Recipe For Love: cocktail

Showing posts with label cocktail. Show all posts

Monday, May 24, 2010

Fun Times at Romantic Times

I just got a couple of photos back from my cocktail demo at this year's Romantic Times Convention, so I wanted to share!

Here's me showing how to make the "Miranda" Cocktail--the one my heroine gets a little more than tipsy on in the first chapter of Can't Stand the Heat! It's a sweet, tart, bubbly concoction involving rose-petal infused vodka, sparkling wine, and raspberries...

Every guest at the demo had her own little shot of the rose vodka, a few ripe raspberries in a bowl, and a champagne flute. The mixing got a little mixed up (all my fault! I'll be more clear next time, I swear!) but the results were still delicious.

Then I asked for four volunteers from the crowd to c

ome up and participate in a Sangria Off! The challenge: to take the ingredients I had provided and come up with the best version of sangria they could. We had two contestants making white sangria with Pinot Grigio, and two making red with

Merlot. The other ingredients they were give were:

Granny Smith apple

Oranges

Limes

Lemons

Grapes

Strawberries

Ginger beer

Canned peaches

Canned pineapple

Cinnamon sticks

Cloves

Sugar

Brandy

Cointreau

I think that's it. I was on hand to help slice the fresh fruit and fetch and carry, but for the most part, the contestants were on their own--and I was so impressed with their results! Our three volunteer judges, also from the audience, proclaimed two w

inners, one of the whites and one of the reds, and then we all got to taste the sangria. Delicious! They ranged from tart and fruity to sweet and fairly...ahem...alcohol forward. ; ) I loved them all, and was happy to be able to send all four contestants home with signature Recipe for Love aprons and signed copies of On the Steamy Side.

What a fantastic party. Well, I had fun, at least! I think everyone else did, too. In fact, it was so much fun that I'm already thinking about when I might be able to host another one...

Posted by Louisa Edwards at 10:50 AM 5 comments

Labels: cocktail, demo, Romantic Times, sangria

Monday, August 3, 2009

New Obsessions

Louisa's Current Obsessions

Kitchen gadget: My new meat grinder attachment for my stand mixer. Oh, wow, is that thing fun! A little gross (okay, a lot gross) but fun. And the meat is noticeably more tender and less dry. My friend and kitchen co-conspirator, Meg, and I made a terrine of pork and veal last week, which is a whole other blog post (with video!) and we ground all our own meat for the stuffing.

Cocktail: Tom Collins. Add 2 oz. of gin (I like Tanqueray), 1 oz. of simple syrup, and the juice of one lemon to a cocktail shaker full of ice. Shake then strain into a tall glass of ice, top up with club soda or seltzer, and add a maraschino cherry (or two!) Delicious and refreshingly tart without being mouth-puckering or super strong. At least compared to my beloved Manhattans.

TV on DVD: Mad Men. We watched the first two seasons in less than a week. Sick, I know, but so freaking good. The characters suck you in, and even if you don't always like them, you're always fascinated by them. Peggy is by far my favorite character, although I'm consistently interested in Betty. John Hamm is sexy as hell playing Don Draper, but the character makes me a teeny bit nuts. However, Meg (who is even more obsessed than I am) made a Mad Men-style avatar for me! Here I am, drinking a martini in Betty's kitchen. What do you think, does the woman on the right look like me?

Posted by Louisa Edwards at 3:39 PM 4 comments

Labels: cocktail, Mad Men, recipe

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

James Beard Awards

This year's James Beard Award winners were named, and guess what? Dan Barber at Blue Hill in New York City won the outstanding chef award! This is exciting because Blue Hill just so happens to be the restaurant where I'll be hosting my launch party for Can't Stand the Heat in September. I'm in the middle of looking over proofs of the invites now, so check out the Blue Hill website and imagine yourself there this fall!

Space is very limited (it's a small, intimate restaurant) so I'm going to have to cull the guest list pretty carefully. However, I do plan to record the party for posterity on my website, so even if you don't get to experience it in person, you'll have the chance to see what we get up to. The only menu item I know for sure is the signature cocktail I developed for my heroine, Miranda, to get drunk on in the first chapter. I think I'll call it Miranda's Downfall. The recipe is included in the book, but here's a sneak peek for my faithful blog readers:

Miranda's Downfall

1 oz rose-petal-infused vodka
3 whole raspberries
Your favorite champagne or sparkling wine

For infused vodka:
2 cups of vodka
2 large red roses

Remove petals from flowers and wash well. Add petals to the vodka and stir around. Let sit, covered, overnight to allow flavors to steep. Put the berries in the bottom of a champagne flute or saucer, pour in the vodka shot, and top up with your favorite bubbly! For a drier cocktail, choose brut or rosé; if you want it sweeter, the next level would be a crémant, followed by the sugariest of all, a spumante. Makes one cocktail.