American Madness

Today’s recipe comes to us by way of OverTheHillAndOnARoll (an LA Blog for “Folks… who like livin’ the good life.”), their thoughts on Gin are pretty similar to mine. I haven’t yet had a chance to sample this one, but it sounds super refreshing, especially with the hint of cucumber.

2 oz of Gin
5 oz of Tonic Water
3 cucumber slices
1 sprig of rosemary
1 wedge of lime
Soda Water

Place the cucumber slices at the bottom of the highball glass. Squeeze lime juice into glass and slightly muddle the cucumber. Add sprig of rosemary and fill highball glass with ice. Add Gin, tonic, and finish off with a splash of soda water. If you prefer a less sweet cocktail, add less tonic water and more soda water.

Now, technically, I guess this is kind of a cheat, the rosemary acts more as a garnish then an actual ingredient, but I am guessing it is strong enough to either flavor the drink or acts an an aromatic and influences the taste through scent. Either way this definitely sounds like one to try.

So we would hate for all of that fresh basil you purchased yesterday for 1 drink to go to waste, so we figured we’d help you out with another Basil recipe today… Actually a large number of the recipes I have call for either basil or gin (and some for both.

This one comes to us from Rye in San Francisco (by way of The Kitchn), it is one of their most requested cocktails apparently and super simple to make:

Basil Gimlet

5 fresh basil leaves
2 ounces Plymouth Gin
1/2 ounce agave nectar
3/4 ounce fresh lime juice

Method: In a pint glass, muddle fresh basil, agave nectar, and lime juice. Add ice and gin. Shake vigorously and strain into stemmed glass. Garnish with fresh basil leaf.

So if you are going to whip this up keep a few things in mind- (more…)

So, you may recall that back in October I thought that this summer was going to be all about drinks made with fresh herbs.

Well, the summer is here and I’d like to give myself partial credit. Although it hasn’t been an overwhelming push, there have been a number of summer cocktails I have seen that incorporate herbs (mostly basil, some sage, a couple of others as well).

I was hoping to just collect them together and post them all at once. Instead, I am going to do one a day until I have them all posted, or at least a nice bulk of them, so keep an eye our for the “Herbal Remedies.” we’ll post over the next few days.

We’ll get you started with one I posted a few months back:

Basil Martini
2 oz DH Krahn Gin
1 oz Fresh lemon juice
3/4 oz Simple Syrup
3-4 Fresh basil leave

Put all the ingredients in a shaker with ice, adding the basil leaves last and shake hard to get the basil flavor in there nicely. Strain into a cocktail glass.

Nice and simple. We recommend DH Krahn Gin for this one because that is the gin we first had it with, and David Hughes from DH Krahn provided us with the recipe. We’ll also have a review this week of DH Krahn Gin. So this really works as a nice segue.

Yes, I’m still drinking wine. Yes, those reviews will make their way to the site, but this week I’d like to focus on the big changes over at FreshDirect. Today, the veil was raised on FreshDirect’s new wine-selling bride. After a month of anticipation, Union Square Wines (or USQ as it is abbreviated, for reasons I am unsure of) was announced as the shop of choice.

Union Square Wines at FreshDirect

I had a bit of time to poke around the new interface on FreshDirect, order a few bottles and see what is available. So, for the readers of AmericanMadness, I present the first review of FreshDirect’s new wine selection.
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Picture this-

Public Access TV meets Acid Trip (is that redundant?) meets Pee-Wees Playhouse meets Cooking Show and you start to get an idea of what to expect from Food Party.

As they explain it in the about section:

Food Party is a (would-be) TV cooking show with a spicy saigon kitchen-witch as your hostess, a cast of unruly puppets as culinary advisors, and a cavalcade of hip-hop/sports world celebrities as surprise dinner guests. Shot on location in a technicolor cardboard kitchen, each episode will instruct you on how to prepare wild gourmet multi-course meals with ingredients you probably have on hand in your kitchen already, such as pretzel rods, cheese puffs, eggs, sugar, secret ingredients, and pizza. After all, you never know who might show up for dinner.

Trust me, that doesn’t do it justice, just check out the trailer (above), the teaser (below) and then pop over to the website/blog to learn more. This is totally my type of cooking show! (more…)

It’s that time of year again, tomorrow is the Fourth of July, meaning it is also time for Nathan’s Famous 4th of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest. As per usual it will be at Coney Island and airing on ESPN, both at Noon.

The contestants for this year are a line up of the usual suspects including Joey Chestnut (the reigning champ), Tim ‘Eater X’ Janus, Sonya ‘The Black Widow’ Thomas, Crazy Legs Conti, and Takeru ‘The Tsunami’ Kobayashi.

Now here is the scandal that is rocking the competitive eating world right now: To qualify for the competition you must win a regional qualifier (unless you are the reigning champ, Joey Chestnut got a bye). Despite his impressive 6 first place finishes (from 2001-2006) and his second place finish last year, Kobayashi has not actually participated in a contest since October and has not competed in any of the regional qualifiers for the event. (more…)

Many people I know love coffee, they say that it is the ultimate drug for them, they drink their morning cup of joe and instantly feel happy, as the caffeine hits their system they feel like they could accomplish anything. As a tea drinker this isn’t something I get. It all just tastes kind of burnt to me, especially the Starbucks stuff (though, admittedly I haven’t tried their new blend). Anyway, I am aware that I am a huge majority, in fact I think I am the only one of my friends who does not drink coffee, apparently though people aren’t drinking nearly enough coffee, at least not from Starbucks.

Despite their inflated prices and push to be more then just a coffee shop, Starbucks is laying off 12,000 employees and closing the shutters on almost 600 stores. According to their press release this is part of their “Transformation Strategy” I guess that strategy would be to close stores so they are no longer a bloated mega-corporation that is losing too much money to properly function. The company had initially projected closing just 100 stores, but with the current economic climate and the company seemingly in a free-fall, 100 stores proved to be just a bit too optimistic and they are forced to shut down 600.

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The Germans have a word for this: Schadenfreude

From the Chicago Tribune:

[nutrition activists have] never checked to see if covering menus with calorie-counts actually influences consumers to eat less. No one has.

While the justification for menu-mandates rests squarely on assumption, a growing body of evidence casts doubt on their merit. Researchers at Cornell University found that posted nutrition facts spurred people to eat 131 percent more calories than when they dined free of calorie tallies.

So, by my count. American Madness team: 1 Crazed calorie posting advocates: 0 

Why can’t the ‘08 election be this easy?

We have a special guest reviewer today for 10 Cane Rum. Rachel Godfrey has sat beside me tasting all the other alcohols reviewed for AmericanMadness and since she is a die-hard mojito drinker, I figured she would be the go to person for a review of 10 Cane Rum.

RG:

I enjoy good food, but as my husband will tell you that when left to my own devices, I can feed myself for an entire weekend with a jar of peanut butter and whatever I find in the pantry. (If need be, I will nuke a hotdog or two for a better balanced meal.)

I’m pretty much the same way about alcohol. College years where I happily drank whatever was handed to me because it was free still have a lingering effect. Now that I am paying for drinks, I at least have a preference—mojitos have become my summer go-to drink, despite the fact that I always get a scowl from the bartender because of the extra work involved. But when he would ask while muddling away if I had a brand preference for my rum, I generally shrugged and said whatever. In my mind, outside of my closet, brand names mean very little.

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I read about Honibe honey drops a bit ago and thought it sounded like the perfect thing for the tea drinker on-the-go. I drink the majority of my tea at work, brewing it at my desk with hot water from the water cooler, I usually forgo honey since I already have a couple boxes of tea on my desk as well as a tea strainer, I think a jar of honey might be a bit much, so usually I just drink my tea as is, without any added sweetness.

Honebi claims to be a “Honey You Can Hold” and comes packaged in little honey drop forms. Made of 100% honey, the idea is that these small packets of hard honey can easily be tossed into your bag and brought anywhere with you with out fear of the packet breaking and you ending up with honey all over your bag. I can’t argue with the concept, it is great, the honey drops taste great too, just like honey (and how can you say anything bad about honey?). They even have a honey and lemon drop with the all-natural ingredients of honey and lemon.

Essentially, as they say on their website, Honibe “discovered a way to remove the messy stickiness from our honey while maintaining all of the great honey flavor.”

Here’s the thing though- (more…)