When I first saw a recipe for Black Forest coffee and it was described as almost drinking a black forest cake, I wondered why the beverage recipe contained no liquor at all. Although American versions of the Black Forest cake are almost always alcohol-free, in traditional German recipes, Ergo, when I made two cups of…
I have very fond memories of the mudslide cocktail drink. It was a sweltering November afternoon and my friends and I had just boarded the cruise ship after stuffing ourselves with Thai food on the beach and in a flea market in Phuket. Instead of going straight back to our cabin, my friend Osang and…
Read More “Bailey’s Plus Kahlua Plus Vodka Equals Mudslide” »
Chai means tea in several South Asian languages. Masala (literally, a mixture of spices) chai means spiced tea although many people associate masala chai with spiced milk tea. The addition of milk is a British influence. Tea has been grown in some South Asian regions for thousands of years but tea was used as an…
The very first coffee recipe that I posted on this blog is the chocolate mint coffee plain coffee in which two bars of Andes mint chocolate were dropped and stirred. That was almost three years ago and I have become acquainted with a whole lot of ingredients since. This newer version of my chocolate mint…
Tea has always been part of our household even when I was very young. Just as much as coffee was. My mother always had bags of Lipton tea around but it was my father who introduced me to dried loose tea leaves that he bought from Chinatown. Although I do keep tea bags for those…
According to Wikipedia, there are at least three theories as to the origin of the name of the Bloody Mary cocktail drink. The first is that it was named after Mary, Queen of England (1516-1558). The second is that it was inspired by actress Mary Pickford. For me, there is only one Bloody Mary a…
I would learn much later that the phrase consists of two lines from a song by Rupert Holmes entitled Escape but which became more popularly known as The Pina Colada Song. Pina colada is considered the national drink of Puerto Rico. The story has it that the captain of a pirate ship used to serve…
We’re running on a different schedule in the house these days. Both kids now have half-day classes as the school year draws to a close. That means lunch is around 2.00 p.m. when the school bus drops them home. So, instead of cooking lunch for myself, I postpone breakfast until around 9.00 or 10.00 in…
When I read from Ces’ food blog that it’s going to be fusion cooking for the 12th edition of Lasang Pinoy, I got overly excited. This is my passion–turning traditional, often boring, recipes into dishes that are more today. I started digging into my archives to find out which of my previously posted recipes would…
Spanish in origin, churros are fried strips of dough. They may be dipped in thick chocolate or sprinkled with a mixture of sugar and cinnamon. The churros in the photo were made with a ready mix. It’s something new in the market from Antonio Pueo, maker of the chocolate tablets that are melted to make…
