All posts filed under: rum

How to Succeed at Thanksgiving – Fish House Punch

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The Thanksgiving dinner of my fantasies always begins with me wearing a string of pearls and freshly pressed apron, holding aloft a beautifully bronzed roasted turkey, glistening and golden from the oven in all its glory for all to see. My adoring family members’ faces are lit by flickering candlelight and they are hungry and beaming and admiring the gorgeous bird. I cut into the bird and it is succulent and juicy and perfect. All of the side dishes have come out of the oven at just the right time. The vegetables are colorful. Everything looks like a spread in Bon Appétit.  Can you just see it? Isn’t it beautiful? Insert needle-scratch on a record…this is what Thanksgiving really looks like: I have bags under my eyes because I’ve been cooking non-stop for two days. The turkey, does come out of the oven beautiful and bronzed, however upon carving, I realize the breast meat is perfect and the dark meat hasn’t cooked thoroughly–thank you, weirdly calibrated convection setting. I’ve forgotten about the rolls in the oven …

At Home with Adam Throgmorton: Talking Tiki and The Making of a Great Mai Tai

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I have a real treat for you because today I’m going to tell you about my good friend and brother-from-another-mother, Adam Throgmorton.  I met Adam this past winter at a pub crawl and I knew from the start that we were going to become fast friends. Architectural model builder, Disney Fanatic, Tiki Enthusiast and all-around mad genius, Adam is a force to be reckoned with and yet, he seems to genuinely believe that he’s a mere mortal like the rest of us! I chuckle at this, because once you spend any amount of time in his home, you realize that this guy is an Artist, with a capital A.  Adam has managed to create an atmosphere in his Southern Nevada home that will make you think you left the desert and stepped straight into paradise! So when the invitation came to spend an evening drinking Mai Tais poolside in his Tiki Terrace, I was over there quick as a flash with a platter of ceviche and doing my best impersonation of a person who could handle …

“Dark and Stormy Cocktail” and taking time to “Look at the Flowers”

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Last week, I had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week. I won’t elaborate on the details in order to protect the innocent, but trust me, it sucked.  The husband was out of town for the week on a business trip and as luck would have it, everything that could go wrong did go wrong.  The icing on the cake was the morning (3:50 last Thursday, to be exact) I was trying to catch a few precious moments of sleep, when I heard the distant, plaintive chirp of the smoke alarm.  Have you ever noticed that smoke alarm batteries only die in the wee hours of the morning? Of course, the dying smoke alarm was located on the highest ceiling of the house, which meant that I had to go out to the garage in my pajamas and get the Giant Ladder.  Normally, I never even touch the Giant Ladder–the shiny, clean 5-footer is more my speed, but there I was, in my robe and slippers, precariously perched about 15 feet off the ground …

Mango Banana Daiquiris

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This Sunday, we are inviting our mothers to join us at our home for a barbecue; and when I say barbecue, I mean pulled pork that’s been slowly smoked for hours, barbecued chicken, baked beans, corn-on-the cob, and coleslaw! At first, I had planned on making more traditional (and more ladylike) brunch fare–perhaps a quiche, a cake, finger sandwiches…but then it hit me that my mother has been wanting me to make pulled pork for quite some time and I simply haven’t had the time to make it–it takes about 4 to 6 hours to smoke.  Now that our propane grill has been converted to natural gas, it’s easier and more convenient to smoke a large roast without worrying that I’ll run out of propane before the meat is done. So, now that there aren’t any excuses, I’ll be smoking that pork shoulder roast all day tomorrow!  At this moment, the pork shoulder roast is marinating in a spice rub.  I’ll be posting the recipes and the how-tos throughout the weekend! To get things off …