Lets Mull Over This

A quick snack when you didn't plan on anyone coming over. Mary Barrett entertained me with some mulled spiced wine. Warmed my toes, now I just wish it had been snowing outside and my apartment was equipped with a fireplace. Did you know: In the old times, wine often went bad. By adding spices and honey, it could be made drinkable again. Nowadays, it is a traditional drink during winter, especially around Christmas. Glögg is the Nordic form of mulled wine, similar to Glühwein in German-speaking countries. Glühwein is usually prepared from red wine, heated and spiced with cinnamon sticks, vanilla pods, cloves, citrus and sugar.









::Please excuse my mismatched dishes, I had a sink full of dirty ones::

The original recipe for mulled wine from Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management at paragraph 1961 on page 929 to 930 of the revised edition dated 1869

1961.-TO MULL WINE.

INGREDIENTS.- To every pint of wine allow 1 large cupful of water, sugar and spice to taste.
Mode.-In making preparations like the above, it is very difficult to give the exact proportions of ingredients like sugar and spice, as what quantity might suit one person would be to another quite distasteful. Boil the spice in the water until the flavour is extracted, then add the wine and sugar, and bring the whole to the boiling-point, when serve with strips of crisp dry toast, or with biscuits. The spices usually used for mulled wine are cloves, grated nutmeg, and cinnamon or mace. Any kind of wine may be mulled, but port and claret are those usually selected for the purpose; and the latter requires a very large proportion of sugar. The vessel that the wine is boiled in must be delicately clean, and should be kept exclusively for the purpose. Small tin warmers may be purchased for a trifle, which are more suitable than saucepans, as, if the latter are not scrupulously clean, they spoil the wine, by imparting to it a very disagreeable flavour. These warmers should be used for no other purpose.

35 Days to a Healthier You

In the Whole Living Body + Soul magazine there is an article entitled '35 Days to a Healthier You'. This bounced off the page as an answer to my seasonal depression I've had going on for the past week and a half. Now let me clarify. I don't think I really have seasonal depression, I love cold weather, but here in Tuscaloosa we haven't seen the sun in several days and its been a miserable, rainy ghost town. A long story short I've been in a rut. I could sleep endlessly for days, and I have trouble just pulling myself out of bed to do simple tasks such as cleaning, and changing. My dirty clothes pile consist of underwear and pajamas.

Glancing over the requirements for the first week being a cook, its going to be a huge challenge to maintain to the steamed vegetables and rice diet. But at the same time it gives me a chance to pull out my vegitarian/buddist cookbooks.

The first week starts as a kind of "out with the old, in with the new detox". So, I'm not making any promises, but I am going to attempt this from a food and lifestyle approach and see if I can do it.

Check it out: 35 Days to a Healthier You

Food Related Tattoos?

I've been considering a food related tattoo for a couple years now. I like to keep things simple, so I've always liked the idea of a knife and fork on the right side of my thigh. This morning I decided to see what tattoo tributes people had devoted to the culinary world.





Also, if you've ever visited Bread & Honey: a food blog then you've seen the wonderful baker tattoo. That has to be one of my favorites.

My New Favorite Restaurant

Every city I go to I adopt myself a favorite restaurant. This usually changes quite frequently. Huntsville, Alabama is where my parents live, and I called home for many years. I love a lot of food from Huntsville, but I have an extremely hard time pining down a "favorite restaurant". Not anymore.

Cotton Row

It's located downtown, the floor to ceiling windows open to the street making the small room feel extremely airy. Ask them to give you a tour of the wine cellar, and if you want to feel extra special rent out the wine cellar for a private party. I have never seen a restaurant staff more enthusiastic about a restaurant before in my life. For an appetizer I had the oysters, this dish was supposed to highlight their sou chief which is from New Orleans. My entree was a recommendation from the bar tender, which was the cider braised short ribs, and of course you can't skip dessert:


Peanut Butter and Jelly wrapped in Phyllo


The Chocolate Trio

The only thing that I would have changed, is that I wished the bar was slightly bigger. Small space, with lots of chairs and people. After the third grey goose and tonic I didn't seem to mind as much though...

http://www.cottonrowrestaurant.com/Home.html

Outdoor Cookies

Soup & Popovers

So if anyone knows anything about me I love soup.

According to FoodTimeline.org: Food historians tell us the history of soup is probably as old as the history of cooking. The act of combining various ingredients in a large pot to create a nutritious, filling, easily digested, simple to make/serve food was inevitable. "Our modern word "soup" derives from the Old French word sope and soupe. The French word was used in England in the in the form of sop at the end of the Middle Ages and, fortunately, has remained in the English language in its original form and with much its original sense. We say "fortunately" because it is clear that nowadays a "sop" is not a "soup." The distinction is important. When cooks in the Middle Ages spoke of "soup," what they and the people for whom they were cooking really understood was a dish comprising primarily a piece of bread or toast soaked in a liquid or over which a liquid had been poured. The bread or toast was an important, even vital, part of this dish. It was a means by which a diner could counsume the liquid efficiently by sopping it up. The bread or toast was, in effect, an alternative to using a spoon...Soups were important in the medieval diet, but the dish that the cook prepared was often a sop that consisted of both nutritious liquid and the means to eat it. The meal at the end of a normal day was always the lighter of the two meals of the day, and the sop appears to have had an important place in it. In fact it was precisely because of the normal inclusion of a sop in this end-of-the-day meal that it became called "souper" or "supper."




The general concensus among the food people is that Italian wedding soup (originally known as Minestra Maritata or Pignato Grasso) has nothing to do with wedding ceremonies. This particular "marriage" (maritata is the Italian word for marriage) is between vegetables...or...depending upon the region?...sometimes pork and vegetables, in soup.

Lord of the Pies

Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye, Four and twenty blackbirds, baked in a pie...