Summertime, lazy, warm afternoons by the pool. You’re sipping your mojito feeling hot and looking cool. You shimmy up to the girl ready to make your move and a big fat piece of mint stuck to your teeth spoils your groove… I love the refreshing taste of mojitos in the summer but I hate the whole muddled lawnmower droppings vibe that, for me, spoils the whole affair.
Read more... Add new comment
Here in SoCal, almost like citrus fruits, peaches, plums, and nectarines are so acclimatized they are like natives. You can grow them in your yard or just wait till summer when a never-ending river of numerous local varieties shows up at your local farmer’s market. Starting in late June till the end of August delicious, ripe, local California PPNs are in constant supply. So lets make a peachy keen Nalewka with them!
In Italian Tutti Frutti means "all the fruits". It's a popular, colorful treat made with a variety of candied fruits. It can be an ice cream flavored with many fruits includeing cherries, raisins, pineapple and some nuts thrown in for good measure. The Dutch use the name to describe a compote made by boiling a bunch of dried fruit. In Belgium, Tutti Frutti is a dessert made from raisins, currants, apricots, prunes, dates, and figs. I guess in England they took the idea, made it inedible and called it Fruit Cake. In Poland, today, it is perhaps one of the most popular homemade Nalewkas. It's roots are ancient and it's fun to make so here we go...
What? Pharmaceutical hooch? Well, it’s not that strange when you consider that before people started making alcohol infusions for pleasure they made them and drank them as medicine. They always seemed to make the patients feel better as long as they took their medicine in high enough doses. Nalewka Farmaceutów has got to be one of the strangest vodka infusions I’ve made so far.
It has now been close to a year since I got my two sour dough starters going full blast. 
Again with the rendered bacon... Yes and I think there will be more where this came from 'cause now the possibilities are endless. Smalec started of as a simple way for poor folk to preserve some bacon fat. Somebody added onions and it was better, somebody added apples and it was better still. I live in Southern California not far from the ocean and apples don't grow in my yard but mangoes do and so could peaches and apricots and nectarines and... Came up with this smalec variation out of necessity and it worked out real nice for me and the futur of smalec production everywhere.
It’s been like three weeks since, right after dark, I took Feo Dos out of his cage, drove to a woodsy, secluded location and sent him on his way. As far as rescuing possums go I am now 2 for 2. Could become a professional rescuer. I have to admit that it was all a lot easier than it could’ve been, both babys were already weened by the time they came under my care.
There is something creepy about how visceral, uninformed and myopic people are when it comes to taxes. Now that the healthcare reform brouhaha is over the media and the Tea Party loons are focusing on tax reform. Basically they want to only have things they like paid for by taxing people they don't like - in a way, for the myopically self interested, it's not a bad idea. Might have problems pulling it of.
Now here is something you don't get to do every day: lick the walls of a World Heritage Site that was on the original UNESCO list of places of either cultural or physical significance to Humanity. Yes this remarkable place leaves a salty taste in your mouth. It's the second oldest salt mine in Europe and a "must see" for it's strange beauty and amazing story.
Yes, all things considered, it's a strange combination. Xocolātl, also know as chocolate or cacao was widely used by the Aztecs in food and drinks. Kim quật is the Vietnamese name for a citrus fruit that originated in China and found great favor on the islands of Nippon. Combine the two by using an old Polish method of drowning stuff in vodka and you get a delicious Nalewka who's origin spans 3 continents.
Picture if you will the mandarin, the scholarly imperial bureaucrat immersed in poetry, the dedicated civil servant in his finest regalia sipping a dainty cup of expresso. Now picture the mandarin, the majestically orange, oblate fruit, the clementine or the tangerine pierced by the finest expresso beans and smothered in the waters of life. One more Mandarincafécello and I will have to pull out my copy of "The Selected Poems of Du Fu".
Meet my two new pets - Mirka and Niedamir. You'd think that with 3 dogs and 4 cats we would be done with taking on any more pet ownership responsibilities. But, these pets are easy. They live in the refrigerator. As long as you take them out about once a week, to feed and play with, they can live forever. Not good for snuggling or playing fetch, they can however help with an endless supply of delicious, sourdough baked goods.
