To celebrate the new Black Eyed Peas E.N.D. tour, Bacardi, official spirit of the tour, has created a commemorative cocktail.
It may not be the easiest thing to make because of the need to find black sugar; but if you’re a Black Eyed Peas fan, as we are, it’s worth the effort.
THE BACARDI V.I.PEA COCKTAIL
Ingredients
– 2 parts Bacardi Superior rum
– 1 part freshly squeezed lime juice
– 2 teaspoons black sugar
– Cubed and crushed ice
– Garnish: 4 black-eyed peas on a skewer, lime slice
Preparation
1. Place all ingredients into a shaker and stir until the sugar has dissolved.
2. Fill shaker with half cubed ice and half crushed ice. Shake vigorously until chilled.
3. Double strain into a chilled or frozen coupette glass or a martini glass.
Join the Black Eye Peas in a V.I.Pea
Cocktail. Photo courtesy Baccardi.
About Black Sugar
Black sugar, an unprocessed (raw) sugar made from pure sugar cane juice, is a common ingredient in Asian cooking. It is almost black in color.
Like other unrefined sugars (turbinado, for example), it is healthier and has more flavor than processed white sugar. The nutrition and flavor come from the molasses, calcium, iron, potassium and other minerals that are components of unrefined sugar. Compare it to other raw sugars, such as demerara, muscovado and turbinado sugar (see our Sugar Glossary for all types of sugar).
In Japan and Taiwan, lumps of black sugar are eaten as candy (as well as made into various hard and soft candies). If you’re in a restaurant that serves lumps of turbinado sugar with coffee, chew on one and you’ll get the idea. Black sugar and fresh ginger are made into a popular addition to ginger tea.
The finest black sugar is produced in Okinawa, Japan, although Taiwan and China also make it. Look for black sugar in Asian markets.
It’s not spaghetti, but you could try to fool
your friends! Photo by Katharine Pollak |
THE NIBBLE.
We love a good joke—especially around April Fool’s Day. So when we were handed “Spaghetti” by Carla Bardi, we were wondering why someone was giving us what looked to be a spaghetti package from a supermarket shelf.
It took us a minute to realize that it’s a spaghetti cookbook, which contains more than 130 ways to prepare a plain box of spaghetti.
The recipes are creative and generally easy; the photos are tempting. The pasta is varied—not just spaghetti but bucatini, linguine and ziti. The gimmick is cuter-than-cute and sure to delight any home cook.
THE PRIZE: Two winners could cook spaghetti a different way every day for more than four months with this cookbook. While we’re a few days late for April Fool’s Day, you can still keep it in your kitchen cupboard next to actual spaghetti boxes to fool someone rooting around for pasta. Plus, it’ll be right where you need it when you’re wondering what type of pasta dish to make for dinner. Approximate Retail Value: $14.99.
To Enter This Gourmet Giveaway: Go to the box at the bottom of our Best Reads Section and enter your email address for the prize drawing. This contest closes on Monday, April 12th at noon, Eastern Time. Good luck!
Take me out to the ball game, but forget the peanuts and Crackerjack. Instead, bring along the buttery shortbread cookies from Cooperstown Cookie Company. The rich, traditional shortbread cookies, a NIBBLE favorite shortbread (read our review), are made in the regulation size of baseballs (3″ diameter). They’re made by hand and baked in small batches, just outside of the world baseball capital of Cooperstown, New York.
Fresh, light and fragrant with butter, these cookies melt in your mouth. They are all natural with no preservatives or additives—just flour, butter, sugar, pure vanilla extract and salt. They hit a home run with us!
This Gourmet Giveaway prize is packaged in two tins along with tricky baseball trivia questions to try to stump baseball nuts. Perhaps a cookie is their reward?
THE PRIZE: One winner will enjoy a Cooperstown Cookie Company gift tower and a National Baseball Hall of Fame Collectible Tin, each containing 12 bite-sized, vanilla-flavored shortbread cookies. Take them to your next ball game or munch on them anytime you need a cookie fix. Approximate Retail Value: $31.98.
Forget playing ball. Let’s eat some cookies!
Photo courtesy Cooperstown Cookie Company.
To Enter This Gourmet Giveaway: Go to the box at the bottom of our Gourmet Cookies, Brownies & Bars Section and enter your email address for the prize drawing. This contest closes on Monday, April 12th at noon, Eastern Time. Good luck!
Learn more about Cooperstown Cookie Company, and find out how to enter to win the ultimate Cooperstown baseball weekend at CooperstownCookie.com.
You were great, but it’s time to go!
Photo courtesy iGourmet.com.
Easter was great, but now you’re surrounded with leftover jelly beans, chocolate bunnies, buttercream Easter eggs and more.
Good as they were, do you want to consume those calories?
Our solution: Bring the Easter candy to your workplace, school or anywhere else you hang out. Share the wealth: People will appreciate your largesse, and you’ll save thousands of calories.
You can leave the goodies next to the coffee machine, distribute them to colleagues or set them in a common place (the reception desk or lunch room?).
You’ll feel good that you didn’t succumb to polishing it off, had fun passing the candy along and that you made others happy.
If you’re a skinny chocoholic you can ignore this tip.
Yesterday’s Easter dinner ended with chocolate mousse. To cap the festivity of the seven-course dinner* there were two different kinds of mousse: dark chocolate and white chocolate.
It made us think about why nobody serves mousse anymore. It’s only found on the menus of old-style French and Continental restaurants, and there are fewer and fewer of those around.
People who used to make mousse (which uses heavy cream) switched to lighter desserts in the 1990s, when warnings to reduce saturated fats became widespread.
It was nice to have this old mainstay for dessert. Consider making it for the next special occasion. Most people can enjoy a small portion—say in a juice glass, and not a jumbo martini glass.
And after the seven courses, the mousse went down as easily as ice cream.
See the history of chocolate mousse and Julia Child’s recipe for chocolate mousse, plus numerous optional garnishes courtesy of THE NIBBLE.
Enjoy mousse in small portions. Here,
four-ounce juice glasses are used. Photo by
Pink Candy | Dreamstime.
*Smoked salmon with baby arugula salad, scallops with chanterelles, Parma ham-wrapped monkfish, asparagus risotto, sweetbreads coated in polenta, lamb, cheese and the mousse. Everything was served on small plates (3-4 bites) and no one was stuffed.
