If you want a deeper green color, simply add a drop of food color.

The Appletini turned up during the Martini renaissance of the 1990s. By the turn of this century, lounges offering hundreds of different “Martinis” could be found in major cities from coast to coast.

It’s questionable whether removing the vermouth, adding other ingredients to gin or vodka and serving the cocktail in a Martini glass actually results in a Martini. But the question was lost in the wave of Martinis produced for the cocktail culture revival—from chocolate and espresso to apple pie and dulce de leche.

However, we did not remonstrate when served our first Appletini, a combination of vodka, apple schnapps (liqueur) and optional ingredients including apple juice/purée, sweet and sour mix or lemon-lime soda.

Here’s a very fine Appletini recipe, courtesy of Ultimat Vodka.
  

Rounds of black sesame-covered goat
cheese. Photo courtesy McCormick.com.

Instead of presenting a loaded cheese board with its “help yourself” temptation, serve cheese in smaller bites on a plate with a salad. You can find individual cheese buttons at a cheese store, or place four cubes of your favorite semi-hard cheeses on a skewer.

A popular French approach is to serve a plate of dressed baby greens topped with one or two goat cheese rounds, cut from a log. You can roll the log in a favorite herb or spice. Black pepper, dried basil, tarragon or thyme are favorites. The cheese rounds can be baked briefly to add a warm contrast to the plate.

In this recipe (shown in the photo), the goat cheese is coated with black sesame seeds and baked. You can add other favorite salad components—here, roasted red peppers and artichoke hearts. Get the recipe.

Grandma’s job has been taken over by artisan bakers, who create everything from scratch in small batches. These cookies are more expensive than supermarket cookies, but they’re well worth it.

People in the Philadelphia area already know about MyHouse Cookies, sold at farmers’ markets, produce markets and specialty food stores. The bakery does not want large accounts (distributors and large scale resellers). These typically require preservatives to achieve a certain shelf life in warehouses and on store shelves. And baking in large batches diminishes quality.

If their cookies can not be sold and enjoyed their way, MyHouse Cookies doesn’t want to be part of it.

If you want large (3-1/2″ diameter, two ounces), chewy cookies (some flavors are a bit crisper) check out these flavors: Blackout, Chocolate Chip, Chocolate Chip Walnut, Ginger Spice, Oatmeal Cherry, Orange Coconut and Purely Peanut Butter.

We also demolished the Blackout chocolate cookie, using it as the base for open-face ice cream sandwiches. Ginger Spice is also nice.

To treat yourself—or someone else deserving of cookies—visit MyHouseCookies.com. One dozen cookies are $18.00.

The company does not have warehouses filled with product, just waiting to be shipped. Every cookie is baked to order. Just like Grandma’s.

Celebrate more daylight with an Avión
Sunshine cocktail. Photo courtesy Avión.

Ours is Daylight Savings Time. We are not a night person: We love the light, from dawn to sunset. We are not happy waking up to a black sky and getting dressed in suboptimal incandescent lighting, unable to tell if tights are navy or black.

Avión Tequila has sent us a Daylight Savings Day cocktail, and by Jorge, we are going to celebrate! Maybe not at 2 a.m. on Sunday morning, when Daylight Savings Time kicks in. And probably not at midnight tonight, as we turn all the clocks forward one hour, prior to hitting the sheets.

But at happy hour tomorrow, March 13th, we’ve having at least one. After two, we probably won’t notice that we gave up an hour of sleep.

THE AVIÓN SUNSHINE COCKTAIL
This tequila cocktail uses the smoother, aged añejo tequila rather than the silver (plata or blanco) tequila used in so many tequila drinks (see the different types of tequila). Añejo is aged for one or more years, taking on more complex flavors and a yellow color from the oak barrels.

Ingredients

 
Preparation
1. Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake and strain.
2. Avión Sunshine can be served either straight up or on the rocks and garnished with a thinly sliced pear.

Enjoy the light!

Grits are the hard part of the corn kernel (the endosperm), cut into uniform small pieces. They are related to polenta, which is made from a different type of corn and is usually a finer grind. Another related product, farina, known in the U.S. as cream of wheat, is made from semolina flour.

For the record, corn is classified by the type of starch in its kernels. Dent corn, the premier corn in the South, has a relatively soft, starchy center that makes the best grits. Flint corn, used for polenta, has a hard, starchy endosperm and produces a more granular cornmeal with a better texture (mouthfeel).

Learn all about grits and get the recipe for creamy cheese grits.