Roman Punch (from W.W. Norton)

I'm going to credit W.W. Norton and their link: http://wwnorton.tumblr.com/post/1313872086/roman-punch
I loved it so I had to share.

Roman Punch
There was a time — when turtle soup was a luxury dish and whiskey was an acceptable pick-me-up — when garnishing an icy-cold drink with a dollop of meringue seemed perfectly normal. And why not? The meringue floats on the surface like a regal, mysterious iceberg. As you mix it in, the sugar and whites add a touch of cream to what’s otherwise a sweet, boozy punch.

Although this one does not, many Roman punch recipes instruct you to freeze the mixture before serving, presumably so it gets nice and slushy before receiving its meringue cap.

Roman punch was served as an intermezzo at society parties and at the White House during Rutherford B. Hayes’s presidency. Hayes and his wife, who was known as “Lemonade Lucy,” were temperance advocates, and to get around their strictures — the rumor was — someone in the kitchen devised the spiked sorbet, which was served to guests. By 1922, the drink was declared passé by Emily Post.

2 cups lemonade
Juice of 2 oranges
8 ounces Champagne
8 ounces rum
2 large egg whites
2 cups confectioners’ sugar

1.Stir together the lemonade, orange juice, Champagne, and rum in a punch bowl. Chill
2.When ready to serve, make the meringue: whip the egg whites in a medium bowl until they hold soft peaks, then gradually beat in the confectioners’ sugar. Pile into a serving bowl.
3.Fill punch cups with ice, ladle over the punch, and top each with a dollop of meringue. Serve with cocktail stirrers.
New York Times, August 17, 1879

From The Essential New York Times Cookbook by Amanda Hesser

New Design

I have a new design. Doesn't this feel sort of earthy and free? I really liked the one called "travel" which looks like an old pied a terre in paris or something, complete with torn vintage wallpaper and cracks in the cement.

Of course all this means is that I want my own pied a terre with torn wallpaper and cracks in the cement. I am so tired of sharing walls with people not of my choosing. I went to college at 17 and have lived in dorms or apartments since. I'm not going to fess to my age but let's just say I have over two decades of irritating neighbors, inconveniently placed trash bins, fighting over parking spaces, appliances that break etc. etc.

I have 3 houses picked out here. If I could find the time to get my act together and go see the mortgage broker and fix my credit report, I might be able to do something about it. Will I get my birthday/Christmas wish??

In the meantime, read this:

Kate Whouley is the author of Cottage for Sale, Must Be Moved, a true, sometimes hilarious, sometimes poignant account of one woman's quest to move a vacation cottage across Cape Cod.

A Small Showing of Commercialism: Wonderful home for sale

WONDERFUL HOME in a good neighborhood in Grand Rapids, Michigan
Well taken care of with lots of extras and beautiful interior
http://tinyurl.com/908beechwood


908 BEECHWOOD ST NE
Grand Rapids 49505
Kent County Michigan

Residential Listing MLS: 10038914
$ 89,900 Current/Active
Single family Bungalow
Bedrooms: 3 Baths: 1


School District: Grand Rapids
Directions: Plainfield, south of Three Mile to Beechwood, East to home.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Year Built: 1955
Lot Size: 50x100
Gas/Forced air
Central air
Public Water
Public Sewer
1,670 sq feet
Garage: 1 stall/Un-attached
Vinyl Siding
Full Basement
Features: Encl Porch
Appliances: Fan-Ceiling , Refrg , Range , Dishwasher , Disposal

Please contact Mrs. K. Burns at quina24@gmail.com

Just a hint of magic--good summer reading

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe
**Highly recommend listening on audio
Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen
Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman
The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
The Garden Angel: A Novel by Mindy Friddle
Illumination Night by Alice Hoffman
Thief Eyes by Janni Lee Simner
East by Edith Pattou
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender
Hannah's Winter by Kierin Meehan
The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood

Coconut Chiffon Cake with Coconut-Cranberry Sorbet

Coconut Chiffon Cake with Coconut-Cranberry Sorbet

Active Time: 20 Minutes
Total Time: 1 Hour 25 Minutes
Yield: Makes 10 servings
A delicate light-textured cake. To measure the flour accurately, sift some flour into a bowl. Spoon the sifted flour into a 1 cup measure so cup is overflowing. Stand the edge of a ruler on top of

RECIPE INGREDIENTS
1 cup flaked sweetened coconut (about 3 ounces)
2 cups sugar
2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup unsweetened coconut milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
7 large egg yolks
7 large egg whites
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
Fresh cranberries (optional)
Fresh mint (optional)

Other necessary recipes:
Coconut-Cranberry Sorbet


DIRECTIONS
Position rack in bottom third of oven and preheat to 325 degrees F. Blend coconut and 1/4 cup sugar in processor until coconut is finely chopped.


Whisk flour, 3/4 cup sugar, baking powder and salt in large bowl to blend. Make well in center of dry ingredients. Add coconut milk, oil, lemon juice and vanilla to well; then yolks. Whisk all ingredients until very smooth. Fold coconut mixture from processor into yolk mixture. Using electric mixer, beat whites and cream of tartar in another large bowl until soft peaks form. Gradually beat in remaining 1 cup sugar; beat until whites are stiff but not dry. Fold large spoonful of whites into yolk mixture to lighten. Fold in remaining whites in 3 additions.


Transfer batter to 10x4-inch angel food cake pan. Bake cake until golden on top and tester (slender wooden skewer) comes out clean, about 1 hour 5 minutes. Place narrow-neck bottle into center tube of cake pan. Stand bottle upright so cake hangs upside down. Cool cake completely. Cut around cake pan and center tube to loosen cake. Remove cake from pan; place on platter. (Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Cover and store at room temperature.)


Cut cake into wedges; place on plates. Spoon sorbet alongside. Garnish with fresh cranberries and mint, if desired.


Recipe created exclusively for Cooking.com by Selma Elaine Brown.

Sunny Citrus Chiffon Cake

Sunny Citrus Chiffon Cake

Active Time: 45 Minutes
Total Time: 2 Hours
Yield: 12 servings
Flavored with orange, lemon and lime, this big, beautiful cake is a fitting ending to a celebration. Just three egg yolks give the cake a golden hue and a texture richer than angel food.

RECIPE INGREDIENTS
For the Cake:
1 1/2 cups cake flour
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar divided
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
10 large egg whites at room temperature (see Tip)
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
3 large large egg yolks
2 tablespoons Grand Marnier or other orange liqueur
2 tablespoons freshly grated orange zest
2 teaspoons freshly grated lemon zest
2 teaspoons freshly grated lime zest
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
For the Citrus Glaze:
1 large orange scrubbed
1 lemon scrubbed
1 lime scrubbed
2 cups confectioners’ sugar

Tip: To bring an egg to room temperature: Either set it out on the counter for 15 minutes or submerge it (in the shell) in a bowl of lukewarm (not hot) water for 5 minutes.


DIRECTIONS
FOR THE CAKE:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Sift flour, 3/4 cup granulated sugar, baking powder and salt into a small bowl; set aside.


Beat egg whites and cream of tartar in the bowl of an electric mixer just until soft peaks form. Beat in the remaining 3/4 cup granulated sugar, 2 tablespoons at a time, until the whites are shiny and form soft peaks.


Whisk together egg yolks, orange liqueur, orange, lemon and lime zests, lemon and lime juices, and vanilla in a small bowl. Pour over the egg whites and fold together with a rubber spatula.


Resift the reserved dry ingredients over the beaten egg whites in four parts, folding in gently after each addition. Spoon the batter into an ungreased 10-inch angel food cake pan with a removable bottom. Smooth the top and run a knife or spatula through the batter to remove any air bubbles. Bake until the top is golden and a long skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean, 45 to 50 minutes. Invert the pan over the neck of a bottle and let cool completely.


FOR THE CITRUS GLAZE:
Use a citrus zester to remove long threads of zest from the orange, lemon and lime; set aside. Squeeze 4 teaspoons of juice from each of the fruits. Whisk the juices into the confectioners’ sugar in a small bowl to make a smooth glaze.


Loosen the edges of the cake with a knife and invert onto a cake plate. Spoon the glaze over the top, allowing it to drip down the sides. Sprinkle the top of the cake with the julienned zest. Let the cake stand at least 30 minutes for the glaze to set.


© EatingWell Magazine.

Thai Iced Tea

My favorite Thai restaurant serves an iced Thai tea that is literally addictive.
I wanted to see what I could create at home.

I've purchased Celestial Seasonings Decaf Sweet Coconut Thai Chai. They have 3 other kinds too. I boil a few bags in hot water and get it as strong as possible. Add sugar until it melts. Taste and make sure it is sweet. Then purchase Turtle Mountain So Delicious Coconut Milk creamer. Our local whole foods/natural food store has it. Let the tea cool and poor over ice until most of the way full, then add creamer. Stir and enjoy!

There are many debates if you try and look on the internet for a recipe. Sweetened condensed milk or coconut milk? Sugar or sweetener?

I like this explanation.
http://www.thaitable.com/Thai/recipes/Thai_Tea.htm

There are two styles of Thai iced tea: with or without milk. Tea with milk is called cha yen. Tea without milk is called cha dum yen.

You will see small coffee/tea shops sprinkled all over Thailand. However, unlike in the US or Europe, Thai people like their iced tea on the go and take it with them in a small plastic bag with a straw sticking out. Very few people sit at the shop and drink it leisurely. In fact, many shops have no place to sit.


Cold Thai Tea - Cha Yen Thai Tea is a real favorite in Thailand. When you buy Thai Tea on the street, you normally get it in a small plastic bag with a straw. Since it's very easy to make it just like you find in Thailand, you can avoid paying $3.50 to Starbucks.

Cha Yen Thai Tea
1-2 tablespoons Thai tea
1 tablespoon sweet condensed milk
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon milk
1 cup hot water

Add sugar and sweet condensed milk to a glass or cup. Put one tablespoon of Thai tea to a tea sock. Place the tea sock directly above the glass. Pour hot water into the tea sock. Set the tea sock aside. Stir until the sugar and sweet condensed milk are dissolved. Add ice and top the tea with milk.

If you like it hot, reduce the sugar and sweet condensed milk by half. Drink hot.

Cha Dum Yen - Cha Dum Yen
1-2 tablespoons Thai tea
2 tablespoons sugar
1 cup hot water

Add sugar to a glass or cup. Put one tablespoon of Thai tea to a tea sock. Place the tea sock directly above the glass. Pour hot water into the tea sock. Set the tea sock aside. Stir until all the sugar is dissolved. Add ice.

If you like it hot, reduce the sugar by half. Drink hot.

Time's 100 Best Novels...but I respectfully disagree

Here's the list of what they say. I'm working on mine.

http://www.time.com/time/2005/100books/the_complete_list.html

The Complete List
In Alphabetical Order
PRINT

A - B
The Adventures of Augie March
Saul Bellow

All the King's Men
Robert Penn Warren

American Pastoral
Philip Roth


An American Tragedy
Theodore Dreiser

Animal Farm
George Orwell


Appointment in Samarra
John O'Hara


Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret
Judy Blume

The Assistant
Bernard Malamud


At Swim-Two-Birds
Flann O'Brien

Atonement
Ian McEwan


Beloved
Toni Morrison


The Berlin Stories
Christopher Isherwood


The Big Sleep
Raymond Chandler


The Blind Assassin
Margaret Atwood


Blood Meridian
Cormac McCarthy

Brideshead Revisited
Evelyn Waugh


The Bridge of San Luis Rey
Thornton Wilder


C - D
Call It Sleep
Henry Roth


Catch-22
Joseph Heller


The Catcher in the Rye
J.D. Salinger


A Clockwork Orange
Anthony Burgess


The Confessions of Nat Turner
William Styron


The Corrections
Jonathan Franzen


The Crying of Lot 49
Thomas Pynchon


A Dance to the Music of Time
Anthony Powell


The Day of the Locust
Nathanael West


Death Comes for the Archbishop
Willa Cather

A Death in the Family
James Agee

The Death of the Heart
Elizabeth Bowen


Deliverance
James Dickey


Dog Soldiers
Robert Stone


F - G
Falconer
John Cheever


The French Lieutenant's Woman
John Fowles


The Golden Notebook
Doris Lessing


Go Tell it on the Mountain
James Baldwin


Gone With the Wind
Margaret Mitchell


The Grapes of Wrath
John Steinbeck


Gravity's Rainbow
Thomas Pynchon


The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald


H - I
A Handful of Dust
Evelyn Waugh


The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter
Carson McCullers


The Heart of the Matter
Graham Greene

Herzog
Saul Bellow


Housekeeping
Marilynne Robinson


A House for Mr. Biswas
V.S. Naipaul


I, Claudius
Robert Graves


Infinite Jest
David Foster Wallace


Invisible Man
Ralph Ellison


L - N
Light in August
William Faulkner


The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
C.S. Lewis

Lolita
Vladimir Nabokov


Lord of the Flies
William Golding

The Lord of the Rings
J.R.R. Tolkien


Loving
Henry Green


Lucky Jim
Kingsley Amis


The Man Who Loved Children
Christina Stead


Midnight's Children
Salman Rushdie

Money
Martin Amis


The Moviegoer
Walker Percy


Mrs. Dalloway
Virginia Woolf

Naked Lunch
William Burroughs


Native Son
Richard Wright


Neuromancer
William Gibson

Never Let Me Go
Kazuo Ishiguro


1984
George Orwell


O - R
On the Road
Jack Kerouac


One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Ken Kesey


The Painted Bird
Jerzy Kosinski

Pale Fire
Vladimir Nabokov


A Passage to India
E.M. Forster

Play It As It Lays
Joan Didion

Portnoy's Complaint
Philip Roth


Possession
A.S. Byatt


The Power and the Glory
Graham Greene

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Muriel Spark


Rabbit, Run
John Updike


Ragtime
E.L. Doctorow


The Recognitions
William Gaddis


Red Harvest
Dashiell Hammett

Revolutionary Road
Richard Yates

S - T
The Sheltering Sky
Paul Bowles


Slaughterhouse-Five
Kurt Vonnegut


Snow Crash
Neal Stephenson

The Sot-Weed Factor
John Barth

The Sound and the Fury
William Faulkner

The Sportswriter
Richard Ford


The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
John le Carre


The Sun Also Rises
Ernest Hemingway


Their Eyes Were Watching God
Zora Neale Hurston


Things Fall Apart
Chinua Achebe

To Kill a Mockingbird
Harper Lee


To the Lighthouse
Virginia Woolf


Tropic of Cancer
Henry Miller


U - W
Ubik
Philip K. Dick

Under the Net
Iris Murdoch

Under the Volcano
Malcolm Lowry


Watchmen
Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons

White Noise
Don DeLillo


White Teeth
Zadie Smith


Wide Sargasso Sea
Jean Rhys

Losing Spenser

This link is really good...provides an appreciation for Robert B. Parker. Parker was like an old friend. I felt like he'd been around for so long--his books, the TV show, the movies. I even got to meet him once. Plus he reminds me so much of Boston, a place I love. So take a minute and read on...

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/tag/robert-b-parker

Robert B. Parker, the crime writer best known for his Spenser detective series, died today at the age of 77. Fittingly for a writer who published several books a year — many of which routinely made best-sellers lists — Parker is said to have died at his desk...

Recipe Fun

I'm a huge Mark Bittman fan. His books are great and easy to use. His articles are always interesting. I've been making a lot of potato leek soup lately. My recipe fav is from the NY Times cookbook using the Vichyssoise recipe but not chilling it. While I was searching to see if it was online, I found this Bittman recipe and sounded so good, I decided to post instead.

Grilled White-and-Sweet-Potato Salad
Mark Bittman
Yield 4 to 6 servings

Time About 40 minutes

Ingredients
2 large waxy (new) potatoes, about 1 pound
1 or 2 sweet potatoes, about 1 pound
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper
1 tablespoon grainy mustard
1 tablespoon sherry or other vinegar, or to taste
1 bunch scallions, both white and green parts, chopped

Method
1. Start a gas or charcoal grill, or heat the oven to 450 degrees. Peel potatoes and cut them into slices 1/2-inch thick. Toss them with half the olive oil and sprinkle them with salt and pepper. Grill potatoes over direct but not-too-hot heat, turning them as they brown. Or roast them on nonstick baking sheet, turning once or twice.
2. Potatoes will cook in about 10 to 15 minutes; remove them as they become tender. When they are done and fairly cool, toss them with remaining ingredients. Taste and adjust seasoning and serve. Or the salad can be covered and refrigerated; bring to room temperature before serving.