In coming to the end of a most challenging year, I was simply grateful that to have made it through 2012 and that everyone I love survived it too.

Whew.

However, some good things happened towards the end of 2012, such as this delightful new job and that crazy adventure. I also took myself to San Francisco for a late August escape, treating myself to some much-needed downtime in that beautiful Northern California light, along with a good dose of culinary inspiration. One of the most outstanding meals during that fabulous week was a plate of to-die-for chilaquiles from the Primavera tamale stand at the farmer’s market outside the Ferry Building. I’ve been on a mission to recreate it for myself ever since.

 

Chilaquiles, a traditional homey Mexican dish, are made by briefly simmering lightly fried corn tortillas in a brothy tomato-chile sauce. The trick is to cook the tortillas just long enough so that they soften a bit but not so long that they become mushy. I cheat a little by using thick-cut tortilla chips instead of the tortillas, and I don’t think the dish suffers in the least from this timesaving measure.

Guinness Gingerbread Cake

I am serious about celebrating birthdays, not only my own but those of my loved ones, and I truly believe that a birthday should involve great cake. When a friend’s birthday is on the horizon, I usually pounce on the opportunity to try out a new recipe on my long list of Things To Bake. I can’t usually justify whipping up a multi-layered cake for myself, but I somehow made an exception to that rule this week, for I found myself making this Guinness Gingerbread Cake not once but three times in the past week. It was that good. 

Sylvia had a big birthday last weekend, and I volunteered my cake-baking services for her celebration. Most of my friends request some form of chocolate creation, but Sylvia’s favorite cake is a spicy gingerbread one. Some of the best gingerbread recipes I’ve made involve dark beer to intensify the flavor, and it’s convenient that her birthday falls right near St. Patrick’s Day since I always have plenty of Guinness on hand. 

I once made Claudia Fleming’s Oatmeal Stout Gingerbread Cake for Sylvia’s birthday several years ago, a dessert our friends had all enjoyed at Gramercy Tavern once upon a time. It was a rich Bundt cake, dark with molasses and heavily spiced with two kinds of ginger. But I wanted to do something different this year, having recently came across this Gingerbread Beer Cake in my new book, Sky High Cakes, and I couldn’t wait to try it out.

Black&White Guinness Float

I’m dying to share something that I know will make your day. Once you taste my Black&White Guinness Float, you will wonder how you ever lived without it. I know you’re probably thinking, “Louise, are you out of your mind?!!” While it may sound strange pairing beer with ice cream, the combination totally works. Think of it as a root beer float for grown-ups.

I’m always happy when I find a multi-purpose recipe that is appropriate for a variety of occasions. Some of you may want to jumpstart your St. Patrick’s Day festivities this week, so this Irish stout cocktail will definitely get into the spirit of it all. If you’re celebrating the arrival of spring, a refreshing ice cream drink can enhance your enjoyment of the gorgeous and unseasonably warm days we’ve had in NYC this week. And if you’ve had a slightly stressful day–whether or not you were interviewed by Anderson Cooper in the morning about your unusual autobiographical memory—then a Guinness float is exactly the thing to help you unwind. Trust me, it really helps!

Guinness stout has long been my beer of choice. Velvety and bittersweet, I love it for its full-bodied complexity. As a major bonus, not only is it rich in iron and antioxidants, it is oddly low in calories. What’s not to love about that?

I wanted my beer float to play up both the deep chocolaty notes and the creamy quality of the Guinness. Since I prefer a Black&White milkshake—made with vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup rather than being made from only chocolate ice cream—I decided that that principle should apply for this drink as well. A healthy glug of chocolate syrup mixed with the beer in the bottom of the glass intensifies the toasty richness of the Guinness, so much so that it’s practically crying out for a scoop of vanilla ice cream to make the party complete.

Wild Mushroom Lasagna With Smoked Mozzarella

Today’s post is about inner beauty. I tried to find a creative way to photograph this Wild Mushroom Lasagna With Smoked Mozzarella and was not entirely successful in my attempt. Yet it doesn’t matter so much how it looks on the outside, for it’s what’s on the inside that counts. This may not win the Most Beautiful Photograph Award on Kitchen Fiddler or anywhere else, but believe me when I tell you it was incredibly comforting and truly satisfying to eat.

I will admit it: I’m a bit of a lasagna slut. I love all kinds and have no problem going from one to another. I’ve even made three different pans of it this week. Are there support groups for that?

My favorite lasagna is a classic, the way they’d make it in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. How could you not love something that involves homemade spinach noodles layered with a béchamel sauce, freshly grated Parmesan, and a kick-ass Bolognese sauce that has simmered and intensified for hours? But I have no problem with a more Americanized version with a simple tomato-based sauce and lots of gooey cheese, similar to this excellent sausage-and-basil one I made with my lasagna-loving Little Chef last week. And I finally just made this wild mushroom lasagna, a recipe I first saw in the New York Times Magazine a few months ago and have been daydreaming about ever since.

And wow, was it ever daydream-worthy. A small mountain of shiitakes and crimini mushrooms cooked down to a very concentrated mixture, augmented by roasted radicchio strips that added a contrasting slightly-bitter note. A béchamel—a simple white sauce made with butter, flour and milk and flavored with additional shallots and nutmeg—served as the binding agent for the mushrooms and the pasta. You already know that there's smoked mozzarella in there, but did I mention the Gruyère and Fontina cheeses that also came to this lasagna party? Oh yes please.

Elderflower Champagne Cocktail

I’ve been dying to tell you about my new favorite drink, a festive Elderflower Champagne Cocktail. I made countless pitchers of this beverage when the One-Year-Plan group gathered for our annual New Year’s Day 6-hour brunch, and I think that will be a yearly tradition from now on. I’ve waited to tell you about it until now because I think it’s absolutely perfect for Valentine’s Day.

Isn’t it gorgeous?

Here are your instructions for Valentine’s Day. First task: go to your local liquor store for a bottle of St. Germaine. If you’re not already familiar with it, believe me when I tell you that this delicate French elderflower liqueur is something that you will definitely want in your home. Floral and beguiling, it’s also extremely drinkable, as you can see from what little is left in my own bottle.

Secondly: pick up a bottle each of sparkling wine and club soda. You don’t have to splurge on fancy champagne for this recipe, not by any means. I usually use prosecco for this, or you can use any sort of inexpensive French or domestic sparkling wine that tastes good to you.

The Black Pearl Cake

Allow me to introduce you to The Black Pearl Cake. Isn’t it a beauty?

I was not a kid who wanted the same cake for her birthday each year. From the age of ten, I began using my birthday as an opportunity to try out the most elaborate and decadent new dessert to catch my eye in the previous months, but I have people in my life who make the same annual request when it comes to their birthday cake. Jorge has eyes only for my Frozen Ginger Key Lime Pie every year since he first encountered it several years ago, and Rob will have no other birthday carrot cake than mine. Cenovia, who appreciates a great black-and-white in all forms (cake, cookie, milkshake, cat, etc.), has proven consistent in asking for my Black Pearl Cake for several years in a row. I was more than happy to oblige this request for her birthday dinner last week.

This particular study in black-and-white is inspired by one of the exotic chocolate bars from Vosges Chocolates. Their popular Black Pearl Bar is 55% bittersweet chocolate that gets its kick from both ginger and wasabi plus a little crunch from black sesame seeds. This flavor combination doesn’t strike me as unusual now, having experienced chocolate paired with all sorts of wild ingredients over the years, but it seemed very daring when I first made its acquaintance in 2003.

Fig Chutney

In my recent quest to cut down on my refined sugar intake, I am rediscovering the joys of the fruit-and-cheese plate for dessert. It’s an interesting experiment, as I’m discovering that fruit tastes sweeter and more flavorful to me now that I’m off the sugar treadmill. Pairing the fruit with a bit of decadent cheese offsets any chance of my feeling deprived.

You can’t beat a snowy round of Bucheron goat cheese accompanied by inky concord grapes, and I am partial to creamy gorgonzola dolce served alongside juicy slices of a ripe Bosc pear. I am a sucker for honeycrisp apples, utterly delightful on their own and especially so with extra-sharp cheddar or an aged Gouda such as Prima Donna or Dutch Parrano. I have been taking advantage of the end of fig season, enjoying them fresh with both blue and goat cheeses. As of this week, Fig Chutney is my happy new discovery.

This fig chutney recipe comes from the brand-new cookbook, Gluten-Free Girl and The Chef, by Shauna James Ahern and Daniel Ahern. I’ve been following Shauna’s Gluten-Free Girl blog for several years, inspired by her lyrical writing and evocative photographs as well as the recipes she and her chef-husband have developed together. One bookcase in my living room is devoted solely to cookbooks, and I had to issue a temporary moratorium on cookbook purchases as the shelves were groaning under the weight of all of my cooking volumes. However, I couldn’t resist buying the Aherns’ new book last month, and I’m so glad I did. If the rest of the recipes are as satisfying as this fig chutney, I think you’ll want this book in your collection too.

Winter Fruit Salad To Welcome A New Year

Happy 2010!

I’m always hyper-aware of the FIRSTS of any new year, hoping that these choices will somehow set a good tone for a new year. The first music I listened to was Renee Fleming singing the glorious “Four Last Songs” by Richard Strauss, and my first beverage consumed in 2010 was a delightful Nicolas Feuillatte champagne, enjoyed on my roof exactly at midnight while watching the fireworks display over Central Park. And I must share the first new recipe I tried this year, for I know you are going to love this Winter Fruit Salad.

This is not your ordinary fruit salad, with random bits of chopped-up fruit indiscriminately thrown together. Instead, this is a beautiful bowlful of thin slices of crisp pears and tart apples mingling with dried apricots and figs, bathed in a fragrant syrup perfumed with vanilla bean, fresh ginger and star anise. I am so happy I stumbled across this recipe last week on Smitten Kitchen, one of my favorite food blogs, and I know I will be recreating this many times this winter.

Marinated Goat Cheese and the Power of Memory

Most of us have certain foods that hold the power to instantly transport us back to childhood or another memorable time. In “Remembrance of Things Past”, Marcel Proust famously wrote an eloquent description of how a single taste of a petite madeleine cookie conjured up a flood of childhood memories, and I think many people can relate to a particular taste triggering a stream of involuntary memories. However, I’ve started to realize that I actually have the reverse issue. My awareness of the current date—and the memories of what happened on that day in any given year—is often the trigger itself for some very insistent cravings.

Sometimes these cravings are seasonally prompted, but my cravings are often weirdly specific, usually corresponding to the first time I tasted a particular dish. It’s not terribly unusual to seek out desserts featuring fresh berries when these summer gems are most plentiful, but I have had an insatiable craving for Mixed Berry Shortcakes every July 4th ever since I first experienced these in 1996. For five years now, I have been overwhelmed by an almost desperate need for Chocolate Toasts every January 30th, and I am likely to create a scrumptious BLT made with fried green tomatoes each August 19th in honor of the outrageous sandwich I had in 2006. And I get strangely hungry for goat cheese on October Ninths, largely because of a hilarious conversation I once had with Christopher Walken about bizarre dreams and goat cheese soufflés before a matinee performance on October 9, 1999! (Click here to read the story.)

A Cup Of Liquid Summer

This has been one of the mildest summers in recent memory, one that has propelled me out of the kitchen and into the sunshine. I would rather spend time out on my roof deck than turn on the stove, and that is why I am a gazpacho-making fool these days. By whipping up a large quantity of this cold tomato soup, I have something bright and nourishing that will last me throughout the week without my having to slave away in the kitchen each day. This gazpacho is infinitely satisfying for a light summer meal enjoyed either indoors or outside, yet it also feels festive enough to serve at a party.

Technically I should probably call this Chilled Fire-Roasted Tomato Soup. I know this is a slightly bastardized version of authentic Spanish gazpacho, which traditionally is made by soaking chopped fresh tomatoes and a bit of stale bread in water and a bit of olive oil, to which chopped cucumber and garlic are added to make a cool refreshing soup with a little bite. I have the traditional tomatoes, cucumbers and garlic going on in my version, though I’ve also added red onion and peppers and enlivened it with white wine vinegar and fresh lemon juice. A heaping spoonful of grated horseradish gives it even more pizzazz.

Key Lime Cosmos To Assuage Your Travel Woes

It is my great pleasure to introduce you to my Key Lime Cosmopolitan, which made a rather exuberant debut in Oklahoma this week, of all places. I’ve gone from AK to OK in the space of a week this June, with a brief NYC stint in between, having culinary adventures all the while. I began this month on a boat with my extended family, sailing down the breathtaking Inside Passage of Alaska while being treated to a sumptuous feast for the eyes and soul as well as the taste buds. But I have now traded fresh Alaskan salmon and snow-capped mountains for the land of great barbecue and enormous skies, for I am now in Bartlesville, Oklahoma with the Amici New York orchestra where we are performing at the OK Mozart Festival.

This wonderful group is made up of some of my favorite musicians in New York. Even though we often have great musical experiences together during the year, there is something very refreshing about playing with these colleagues outside of our normal environment. There is an incredible spirit in this group of musicians, of whom many have performed at this festival nearly every year since its inception 25 years ago. Great friendships have formed, not only between members of the orchestra with one another but also with many of the faithful audience members, and it is a very special thing to be part of this OK Mozart Festival which is so beloved by the local community.

However, we were definitely an orchestra collectively in need of a cocktail the other night. Can I tell you why we all desperately needed a cosmopolitan, a key lime one or otherwise?

Film Food

In the spirit of the Oscars this week and my favorite Top Chef "Film Food" episode from last season, I am continuing my list of food inspired by favorite movies. My last post was a cocktail list, and if I were hosting a cocktail party, "Breakfast At Tiffany's"-style or otherwise, many of those potent potables would have fit in quite nicely. But now I'm ready to move onto dinner, ranging from light starters to more substantial courses.

One could do very literal interpretations of food presented in any film, but that's not the route I want to take here. For example, It would be fairly obvious to do liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti for “Silence of the Lambs” as an exact recreation of one of Hannibal Lecter’s meals in prison. But I think it’s more fun to come up with dishes that require a bit more imagination than just taking a dish or a menu exactly off the big screen.

What kind of meal would YOU make, as inspired by your favorite films?? I would relish reading any of your ideas, if you would be so kind as to leave a comment on this post! To jump-start your cinematically-driven culinary creativity, here are my Top Ten Dishes inspired by a few more of my favorite movies. (Yes, I have many favorites!)

10. Stuffed Dates: "Raiders of the Lost Ark". Indiana Jones is in possession of an ancient medallion engraved with cryptic markings which could provide a clue to the resting place of the lost Ark of the Covenant. Hoping to discover the Ark before the Nazis do, Indy and his friend Sallah take the medallion to a wise old sage in Cairo who deciphers the mysterious markings. A bowl of dates has been placed on the table for the two guests, but the dates have been surreptitiously poisoned by one of the many nefarious characters trailing Indy. Fortunately Indiana is saved from eating the poisonous dates just in the nick of time. I would lace a platter of dates with something altogether different, as one of my favorite ways to start a meal is to stuff dates with a little goat cheese, wrap each one in a paper-thin ribbon of prosciutto, and stick them under the broiler until the prosciutto beings to crisp and the cheese melts inside. Nobody could ever declare these "bad dates"!

Celebratory Chocolate Toasts

Today is your lucky day. Not just because it's Friday, but because today is the day I'm going to share one of my absolute favorite desserts with you. It's not even so much a dessert as it is an EXPERIENCE. Please allow me to introduce you to my delightful little friends who answer to the name of Chocolate Toasts. You probably have all the ingredients in your kitchen right now and could make them a favorite part of your own repertoire too. I stumbled upon this ecstatic combination of ingredients on this very day in 2005, and it was such a felicitous discovery on a remarkable evening that it only seemed appropriate to share them with you today.

I live for the impromptu party. Though I derive great joy from planning and preparing an elaborate meal, I also love being able to quickly conjure up a mini party when friends stop by spontaneously. With a few key ingredients at the ready at all times, I am ready and willing to lift any situation up to a more celebratory level, sometimes on as little as 10 minutes notice, if necessary. My basic Impromptu Party Kit includes a hunk of interesting cheese, good bread and excellent olive oil, an assortment of briny olives, and some roasted almonds, especially the swoon-worthy Marcona almonds from Spain. My apartment always plays host to beautiful bittersweet chocolate bars, as well as festive bottles of fun sparkling wine plus gorgeous red wine. These are staples in my kitchen at all times, for I never know when friends are going to pop by, hungry and thirsty and eager to hang out.

Math was never my favorite subject in school, and that's an understatement if I ever heard one. But there are a few very basic equations that I find quite satisfying and downright beautiful when it comes to entertaining:

olives + a nice wedge of artisanal cheese + festive sparkly wine + friends = Instant Party

almonds + exquisite bittersweet chocolate + lovely luscious wine = Instant Dessert for Happy Friends

baguette + bittersweet chocolate + olive oil + flaky sea salt = SHEER HEAVEN, with or without friends, but even better with friends

A Festive Cranberry Cocktail

I realized yesterday that I have not eaten turkey on Thanksgiving since I moved out of my parents’ house in 1991. It’s not that I’m a vegetarian or that I even have anything against turkey, but I guess I’ve always been a rebel when it comes to traditional holiday food. From the time I was a teenager, I always made pizza for my family each year on Christmas, serving it on the good china with real silverware. We all loved it, so much so that I wondered why we ever felt compelled to do the standard turkey&potatoes routine for Thanksgiving each year which always seemed so boring in comparison. This was the beginning of my rebellion against the confines of the traditional holiday menu.

 

From the time I was living on my own, I have usually hosted Thanksgiving at my place, so the menu planning is up to me. For many years I prepared a scrumptious Italian feast, one which often involved a lasagna with homemade spinach noodles and a real Bolognese sauce that completely erased any thoughts of turkey from anyone’s mind. There were years when I did my own riffs on the typical Thanksgiving side dishes to satisfy the cravings of those wanting a more traditional holiday meal. I have roasted countless root vegetables and transformed all varieties of winter squash into fabulous dishes from soup to dessert. I never tire of doing variations on mashed potatoes, and I have built entire meals around a hearty stuffing as the main course. But no turkey anywhere. By now it’s almost become a point of pride.

 

This year was no different in wanting to buck the turkey trend, as several friends and I decided to spend Thanksgiving in Chinatown. We had been looking forward to it for weeks, excited by the prospect of a day to hang out together and eat yummy Chinese food, yet there would be no dirty dishes for anyone to deal with. But last night, I started to get this weird pang for cranberries. This is strange since I’ve never had any particular affinity for cranberry sauce, but I couldn’t stop thinking about how much I really wanted to have cranberries today, which felt uncomfortably traditional to me. Perhaps this craving stemmed from being tired and thirsty at the end of a long day, having played two performances of “South Pacific”, because I couldn’t stop thinking about how much I wanted those tart little rubies to be soaked in rum!

 

My mind started jumping around, scrolling through cranberry-based cocktails I’ve had over the years, and I remembered a fabulous Cranberry Daquiri at Gramercy Tavern four years ago. This was an exceedingly lovely drink, one which combined a tangy-sweet cranberry syrup with rum and lime, with a few of the syrup-steeped cranberries floating on the top of the drink as a garnish. It was so pretty and festive, not to mention delicious. And I knew that THAT was exactly what I wanted.

I got up early this morning to go running to offset this afternoon’s Chinatown feast, and by 10:30 a.m. I was walking in my apartment with two kinds of rum and a bag of fresh cranberries. I was ready for action, eager to recreate my own version of this cranberry daquiri living large in my memory. I wanted to make sure I gave you a great cocktail recipe to have in your repertoire for the holiday season, a drink which can carry you quite happily from Thanksgiving all the way to New Year's, and I knew this would fit the bill if I could recreate it successfully enough.

A simple syrup made of equal parts sugar and water became much more complex with the addition of cinnamon sticks, fresh ginger slices and grated orange zest. When the mixture came to a boil, the cranberries were thrown in and simmered until they began to burst. The sound was not unlike the rat-a-tat-tat of fresh popcorn popping away. These cranberries were exploding with joy as they bathed in this spicy syrup, almost as if they knew they were just moments away from being transformed into the most marvelous cocktail!

Since I had invited Julie and Alissa to come sample my cranberry daquiri before we headed downtown to meet the others, I had to work quickly. Chilling the syrup in an ice water bath cooled it to room temperature in a short space of time. Throwing in a cup of light rum also helped bring the temperature down quickly!

Once the syrup had cooled, I was ready to host my own impromptu cocktail party. I had the martini glasses chilled when the girls arrived, so all I had to do was combine some of the cranberry syrup with dark rum and fresh lemon juice in a cocktail shaker filled with ice. I gave this mixture a good thirty shakes and strained it into the chilled glasses, garnishing each drink with a few of the rum-plumped cranberries. I took a sip, just to make sure I'd balanced the drink properly. It was exactly the tart-and-sweet concoction I'd been hoping to create, with just a bit of gingery kick to it.

 

Julie and Alissa also agreed that this cranberry daquiri was an excellent holiday cocktail, one which will have to make repeat appearances throughout the next few weeks. In fact, it was so festive and celebratory, I was sorely tempted to fill a flask with this gorgeous elixir and bring it to Chinatown just so I could share it with the other friends at our Thanksgiving table! We raised our glasses to great friendships and to the official beginning of the holiday season, and my little kitchen was alive with laughter and merriment as we enjoyed our pretty drinks down to the last drops. My heart was filled with gratitude for all of my fabulous friends who make my life in the city so much more interesting and wonderful. With or without a cranberry daquiri, I think that’s definitely worth celebrating!

LOUISE’S CRANBERRY-GINGER DAQUIRI

Inspired by the Cranberry Daquiri from Gramercy Tavern, ca. 2004.

For the cranberry syrup:

1 cup sugar

1 cup water

2 cinnamon sticks

a 1-inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and cut into ¼-inch thick slices

the grated zest of 1 orange

1 cup fresh cranberries

1-½ cups light rum

For each drink:

1 ounce prepared cranberry syrup

2 ounces dark rum

1 ounce freshly squeezed lemon juice

a few drunken cranberries, for garnish

Prepare the syrup by combining the sugar and water in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Stir until the sugar dissolves, then add the cinnamon sticks, ginger slices, and orange zest. Bring to a boil and then add cranberries. Simmer the cranberries until they begin to pop, about 4 to 5 minutes. Transfer to a large glass measuring cup and stir in the 1-½ cups of light rum. Let the syrup cool to room temperature. (You can speed this up by placing the measuring cup in a large bowl filled with ice and water.)

Chill a cocktail glass for each person by filling it with a few ice cubes and some cold water for a few minutes. Toss out the ice water at the very last moment, just to keep the glass as cold as possible.

For each drink, combine the cranberry syrup, dark rum and lemon juice in a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake vigorously to thoroughly combine and strain into the chilled glass. (I like to do 30 shakes myself, which not only blends everything completely but also allows the ice cubes to break down so that little tiny flecks of ice crystals keep your drink icy cold.) Garnish with a few of the drunken cranberries. Take a sip and feel thankful.