Category: Drink

from the 1950 Betty Crocker Cookbook

4 cups (124 g) Cheerios – how long have these been heart-shaped?

1½ cups (210 g) salted roast peanuts

1½ cups (319 g) brown sugar

¾ cup (255 g) molasses

½ cup (113 g) water

4 teaspoons vinegar

1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar

1½ teaspoons baking soda

In a large greased bowl, combine the cereal and the peanuts.

In a large saucepan, combine the brown sugar, molasses, water, vinegar, and cream of tartar.

Over medium heat, bring the molasses mixture to a boil, stirring occasionally. Continue boiling, until the mixture comes to a temperature of 250ºF — this is what no-nonsense grandmothers and aunts used to call the “soft-ball” stage.

At this point you will need some way of measuring the temperature of the hot molasses syrup. One option is an old-fashioned frying/candy thermometer. Another is a whisk with an integrated thermometer — I like this option a lot; it allows you to multitask. You can continue to stir and still keep track of the temperature.

I would add a note of caution, however. There are two parts to this whisk/thermometer — it’s a probe thermometer that is pushed through a small hole into the whisk component. The electronic thermometer doesn’t like to get wet, so as I was cleaning up after making this candy, I congratulated myself on remembering to pull the two components apart before washing them. This turned out to be difficult. The molasses candy was very sticky and had set up more firmly than I expected. I decided to pull with more effort, only to rip the whole thing in two. As I stared down at the loose wires jutting out from the broken thermometer base, I swear they looked judgmentally at me for my betrayal.

As soon as the molasses syrup reaches 250ºF, remove it immediately from the heat, and stir the baking soda into the mixture as quickly as possible. It will foam up and look really cool.

Pour the hot, foamy syrup over the cereal-peanut mixture, and stir to combine with a well-greased spoon. The key term from this point forward will be “well-greased.”

Let the mixture sit and cool for a few minutes, which will give you a chance to grease up your hands.

Using your well-greased hands, form the cereal mixture into 2-inch patties and press them down on a well-greased silicone mat or a well-greased sheet of parchment paper. As greasy as this whole endeavor is, when you get about three quarters of the way through the patty-making process you will wish you had greased everything even a little bit more.

Let the patties sit for half an hour or so before eating any of them, and let the remainder harden up overnight.

A note about cleaning up: The best tool for cleaning your mixing bowl and saucepan seems to be a stiff-bristled kitchen brush. You might be tempted to use the green scrubby part of a sponge, but you’ll end up going through several of them, which you will end up having to throw away. A brush will not only make reasonably fast work of cleaning up; it will also clean itself of any candy residue. This brush may become your new best friend. Name him.

If you haven’t run the gauntlet of candy-making before, this is a pretty good beginner’s project. This is a good candy, with a low effort-to-reward ratio. In 1950 Betty and her ghost writer wrote that these candies are “like caramel corn,” which they are, in a way. There’s no actual popcorn involved, of course, but the Cheerios and the peanuts stay crunchy, without the annoying hard bits of corn kernels that stick in your teeth with actual caramel corn. These are chewy candies that taste mildly of molasses, Cheerios and salt. They are excellent with a mug of tea.

They just need a more exciting name. Ernesto, perhaps? Bruno? Fanaka, Queen of the Amazons?

John Fladd is a veteran Hippo writer, a father, writer and cocktail enthusiast, living in New Hampshire.

Featured photo: Molasses Patties. Photo by John Fladd.

Red Arrow shows famous visitors in online photo album

Presidential hopefuls love to have their pictures taken in diners. And primary candidates make absolutely certain to visit one of the Red Arrow diners — well-known diners in New Hampshire — particularly the mother diner in Manchester.

This makes sense to Amanda Wihby, co-owner and COO of Red Arrow, who says that visiting a diner gives candidates a chance to meet with Granite Staters from every walk of life.

“Diners are the focal point of a community,” she said. “All types of people want comfort, and we specialize in comfort food.”

The Red Arrow regularly posts photos of celebrities who eat there on an online photo album at redarrowdiner.com/category/famous-guests. It isn’t surprising that the most recent photos are predominantly of politicians — though scroll down to September 2023 and you’ll find Adam Sandler, who regularly dines at the Red Arrow and has a burger named after him.

Wihby says that sometimes the diner’s staff has advance notice of when a candidate will come to the diner, but there’s always the possibility of a surprise visit.

“Sometimes a campaign team will get in touch with us a week ahead of time; sometimes it’s a day. There are times when the Secret Service will show up and we’re like, ‘OK, I guess we’ve got a candidate visiting,’” she said

Even the ad hoc visits are not as disruptive as you might think.

“Most of our staff are veteran employees. They’ve been with us a long time, and they know how to make sure everyone is taken care of, no matter what’s happening up front,” Wihby said.

According to Wihby, these are some of takeaways from this season’s candidate visits:

• Nicest Candidate:Sen. Tim Scott — According to Wihby, he had the press wait outside during his visit, took a coffee pot around to all the customers and gave them refills. Afterward, he went into the kitchen to talk to the staff there.

• Hardest-Working Candidate: Nikki Haley, who visited four times. “She put in a lot of effort. She’s a good example of retail politics.”

• Best Tipper: “None of them pay; it’s always the campaign manager. But the servers never complain — let’s put it that way.”

What did they eat?

Tim Scott: An Arrow spinach omelet, with grits and wheat toast.

Vivek Ramaswamy: Veggie quesadilla.

Donald Trump: A Trump Tower Burger and a chocolate shake.

Dean Phillips: A peanut butter and chocolate chip waffle.

Featured photo: Tim Scott at the Red Arrow. Courtesy Photos.

We’ve all been there.

You might be sitting and having coffee or cocktails with a friend. You start talking about something safe and ordinary but 20 minutes later realize the conversation has drifted drastically. You might start with, “Oh, I like that T-shirt. Is it new?” and before you know it you are arguing about what song Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu sang as he and his wife were led to the firing squad. (“The Internationale,” as it turns out.)

Sometimes you or your friend are curious enough to try to track the conversation:

“OK, you asked how my mother-in-law was, and I said something like, ‘Still mean as a snake.’”

“Right. Then that reminded me of the snake I saw in my backyard last week, and how it took me half an hour to get up my courage and try to herd it into a garbage can, but when I got close it turned out to be a hose that I forgot to roll back up.”

“Yes, and that reminded me that your son usually does that for you, but he’s in college in Omaha.”

“And then you started telling me about that girl you dated 30 years ago who used to be a fire-eater with a carnival — which I still don’t believe, by the way — and that got us talking about what kind of alcohol fire-eaters spit out to shoot flames, which led to us drinking gin.”

“I knew there was a reason.”

Drink recipes are a bit like that sort of conversation. Someone will develop a perfectly nice cocktail. Friends or customers like it, and the recipe gets passed around. At some point someone makes a reasonable substitution for one of the ingredients; then someone adapts that recipe, and eventually the drink evolves into something unrecognizable.

If you take a look through the cocktail classic The 1930 Home Bartender’s Guide and Songbook — a Prohibition-era book that warms even my cold, jaded heart — you will find a recipe for a Gin Sour, one of my favorite drinks. This is what used to be called a “Daisy.” I call it a “Utility Cocktail.” It consists of a spirit, a sweet syrup or liqueur, and something acidic, usually fresh lemon or lime juice. A margarita is a good example of this; so is a classic Daiquiri.

A riff on a riff on a riff of a margarita is a Gold Rush — bourbon, lemon juice and honey. This week’s drink is a further riff on that: rye instead of bourbon and maple syrup instead of honey. Instead of calling this a Gold Rush, we’ll call it a:

Brass-Plated Shuffle

2 ounces rye whiskey – I’ve been working my way through a bottle of Knob Creek, and I’m very pleased with it

1 ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice

¾ ounce dark maple syrup

Combine all ingredients over ice in a cocktail shaker.

Shake until your hands become uncomfortably cold. You want this drink to be as cold as possible.

Strain over fresh ice in a rocks glass.

Ask your digital assistant to play “Once in a Lifetime” by the Talking Heads. Sip your cocktail. The refrain of “How did I get here?” will resonate with you.

Whiskey and lemon are a natural partnership. Because it’s a little sour and spicy on its own, rye might be even a better match for lemon than other whiskeys. That sourness needs to be balanced out, however. In a whiskey sour, this would be done with sugar syrup. In this third cousin of a whiskey sour, the sweetness comes from maple syrup. The maple back-note adds a fortitude — you might even say “brass” — to the project.

Some cocktails go down quickly and often too easily. The Shuffle is a sipping drink; it commands a certain amount of attention and respect. As it chills, it becomes increasingly more sippable.

As it gets more sippable, you will become more convivial. Regardless of how you got there.

Featured photo: Brass-Plated Shuffle. Photo by John Fladd.

The Bedford Village Inn livens up March with two events: Fondi Restaurant Week and Burgerama.

According to the Bedford Village Inn’s website, Burgerama will feature uniquely inspired burgers served in the Inn’s Tavern, a quintessential New England pub, ranging in price from $16 to $22 and served with an unending amount of fries.

For those in the mood for Italian cuisine, Fondi Restaurant Week will showcase a chef-curated dining experience at the Inn’s Italian eatery’s Trattoria Fondi from March 5 through March 9. The cost for the three-course Italian meal is $49 per guest.

No reservations are required for either event.

“Burgerama was inspired and established as a BVI tradition due to the popularity of our Wicked Burger (a menu staple in the Tavern dating back to 2011),” said Bedford Village Inn’s Sales & Marketing Director Melissa Samaras in an email. “Each weekend, our executive Chef would create an inspired, oversized and indulgent burger to offer in the Tavern. The popularity of the wicked burger inspired Burgerama.”

The burger celebration has been held in March at the eatery since 2012.

“Over the past few years,” Samaras said, “we’ve added an in-house competition to up the ante…. Our chefs enter the contest to create a new burger (never before offered on the menu), and staff votes for their favorite — the prize for the winning Chef [is] we feature their burger on Facebook and Instagram.”

Burgerama starts March with Italian Week, showcasing a Wicked Meatball Burger, Wicked Chicken Parm and Italian Sausage Sliders, all served with garlic Parmesan fries. The theme for the second week of the month is Mediterranean, where a Wicked Lamb Burger, Wicked Falafel Burger and Wicked Keftedakia Burger will be offered, all served with Za’atar Fries. The third week has an Asian spin, featuring a Duck Burger, Wicked Godzilla Burger, and Bahn Mi Sliders, all served with Togarashi Fries. Ending March with a flourish, Burgerama will showcase the Tavern’s own specialties: the Wicked Local Burger, Original Wicked Burger and BVI Sliders, all served with herbed Parmesan fries.

About Fondi’s Restaurant Week, Samaras said, “We’ve reimagined the idea to capture Italian food lovers who have yet to experience … Trattori Fondi … a hidden gem inside the Bedford Village Inn’s Grand Boutique Hotel.” Describing Fondi as “casual, yet elevated,” she added, “In Fondi, you won’t find white tablecloths…. Instead, you’ll find a large bar and intimate dining tables with plenty of privacy….”

Fondi’s menu “pays homage to the classics and offers modern Italian cuisine. All pasta and pizzas are housemade, and Chef Scott Siff composes each dish alongside Fondi’s Italian food-loving culinary team,” Samaras said.

Fondi Restaurant Week welcomes diners to choose a first course of tuna crudo, prosciutto board or romaine salad. Second-course selections are roasted pork loin, rigatoni cacio e pepe, spaghetti alla scampi, or Dunk’s mushroom risotto. To cap off each savory meal, diners are invited to take their pick from a dark chocolate torte, tiramisu sponge cake, gelato or sorbetto.

BVI Events

2 Olde Bedford Way, Bedford
472-2001, www.bedfordvillageinn.com/experiences

Fondi Restaurant Week
When: Tuesday, March 5, through Saturday, March 9 (open Tuesday through Thursday from 5 to 9:30 p.m.; Friday and Saturday from 4 to 10 p.m.)
Cost: $49 per guest; no reservation required

Burgerama

When: Friday, March 1, through Saturday, March 31 (open Monday and Tuesday, 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Wednesday through Friday, 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Saturday, 2 to 10 p.m., and Sunday, 2 to 8 p.m)
Cost: $16 to $22 per burger; no reservation required

Featured photo: Granola. Photo by John Fladd.

• 2½ cups (222 grams) old-fashioned rolled oats
• ¼ to ½ cup chopped nuts
• ¼ cup sesame/poppy seeds
• 3 Tablespoons brown sugar
• ½ teaspoon coarse sea salt
• ½ teaspoon cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon black pepper
• ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
• ¼ cup vegetable oil
• ⅓ cup maple syrup
• 1 to 2 teaspoons vanilla

Preheat oven to 310ºF.

In the largest bowl you have, mix the dry ingredients together. In a smaller container, mix the wet ingredients together.

Combine the dry and wet ingredients, mixing them thoroughly. Clean hands work well for this.

Spread the raw granola loosely on a baking sheet with a silicone mat or parchment paper.

Bake for 15 minutes.

Stir, then pack down firmly with a spatula or a wooden spoon. This will leave you with big clumps of the finished granola.

Bake for another 15 minutes, during which time your kitchen will smell very, very good. If you’ve managed to get yourself in trouble with a wife or boyfriend, this will boost you 50 percent of the way out of the hole you’re in.

Remove from the oven and let cool for at least half an hour.

Eat it with — Oh, come on! It’s granola. You know what to do with it.

This is a solid delicious granola with a hint of saltiness and a tiny kick of spiciness. The great thing about this particular recipe — or any granola recipe, when you come down to it — is how adaptable it is:

Oats – This is probably the only ingredient you can’t mess with too much, but if you happen to run across some rolled barley or something, I’m pretty sure that would work too. Granola is very forgiving.

Nuts – You’re pretty wide open to improvisation here. I generally use roasted, salted nuts; my favorites are pistachios or pecans, but I’ll bet peanuts would be delicious. I’m very much not a walnut guy, but if you like them, they’d probably be delicious. My wife has asked me to use shredded coconut next time I make this.

Seeds – Again, it’s probably hard to go wrong with any seeds. I tend to fall back on a 50/50 mix of sesame and poppy seeds, but I’ve had good luck with hemp seeds. Sunflower kernels or pepitas (Mexican pumpkin seeds) would probably be excellent too. If you end up using a higher volume of seeds, add a little more of the liquid ingredients.

Brown sugar – Could you replace this with maple sugar or jaggery (Indian fermented brown sugar)? I don’t see why not.

Seasonings – You have just as many options here, but you might want to take a moment to think through any spices you add to your granola. I took this particular granola to a potluck breakfast at work once and the cayenne pepper made an otherwise kind and gentle coworker almost take a swing at me. I grew up in Vermont, at a time when salt and pepper was seen as dangerously adventurous. I should have remembered that people in this part of the world feel vaguely — or apparently not so vaguely — threatened by spicy food. With that said, I misread my notes and almost added cardamom to this recipe instead of cinnamon, and I think that might actually work. Your mileage may vary.

Oil – This recipe calls for vegetable oil, because it has a fairly neutral flavor and a high smoke point, but I’ve substituted hazelnut oil before and was very pleased.

Maple syrup – Honey works well here. If you’ve made syrup for cocktails — ginger or raspberry syrup for instance — that would work well, too.

Chocolate chips, M&Ms or gummy bears – Save them for your trail mix. If you decide to try them in your granola, mix them in after it is made and cooled. They wouldn’t make it through the baking process intact.

Featured photo: Granola. Photo by John Fladd.

About a week ago I found a truly excellent photo online of Walter the Muppet and the Great Gonzo posing for a selfie at Epcot Center. If you are unsure who Walter and Gonzo are, just know that they are extremely cool to nerdy Muppet enthusiasts.

I saved the picture to a file on my computer, not entirely sure what I would do with it. I have a habit of doing this; I have a collection of hundreds of funny, strange or just interesting pictures to attach to emails or use in presentations. I never know when one of them might come in handy, so I keep them around, just in case. Yes, I suppose this is hoarding, but it’s digital hoarding, so at least I can still navigate my living room.

After an hour or so, I thought, “You know who would love this picture? The Artist.” Our only child is a freshman at art school in Chicago, and this might make a nice surprise.

So I uploaded the photo to a drug store to be printed. Later that afternoon I picked up my prints, then went to an art supply store and bought a frame. I had to juggle a couple of cards and my cellphone at the register while I tried to find a coupon for the frame, and ended up throwing everything into my bag as I left the store, because I didn’t want to hold up the line behind me.

When I mailed the framed Muppet photo to The Artist, I used the art supply store bag as cushioning, to protect the glass in the frame, and long story short, I’m pretty sure I mailed my debit card to Chicago.

I’ve dedicated this week’s cocktail to my lone remaining brain cell.

The Brain Cell

• 1 ounce Ol’ Major Bacon Bourbon
• 1 ounce Howler Head Banana Bourbon
• 1 ounce Skrewball Peanut Butter Whiskey
• 1 ounce fresh squeezed lime juice
• 1 ounce ginger beer – not ginger ale; this drink needs the extra bit of ginger
• 4 drops Tabasco sauce

Combine all three whiskeys, the lime juice, and the Tabasco over ice in a cocktail shaker. Shake to chill.

Add the ginger beer and stir gently.

Strain over fresh ice in a rocks or coupé glass.

Sip, while listening to “Yalili Ya Aini,” by Jah Wobble’s Invaders of the Heart. It’s a strange and beautiful song that will match your — OK, my — mental state.

This can be a slightly befuddling cocktail, even before you make it. The list of its ingredients are surprising, perhaps even intimidating. Bourbon, bacon, banana and peanut butter don’t seem to make a lot of sense together. And yet the combination works.

Many people are familiar with an “Elvis Sandwich” — peanut butter and banana. It seems pleasantly wacky, but the sweetness of the banana complements the proteiny solidity of the peanut butter. What most people don’t know is that the sandwich Elvis Presley actually loved was a grilled peanut butter, banana and bacon sandwich. There’s a common thread there of saltiness, sweetness and umami. (Clearly, my own exhausted brain cells have a strange priority in what they are dedicated to.)

So there’s our drink’s whiskey taken care of. We know that bourbon pairs well with sweet tastes, and certainly with other whiskeys. But won’t that leave this drink too sweet? It would, if not for the lime juice, which brings everything back in line. Its acidity and fruitiness pair well with the peanut butter and banana flavors.

The ginger beer and the Tabasco give a little bit of a bite to the operation, and the ginger beer also adds a slight tingle of effervescence.

This is one of those cocktails that comes at you in waves. The bacon and peanut butter hit you first, followed by fruity, tingly aftertaste. You’ll know that you like it, as soon as you taste it, but you will probably drink at least two of these, trying to wrap your head around it.

Without having to go to Chicago.

Featured photo: The Brain Cell. Photo by John Fladd.