If You Don't Hear From Me by Monday...

...send a St. Bernard with a cask of brandy to look for me! I'm getting ready to do a memory/system software upgrade on my computer, and I can only hope I'll find my way back. Wish me luck!

Cocktail of the Day: The Grinch

Yes, I'm back, after way too long an absence. I'll write more about that soon, but for the moment, a quick cocktail post, based on this very cool gift I got for Christmas.

In my very first foray into molecular gastronomy¹, I have tonight made for my family...

The Grinch
Ingredients:

• 400 ml + 15 ml per drink melon liqueur (Midori, in my case)
• 2g sodium alginate
• 4 cups water
• 5g calcium lactate
• Ginger ale
• Honeydew melon (optional garnish)

Tools:

• Immersion blender (or similar)
• Plastic pipette (or syringe or similar)
• Pierced spoon

Procedure: Dissolve sodium alginate in 400 ml of melon liqueur, mix with immersion blender and set aside for 5 min.; dissolve 5g calcium lactate in water (sorry 'bout the mixed units, but that's how the kit recipe specified it); drip (from pipette or similar) liqueur mixture into calcium lactate bath to form "caviar"; put ice cubes and 15 ml melon liqueur into rocks glasses; fish out "caviar" with pierced spoon and spoon over ice; top with ginger ale. Optionally, garnish with honeydew melon slice (I didn't have a honeydew melon on hand, and couldn't wait to play with my new toy).











I actually halved the liqueur/sodium alginate mixture and still got enough yield of "caviar" for four drinks, each with the equivalent of about 2 oz of alcohol. When you see the finished drink (which I found tasty, even though Midori is not usually my thing), you'll see where the name came from:



Back soon (and often) with more; I plan to keep this blog much more active in the coming year!

¹I know, I know... that's so last year, and even the term molecular gastronomy is out of fashion; what can I say? I live on the bleedingtrailing edge!