Daily Loaf

(Part 2 of our Smorgasbord: IKEA series.)

Lingonberry and elderberry syrups take up a lot of space on the IKEA grocery shelves, for good reason. The tart, cranberry-like flavor of lingonberries is perfect when dropped into a glass of sparkling water, while the elderberry will produce a more fragrant, softer spritzer that’s sweeter and more delicate. Both are also incredible ingredients for cocktails. IKEA’s lingonberry syrup is powerful stuff, so works best with bland liquor like vodka, while elderberry’s subtle herbacious, floral perfume works best with gin (and some gins use elderberry as one of the botanicals that give that British quaff its flavor).

Experiment, but here are a few recipes to get you started at your next Swedish-themed happy hour or crayfish party:

The Allen Wrench
1 part lingonberry syrup
1 part vodka
Squeeze of lime
Soda water
This is a simple, refreshing quaff suitable for quenching the mighty thirst and incipient frustration that results from furniture assembly.

Bergman Royale
3 parts inexpensive Champagne or sparkling wine
1 part elderberry syrup
Like the actress, this cocktail is subtle, multi-faceted and will melt the hearts of even the most grizzled North African nightclub owner.

Seasonal Affective Disorder Read the rest of this entry »

My nightly meal is brought to you courtesy of IKEA, food served on simple, gleaming white ARV plates, cut and delivered using SVIT utensils, with lemonade sipped from chunky POKAL tumblers. If we’re feeling saucy, or it’s a weekend night, there may be Cotes Du Rhone or Spanish grenache in OPTIMAL stems, or shaken Bombay Sapphire poured into a curvaceous SKIR.

My young son prefers the brightly colored KALAS ensemble, demanding a different hue for each utensil — although the plate and glass can match, if necessary.

But the food? Never Swedish.

We eat the Swedish meatballs doused in creamy gravy when we visit the store, sure, but I’d never made the leap to actually shopping for food at IKEA, as if it was an ethnic grocery store instead of a temple to inexpensive, northern European apartment design. Until this week. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve expressed my disdain — if not actual dislike — for flavored drinks, and for vodka in general, so perhaps I’m not the ideal person to review this newish flavor from Finnish liquor company Finlandia. Or maybe my love for the hearty Fins and the frozen tundra they call home will counteract those ill feelings towards anything as silly and inappropriate as cramming aromatic nonsense into bland ethyl alcohol.

Oh, um, perhaps I betrayed my feelings there. It’s just difficult to have sympathy for any nation that can concoct a flavor as profoundly odd as the one that wafts from a glass of Finlandia Tangerine Fusion. The first whiff comes across as an orange scratch-and-sniff circa 1985, the kind of concentrated faux-citrus flavor that seems more appropriate, these days, for infomercial cleaning solutions or truck stop air fresheners.

But wait, Finlandia uses only natural flavors in its Tangerine Fusion. Of course, when they say natural flavors they’re likely talking about atoms stripped from plants and recombined by chemists in a lab, not a few pounds of tangerine run through a food processor.

With the first sip of the vodka, I immediately peg the flavor thanks to a long childhood of aches and pains: Read the rest of this entry »

Where else can you get this for $6?

May I present the new Fleming’s “5 for 6 till 7″ menu. Essentially, you can almost eat for free. Almost. Every night from 5-7 pm, Fleming’s now offers a menu that includes five cocktails (like the Basil Lemon Drop you see above), five full-sized appetizers and five glasses of house wine by the glass. All for only six dollars each. I still just can’t get over it.

Last night I was presented with tantalizing dish after tantalizing dish, Read the rest of this entry »

I got thrown for a loop the other night.  I was sought out; someone wanted to turn in his fuck-buddy application.  I was reluctant at first. He’s not my normal type of applicant.  He’s not my normal type of anything.  That’s what makes him so unique and alluring.

I went to meet him with the idea of swapping ideas, not body fluids.  We’re colleagues and thought we could stimulate some creative juices–and stimulating juices is exactly what happened. Read the rest of this entry »

When I explored the Bay area cocktail scene a couple of months ago, I was struck again by how trite and bland most bar and restaurant mixed drink lists are. I guess it reflects the food scene, which is also behind the times in our area, but c’mon: cocktails are easier. Or, if not easier, than simpler to experiment. Think of flavors, start mixing, taste, judge and refine the recipe until it’s right, like a kid with a brand new chemistry set.

So, in the hopes that it will spur some imaginations among the bartenders and mixmasters of Tampa Bay, I have a challenge: Read the rest of this entry »

While thumbing through an in flight magazine on the red-eye to San Antonio, I stumbled across this fabulous cocktail recipe — the Hooville Martini. Whoever thought of using Yoo-Hoo as a mixer is a genius!

The Hooville was created for the bar menu at the trendy Ketchup restaurant in L.A., which features classic comfort food dishes with a gourmet twist. Their drink list also features other memorable kid beverages, like Sunny D and Kool-Aid, updated into playful and creative cocktails. “The Hooville takes on the creamy and chocolatey Yoo-Hoo, but with added almond flavor, since what goes better with chocolate than almond? It’s a nutty, rich tasting cocktail that makes a really good after-dinner drink,” says Ketchup’s bar manager, Darius Karsas. I also think it would make a great breakfast or brunch drink, like an adult chocolate milk with a little ‘hair of the dog’.

Recipe after the break: Read the rest of this entry »

Cucumber Mint Sake Cocktail

Sake is one of those underrated alcoholic beverages, in my opinion, that most people only drink when going out for sushi.  Hot or cold, filtered or unfiltered, are pretty much your only options when it is offered on a drink menu.  Until now.

Mixologists are featuring this rice-based alcohol in many hip new cocktails.  There are numerous versions of the “Saketini”, most containing vodka and/or gin along with various liquers, juices, syrups, etc.  So for those of you who don’t like the flavor of filtered sake, you can now enjoy it in one of these new-fangled concoctions.

If you don’t want to drop ten bucks on a “Saketini” at a fancy schmancy bar then make it yourself at home.  I whipped up this fabulous and easy sake cocktail (see recipe below) for my New Year’s Eve bash as the featured drink of the evening (until, of course, we popped the champagne).  Unless you’re a sake connisseur the cheap stuff will suffice because, hey, you’re going to be mixing it with other flavors anyway, right?  Oh, and a warning: sake has about the same level of alcohol content or more than wine does and this drink goes down easily, so sip carefully (unless you want a hangover, much like the one I experienced New Year’s Day).  Kampai!
Recipe after the jump:
Read the rest of this entry »