September 2009

The Not-So Perfect Toast

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My old roommates who hailed from the red state of Wyoming could drink almost anyone under the table. Not only did they come from a land of good beef and beautiful mountains, they came from a land of drive-through liquor stores. (Great idea, huh?)

They taught me drinking games galore and my very favorite toast in the entire world. I don't recommend using it at weddings or funerals, but among friends with a good sense of humor, it is a definite crowd-pleaser.

Cane Sugar Sodas

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Over the weekend I talked to a friend who knew nothing about the history of cane sugar versus high fructose  corn syrup use in soda. The conversation came up when I lunged for a bottle of Pepsi Throwback at the grocery store and he rolled his eyes.  I explained that it contained actual cane sugar rather than HFCS and he scoffed.

Then he tried a sip of Pepsi Throwback. He didn't scoff after that! In fact, he went back inside to buy a bottle for himself.

Back in the day, all sodas used cane sugar as a sweetener.  Cane sugar is readily available in America from Hawaii and some growers in the tropical South, and it enjoys trade tariff protections, so it was an affordable source of sweet.  Then in the 1970s corn began to rise to dominance, and gradually soda manufacturers switched out HFCS for cane sugar.  

Making Your Own Fruit Wine

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This has been a prime year for home canning and preservation - aside from anecdotal evidence (everyone I know is canning stuff), I recently read that the sales of Ball glass mason jars is up 30% this year over last!  Now that the growing season is coming to an end, the transition into fall has brought a predictable transition in food preservation as well.  It's time to make fruit wine!

Elderberry and blackberry wine are the fruit wines most people are familiar with.  But you can make fruit wine out of any fruit (literally any - there is a winery in Hawaii which is famous for producing pineapple wine).  Traditionally the softer fruits like cherries and plums tended to be made into fruit wines more often, because it was the best way to preserve these tender fruits in the era before freezers and electricity were invented.

The Sangria Police

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Does a fellow party-goer have the right to limit the alcohol consumption of a total stranger at an open bar? I think not.

A friend of a friend recently had his 40th birthday in a fricking cool theater in Seattle. He rented the theater, provided the booze, and everybody brought food for the potluck. Fortunately, many of the guests were from Mexico, so it is safe to say that the food absolutely rocked the house. The booze and music weren't bad either.

Three hours into the night I was into my third glass of Sangria when the Sangria Police came to arrest me and tried to take my "drinking license away."