The Post Bender

The Post Bender is the perfect iced coffee drink for the morning after a night of excess. Fresh ginger is well known for its restorative influence on a queasy stomach and its ability to jumpstart circulation, so including it in a coffee drink for the morning after a night of excess is bound to help. Add a little molasses for a natural sugar boost and some deep, dark porter and you might well be on your way to recovery.

From the stalls of Asia to the street markets of France and the outdoor grills of Portugal and Peru, and just a few places in between, I’ve eaten a lot freshly prepared, deliciously seasoned local food in my life. I’ve spoken before of buying queso de mano from a little guy walking between cars in rush hour traffic in Venezuela and pulling over suddenly to buy curry roti in Trinidad. You can read more about it here, along with a recipe for deep fried bananas. I love street food! I tell you all this by way of introduction to a new cookbook being released this month that celebrates the most mobile of street food with 100 recipes for great dishes from food trucks in the US. It’s called Food Truck Road Trip - A Cookbook and every page, every recipe is a feast for the eyes. It’s going to take me a while but I’d like to try each one!

To research, photograph and write the book, authors Kim Pham, Philip Shen and Terri Phillips packed their bags, loaded up the car and they traveled across the United States to visit the cities and taste the food and hear the stories behind some of the best food trucks around.

But their journey started long before that with a blog called Behind the Food Cart, winner of the Saveur magazine’s Best Culinary Travel Blog in 2013. Their focus has always been the people behind the scenes on the food trucks and each little history and snippet from the cooks and chefs made me think of the recently released movie Chef.  They’d ALL make great movies, from the former attorney who gave up a life of anger and complaints to make gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches to the advertising executive who quit his job to become an executive chef to the plumber who found himself unemployed in the recession and is now serving award winning orange cake from his truck in New York. Seriously. Even without the food, this book is inspirational for the personal stories of dedication, perseverance and love of culture and fine ingredients.

You can buy your own copy of Food Truck Road Trip right now – The recipes are all originals from the actual food truck recipes, not inspired by or adapted from, but shared by the creators for inclusion in the cookbook.

Today I am sharing a cocktail recipe from Hubbub Coffee Company in Philadelphia. Owner Drew Crockett believes that coffee is a way for us to interact with friends and people we have yet to meet and I completely agree with him. I chose this recipe because I love coffee - especially meeting friends to drink it - and I was intrigued by one of its ingredients: porter, a beer with chocolate presence. I did a little research and found one called London Porter here that fit the description perfectly. The recipe is supposed to serve two but I made it in a glass mug and drank the whole thing. Whoops. The leftover syrup keeps nicely in the refrigerator for future drinks.

The Post Bender - from Food Truck Road Trip by Kim Pham, Philip Shen, Terri Phillips. Printed with permission of Page St. Publishing.

Hubbub Coffee Company—Drew Crockett—Philadelphia, Pa

Serves 2  - theoretically :)

Ingredients
For the simple syrup:
1 tablespoon or 22g molasses
1 teaspoon zested ginger (I grated mine on the side with the small holes.)
1 1⁄2 teaspoons (6g) sugar
1⁄4 cup or 60ml water

To assemble:
1⁄2 cup or 118ml freshly brewed coffee, at room temperature
1 (12-oz or 340ml) bottle porter beer (has strong chocolate presence)

Method
To make the simple syrup, combine the molasses, ginger, sugar and water in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over medium-high heat.

Stir to make sure all the ingredients are combined and the sugar is dissolved. Remove from the heat and set aside.

Fill a cocktail shaker halfway with ice. Pour in the coffee.

Then add 2 to 4 tablespoons or 30 to 60ml of the simple syrup and shake vigorously.

Strain into 2 cocktail glasses and top with about 3 ounces (90ml) of porter each.

(I put a little light brown sugar around the rim of my mug and strained all the coffee and two tablespoons of the syrup into it, topping up with about 4 oz or 120ml of porter.)

I’ll definitely be making this one again. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I received one copy of Food Truck Road Trip - A Cookbook for review purposes. No other compensation was received. This post contains Amazon affiliate links.

Lemon Mint Rosé Cocktail

A dry rosé wine fortified with vodka and some muddled mint, lemon and sugar makes a beautiful cocktail, extending the drinkability of rosé into the autumn months for rosé summer-only purists. 

Pink wine snob reversal
Until I started dating my future husband, I knew very little about wine. I don’t remember either of my parents drinking wine, except for a phase when my mom would buy Cold Duck – a sort of sweet pink sparkling wine made by mixing red wine with bubbly - or Mateus, a Portuguese labeled rosé that, even as a child, I understood was less than stellar in the wine category, the fancy bottle notwithstanding. As I reached an age where I could order wine in a bar, I always went for a crisp dry white, with the theory that a cheap white was usually more palatable than a cheap red, and wine-by-the-glass back then was invariably of the cheap variety. When we moved to Paris, I was shocked to find that the good-wine obsessed French drank pink wine during the hot summer months! And that it could be dry and not sweet. I became a fan of the pink.

As the summer days are waning and the autumn is coming on, unused bottles of summer rosé can be transformed into cocktails, extending their welcome refreshment into the next season.

Ingredients
Several fresh mint leaves
1 lemon wedge
1 oz or 30ml vodka
1/2 cup or 120ml rosé
1/2 – 1 teaspoon sugar (or more, depending on your taste for sweet drinks)
Ice

Optional garnish: sprig of mint

Method
Place mint, lemon and sugar in a glass and muddle well.

Add several cubes of ice to your glass and then pour in the vodka.

Add the rosé and stir. Garnish with sprig of mint, if desired.

Enjoy!

Saving Summer Preview

The Sunday Supper Movement is dedicated to bringing back mealtime around the family table with great new recipes every single Sunday and quick and easy weekday suppers, Monday through Friday. This Sunday, we are celebrating the bounty of summer by sharing recipes and methods for ways to make the most of fresh seasonal vegetables and fruit and even extending their use into the next season. 

It has been my privilege to be a part of the Sunday Supper Movement for more than a year and a half. In fact, this week is my 50th post with the group! I am delighted to be co-hosting for the very first time with my friend, Tara, from Noshing with the Nolands.

Enjoying the bounty of each growing season used to be a given before the days of refrigerated trucks and airfreight. My grandfather grew many of the vegetables his family ate while my grandmother preserved what she could by blanching and canning or pickling the harvest shortly after each crop was picked. This was a way of life for them, despite owning and running their own full time business. It’s just what you did back then to feed your family as economically and as healthfully as you could.

Now we have many options for saving summer produce, including our handy home freezers and Sunday Supper is making the most of them all this week! I would be most appreciative if you would stop by again on Sunday to see all the wonderful recipes and instructions we’ll have for you.

But, meanwhile, here’s a sneak peak at the Sunday Supper Saving Summer link list:

Learn how to …

• Dry Fruit - No-Dehydrator-Needed from Take A Bite Out of Boca 
• Freeze Cherries from Pies and Plots
• Freeze Herbs from Rhubarb and Honey 
• Make Freezer Harvest Soup Kits from Cindy's Recipes and Writings 
• Make Pesto Cubes from The Not So Cheesy Kitchen 
• Make and Freeze Rosemary Butter from Momma's Meals 
• Make Ready to Blend Smoothie Packs for Your Freezer from The Educators’ Spin On It 
• Oven Dry Cherries from The Redhead Baker 

Sip sunny cocktails and smoothies

• Blueberry, Peaches and Cream Green Smoothies from Cupcakes & Kale Chips 
• Green Tea and Chocolate Saketini from Ninja Baking 
• Sangria from Confessions of a Culinary Diva 

Scoop up special salsas and sauces

• Classic Freezer Tomato Sauce from Noshing With The Nolands 
• Peach Salsa from The Texan New Yorker
• Pico de Gallo from Bobbi's Kozy Kitchen 
• Spicy Apple - Carrot Chutney from What Smells So Good? 
• Spring Conserve from Hezzi-D's Books and Cooks 

Jump into jellies, jams and preserves

• Apricot Habanero Jam from Food Lust People Love 
• Corn Cob Jelly from Daily Dish Recipes 
• Hot Pepper Jelly from A Kitchen Hoor's Adventures 
• No Pectin Apricot Jam from Curious Cuisiniere 
• Peach Preserves from Delaware Girl Eats 
• Pineapple Mango Moscato Jam from Seduction in the Kitchen 
• Raw Raspberry-Vanilla Chia Jam from Shockingly Delicious 
• Savory Fig and Sweet Onion Freezer Jam from Peaceful Cooking 
• Spicy Ginger Tomato Jam with Coconut Sugar from Sue's Nutrition Buzz
• Spicy Red Pepper Jam from The Wimpy Vegetarian

Pucker up for pickles

• Bread and Butter Pickles from That Skinny Chick Can Bake 
• Pickled Beets and Onions from Kudos Kitchen by Renée 
• Pickled Green Tomatoes from Culinary Adventures with Camilla 
• Refrigerator Pickled Jalapeños with Herbs from Magnolia Days 
• Refrigerator Pickled Radish and Turnips from The Girl In The Little Red Kitchen 
• Refrigerator Pickles from Webicurean 
• Sweet Pickled Cauliflower from Because I Like Chocolate 

Slurp and spoon soup and a side dish

• Easy Garden Fresh Tomato Basil Soup from Neighborfood 
• Savory Summer Kimchi from A Mama, Baby & Shar-pei in the Kitchen 

Dive into divine desserts

• Easy (no machine) Cherry Cheesecake Ice Cream from Mama Bee Does
• Freeze 'em For Later Peach Berry Hand Pies from eating in instead
• Frozen Yogurt Covered Blueberries from Peanut Butter and Pepper
• Lemon and Blackberry Meringue Cakes from Happy Baking Days
• Lemon Curd Coffee Crumb Cake with Vanilla Drizzle from Wallflour Girl
• Vegan Strawberry Ice Cream from Killer Bunnies, Inc

Dubonnet Gin Cocktail and Thank You

Made from French fortified wine marketed under the name Dubonnet and a good London gin,  this refreshing libation is well known for being the favorite tipple of the late Queen Mother and her daughter, Queen Elizabeth II. 

Like the queen, this blog has two birthdays. The first one was just a few weeks ago marking the date I created Food Lust People Love as a Tumblr blog. It didn’t take me long to realize that Tumblr, at least in its native form, didn’t work for what I wanted to achieve with this blog so I changed over to Blogger and I added the 12 Tumblr posts all in one day – 24 June 2011, to be precise. So that’s the official blog birthday I celebrate each year.

My very first post is still one of my favorites. It wasn’t even a recipe, but a series of photos from a recent trip we had taken to Italy of the market in Florence. I want to live there! Who's coming with me?

That said, my early food photos are laughably bad. Post number two was a delicious dessert made with whipped cream, meringues and blackberries. With the ugliest photo. I’m not kidding. And yeah, I’m going to make you go look if you really want to because it’s just too awful to add again here. *Shudder*

Without further ado, I’d like to share a cocktail with you that I raise in thankful salute to all the people who have supported me in this three-year journey. To my family and close friends first and foremost, for putting up with my experiments, for waiting to eat while I take photos of the food and for allowing me to tell their stories and share their photos on occasion. To my fellow bloggers who have taught me so much about food photography, website optimization and social media with generosity of spirit and endless camaraderie. And finally, to you, my readers. You leave me kind comments and send me recipe suggestions. You share links to my posts with your own friends and family. You give me great joy and it is my privilege to meet you in this space. Thank you!

As I was researching this drink, I found recipes that varied depending on whether it was the Queen Mother who was drinking it or Queen Elizabeth, the former preferring more gin than Dubonnet and the latter preferring more Dubonnet than gin, so feel free to mix yours however you like. I went with Queen Elizabeth’s two-to-one proportions.

Ingredients
Twist of lemon and lime peel
2 oz or about 60ml Dubonnet
1 oz or about 30ml good quality gin
Ice (The queen reportedly likes three cubes of ice. What is it with the British and their dislike of ice?!)

Method
Add the twists of lemon and lime to your glass along with the ice.

Measure in the Dubonnet and gin.

Cheers! And, once again, thank you so much for your support!

Caipiracujá Cocktail

A delightful change from my favorite lime-based cocktail, the caipirinha, this deliciously refreshing libation is made with tart fresh passion fruit and cachaça. 

Ever since I made the passion fruit muffins a few weeks back, I’ve been wanting to try passion fruit in a cocktail. As I mentioned then, I came to love that funny fruit when we lived in Brazil so it seemed appropriate to switch out sour limes for tart passion fruit, but still use cachaça for the alcohol component. For the name, I mashed together caipira, the Portuguese word from whence the diminutive caipirinha comes, and maracujá, what the Brazilians call passion fruit. A most successfully mash up, if I do say so myself. By which I mean the drink although I am hoping the name will catch on as well.

Ingredients
2-3 tablespoons passion fruit pulp (I used two small passion fruit per glass.)
1/2-1 tablespoon sugar (depending on how tart your passion fruit are and how sweet you like your cocktails)
Crushed ice
Cachaça

Note: Cachaça is cane alcohol so if you can't get your hands on a bottle, substitute rum. It won't be the same but I'm betting it'll still be delicious.

Method
Cut your passion fruit in half and scoop the pulp into a short cocktail glass.

Add the sugar.

Muddle the sugar and the pulp to loosen the seeds.

This shot is really just to show off my parrot muddler. He is Brazilian.

Fill the glass with crushed ice.

Top up with cachaça.

As you can see, this is a powerful drink.

Stir vigorously and serve with a straw.

Enjoy! And saúde!


If you found your way here looking for traditional caipirinha instructions, you are in luck. I have those for you too.

Moscow Mule for #ElleAPalooza

An easy cocktail that packs a punch of bright flavors from ginger beer and lime, the Moscow Mule is as refreshing as it is pretty. 

This post is a tribute to a friend and blogger who passed away suddenly last week. Her real name was LeeAnn but we all knew her as Elle of Elle’s New England Kitchen.  She was 45 years young and leaves behind an enormous group of devastated family members and friends, including her husband and four children.

Here’s a question for you:  Can you be genuine friends with someone if you haven’t met them? I think back to the days of elementary school-age pen pals and handwritten letters and I say yes. And nowadays, social media and the internet make it even easier than ever. For instance, I meet people through comments on this blog, interest groups and fan pages on Facebook, communities on Google Plus and forums like Chowhound. Some become real life friends. To the point that I would squeal and get excited at the chance to spent time together in person. Elle was one of those people. I met Elle through a Facebook group called The Cookbook Junkies and her fun personality and quick wit endeared her to us all. As a fellow food blogger with a love of family and cooking, not to mention the aforementioned addiction to cookbooks, I couldn’t help but feel we had a lot in common. More than anything else, social media have shown us that we are more alike than we are different. Which made the news of her death a huge shock to everyone in our Facebook and blogging communities. 

We wanted to do what we could to ease the suffering of her family and, frankly, make ourselves feel a little better, a little less useless in the face of loss. So, we give you #ElleAPalooza, a multi-blogger tribute weekend to one of our own, one of the best of our own, when we all choose a recipe to share from Elle’s blog and ask you to consider contributing an item for an online auction in her honor which is being organized in the coming weeks or donate to a fund for her family right now. 

I spent ages looking through Elle’s New England Kitchen, reading from her very first post  back in 2008 and searching for just the right recipe. I finally settled on a cocktail called a Moscow Mule. I could have toasted Elle with a piece of blueberry pie or honey lime chicken tacos or even Watermelon Nectarine Salsa (Doesn’t that sound divinely refreshing?) But I finally decided that Elle deserves a proper toast and a proper toast requires a cocktail. 

I’ve got to tell you that I’ve never had a Moscow Mule before but it was fresh and delicious and it is my new favorite drink. So here’s to you, Elle! Know that you have touched more lives that can be counted with your kindness, your generosity of spirit, your snarky sense of humor and especially your delicious recipes. You are greatly missed.

Ingredients for one Moscow Mule 

1/2 oz fresh lime juice (about half of one big lime)

2 oz or 30ml vodka 

4-6 oz or 120-180ml cold ginger beer 

(My bottle says Ginger Soda because this is Dubai and I guess they aren’t allowed to call it beer in case someone thinks it has alcohol but it’s the real deal, from Australia.

Method

Squeeze the juice of 1/2 a lime into a tall glass, and toss the lime in after it.

Add about one cup of ice and pour in the vodka.

Top up with the cold ginger beer. Stir lightly and serve.

Lift a glass to Elle and enjoy!

If you’d like to read more #ElleAPalooza recipes and tributes, please join the Friends of Elle Facebook page where we will be sharing our links.

Here are a few that are live already:

• Almond Joy Muffins from Janet at Gourmet Traveller 88
• Banana Bread Beer Donut Muffins from Heather at He Cooks She Cooks
• Better Than Ultimate Brownies from Felice at All That's Left Are the Crumbs
• Cheddar Cornbread Bacon Pancakes from Amy at Savory Moments
• Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars from Kristen at Dine and Dish
• Edamame Ginger Dip from Michelle at Taste As You Go
• Flourless Peanut Butter Cinnamon Cookies from Dawn at Vanilla Kitchen 
• Garden Gazpacho with Hazelnuts from Kristina at Spabettie
• Elle's Bratwurst and Apple Kale Sandwiches from Reneé at Kudos Kitchen by Reneé
• Elle's Favorite Bean Dip from Rachelle at Mommy? I'm Hungry!
• Elle's Lemon Agave Cake from Laura at The Spiced Life
• Elle’s Mushroom Bourguignon with Venison from Jenn at The Leftover Queen
• Elle’s Teriyaki Chicken Wings from Feride at AZ Cookbook
• Experimental Scoops - Hard Cider and Plum Sherbert from Jenn at The Leftover Queen
• Insalata Caprese with Fried Buitoni Ravioli from Gabi at The Feast Within
• Moscow Mule from Stacy at Food Lust People Love
• Raw Cream of Asparagus Soup from Kristina at Spabettie
• Spiced Pumpkin Chickpea Stew from Renee at Flamingo Musings
• Supreme Pizza Soup from Heather at girlichef
• Supremely Tasty Puff Pastry Pizza Tart from Kristina at Spabettie
• Tomato Soup from ZeBot the Zebra at ZeBot's Kitchen
• Vegan Oat Cranberry Pecan Chocolate Chip Cookies from Katrina at Baking and Boys

If you’d like to sign Elle’s legacy guestbook online, here’s that link as well. 

Once more: the link to Elle’s family fund Paypal account.  Find the link to donate here. 

If you would like to donate an item for the upcoming auction, please drop me a line at foodlustpeoplelove@gmail.com or contact the organizer Heather Shively by sending an email to heather@bodaciousgirl.com.

Trinidadian Rum Punch

Typical Trinidadian rum punch with the one, two, three, four recipe! Sugar, lime and rum with a few drops of Angostura bitters!

When I was a little girl, we lived in the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago, on the actual island of Trinidad. (I think you only live on Tobago if you have something to do with a resort! But I could be wrong. It is a beautiful island for a holiday. The only time I remember going topless at a beach in my whole life, was on Tobago. I was six.) ANYWAY, Trinidad has the best rum in the world and its national drink is rum punch. I wasn’t allowed any as a child, of course, but my mom knew the recipe by heart, as does everyone in Trinidad, so I got to try it when I was older. Love at first sip.

It goes like this:
One sour
Two sweet
Three strong
Four weak

In honor of my summer holidays starting tomorrow, I’d like to share rum punch with you. This is a great drink on the beach or poolside. Just watch yourself because it goes down so easily.

Ingredients 
One sour (lime juice)
Two sweet (simple syrup – one cup of sugar dissolved in one cup of hot water, then cooled)
Three strong (that would be the RUM!)
Four weak (water or ice or a combination of the two)
Angostura (Aromatic) Bitters 

Method
Squeeze as many limes as you have and measure the juice. This is now your One measure.



That's a bunch of little limes!

Add in Two of that same measure of simple syrup.

Add in Three of that same measure of rum.

Finally, add in a lot of shakes of the Angostura Bitters, along with some water and then serve over crushed ice or ice cubes for your Four weak.

Then I add more Angostura to each individual glass. The Angostura MAKES this punch. Of course, you can serve this in a pretty pitcher if you have guests but the reused water bottle fits wonderfully in my refrigerator door so I can enjoy rum punch for days. :)

Happy start of Summer to you all!

Enjoy!