If Johnny Cash drank hot chocolate.

Must be all the snow, but I have been really feeling the need to cuddle up with hot cocoa lately. Preferably with marshmallows and Cinnamon. Upon further research into recipes for spicy hot chocolate, giving homemade gifts of Oaxacan hot cocoa mix, and visiting Rick Bayless' Xoco for drinking chocolates - there is so much more to this 'cuddle beverage'.

Canelle et Vanille Churros with Spiced Chocolate Bisque (recipe here)

Lucid Food Spiced Chai Hot Chocolate (recipe here)

Vosges Haut Chocolate Aztec Elixir Drinking Chocolate

A girl can dream can't she - that a plate of hot churros and spiced chocolate bisque would be brought to her by a roaring fire after a long day of ice skating, sledding, skiing...all in a long winter day's work.

New decade!

We have successfully recovered from what was a lovely New Year's Eve - ending what was not our favorite year to date. The Scandinavian feast went well, although our resident seven year old "kid" Buddy the border collie mix had a memorable beginning to the new decade with a full belly of Gravlax. We decided that the Omega-3's were good for him and left it at that. Lucky dog.

We did manage to push through and enjoy ourselves with a fantastic Rose Cremant, Quilette oysters and blackberries. Very civilized with some CNN times square coverage, a full blue moon, sparklers, and Van Morrison.

The first weekend of the year was spent with a major organization & cleaning session of our terribly over sized closed (it has it's pros and cons). It had become somewhat of a mess to say the least, and it was time to clean it up - and we did....for the whole weekend, with a few televised sports games intermixed, joy. Since 2009 was not our 'fave' year as I mentioned, we decided that a jambalaya with smoked chicken sausage, stewed tomatoes, gala apple, onion, amber ale, and of course the good luck of black eyed peas said to bring prosperity in the new year and was perfect for the chilly weekend.

So all in all, a great start to the new year, the new decade. We all need any luck we can get these days, but it's enough to just be - which is a lot easier with a clean closet!

posted by vanessa

Scandinavian New Year

In the past couple of years, it's become a tradition of ours to spend New Year's Eve cuddled at home leisurely sipping some bubbles and making a special dish we wouldn't normally think to make. In choosing a recipe, we also have come to embrace the theme and/or tradition of the culture in which the dish comes. Last year we went Greek with Moussaka paired with Retsina wine, made from pine tree resin (it was a valiant effort, but we quickly switched to some nice bubbly Cremant). However, the full on bechamel, lamb, roasted eggplant moussaka I can still taste it a year later, and in truth, although time consuming and labor intensive, it was really fun to make.

This year, without knowing it, we tossed around both our English and Danish backgrounds for recipe ideas. While enjoying a traditional Harvey's Bristol Cream with my father on Christmas, we decided on a traditional Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding English feast would be the choice. - not to mention our fondness for Jamie Oliver. As the day has drawn near - we have been hemming and hawing, not getting too excited about the whole thing. Then it really came to us - a Scandinavian feast! Perfect for the full moon that falls on this New Year's Eve. Light, fresh and clean. Truly a great way to start off the new decade. While the actual dishes have not been determined, we have turned to one of our fave PBS cooking shows, Scand Cooks for some inspiration. Stay tuned and Godt Nytår!

Images via The Scandinavian Cookbook

Mid-Summer's Dream

With the cool summer we've had, I suppose we could be forgiven for our low expectations regarding the garden. Plants seemed as though they'd never grow taller than our knees, vines would creep along centimeter by centimeter. I would say inch by inch, but it was not that fast. We coaxed them along, even when our new neighbor seemed bent on destroying our garden by tuckpointing his entire building. We replaced soil, adjusted pH levels, added manure (which made us extremely popular with the rest of the tenants). It did not seem promising. At the beginning of July, however, the first blossoms started to appear, and it seemed as though we might get a little reward for our efforts.


It was shocking though to see peppers go from blossom to this:


in only a couple of weeks. Needless to say, we are excited that there is fruit sitting on all of our plants, from the first tomato at marble size:


to clusters waiting for the ripening sun, and a nice caprese salad.


Maybe the cool weather made our plants hardier, maybe it just made us appreciate what actually has come to fruition. Regardless, we now know patience is a virtue when dealing with our garden. I will not underestimate the power of sun, soil and seed again. And if you're lucky enough, we will be sharing seeds with all of you this winter. Save a sunny spot in the yard.

Summer Coolers

We have talked amongst ourselves about how the internet is full of drink blogs, and while we enjoy our drinks, our site isn't dedicated to them. Thank goodness, as there is only so much our livers could handle. Plus, I get very ornery after a couple, so we try to limit our experimentation.

Two that we have been very fond of this summer are very different in their origins. First, the Pimm's Cup, which has seen a splendid resurgence thanks to people rediscovering the pleasure of liqueurs and light mixers. It might be the easiest to make, but with as much complexity to the flavor profile as you want. Our recipe is as follows:

highball glass
ice
2 1/2 oz Pimm's No.1
juice of 1/2 lemon
Seven-Up
cucumber spear

The nice thing about this recipe is the flexibility. I like a touch more Pimms, Ness prefers a little more lemon. Easy to accommodate. Thanks to my Mom for insisting I try this when I was 21. It has been her summer standard for years, though just how many years is Top Secret.

Our second favorite was born out of necessity. Ness needed something refreshing and didn't want another gin & tonic. Not that she has those to excess, nor are they a tired drink; she merely wanted something she hadn't had before. Looking in the fridge, we had recently purchased Trader Joe's Pomegranate Limeade. Possibly the easiest and freshest mixer we have ever found. Mint from the yard, soda, Hendrick's gin: the birth of Ness' Mint Lemonade Mixer.

rocks glass
ice
fresh mint
2 oz gin
3 oz TJ's Pomegranate Limeade top
w/ soda
lime wedge

Again, flexibility with the mixer, but this drink isn't rocket science; it's just really tasty. We have also talked about how it is probably a sin of the worst magnitude to be using Hendrick's in a drink like this. Well, our justification is that is seems to be the only gin we have around! Now to see if the garden will provide us with more cucumbers and mint so we don't run out of essential supplies.

Bud break in Chicago

It isn't as though we had hoped to make wine from our lone vine in the yard, especially since it happens to be some odd midwestern varietal; but, come ON! We had to wait till mid June for the buds to break out? Now with a half dozen leaves unfurling, it is somewhat exciting to see that the weeks of sub-zero weather didn't shatter the roots or vascular system. With time, I feel like this could turn into more than a hobby.

Blind Lovely

I have a terrible soft spot for rhone whites. Viognier, Roussane, Marsanne; from intense candy store perfume to sublime flinty subtlety, it is always a surprise when you open a bottle. Last month when Sam Tannahill was in town, we were discussing our love of these wines while we should have been talking about the lovely pinot noir he was pouring. Still, it is fun to talk about a shared passion when everyone else in the room is getting shnockered.

Since Sam had been on the road for quite a few days and was feeling pretty shredded, I brought along a pound of Metropolis coffee to send home with him. It is our favorite local roaster, even though Intelligentsia has had more success in their nationwide growth. Sam reported that he and Cheryl, his lovely, talented wife, enjoyed the coffee over Mother's day weekend. That made us happy.

What made me even happier is when a package arrived from Sam this week. Enclosed were two bottles from their Francis Tannahill label; a 2005 Grenache, and a 2006 Blind Love. These were tiny bottllings; 138 and 93 cases produced respectively. While A to Z and Rex Hill might pay the bills, these bottles seem to represent what they can really do when unleashed in the winery. Elegant and balanced wines both.

We had the Blind Love with a nice light dinner of grilled asparagus, fresh homemade ricotta, baby greens and poached eggs. I also tried doing a pizza on the grill, but failed miserably; I will have woodfired pizza at home by the end of summer or die trying. The wine, on the other hand, was tremendously successful. When we first opened this there was a full nose of perfectly ripe fruit, and a nice spring floral bouquet. We expected it to be almost too big on the palate. On the contrary; what a lovely, creamy mouthfeel with a gentle but present acidity to give it a clean light finish. Light enough that I kept wanting more. It was a wine that was perhaps too elusive; but we loved every drop.

The second wine was the 2005 Grenache from the Rogue Valley. We had this the following Wednesday while I listened to the fifth game of the Blackhawks/Redwings series. (a tragic finish, even as I write this. 2-1 Detroit.) Ness was home late from work and we wanted something simple for dinner, so we settled on one of our standby favorites. We call it Beans & Greens, but it is a recipe that we lifted from one of our favorite blogs, who in turn lifted it from Splendid Table. A fantastic filling salad with beans, baby greens, bread crumbs and toasted cheese. The wine was superb from the first taste; my first impression being that of a clean, young Chateauneuf. The color was rich and opaque, but by no means inky. It just had the look of a wine that had been given ample opportunity to develop naturally, and had nothing taken away from it in the racking ad aging process. The nose was nowhere near overpowering, instead delivering exactly what it promised; balance, backbone, and finish. As the night went on, we talked about how it progressed, ending with "plum jam on toast with white pepper." At that point, we decided to end the pretentious wine talk and cut ourselves off.
Sam, thank you for two delicious, elegant bottles. We had a great weekend and look forward to a summer of nice bottles, and good thoughts for good friends.