A return for cherries

 It's been a really long time.  Blogging was put on the far back burner while I dealt with residency and life, and then I wasn't sure if I would or should ever come back to it.  But the truth it, I was still coming back to this blog all the time to find my favorite recipes, and then I've been developing new ones and struggling to keep track of them on post it notes and emails to myself.

So in a fit of optimism, I will write about this new recipe I tried today, in the hopes that it will be a keeper.

We hit the end of Rainier cherry season in Washington, which always makes me sad because those cherries are one of my favorite things at the farmer's market.  The last week I bought them, I knew it was the end of the season, but I persisted in buying several pounds anyway.  Because of Covid19, I could not painstakingly hand select each and every cherry, so I got many many bruised ones that just weren't that tasty.  They were also getting to that too sweet point that they hit at the end of the season, where the tart balance just isn't there any more.  I'd never baked or cooked or done anything with Rainiers except eat them fresh, so I had to do my research.

It turns out, very few people recommend cooking or baking with them.  Because, as I said, they are too sweet.  You need a little acid to make things taste balanced.

However, I did find some recipes for cocktail cherries aka Maraschino cherries (or Luxardo cherries) which immediately piqued my interest because I. Love. Cocktail. Cherries.  I'm not a big cocktail drinker because alcohol makes me feel both sleepy and also vaguely ill, but I'll happily sip a Shirley Temple.  And so I went and bought myself a cherry pitter (did you know they make cherry pitters that pit six cherries at a time???  I'm not normally a kitchen gadget person so this blew my mind a little), cooked up a little syrup, and now I'm sitting at the counter admiring some jars of cherries marinading in sweetness.

A lot of recipes I read depended on a lot of alcohol or, conversely, no flavoring at all except water and sugar.  I decided I didn't like either of these options, so I looked for cherry juice.  I couldn't find any at Costco, and because there's a pandemic going on currently, I decided I wasn't going to another store and so pomegranate juice would work just fine.

Here's what I threw together:

- 1 cup pomegranate juice (100% juice, no sugar added)

- 2/3 cup granulated sugar

- pinch of salt

- small piece of a cinnamon stick (I smash whole sticks with my mortar and pestle)

 - two allspice berries

- 1/2 teaspoon almond extract

- a dozen cherry pits, smashed (again, with my mortar and pestle)

- splash of leftover red wine that's been in my fridge for 2-3 weeks, maybe 2 shots?

- splash of bourbon, less than 1/2 a shot

- splash of honey drinking vinegar because I am fancy and have that in my fridge (it was a gift from a friend)

- 1/2 cup of water

I had already pitted about a pound of Rainier cherries.  Some of the pits I saved to cook, since that's apparently a technique (says Google and other food blogs) for infusing some bitter almond flavor.  Possibly from the cyanide.  It's fine though, just take some extra Vitamin B12*.

I let all that come to a boil and then simmer for about 10 minutes,** then I poured it through a strainer, and into my glass jars filled with cherries.  And tada!  They were gorgeous in their redness.  Also, I did have some extra juice, which I tasted and it is delicious.  What a way to come back to blogging.

*This is not medical advice.

**According to my brief internet research, at least 50% of the alcohol is gone.

***No pictures because this is always what has made me so slow about posting.

Homemade Masala Chai

"Everyone needs a place. It shouldn’t be inside of someone else." -Richard Siken


The greatest thing that I have learned in these months here in Seattle is how to take care of myself.  I have always been good about what I considered the basic things, like feeding myself, making sure I got enough fruits and vegetables, and dressing appropriately for the weather, but I often assumed that happiness and mental health were things that just happened.  That I should just let the cards fall where they may.  But in the past year, with all the tremendous changes that have happened, I have come to realize how simple and important it is to create joy, to foster a sense of peace and gratitude inside my own heart.

I left a very different life on the East coast and I followed a job.  I moved to Seattle chasing an idea, a hope that this place that I fell in love with years ago at twenty-one might become home, that it might give me something that I hadn't found anywhere else.  In settling down here, I discovered the beauty of gratitude.  I feel lucky to have been fortunate enough to find work among people that I respect and trust, to make friends that care about me and support me, to fall in love again with someone who prioritizes our partnership like it is his second nature.  My gratitude fuels my joy in the simple things.  Being so content enables me to give love wholeheartedly, to my patients, to my friends, to my family, to my partner.

Food is love - I say it now like I've said it so many times before - and as I feed my body, so too have I learned to feed my soul and to care for my heart.  On days when I am stressed or down, I do something about it.  I call the people I love; I drive to the ocean; I build a fire and lie down in front of its glow and read; I drink tea in bed and listen to music.

There's something to be said about the appeal of a hot drink on grey day, whether that grey is coming from the weather or a state of mind.  For those times, I love masala chai.  When I was growing up, my mom used to buy "Chai Tea" bags which she steeped in the microwave and then served to us with vanilla ice cream.  It was one of my favorite treats.  In college, one of my good friends was Indian, and I went home with her one weekend.  Her mother made tea for us on the stove, with real spices.  I loved how the smell of it permeated the house, and the cups, made with generous amounts of honey and milk, were a delicious breakfast treat.

I learned then that "chai" is actually just a word for tea, so "chai tea" is fairly redundant.  Most of the time, what Westerners are referring to is masala chai.  It's easy to make, and I adore having a big pot on the stove and letting the smell of the warm spices fill my apartment.  Though recipes vary, this is one that I love for its spice and heat.

Masala Chai
5 cups water
2-3" fresh ginger
3 inches of cinnamon bark, broken
1/2 teaspoon peppercorns (I generally use black, but I've read that white may be better)
3 star anise, broken
15 cloves (about 1 teaspoon)
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
5 black tea bags (or 5 teaspoons loose black tea)
1/3 cup raw sugar or honey
1 cup milk (I've used skim and 1%, but it's your choice)
optional: additional milk for serving

In a medium pot, bring the water, ginger, cinnamon, peppercorns, star anise, cloves, and cardamom to a boil.
Once boiling, add the tea bags and steep for 10 minutes.
Remove the tea bags.
Bring the mixture to a boil again.  Once boiling, lower the heat.  Add the sugar or honey and 1 cup milk and simmer on low heat for 25-30 minutes.
Strain out the spices.
Serve with more milk if desired.
You can store your chai tea in the fridge for several weeks.  It reheats well.

Ice Wine Tasting and Niagara-on-the-Lake

If there's one thing that sets me apart from most people my age, it is that I don't like alcohol.  I mean, I'm not Puritan and I have no real aversion to a nice mixed drink, but most of the time, I just prefer not to ingest any ethanol.  This is in part because I am Asian, and therefore get the "Asian glow" in which my cheeks turn shades of pink, and also in part because alcohol just makes me sleepy.

The one exception to my standard alcohol avoidance though is ice wine.  I first tried this one Thanksgiving with my family.  My parents would occasionally share a glass of red wine with dinner, but they rarely drank sweet wine when I was growing up, and this particular wine was a discovery for me.  It was a dessert wine, but with a nice balance of tartness, and a very pleasant almost caramelized honey taste.  The rest of my family was equally fond of it, and so we dabbled in sweet wines.  I tasted Niagara Falls ice wine from Jackson Triggs, and my parents went to the Niagara Ice Wine Festival one winter and raved about it to my sister and I.  When I had time this winter, I finally decided that it was time for me to take a trip up north and have my first ever winery experience.  I went with B. and two close friends of ours who had never tried ice wine before.


We went up to Niagara Falls, spent the night there, and then drove out the next day to the ice wineries.  We used the Peller Wine Country Touring passes, which are sold for $20 online, as part of the our wine tasting experience.  This pass allows you to visit Trius Winery at Hillebrand, Wine Country Vinters, Thirty Bench, and Peller Estates.  We actually didn't buy our passes, but received the vouchers for free with our hotel stay (The Ramada at Niagara), so it was a fantastic deal for us.

Trius Winery at Hillebrand
1249 Niagara Stone Road
Niagara On the Lake, ON L0S 1J0 Canada

This was our first stop of the day, at 12pm on Friday.  The touring pass allows you to go on a general tour of the winery.  We had a very unenthusiastic female guide, but we still enjoyed the tour. You get to see a lot of the wine making machines and apparatuses and explore a larger portion of the cellars than you do at any other winery. After the tour, they have (included) a structured tasting of a white wine, a red wine, and an ice wine. The white wine and red wine were fairly average, and the Vidal ice wine was my least favorite ice wine that I've ever tried (and I've enjoyed many ice wines, from Inniskillin and Jackson Triggs to various ice wines from Austria and Germany).  It had a strange metallic taste that was rather off putting.

I was a little disappointed by the tasting, although my friends enjoy the structure of it and the tips that our guide had for how to taste and judge a wine as well as what to do for wine pairings.
 After we finished our tour, we walked through their shop.  They do have a wine tasting "bar" where you can pay to taste certain wines.
 It was $7 to taste a selection of any 3 wines from their menu.  This seemed like a fantastic deal for the ice wines, so we tried a sparkling wine, a Riesling ice wine, and a Cabernet franc ice wine (and I kept saying "we" because we paid for and shared one tasting among the four of us friends).  My friends were partial to the Cabernet Franc.  It was my first time trying a red ice wine, and I didn't enjoy it as much as the Riesling.  The Riesling ice wine actually ended up being my favorite wine that I tasted at all the wineries, so we came back that night at the end of our day of touring to buy a bottle for ourselves.
If you do a tasting and then buy a bottle, the cost of the tasting ($7) goes towards the cost of your bottle, which was nice.  This means you essentially get to do the tasting for free!

Peller Estates 

290 John Street E
Niagara On the Lake, ON L0S 1J0 Canada

The tour that was available with our wine pass was the "3 Generations of Wine Making" which includes a tasting of a white, a red, and a Vidal ice wine. They also have grape juice available for any children (or designated drivers!) on the tour.  We arrived shortly before the tour at 1:30pm (on Friday).
Ben was our tour guide and we loved him.  He was funny and knowledgeable.  We started the tour with a brief history of the Peller Estates, then we went outside, saw the vines, and learned a little bit about the Niagara wine country.  Afterwards, we went back inside and had a structured wine tasting in the cellars.  Because I am not particularly fond of dry wines, I opted to try to grape juices instead of the white wine and the red wine.  The juices, which are actually made from the same grape as the wine, were very pleasant to drink.  The Vidal ice wine here was also quiet enjoyable - much better than the Vidal at Trius - but it did not match up to the Riesling I tried at Trius.
Note that there is a very nice restaurant at this winery at which you can enjoy lunch or dinner.  We actually had a reservation here for dinner and returned later at night for a wonderful dining experience.


Wine Country Vinters
27 Queen St
Niagara-on-the-Lake ON L0S 1J0 Canada

While this is not a winery, we had a very pleasant experience with the wine tasting here. The area has a very nice small town feel, and we found street parking easily. We arrived at the wine shop a little after 6pm. There was a very friendly woman who helped us with our tasting. She was very sweet and welcoming and we enjoyed easy banter with her.  She told us that the standard tasting is 3 wines: the Wayne Gretsky white, red, and another wine that I forget. My two friends enjoyed the Wayne Gretsky wines, although B. asked for something a little more oaky and bolder, more in the style of Bordeaux wines. She took out a Thirty Bench red for him to try that he very much enjoyed.  Our friends also tried this as their third wine as well. I am not a big red/white wine drinker, so I asked if I could have a tasting of just one or two ice wines instead (since ice wine was not originally included, and ice wine is more expensive than regular wine). She very kindly accommodated me and allowed me to try the Wayne Gretsky Vidal ice wine as well as a Cabernet franc ice wine. Both were very good.  She was also very generous with her pours. She did not push us to buy anything, although my friends did buy two bottles. I would happily come back here again!


Thirty Bench Winery
4281 Mountainview Rd
Lincoln, ON L0R 1B0 Canada

This winery was a little bit far from the other vineyards, but was on the way to Toronto, and so we decided there was no harm in stopping here briefly Saturday morning.  They do not have any ice wine, but they have a large menu of reds and whites available for tasting, as well as a few rose wines.  Our touring pass allowed each person to sample three wines of their choosing.  Between the four of us, we managed to sample most of the wine menu.  B. was particularly fond of the "Steel Post" white wine, which is surprising, as he is typically a red wine drinker, partial to "oaky" French wines.
The grounds are simple, but rustically beautiful. They have plenty of picnic tables for sitting outside in the summer.  The parking lot is gravel and mud so be prepared in the bad weather; our shoes got pretty messy just during the short walk from the car to the winery entrance!
Also, as a note for parents with kids: they do have a small table with coloring books and picture books. They do not have juices available for kids to drink.


We had a good experience with the wine touring pass, however, because I wanted to drink more ice wine, we also added two other wineries to our tour of the Niagara-on-the-Lake region.  The first was Pillitteri (1696 Niagara Stone Road), which offers free public wine tours.  We arrived shortly before their 3pm tour.  The tour doesn't allow you to see much of their grounds, but they do show you some pictures on the wall and the wine cellar.  Overall, we thought it was fairly boring.  Afterwards, there is a structured wine tasting of three of their basic wines, but we thought it was a rather below average experience.  You can pay $2 to taste ice wine, but the line for this was so long, that we did not think it was worth it.
We also went to Colaneri Estate (348 Concession 6 Rd), which offers tastings anytime from 11am to 5:15pm.  They charge $5 for 5 wines (red or white) and $5 for a tasting of ice wine.  The fees are waved if you purchase.  Thought we did try their Riesling and Cabernet France ice wines, we did not end up purchasing anything here.

Fresh Peach and Ginger Beer Cocktail

I am currently sitting in my apartment drinking a cocktail.

I rarely ever drink cocktails because, quite frankly, I don't like the taste of most alcohol.  This is very prohibitive to my drinking.  I love looking at the drink descriptions at bars and speakeasies, but most of the time when I actually taste the drinks, the vodka/tequila/rum/whatever hard liquor it is ends up making me wish I ordered a virgin.  Of course most of the time if you go to a bar and try to do that you'll get weird looks.  So this is why sometimes I find it's nice to just fix myself a drink to enjoy at home, while reading a book on the very comfortable couch that B. and I bought.

Recently I've actually been making a lot of these "mocktails" all thanks to the beauty that is my new hand held blender (also called a stick blender or an immersion blender).  Given all the wonderful fresh fruit that is in season right now, I've taken to making drinks built on various fruit purees.  While it's easy to use sparkling water as a base, I also love using ginger beer.
Ginger beer, generally, is not actually alcoholic, and in my experience, tends to just be synonymous with ginger ale (though I'm sure some experts out there will know be able to explain the difference, I shall not feign knowledge of things when I am truly ignorant).  I find that the slight "bite" and spiciness of ginger beer works as a great addition to all fruit bases.  One of the "mocktails" I've made is a lovely plum, ground cinnamon, honey, and ginger beer drink, which I think would be a great pre-dinner drink in the fall (maybe even before Thanksgiving?).  A summer-flavored mocktail I made had raspberries, lime juice, cane sugar, and ginger beer.  This was lovely, although I did discover an unpleasantly large amount of raspberry seeds in the bottom of my glass, which I did not consume.

This particular cocktail that I am sharing today combines the classic flavors of peach, vanilla, and ginger, which to me are all the things that should be in a good peach pie or cobbler.  It captures the quintessential elements of summer in a glass.  If you are so inclined to add alcohol to this, vanilla rum (aka vanilla extract in the making; see my previous post) also is a delicious addition.

In order to make this, if you don't have an immersion blender, go ahead and pull out the big guns; you can easily double this recipe and make it in a normal blender.  If you don't use all of the fruit puree, you can save it in the fridge for another day; it will keep for at least 3 days.

 Fresh Peach and Ginger Beer Cocktail

makes two martini glasses (easily scaled up as needed)

2 peaches
1-2 teaspoons vanilla sugar or regular granulated sugar
splash of vanilla rum or regular rum (recommended: Bicardi Gold Dark Rum)
1 bottle of ginger beer (recommended: Reed's Extra Ginger Brew)

The ratios here are just suggestions.  I like my cocktails a little fruitier than some.  The amount of sugar you need to use will also depend on how ripe and sweet your peaches are.
For each of my cocktails, I used about 3 tablespoons of peach puree (that's a little less than one peach), 1/2 tsp of vanilla sugar, 1 tsp of rum.  Shake this in a cocktail shaker with some ice and then pour into a martini glass.  Top with ginger beer.

Optional: if you're feeling extra fancy, omit the sugar in the cocktail and instead just rim your cocktail glasses with some sugar.  (If you don't know how, this video is short and great.)


Now that you have this idea though, you can run wild with it!  Combine any fruit purees of your choosing, some ginger beer (or sparkling water), and an alcohol of your choice for a great cocktail.
And, before I go, I'll share one last little trick with you: if you want an easy way to clean your stick blender without risking cutting yourself, just fill a cup with some warm water and a few drops of dish soap and blend for 30 seconds, then rinse.  Presto!
Happy Wednesday!

It's 5 o'clock somewhere - Grapefruit and Rum Cocktail

I wouldn't call myself much of a cocktail girl.  I enjoy them from time to time, but I have a very small build and Asian genetics, which means that it doesn't take much for me to get tipsy.  And when I say that it doesn't take much, I mean it only takes about one cocktail.  As such, I don't casually indulge in happy hour or after dinner drinks, and normally choose to just abstain from drinking.  But sometimes, after a long day, available supplies and the alignment of the stars make it such that I come home and decide to mix myself a drink.  (For my parents who are reading this, you know your little girl is all grown up when she starts posting recipes for cocktails on her blog.)

Now, wikipedia defines a cocktail as a mixture of liquor, sugar, water, and bitters.  I'm no expert on alcoholic beverages, but I'm going to go ahead and call this concoction a cocktail because it's vaguely similar to a mojito and I know mojitos are cocktails.

The idea for this drink came about simply because I currently have an abundance of grapefruits on hand.  A family friend who lives about 10 minutes away from me stopped by almost two weeks ago and dropped off 13 grapefruits.  For just me.  I told her it was too much, but she insisted that I take them. So I've been eating a lot of grapefruit.  Needless to say, I don't think I'll be developing scurvy any time soon.

Today, I still had four left, and as I was segmenting them into a bowl, I thought to myself that I wanted to do something else with the fruit than just mix it with honey and eat it.  It occurred to me that the grapefruit juice would probably make a great base for a drink.  The only alcohol I ever really keep on hand is rum, and so I thought I would make something vaguely like a mojito.  In the summer, my mom and I often make mojitos at home.  We let the sugar, muddled mint, and lime juice marinate in the fridge for a few hours before mixing our drinks and we sip at them while playing Scrabble.  We live very exciting lives.  But I digress.

I reduced the grapefruit juice with a little bit of sugar down to a syrup and then combined that with some rum and seltzer and it made a delicious little end-of-the-day cocktail that I'm now sharing with you.  You can play around with the ratios a little bit, but I like the balance of sweet, sour, and alcohol that the recipe below provides.  The resulting grapefruit and rum cocktail has an absolutely gorgeous color, and it tastes crisp and refreshing.