Compounding the problem of lost Christmas sales is the fact that they probably won’t be made up next Christmas. The publishing industry is a funny machine wherein timing is everything.  In order to make decent Christmas sales, you have to release a book a few months prior to Christmas (around September), but no earlier than that, to create the right “Hey, here’s a brand new book on the market” buzz. In other words, a book that comes out between January and August are already old by Christmas. That’s not to say that they won’t sell at all. After all, publishers and authors alike hope that a book will have a long shelf life and a nice cookbook can sell as gifts for years to come.

What I’m talking about is the BIG sales spike on a newly released book, which affects the rest of the life of the book. Within a year, a book—any book—is considered “backlist”; that is, books that are still in print and available but are no longer actively promoted or pushed by the publisher. It’s kind of like when you buy a new computer with the latest technology, but your old computer still works, so you put it in the basement or the guest room and every now and then you turn it on to do something. But for the most part, you’ve forgotten it. That old computer has been backlisted. Fortunately, unlike computers, which become completely obsolete after a few years, books can have a long, healthy life in Backlistland and continue to sell very well. But unless the author is famous or something occurs that draws unexpected attention to the book, chances are you’ll not get a sales spike quite like the one you got (hopefully) when the book was initially released.

At any rate, I’m going through the proof now and it’s taking a while. A cookbook is a complex thing with many different elements that have to come together a certain way. There are lots of little things that require correcting (I suppose that it doesn’t help that I’m extremely anal and a stickler for consistency). Cookbooks are very visual, which is why books with color photos sell better than others. But photos are very expensive to print and not all publishers can afford to do that. That’s where illustrations come in. They break up the text and help readers visualize the recipes and ingredients. But even illustrations are expensive. And because I originally self-published this book, cost was even more of a factor. I was also lucky to have a very good friend, Linda, who’s an artist and did my illustrations for free.

Layout for easy reading is important, too. People should be able to bring their eyes back and forth to a page in a cookbook and easily find where they last left off. And the instructions should be easy to read. I dislike books with “run-on recipes”—recipes that just follow one another on the same page—because it makes it confusing sometimes. However, paper costs money and I myself had to do some run-on recipes when I self-published this book. But cookbook designers try to avoid that, if possible. The only cookbook I own that has run-on recipes and very little in the way of illustrations is Marcella Hazan’s The Essentials of Italian Cooking. But Hazan is an Italian cooking legend and she could write a cookbook on a roll of toilet paper and it would sell.

Moving on to the next project, I FINALLY finished the testing on my second cookbook. Well, that’s not entirely accurate. There are still a few recipes that I decided need one more run in the test kitchen. But the bulk of the testing is done and I’m not on this bullet train of daily testing anymore. I felt like I was doing nothing else, day after day. Alicia Silverstone came out with a vegetarian cookbook recently called The Kind Diet: A Simple Guide to Feeling Great, Losing Weight, and Saving the Planet, and Vegetarian Times interviewed her about it. She said that she was basically on lockdown in her house for 12 days testing the recipes. Now, I don’t know how she did proper testing for an entire cookbook in just 12 days, but it illustrates my point just the same: Developing and testing recipes for a cookbook is a laborious, time-consuming task. I started this second book in 2002. Can you believe that? Eight years in the making, and who knows how many thousands of dollars for ingredients. Well, phase 1 is over. Now on to phase 2: Trying to sell it to a publisher. That’s going to be the hard part. I still have this whole “platform” problem. More on that another time.

For someone who doesn’t have a job, I seem to be awfully busy, which is a good thing but it makes me wonder how I got anything done when I was working. How does anyone get anything done when they’re working? I’m going to try really hard to get through a long list of things to do this weekend and, hopefully, get in some exercise. It’s going to be fairly nice before another winter storm moves in. Sigh.

By the way, did you check out the photo of that old cookbook above? It was printed in 1747 and written by Hannah Glasse, but is attributed to “A Lady.” I love old cookbooks. They really are an insight to what life was like for the common woman. And reading through some of the recipes in pre-Fannie Farmer cookbooks, it’s amazing they were able to follow any at all and get it right.

Anyway, that’s enough for me. Hope you all have a great week!

Anyway, on with the show.

This week,  I want to talk about appetizers. It’s a pretty broad subject, I know, but they’ve been a part of my daily existence for the past year. Allow me to explain.

My next cookbook is going to focus on appetizers, so almost every day I have been testing at least one appetizer. The thing is, when you’re testing a recipe, you have to test it exactly as it’s going to appear in the final recipe, including ingredients and quantities. In other words, if you’re developing a recipe for turkey chili with red beans and zucchini (yeah, zucchini.  so?), you can’t substitute pork and chick peas in the testing and then use cauliflower because they were out of zucchini at the market. Everything cooks up differently, at different times, with different results. You won’t know what your end product will be and that could cause dissatisfaction in your readers. Your recipes must work as written. Where quantities are concerned, again, you need to use the same quantities as stated in the ingredients list of the recipe, otherwise, you may end up with a different yield. So, your readers might be expecting 4 servings and end up with only 3, or 10. And not all recipes are amenable to being doubled or halved.

Why is this a problem for me? Because if I’m developing a recipe for appetizers, it’s going to be for at least 6 people. Appetizers can be fun and delicious, but I must say, one can only eat so many appetizers. It’s gotten so that I’m sick of my own food. I give away a lot of food. A lot. The other night, I asked a friend if he’d like to go get Chinese food. I couldn’t stand the thought of eating my own food again. I was already cooking a couple of things that night, mind you, but I just couldn’t bring myself to eat them. I finished cooking, packed it all up, and went out.

Don’t get me wrong. My food isn’t bad. In fact, if my family and friends are to be believed (not to mention my personal chef clients), I’m pretty good at this cooking thing. But sometimes I just need someone else’s food.

Anyway, back to appetizers. Appetizers have existed since ancient times. Here’s what I wrote about appetizers—or antipasti in Italian—in my cookbook, What, No Meat?:

One of the trademarks of an Italian meal is the antipasto (appetizers or hors d’oeuvres). Contrary to popular belief, antipasto does not mean “before the pasta.” It means “before the meal.” Pasto (meal) comes from the Latin word pastus, meaning “food.” The ancient Athenians actually invented the concept of appetizers; unfortunately for their guests, it was the only course they would serve. Other Greeks felt that this was a sign of cheapness because, as Lynceus put it, “such a layout as that may seem to offer variety, but is nothing at all to satisfy the belly.”

The ancient Romans began having true antipasto in the 3rd century B.C. and continued having this premeal course through the 4th century A.D. It included items that are still considered appetizers today, such as olives and a primitive pizza (think of the focaccia on the table at your favorite Italian restaurant).

During the Dark Ages, meals were more for sustenance than enjoyment, so antipasto had no place in it. During the Plague of the 14th century, one was lucky to get a meal at all, let alone appetizers. With the onset of the Renaissance, admiration for beauty and art was reborn and appreciation of food for its own sake reemerged. Appetizers came back in style and have remained with us to this day.

After I finish all this testing, I’m going on a diet. Maybe even a fast. Parties are fun, but parties every day become a bore (how does Paris Hilton do it, poor thing?). But I don’t want anyone to lose interest in the subject. Appetizers are creative little dishes that guests remember the next day and for days to come.

As Saki (writer H.H. Munro) wrote in “Reginald at the Carlton”:

Hors d’oeuvres…remind me of one’s childhood that one goes through considering what the next course is going to be like—and during the rest of the menu one wishes one had eaten more of the hors d’oeuvres.

Have a great week, everyone! And stay away from those viruses.

The two recipes I concentrated on developing were Indonesian urap and Nigerian yam salad. Urap is a vegetable salad that contains shredded coconut and is flavored with a spicy dressing of garlic, galangal or ginger, tamarind, and sambal ulek (a spicy chile paste).

Detour to Yams

The yam salad is very much like a potato salad, except that it’s made with yams and a coconut-based dressing. Yams should not be confused with sweet potoatoes. Americans have mistakenly come to know sweet potatoes as yams(especially, for some reason, around the holidays). But the red-fleshed tubers are not yams. Yams are white-fleshed with rough dark brown skin and are starchier and less sweet than sweet potatoes But they are a crucial crop in Africa. They’re not easy to find in the U.S., but where you might find them is in Latin markets, or a market that has a Latin produce section. In these cases, you will find yams under the name namé (nah-MAY). (They also go by the names tropical yam or true yam). Throughout Africa, Yams are a symbol of fertility and renewal and are honored with festivals. There are many myths and legends surrounding yams. One such legend, from Mali, says that criminals were beheaded in a ritualistic fashion in the yam fields so that their blood could fertilize the crops.

Anyway, Back to Coconuts

So, it was back to the produce aisle for a “regular” coconut. (I’ll be honest, though, I’ve never tried frozen coconut. Although I hear that it is very similar to fresh.) The trick to opening a coconut is to poke holes in the coconut’s “eyes” with a hammer and screwdriver or—my preferred implement—an awl. Drain the water out, then pound away where you’ve made the holes with a hammer until it cracks. Pry it open and crack it into two pieces. Place the pieces on a baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes. Pry the meat out in pieces with a knife—CAREFULLY. Then peel the dark skin off the pieces. If you need the coconut shredded, do it either on a box grater or in a food processor with the shredder blade on. And there you have it.

What I’ve learned about coconuts is that nothing really compares with fresh coconut right from the shell. I’ve picked up canned coconut from my local Asian market and…well…BLEECCCHHH!!!! Can you tell I didn’t like it? The texture was weird and the flavor was weird. Dessicated coconut can be rehydrated but it’s not quite as fresh tasting.

Also at the Asian market, I purchased a “young coconut.” This is a coconut that has had the outermost layer removed but not the fibrous layer surrounding the hard, brown shell we usually see. The hard, brown shell (in a young coconut) is thin and not as difficult to break. But once you get inside, there’s very little meat. What there is is quite tender and creamy but it really can’t be used in many recipes. (Often, you’ll see people drinking straight from a young coconut that’s had its top sliced off or poked.)

If you’re not quite grasping the layers-of-a-coconut thing, here’s an explanation from Everyday Mysteries: Fun Science Facts from the Library of Congress: “The coconut we buy in the store does not resemble the coconut you find growing on a coconut palm. An untouched coconut has three layers. The outermost layer, which is typically smooth with a greenish color, is called the exocarp. The next layer is the fibrous husk, or mesocarp, which ultimately surrounds the hard woody layer called the endocarp. The endocarp surrounds the seed. Generally speaking, when you buy a coconut at the supermarket the exocarp and the mesocarp are removed and what you see is the endocarp.”

One more thing. Don’t confuse these various coconut products: coconut water, coconut juice, coconut milk, coconut cream, and cream of coconut.

Coconut water: This is the liquid that is inside a coconut. It can be consumed right from the coconut or used in drinks and food.

Coconut juice: Another name for coconut water. However, you will sometimes find cans of “coconut juice” that are actually flavored drinks. They start with coconut water and sometimes add things like sugar and other ingredients. Always check the ingredients.

Coconut milk: Coconut milk is made by taking grated coconut meat and squeezing the liquid out of it. Handmade milk is made using cheesecloth; commercial milk is machine-pressed.

Coconut cream: This is coconut milk that has a lower water content and is, therefore, thicker.

Cream of coconut: This is sweetened coconut cream. This product is used in desserts and drinks. Think Coco Lopez and those yummy piña coladas.

More Fascinating Coconut Facts

Here are some more interesting bits about coconuts from Everyday Mysteries: Fun Science Facts from the Library of Congress:

* Every bit of the coconut is used. As a result, coconuts are called the “Tree of Life” and can produce drink, fiber, food, fuel, utensils, musical instruments, and much more.

* When intra-venous (IV) solution was in short supply, doctors during World War II and Vietnam used coconut water in substitution of IV solutions.

* Botanically, the coconut palm is not a tree since there is no bark, no branches, or secondary growth. A coconut palm is a woody perennial monocotyledon with the trunk being the stem.

* Possibly the oldest reference is from Cosmas, a 5th century AD Egyptian traveler. He wrote about the “Indian nut” or “nut of India” after visiting India and Ceylon, Some scholars believe Cosmas was describing a coconut.

* Soleyman, an Arab merchant, visited China in the 9th century and describes the use of coir fiber and toddy made from coconuts.

* In 16th century, Sir Francis Drake called coconut “nargils”, which was the common term used until the 1700’s when the word coconut was established.

* It takes 11 -12 months for the coconut to mature.

* At one time scientists identified over 60 species of Cocos palm. Today, the coconut is a monotypic with one species, nucifera. However, there are over 80 varieties of coconut palms, which are defined by characteristics such as dwarf and tall.

* Coconut growing regions are as far north as Hawaii and as far south as Madagascar.

So, think about that the next time you’re biting into that coconut macaroon or drinking a piña colada. Food has a history all its own and someone somewhere had to discover it and figure out what to do with it. It didn’t just show up on the menu one day.

Okay, thanks for popping in and I’ll see you next time. Have a great week, everyone.

Photo credits: Yam: www.foodsubs.com; www.alibaba.com; awl: www.homedepot.com; pina colada: www.faeriesfinest.com.

I have to say that although not having a job really bites in terms of finances, it’s afforded me the opportunity to do things I never would have been able to do if I’d been working. For instance, I never would have been able to go on a two-week road trip or spend three weeks in Colorado (very inexpensive trip). This has been a cathartic year for me, in both good and bad ways, and the ability to travel (cheaply—I emphasis the word cheaply) has been a blessing.

But the other thing I’ve been able to do is plow through the 200-some-odd recipes that I’ve been testing for my second cookbook. I’ve been working on this book since 2002. That’s seven years! I want to be done with it. But testing recipes is difficult when you have a full-time job. It’s not like “regular” cooking, where you can just reach into the fridge or pantry and throw some things together. When you’re recipe testing, you can’t go to the market and just pick out whatever strikes your fancy. You can do that to a certain degree (because sometimes the best recipes come from a whim), but, generally, you have to go with a list of ingredients for your intended recipes. Then you have to prepare the recipes methodically, in a certain order, keeping track of everything you do. It’s like a science project, really.

Anyway, at the beginning of this year, I still had a long, long way to go to finish the testing and finalize my recipe list. In the last nine or so months, I’ve made a concentrated effort to test at least one recipe per day, more if possible. It doesn’t always work out that way. Some days, I just have too many other things to do to shop and cook. How can you be busy? you ask. You have no job. I’ve been busy with writing and editing projects, sick cats, housecleaning (and by that, I mean going through years’ worth of stuff and trying to thin out the useless crap), and family responsibilities. So, yes, even without a job, one can be very busy.

I have had more global cuisine this past year than probably any other time in my life. I’ve had Indian, Chinese, Turkish, Thai, Indonesian, Malaysian, Armenian, Korean, Macedonian, Greek, Hungarian, Russian, Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, Irish, French, Japanese, Nigerian, Kenyan, Brazilian, Chilean, Mexican, Honduran, Peruvian, Puerto Rican, Polynesian, Moroccan, and more. (I’m trying to figure out how to say “from the Ivory Coast.” Ivory Coastan??)

I’ve made quite a dent, and while I’m still not close to being done, I’m way closer than I would have been if I had a job. So, as tough as things have been financially, I am grateful for the opportunities I’ve gotten and am taking full advantage of them while I can. And that actually has taught me a valuable lesson. Some opportunities only knock once, so always answer the door.

It’s pretty rainy and windy here in NY today. Hope it’s better wherever you are. Have a great week, all. Ciao.

Photo credit: Mrs. Yandle Cooking on Coal Stove by Alfred Eisenstaedt

This week, I also tried a brand of Russian soda. Now, the problem with trying imported products is that the labels sometimes are written only in the language of the countries in which they were made. Often, you will find the ingredients written in English somewhere or the words ”Product of Fabulouscountry,” but not always. The only thing you have to go by in these instances is the pictures on the labels. This was the case with the Russian soda. The picture had some citrus-y looking fruit on it and, based on the shape of the bottle, I assumed it was citrus-flavored sparkling water. It turned out to be cream soda. Or, at least it tasted like cream soda. I don’t know. It certainly didn’t taste like citrus sparkling water. So, there went my whole theory about using pictures to guide my purchasing descisions. (The soda was tasty, by the way, if not a tad too sweet. I’ll bet it goes great with vodka. Gonna have to try it. )

My brother gave me a jar of his homemade sun-dried tomatoes this past week. They’re spicy and really good chopped up in a vegetable pasta sauce. I sauteed onion and garlic in olive oil, then added eggplant and summer squash slices, along with tomatoes, fresh basil, and the chopped up sun-dried tomatoes. I also threw in a little of the oil from the jar for good measure. That stuff is incredibly flavorful and makes any dish just jump out. This “sauce” went on top of brown rice pasta. Yum! Which brings me to…

I’ve also been experimenting with non-wheat products. While I’ve cooked with many different grains and have had “other-grained” breads and pastas, I’ve never baked with grains such as buckwheat, spelt, amaranth flour, etc. I started experimenting and I’ve gotten some great results.

I started doing this because a very important person in my life has a wheat sensitivity (not full-blown Celiac Disease) and she’s constantly having to seek out gluten-free products. Not that it’s that difficult these days, as Whole

From www.tinkyada.com

Foods carries a wide array of such products, as do health food stores. Even neighborhood supermarkets are recognizing the growing demand for gluten-free products and are carrying them. There are a variety of brands available, including Tinkyáda, DeBoles, Lundberg, Ancient Harvest, as well as others.

From www.quinoa.net

You can get all kinds of gluten-free products, including sweets, like cookies and cakes. But, like anything else, homemade or handmade is always best. So, I’ve been baking delicious gluten-free products at home and sending them off to my friends to enjoy. My Buckwheat-Raspberry Cake and Muffins have gotten rave reviews, even from people who say “ick” to non-traditional foods.

Click here if you’re interested in homemade, wheat-free Buckwheat-Raspberry Cake or Muffins.

Between intense testing of recipes for my next cookbook and drinks for a drink book that I am working on with Andi Marquette, I’ve put on a few pounds. So, next week, it’s back to the gym. Gotta lose weight in time to don that winter coat.

Until next time, peace, everyone.

Now, I’ve made things that needed to be rolled. I’ve wrapped spring rolls in rice paper; burritos in tortillas; manicotti in pasta; rice in banana leaves; and those of you who have been reading this blog know that I’ve wrapped tamales in corn husks (story here). All of these require the roll-and-tuck method. But there is a particular technique to rolling grape leaves. The reason for this, I imagine, is because grape leaves are oddly shaped. They are not perfectly square or round, so they have to be handled a certain way.

I was placing the filling on the left side, then trying to roll the leaf, using the roll-and-tuck method, as if it were a square. I learned that you have to place the filling across the center of the leaf, right above the stem, fold the left side over the filling, then the right, then the left, then the right, then rolling it forward over the rest of the leaf.

The wrong way to do it.

Source: www.cafefernando.com

The other secret is to use a pot that will allow you to pack in the dolmades tightly and to weigh them down with something. While I did weigh them down with a plate, they were not as tightly packed as they should have been and probably jiggled around a little. So, for attempt number two, I will be more informed. (I should have looked it up before…duh!)

Here is a great website with step-by-step instructions on making dolmades: Greek Recipes with May Lerios.

TIP: Don’t skimp on the quality of the grape leaves. I went to a local Russian market for mine. They had several brands on the shelf and I opted for the cheapest one, figuring grape leaves are grape leaves. Right? Wrong. What I got were basically grape-leaf irregulars. Who knew there was such a thing? They were scraggly, ripped, and all different sizes. I tried piecing together scraps to make whole ones but that was a bust. I was going to go buy more when I realized something: I had my own grape leaves in my backyard!

If you’re fortunate enough to have a grapevine growing in your yard (and, believe me, because of the large Italian and Greek communities in NY, it’s not that unusual), you can put all those beautiful, luscious leaves to use. If you do have access to fresh leaves, here’s what you do.

Pick the largest, nicest looking leaves you can find and rinse them off. Cut out the stems. Bring a pot of water to a boil; place the leaves in the water, shut off the heat, and let them sit for 5 minutes. Drain and let them cool. You’re ready to use them.

Store-bought leaves are available packed in jars, in tins, and vacuum-packed. Good, quality brands should give you more or less same-sized leaves. But whether you’re using store-bought or fresh leaves, keep in mind that they are extremely fragile and will rip easily, so handle them gently.

I also need to perfect my filling recipe. Needed a little something. Or, maybe they just got water-logged when they unraveled and sat in the broth/water mixture I was using. Hmm, we’ll see. If anyone has any pointers, feel free to leave a comment.

Have a wonderful week and I hope that next time, I’ll have a success to share instead of a flop. Peace.

Part of this testing is about stepping outside of my comfort zone and cooking with ingredients and methods that I am not accustomed to (i.e., that I grew up with). And since I’ve been working on this book since 2002, I’ve been doing that for quite some time. So, I really think nothing of taking an ingredient and using it in an usual way.

Let me explain…

If you’re anything like me, you love finding new products on the shelves at the markets and trying them out (and by “new” I mean new for you–they might be traditional products back in the Old Country, whichever old country that happens to be). This is especially true when I go into an ethnic market. Every time I go to the local Asian market, I try to come out with something new and different (but not too different—my adventurousness only goes so far).

Last week, I went to one of my local Russian markets and in the beverage aisle, I found pear soda from Georgia (as in the Republic of Georgia, not Atlanta/Scarlett O’Hara/I shall never be hungry again). It was called Pear Natakhtari Fizzy Drink. It looked interesting, so I bought it (of course I did).

Well, it wasn’t quite what I expected. I was expecting something light and crisp. Instead, it was very sweet. Candy-like, in fact. Not really my thing. But I am my mother’s daughter, and true to our common frugal nature, I did not throw it out. I simply put a wine-saver top on it and stuck it in the fridge.

A couple of days later, I was making myself some dinner. It was one of those use-anything-leftover-in-the-fridge dinners. I had a piece of butternut squash, a few Brussels sprouts, and a container of chick peas that my mother had cooked (from dried beans) and given to me. I threw all these things together to make a butternut-Brussels sprouts-chick pea stew. The bottom of the pot browned nicely from the squash and red onions I’d also thrown in there. I said to myself, “I wish I had some wine open to deglaze this pot.” Then, I remembered the pear soda. Now, they say that you’re not supposed to use a beverage in your cooking that you wouldn’t drink straight up. Then I thought, well, that really applies to wine. Nobody ever said anything about soda. What the hell.

So, yep, I poured some soda into that pot and scraped up the fond from the bottom. And you know what? It was good! It brought out the natural sweetness of the vegetables and gave the stew that little extra something that makes you go, “Hmm, what is that flavor?” I never would have thought to use Georgian pear soda to deglaze a vegetable stew, but it worked. That made me happy. I’m having the leftovers tonight.

The moral of this story is, don’t be afraid to use ingredients in ways that might seem odd. That’s basically how the most creative recipes by famous chefs came about. They stepped outside of the box and used foods in different and unusual ways. That’s how they became famous in the first place.

As for my cooking frenzy, this week I made (among other things) Armenian cheese patties and spinach dumplings from Uruguay called buñuelos de espinaca. They both came out really good. A hint on making patties or any kind of dumplings: Make sure you seal them well. Use water or egg as glue. It’s distressing to see your cheese or whatever spill out from your beautiful dumplings. Yeah, it happened.

Oh, and I want to remind all my fellow writers out there about the pirate anthology, Skulls and Crossbones. This is a collection of short stories about female pirates, any time, any setting. Deadline is September 1, so get cracking on those stories! The guidelines are HERE.

Okay, back to cooking. Have a great week, everyone. And thanks for checking in. Peace.

Having said that, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with enjoying the occasional libation. And with the resurgance of cocktail culture and the emergence of the mixologist—which is basically a bartender schooled in chic and complex drink making, versus a bartender, who may not know what to do with Chartreuse (a liqueur made in France by Carthusian monks) but will make you a wicked dry martini—you can really have a lot of fun trying out all different kinds of concoctions, from wild and crazy to sophisticated and classy.

Join the party…

So, because both of us are out of work and need something fun to distract us (and maybe drown our sorrows), a friend and I have decided to embark on a mission: come up with as many funky, fun new cocktails as we can for as little money as possible. Not that the goal is exactly “Budget Boozing” or “Recession Cocktails” (I’m sure somebody somewhere is already working on that), but it’s got to be that way for us because we simply don’t have a whole lot of money to spend. (It’s interesting to note that during hard economic times, the liquor industry is one that not only does not suffer but actually increases in business. There are two reasons for this: 1) More people entertain at home and so need to stock their bars and 2) people want to forget their troubles.)

My friend and I went out today and bought about $90 worth of liquor. But we got some sweet deals—for that $90, we got a box of booze. We made some good choices, caught some good sales, and walked out with enough alcohol to inebriate all the members of Phi Beta Psi.  We’re going to have some fun and put our minds on something other than finding jobs that obviously don’t want to be found and meeting freelance deadlines.

What amazed me is the proliferation of flavored liquors. Fruity flavored rums and vodkas have been around for a while but I was floored by the black cherry whisky I saw. And the macadamia-flavored vodka. And the pineapple tequila. Even Kahlua has upped the ante by introducing a mocha, a French vanilla, and a hazelnut version of their coffee liqueur. People are looking for new and exciting, and the liquor companies are gladly obliging. This opens up a whole new world of cocktail making.

If anyone wants to contribute their thoughts to the art of cocktail making, feel free to comment. Let me know what your favorite drinks are, where your liquor loyalties lie, and what gets your party rockin’. In the meantime, below is a recipe for a Kahlua Martini, courtesy of drinksmixer.com.

Hopefully, I’ll be recovered enough by next week to make my next entry. Have a great week, everyone.

Kahlua Martini

1 oz. Kahlua
1 oz. vodka
1 splash coffee

Okay, so the kumquatcello sat for two weeks and the vodka picked up a really nice citrus-y scent and the faintest orange tint. (This is very different from limoncello, which takes on a beautiful lemony color.) I made a sugar syrup by boiling water and sugar together. If you decide to give this a whirl, don’t let this mixture cook too long because it will darken and give the liqueur a muddy look. (In fact, this is the beginnings of caramel and if you cook it long enough, that’s what you’ll get.) Then I combined the sugar syrup, kumquat vodka, and fresh vodka and split it into various containers. Now, we sit and wait. I can be drunk at this point, but the longer it sits, the better it will be. Can’t wait to try it.

Now for the Latin feast!

¡Vamanos!

I made black bean and corn tamales, arroz con gandules (rice with pigeon peas, a staple of Puerto Rican food), tostones, surrullitos, pão de quiejo, and an avocado-chile salad.

Tostones are to die for. They are fried green plaintains that are smashed and refried. Okay, not the healthiest thing in the world but how often do you think I eat tostones? The surrullitos are Puerto Rican cheese sticks. I tried making them baked and fried (traditional) and, ironically, the baked came out better. I say it’s ironic because usually fried foods come out better. But my fried surrullitos kept falling apart. I’m not sure what I was doing wrong. If anyone has any tips, please share them.

Same plea goes for the pão de quiejo. These are Brazilian cheese rolls made with tapioca flour and parmigiano cheese. They tasted good but the texture was doughy. And that’s the second time I’ve tried it. So, again, if anyone has any tips, pass them on. The avocado-chile salad came out great, but I can’t really say much about it, since it’s part of my new cookbook-in-progress. I’ll have you all know that you’re sharing the process with me here!

As for the tamales, they came out pretty good. The masa was a little thick and needed a pinch of salt, but other than that, they were tasty. They looked awful perty, too.

First, you have to spread some masa in a corn husk, fill it with the filling of your choice, then fold the sides of the husk over. Then you tie them up with husk “strings,” and put them in a steamer to cook. I have an Asian steamer, which is the perfect cooking vessel. And it just looks so nice, too. I’m going to be adding tips about making tamales on my “Tips” page here, so check back it you want to give it a try. It’s actually pretty easy once you get the hang of it. Here are some photos of mine:

Okay, thanks, everybody! I’ll let you know what I come up with next time. Have a great weekend and coming week.

Oh, I almost forgot. This was my favorite part of my Latin feast. Those of you who are aficionados of the English language will understand why I was so amused with this bag of chips…and why I just had to buy it! Adios!

And salsa! So read on to see how that all went…

The marmalade took me about 4 hours to make. Not that it was that complicated but it was time consuming. First you have to separate the pulp from the skins. Again, not difficult but they’re so small and you have to do so many of them that it takes a while. Here’s a picture of what I had going on.
The pulp went into the little bowl perched on the cutting board while the skins went into the pot on the right.

Then, I had to cook the skins, changing out the water a few times after each boil. This supposedly eliminates the bitterness.
When they’re soft, they get minced.

Meanwhile, the pulp gets cooked, strained and combined with some water from the skins and sugar and everything gets boiled down until thick.

The salsa, on the other hand, was so simple and the result is so beautiful. Check out these photos:

The recipe I found for this salsa called for red pepper flakes and cayenne pepper, which I have never seen used in a salsa recipe. So, I tweaked it a little. Here’s my version of Kumquat Salsa. Use it as a topping or with tortilla chips. Let me know if anyone gives it a whirl. Enjoy!

Kumquat Salsa

3 cups kumquats, thinly sliced

1/2 cup chopped red onion

1/4 cup minced fresh cilantro

1/4 cup olive oil

2 or 3 dried chile de arbol, crushed (or other chile pepper of your choice, fresh or dried)

Kosher salt to taste

Combine all ingredients. Adjust the seasonings to your taste. Let sit for an hour to allow the flavors to blend.

Makes about 3 cups.