Muffin Top

mrmmm vodka collins w fresh squezed lemon juice and organic maraschino cherries, originally uploaded by c(h)ristine.

It’s one of the biggest booze buying days of the year–everyone’s stocking up for the parties! My list? I bought some of the following: Lillet and Lillet Blanc, Gosling’s Black Seal Rum, and Grey Goose Vodka. Oh and big ass bottle of natural maraschino cherries (I’m addicted).

What am I going to do with my purchases this holiday season?

• Lillet Blanc is great with club soda over ice as an apertif. Or with a twist of orange. Or in a Corpse Reviver:
  3/4 oz Gin
  3/4 oz Lillet Blanc
  3/4 oz Cointreau
  3/4 oz lemon juice
  2 drops Pernod
• I’m in love with a “Dark and Stormy” (my new discovery at a dissident chef dinner–though for many of you it may not be so new). A Dark and Stormy is Gosling’s Black Seal Rum with ginger beer in a 1:2 ratio. That’s the basic recipe, although I hear you can add a touch of lime or lemon juice. I’m so loyal to vodka and gin drinks, I’m surprised how much I like this rum-based drink. But it’s a winner.
• If you want something different from a cosmo or lemon drop, but still want one foot in fancy martini/vodka land…try a French Martini (one of my fave drinks–my first french martini was at Balthazar in New York over five years ago). It’s vodka, chambord, and pineapple shaken together and served in a martini glass. That’s another drink I’ll be serving this season.
• Of course I bought a ton of club soda and tonic water for the mixers like gin and tonic, etc.

Funny. I’m not making any of the drinks that bartenders hate to make: the lemon drop, cosmo, mojito, and manhattan. (btw, two of my favorite cocktails are the lemon drop and cosmo–I’m going to look closely at the bartender’s face to see if he/she grimaces when I order them).

The site I reference throughout this post is The Art of Drink, run by a bartender who cares to share his thoughts on drink.

homemade sullungtang: aka beef knucklebone soup, originally uploaded by c(h)ristine.

COMFORT ME WITH SOUP!

This soup is one of those “special” soups not because it takes a lot of skill to prepare, but because it takes so much time to make. I like to boil this soup for at least 8 hours, until the gelatin falls off the beef knuckle bones in soft and savory pieces that float in the millky white broth and then melt in your mouth.

I love this soup–it is a childhood comfort dish for me–but it has become one of those dishes I make while the hubby is out of town; the concept of beef knuckle bones is just not that appealing a thought to most Western palates.

What’s a “beef knuckle?” It’s the cow’s lower leg, including the hoof itself. It is damn tasty. You do not know what you’re missing if you’re saying “ewwwww” right now, you savage beast.

The house is filled with the savory, gamey aroma of the soup while I boil it for hours and hours, checking to see if the gelatin has softened (it starts out solid, then it becomes very very chewy and tough like tendon, and then ultimately something soft and delicate (you can feel the give of the gelatin under a spoon). The soft and delicate stage is what you want).

This soup takes a lot of patience, but on a homebound, cold winter day alone, this is a comforting activity. Keep simmering, putter around the house, wait for soup, savor smells, feel the anticipation. When you serve it to someone who KNOWS what this soup is, they’ll feel the love–after all, it took you 8 hours (or more) to make this soup!

Today, I’m feeling the love for myself! I think I need it–for some reason I’ve been in the doldrums. Life seems complicated and loud–so I decided to reach for a simple, soothing soup with a good dose of patience. For the past twenty-four hours, I’ve been focused on one thing: this soup. Yah. Like dudes diminish their focus to a video game for a day, I’ll tunnel on soup, thank you.

As with many Korean dishes like sam gye tang ginseng chicken, this soup is known to have medicinal qualities. My health-conscious mother always told me this was “bone soup, with lots of calcium!” It does have a lot of calcium. (Today, it’s been healthy to me in other ways).

Haha–bone soup! Because were totally Americanized kids, she didn’t tell us WHICH bones until we had fallen in love with the soup.

Some people like to add sliced daikon radish to the soup (I do, too–though I didn’t have daikon radish at home this time). The essence of the soup, however, requires very little but the beef knucklebones (called “sagol or “tongani” at Korean grocery stores).

Recipe follows after the jump…

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