The Bitten Word

Chili-and-Cucumber Margarita

Martha Stewart Living (July 2012)

There's a Mexican place around the corner from our apartment. It actually serves authentic Oaxacan food -- think organic duck in a mole sauce or Oaxacan queso topped with fried grasshoppers.

And there's something about the place that is oh so tempting every single time we walk by. (No, it's not the grasshoppers.) It's their margarita menu. Every day the place features a different flavored margarita, temptingly described on a chalk sign out front.

Blackberry margaritas. Blood orange margaritas. Prickly pear margaritas....  Have we mentioned that we have to walk past this place every day on the way home from work? Somebody should give us a medal for not dropping in every single night.

Bad news, though: The margarita temptation has now followed us home.

Campari and Gin

inspired by Bon Appétit (June 2012)

We're fleeing town for Memorial Day weekend, off to see our friends Brian and Andrew, who recently found out that they're moving to Italy for 18 months. Needless to say, we're sad to see them go, more than a bit jealous, and eager to book a trip to visit. 

So to bid them ciao, we offer you our newly anointed cocktail of summer 2012 -- a Campari and Gin. 

Gingersnap Cocktail from Momofuku Ko

A Bitten Word Adaptation

About a year ago, we had an incredible dinner at Momofuku Ko in New York City, an amazing restaurant from the chef David Chang. The food is awesome: A fixed-price tasting menu that changes every night. Our 12-course dinner had everything from Gruyere Soup with Bone Marrow and Brioche Toast, to Mackerel and Yuzu in Orange Oil, to Slow-Roasted Duck with Mustard Greens and Honey-Braised Turnips Rolled in Pumpernickel Crumbs. 

Along with all the outrageously delicious and unique food, one of the most memorable things about the dinner was the drink pairing. Restaurants that do a tasting menu almost always offer a wine pairing to go along with the food -- a procession of glasses of wine specially selected to complement each dish. 

But at Momofuku Ko, the drink pairing is much more free-wheeling. It includes wine, beer, sake and cocktails! Their thinking is that wine isn't necessarily always the best possible pairing.

We loved the idea! And we especially loved this Gingersnap Cocktail.

Thanksgiving 2011: Cranberry-Lime Shrub Sparkler

Fine Cooking (October/November 2011)

A couple months ago, we were reading about colonial-era drink recipes. (Yes, we were just doing it for fun.)

Anyway, we came across something called a "shrub," an 18th-century American drink made with sweetened fruit and vinegar (not to be confused with a "switchel," another excellently-named vinegar-infused drink from the same time period). 

We were more than a little intrigued. Vinegar? In a cocktail? 

When we opened the Thanksgiving issue of Fine Cooking and saw a recipe for a Cranberry-Lime Shrub, we immediately added it to our Fakesgiving menu. We wanted to offer our dinner guests something special as they arrived, something fun to sip on while we finished prepping the meal.

Thanksgiving 2011 Recipe Index: What the Food Magazines Are Recommending

Our Fakesgiving + Our Favorite Holiday Dishes

A little more than a week ago, we had Thanksgiving.

Or really, we had Fakesgiving, our annual tradition with friends and family where we pack as many seats as possible into our apartment, make a bunch of new dishes from November food magazines, and see what everyone likes and dislikes. This year, there were 13 of us. Zach's mom and sister came and helped cook the day before (we literally could not have done it without them), and we made 17 new Thanksgiving dishes. 

(This year's Fakesgiving crowd, minus the two of us.)

Below, you'll see the initial list of recipes we started with: more than 250 Thanksgiving recipes from 10 magazines. To be included in the index, the recipes had to be part of the magazine's Thanksgiving coverage. So this is not meant to be comprehensive -- there are many more recipes in this month's magazines. If the recipe is hyperlinked, it is available online. If not, it's not there yet. 

In preparation for this year's Thanksgiving coverage, we've also created a page of Our Favorite Holiday Recipes. There, you'll find a collection of dishes from Thanksgivings, Fakesgivings and holiday dinner parties past. We'll be updating it as we introduce new content and recipes on the site.

Enjoy the index! 

The Rye Witch Cocktail and No-Cook Simple Syrup

Bon Appétit (October 2011)

When Clay first mentioned that he wanted to try this Rye Witch cocktail, Zach thought he was saying "wry" witch. Naturally, that evoked images of a haggard old crone making witty, dry asides, which actually sounds like a pretty great costume... 

We're always intrigued by the Halloween recipes in food magazines. Halloween is one of the few times during the year when the magazines go out of their way to have a little fun with their food. Martha dons crazy outfits, and we start to see recipes like "Broken Glass Cupcakes" from Martha Stewart Living, Spicy Cheddar Witch Fingers from Food & Wine, Ghastly Meringues from Food Network Magazine, and "I Scream" Graveyard Pie from Everyday Food.

Mostly, it's a whole lot of "cute" food. Which is great for Halloween, if that's what you want. Us? We thought this Rye Witch cocktail was more our speed. Rye whiskey and orange? Yes sir, bartender!

Plus, this recipe has a fantastic twist that we love.

Peppery Punch

Food Network Magazine (July/August 2011)

Last Monday, Drew and Ralph came over for dinner and we served this punch. More on that in a moment.

Since then, we've had a whirlwind week. Here are a few things that happened:

• Wednesday night, we boarded a plane to Portland, Maine, where we rendezvoused with Zach's family for a 70/30 trip (his stepfather was turning 70; his sister, 30).

• We spent one night in Portland, where we ate at Fore Street, which we think is just about the coziest, most romantic restaurant we've ever visited. It has an extensive, seasonal menu, a big, open kitchen and it's housed inside a really cool old building. We had some amazing mussels, an excellent steak and a to-die-for pork chop.

• Thursday, we headed to the seaside town of Camden for a few nights of what became a blur of lobster and naps.

• Clay read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (which is excellent); Zach's been slugging through Cloud Atlas (which is fascinating).

• We met up with our friends Dan and Wendy for a sail on Penobscot Bay.

• Also with Dan and Wendy, we went to a field day out in the tiny village of Montville, where we witnessed a 90-plus-year-old woman compete in a cross-cut saw competition. It was one of the highlights of the trip. 

• Some of our party hiked Mount Battie in Camden, but the two of us couldn't be pulled away from the back deck of the house where we were staying.

• We had the chance to revisit one of our all-time favorite restaurants, Chase's Daily in Belfast, Maine. Nestled on the gallery-crammed streets of Belfast, it's a vegetarian restaurant that's only open for dinner on Friday nights. We ordered a bean salad (with amazing toasted almonds) and cacio e pepe to start. For entrees, we had a lasagna that included beets and a pizza topped with braised fennel and figs (delicious!). 

• We played some fierce games of Scrabble with Zach's mom B.

• Lots and lots of naps.

• And, as mentioned, there were many, many lobster rolls. We think our favorite of the weekend might be the one from J's Oyster in Portland. (If you go, get the Bloody Mary. It's one of the Top 3 we've ever had.) 

The one thing we didn't get around to was making this punch a second time. We had planned to, and we're sure Zach's family would have loved it. But we would have needed to go find elderflower liqueur, plus some champagne, and that, honestly, seemed like a bit of a chore on vacation. So we opted for simpler cocktails instead.

Still, this Peppery Punch is a fantastic summer drink to have up your sleeve.

Overnight Iced Coffee at Home

Picture it: Summer 2008. The first Sex and the City movie was in theaters, Michael Phelps was swimming in obscurity, and Sarah Palin was a mostly unknown governor up in Alaska.

And we fell in love with Cold Brewed Iced Coffee -- and wrote about it here on the blog.

It's a simple idea: Put coffee grounds in a jar, fill that jar with water, and then place the jar in the refrigerator overnight. In the morning, you have a jar full of strong but refreshing coffee. It instantly became a staple in our house during hot summer months.  

Since then, iced coffee has definitely been the blog item we've made most often in our own home (although sometimes we wish this cake held that distinction). When it's warm outside, we're brewing at least one batch of cold coffee each night. Sometimes we brew two batches.

But in browsing that old post a few weeks ago, we realized that we no longer make our iced coffee the same way we described back then. In 2008, we were brewing the coffee in jars, and then straining it through coffee filters. It was a messy affair that too often led to a mess on our countertops. Also: double straining, as we recommended then? For the birds!

So we took the suggestions of a reader and learned how to make better iced coffee at home. And we've never looked back. 

Taste Test: Twelve-Month Aged Eggnog

Ladies and gentlemen: It's eggnog time.

We wrote about it in January; we teased about it last week.

Finally, this weekend, we popped open the eggnog that had been sitting in our fridge for nearly a year.

Raw eggs, dairy, sugar, booze. No cooking. No heating. Just mix together, stash in the refrigerator for a year, open and drink.

So how'd it taste? To capture our initial reactions, we decided to tape ourselves sampling the nog.

Check out the taste test!

After the jump, some more thoughts on the nog, along with the recipe!

Twelve-Month Aged Eggnog: It's Almost Time!

Remember way back in January, when we mixed up some eggnog and set it in the fridge to age?

After a year of sacrificing valuable refrigerator space for these two bottles, it's nearly time to crack it open and have a taste!

We're having some folks over this weekend to try it (don't worry -- we'll have medics on-hand).  And we'll report back with everyone's reactions early next week.

Stay tuned!