Mmm…root beer float — such a perfect drink/dessert combo, except it almost feels like there’s something missing…oh right — booze!
2 oz. Van Gogh Dutch Caramel Vodka
1 scoop vanilla ice cream
6 oz. chilled root beer
Add the vodka directly to a tall glass, then top with root beer, and lastly the ice cream (add slowly, as it has a tendency to overflow). Garnish with a long straw and enjoy!
– 57 percent of ESers just say no to breast milk cheese. But Dan brings up a good question:
Is breast milk cheese vegan? since no animals are kept against free will and all. I see a huge moneymaking idea.
While Summer just wonders where they’re getting all that milk to begin with:
I nursed my son for 18 months, and pumped every once in a while, and OMG pumping is NOT EASY. I know very few women who were able to pump a lot of milk, and “a lot” means more than 6 oz. per pumping session. I considered the stuff to be liquid gold… no way was I going to waste it on grown-ups! Unless his wife has a freakish oversupply, I just don’t get it.
–Nora checks in with some more advice on how to cook a peking duck:
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– Is angry the new cute? With over 600 votes already cast in our cutest eater contest, Victoria (this does not look like what I ordered!) is in the lead with 15 percent of the vote. Although with the ballot box open until next Friday, it’s still any baby’s game.
– westcoast dares to disagree with gansie on never-ending salad bars:
This is dangerous territory you have embarked on here…fighting words. Now, I will admit, finding a combination of flavor that works at these places is a bit tiresome and sometimes expensive, but here’s where I have ended up — spinach, smoked tofu (Chopt’s smoked tofu is ridiculously good), fried onions OR chinese noodles, any cheese OR no cheese, walnuts, apples, jalepenos, and radishes. Now does that sound good? Not really. But does it taste good? At least three days a week.
Are you able to handle the never-ending salad bar? What’s your go-to mix? Feed us back.
– Meanwhile, jamesdamian has had just about enough of this RC Cola bashing:
RC Cola is a far superior soda to Coke & Pepsi. Just because it doesn’t have the market share that large multi-nationals have does not make it low class. Snob, indeed.
Gotta say I’m surprised. Are there other closet RC lovers out there? And why are there so many photos on the web of people wearing RC Cola on their heads? So many questions…
(Photo: Brent)
I am never early for anything in my life. And I’m barely ever on time. Late. Late. Late. So when I arrived at my friend Whitney’s bridal shower at exactly 11 am—showered, hung over, and pleased with my sexy parking spot with 51 minutes already stacked in the meter—I was of course, very proud of myself. Then I tried to open the door and it was locked. Yea, Farmers & Fishers wasn’t open. Panic. The manager came over and unlocked the door.
Manager: “We’re not open yet, we open at 11:30.”
Me: <Took a step back, swinging head from side to side, am I at the right restaurant? What day is it? Am I that hung over? Fuck.> “Um.”
Manager: “Are you here for the bridal shower.”
Me: <Phew!!!> “Yes.”
Manager: “It doesn’t start until 12. But you’re welcome to sit at the bar and wait.”
Me: <Are you FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?! The bar! I can’t even look at alcohol. Kill me.> Oh man. I’m never early for anything. Thanks. And where can I get some change for my meter?”
Manager: “The bar.”
After feeding the meter, I play on my iPhone for an hour (at the seat next to the host stand), mostly flipping through pictures of magnificent dresses on the Style.com app. When we get in the private room I’m offered wine. Instead I ask for a Coke.
Server: “We don’t have Coke…”
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We’ve certainly never been against drinking here at ES — it just traditionally takes a back seat to eating. However, in the last year we’ve found ourselves getting more and more excited about cocktails — because every time we go out we discover our favorite ingredients have migrated from the plate to the glass. From fruits and vegetables to spices and more, here are our top 10 favorite new things to mix in our drinks.
A saffron ice cube anchors the Venetian, one of several new food-inspired cocktails at Tulio in Seattle.
Not just for paella anymore, the Spanish spice has started showing up in cocktail glasses, too. Saffron Restaurant and Lounge in Minneapolis has mixed the pricier-than-gold flakes into saffron-mango mojitos, saffron-blood orange martinis, and their current offering, the gin-based Saffron Rose. Tulio, an Italian restaurant in Seattle, recently introduced The Venetian — a vodka cocktail poured over an orange-y saffron ice cube. For those experimenting at home, the folks over at Video Jug have a video on how to mix a saffron vodka martini. (Tulio photo: Evan Johnson)
Fresh beet juice, ginger and vodka make up the Beetnik at Colorado's Dogwood Cocktail Cabin.
It’s hard to make a drink look more dramatic than when filled up with bright red beet juice, as in the beet sangria at New York’s Tailor or the Beetnik, a vodka-ginger-beet concoction served at Crested Butte, Colorado’s Dogwood Cocktail Cabin. Meanwhile, the gals at The Humble Kitchen have a recipe for their own tequila-based Beetnik. (Dogwood photo: eenwall)
Mole bitters liven up the Palermo Gentleman at Death + Co. in New York.
Mexico’s spicy-sweet chocolate treat is making the surprising transition from tamales to cocktails via Bittermens Bitters newest product, Xocolatl Mole Bitters. A neat way to add quite a substantial kick to any drink, the mole bitters are showing up in new cocktails like the tequila-based Chipilo at Brooklyn’s Buttermilk Channel and several options at Manhattan’s Death + Co. (Photo: Vidiot)
Every Top Chef contestant’s favorite secret ingredient can save a cocktail menu too, as in “El Scorcho,” a fiery mix of habanero infused vodka, sriracha, and jalapeno foam at Bend, Oregon’s Blacksmith restaurant. The sauce also makes a great replacement for Tabasco in bloody Marys — the blog White on Rice Couple has a great recipe, and if you want to get super-serious, check out their instructions on how to make sriracha from scratch. (Photo: White on Rice Couple)
6. Chinese Five Spice
Another ingredient Chinese chefs may be shocked to discover in American cocktails, C5S is showing up both as a garnish, as in the Fortune Teller drink served at the Surrey Hotel‘s new Bar Pleiades in New York, and as the basis of a drink, such as Imbibe magazine’s Five-Spice Fizz. (Photo: Bar Pleiades)
Fuck. So I’m back at work now. But at least I have these so-so photos from my iPhone to remember my looooong road trip from Atlanta to Hartsville to Nashville to Knoxville to Kingsport and back to DC. Let me walk you through my trip, via food, of course.
I learned a few things. Sex in different language sells. Coke’s secret formula has nothing to do with taste. Chile’s Lift is the best soft drink in South America. I paid $45 for 80P, 80P’s Mom and me to be brainwashed into drinking Coke for the rest of our lives. And it was worth it.
Don’t worry. I didn’t eat that enormous chili cheese dog pictured above (80 did!). I try to avoid meat and fast food. Shockingly, though, the mozzarella sticks were awesome. And the black and white shake, even better. Actually, get this.
We all know what a black and white shake is, right? So I wake up drunk on New Years Day, giggle my ass off for an hour, start to feel crappy, head to a diner and try to order a milkshake on my way out. And my fucking server looks at me like I’m insane. She took a triple take. And she goes, “Um, like put them on top of each other?”
What the fuck? What would that even mean? I clearly did not order a milkshake from that establishment.
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Independence Day 2008 inspired Endless Simmer’s most popular all-time post: The Top 10 Foods Only America Could Have Invented. So by popular demand (actually, by DAD GANSIE’s year-old suggestion), we’ve returned with a list of 10 ridiculous, patriotic ways to wash down all those corn dogs and buffalo wings. Don’t head out to the BBQs this 4th of July weekend without first consulting The Top 10 Drinks Only America Could Have Invented:
What? You thought this one was invented in Ireland? Yeah, by a leprechaun who needed something to pour over his Lucky Charms. In fact, this often-spilled, rather insensitive homage to the Emerald Isle’s Troubles was first concocted at Wilson’s Saloon in St. Norwich, Connecticut on St. Patrick’s Day, 1979. Only our most industrious country could produce minds bright enough to think “Hey, I can get drunk twice as fast if I just drop my shot right into my beer!” For the uninformed, a Car Bomb is equal parts Jameson Whiskey and Bailey’s Irish Cream, poured into a shot glass. Then you drop the shot into a pint of Guinness and chug the whole thing. Brilliant!
Honorable mentions: Sake bomb (pretty sure they don’t do this in Tokyo), and the Russian Boilermaker (surprise — not from Moscow).
(Photo: Penguin Bush)
Looks so deceptively refreshing, doesn’t it? Only the most ridiculous place in all of America could loan its name to a drink that basically involves pouring everything behind the bar into one glass. For the record, a traditional Long Island is made from vodka, gin, tequila, rum, triple sec, sour mix and just a splash of cola. It tastes surprisingly un-revolting and (less surprisingly) makes you do some pretty stupid things after drinking it.
(Photo: Krscoci)
It’s not dessert! It’s coffee! Riiiiight. Only Starbucks could convince the skinny jean wearing, yogalates practicing, yuppie women of America that it’s OK to buy a drink that has more calories than a bucket of lard. But if it’s served in a cup, it doesn’t count as food.
(Photo: Shiok or Not)
If there’s one thing we Yanks do well, it’s obsession. And anyone who’s every met one of us can tell you there are two things we can’t stop talking about: getting effed up, and bacon. So it was only a matter of time before we combined our two loves into one outrageous, trend-ending drink. The bacontini, now appearing on every blog, and soon enough, every bar across the USA.
But what to do the morning after you wake up and realize you’ve consumed nine shots of vodka and half-a-pound of bacon? Obviously, that’s when you switch over to exercise beer. The latest trend in American brews is super-low calorie beers like MGD 64, Select 55, and Michelob Ultra, which is my favorite because the ads for it actually show people drinking beer and then exercising. Finally, a way to get wasted every night and still lose weight, because you wouldn’t want to do something as drastic as, say, drink a little less beer.