Monthly Archives: June 2009

I love the July 4th celebrations. The whole idea  of picnics, family get togethers, fireworks, and listening to the Star Spangled Banner just does something for me. Generally we open the house up to anyone who wants to come, put up the volleyball net, the horseshoe spikes, the hatchet targets (yes my kids throw hatchets at targets, doesn’t everyone’s kids?), and point people in the direction of the creek if they want a swim.

The house fills with flies as people run in and out and gallons of lemonade, tea, cokes, and other beverages are consumed. The only requirement is that guests bring food to share and control their children.

Seems fair to me.  I am not a fan of uncontrolled children. People assume because I have 8 kids I LOVE children. Not true. I like kids all right but I have no tolerance level for undisciplined, uncontrollable, disrespectful kids. They all seem to end up working at the local grocery stores but that is a whole ‘nother story.

Anyway, if you are looking for something a bit different to serve this Fourth of July take a look at this. Coffee coke float,with just a quick glug of Kahlua for some pizzaz. You can leave the Kahlua out if you want but it is just awesome with it.  Serve it in old fashioned ice cream parlor style shake glasses and top with a mound of whipped cream.

Coffee Coke Float

• 2/3 cup half and half (light) cream
• 2 1/2 cups espresso, or strong coffee, cold
• 4 scoops coffee ice cream
• 1 -2 liter bottle of Coke
• 1/2 cup Kahlua if desired
• 4 frosted glasses

Mix the cream and the cold coffee

Add 2 tbs Kahlua to each glass

Place a scoop of the ice cream in each of four glasses

Half fill each glass with the coffee then fill up the rest of the way with Coke.

Serves 4

Image;Wikipedia

Stash Tea is offering a free night at one of the 600 bed and breakfasts participating in this program. Basically customers will get one free night with the purchase of a night at the bed and breakfast. The inns that are part of this program can be cound through out the United States and Canada.

Stash has published a Guide to Bed and Breakfast Inns which is available for less than five dollars when you purchase three boxes of any Stash tea at you local grocers or with a ten dollar purchase online.

There are few things more romantic or luxruious than a weekend get-away. This might be an awesome way to do it. This offer is good, as for as I can tell, through June 2011. Even if you are not a spontanious type of person this gives you plenty of time to plan!

image:SXC

With various types of funding being cut and libraries being closed, Fargo, ND has come up with an innovative plan. They will rent space and help to open a coffee shop in their downtown library.

The library will contribute 10,000 dollars to get the coffee shop up and running and then the coffee shop with pay  rent every month. They will carry pastries, cookies and various coffee drinks.

Now, I ask you, how cool is that? I love libraries. Many times in my life I have used the library in the various places we have lived as a refuge. A place to enjoy quiet, the smell of the books, and recharge my spirit. The coolest library ever was the one near us in West Windsor New Jersey back in the late 1960s. We lived in a new, upscale housing development in the midst of fields and countryside. The library was about 3 miles away but I was allowed to ride my bike there because my mom could watch me the whole way thanks to the fields.

The library was old, I want to say it was in an old house but my memory may be foggy on that. The children’s section was upstairs and there were plenty of nooks and crannies to curl up and read a good book in. It was at this library that I discovered Edgar Eager’s books, Obscure writings by Louisa May Alcott, and other books that continue to by my favorites to this day. Books that I have shared with my children…books that my daughter shares with my grandchildren.

The idea of being able to go to the library, check out a few books and enjoy a latte or an espresso intrigues me. I think it is brilliant. Kudos to Fargo and all involved for thinking outside the government subsidy box.

image:SXC

Coffee fights bad breath. Yes it does.

See, I was always under the impression that coffee was what made my mouth taste like seven desert camels with incontinence had ventured through it with muddy feet. I mean, you get up, you brush your teeth, you drink coffee, and an hour later you need a breath mint…STAT!

Dude, YOU need some coffee, stat!

But according to this ever so cool study done by the Israelis coffee actually blocks a lot of the bacteria that are responsible for bad breath. There is even talk of a salve that would be made from coffee that could eliminate bad breath.

We have reached a pinnacle in coffee history. We are at the dawn of the age of coffee toothpaste. This could revolutionize the free world and give Starbucks a totally new venue for their greed.

Imagine if you will…you could go into your local Starbucks and order a tube of caramel macchiato toothpaste. You could forego coffee in the mornings and just brush your teeth for an extended period of time…

Caffeine junkies, desperate for a caffeine fix would be sucking down coffee flavored Listerine and squeezing the last few globs out of discarded toothpaste tubes.

Interesting thought. Coffee actually freshens breath. Wow.

image:sxc

One of the things that they make at the Landmark restaurant in Dallas is a fruit lemonade. The flavor changes daily; watermelon, honeydew…. The drinks are so refreshing, so good, and so unique that of course I wanted to be able to replicate them at home. Since it is lemonade I knew there would be lemon juice..but you know me..I wanted to take it a step further.

White tea. Adding the tea gives the flavor another depth and it is really good. White tea is very delicate so it doesn’t overpower the flavor of the fruit, in this case honeydew.

For an added intensity try this with Republic of Tea’s Honey Dew White Tea

Honeydew-Lime Iced Tea

• 6 cups cubed honeydew melon
• 2 cups water
• 1/3 cup sugar, more or less to taste
• 2 tea bags of white tea, or amount of white tea leaves to make 2 cups of strong tea
• 1/2 cup lime juice

1. Bring water and sugar just to a boil. stir until sugar is completely dissolved. Remove from heat.
2. Add tea or tea bags and allow to steep for 3 to 5 minutes.
3. Let come to room temperature.
4. Check to make sure there are no stray seeds on melon. Blend the melon in a blender with the white tea until it is a liquid. Blend in the sugar and lime at low speed, just until sugar dissolves.
5. Pour over ice and serve with a lime wedge.

Makes about 6 servings depending on size

image:marye audet

A new mall opened last winter not too far from me. It is basically and outdoors mall, not the closed in mole tunnels that you usually think of  when you hear the word mall…

Anyway, this one has water fountains and they are done in such a way that the kids can play in them in the summer. The grass is astroturf so it doesn’t get muddy. And, best of all, the mall provides towels for the guests. I took Kyrie down there a week or so ago and she had a blast playing in all of the fountains. The just shoot up from the ground.

We didn’t stay very long for a couple of reasons so K-Bug did not get too much sun… she DID have an awesome time though.

My oldest daughter, Erin, took her three kids to play in the water with different results. I guess they stayed a bit longer than we had but the kids ended up looking like lobsters, boiled lobsters.

My favorite home remedy for sunburn is black tea. If you have burnt a small area then just steep some tea and place the bags on the burn while you sip the tea. For more all over burning float tea bags in a cool bath. Use enough to get the water a good tea color and just soak while the tannins in the tea work on healing that burn. If the burn is especially bad it may take a couple of soaks but at the very least you will be feeling better.

I know it sounds weird, but it works. Use cheap, grocery store variety black tea bags. If you get a sunburn give it a try.

A few weeks ago a magazine stole content from me. Even after being contacted by b5media and me they totally ignored us and blew us off.
SO…if you want to read my view on it..check out BakingDelights.

I am glad they liked it enough to say it was their best dessert ever…..

image:marye audet

I just learned that Starbucks is having to recall 530,000 coffee grinders. Apparently they are defective and they fail to turn off, or turn on unexpectedly and the result has been some pretty serious hand lacerations. You can find out  if your grinder is one of them at the Consumer Product Safety Commission. They go by the names, Seattle’s Best and Starbuck’s Barista.

Let’s play three guesses where these are made. Ready? When I count three just shout it out….one…two…thr…….Yep China.

Now, I don’t want to say that the Chinese government has a furtive terrorist plan to subdue the entire  United States by booby-trapping children’s toys, pet foods, and now coffee…but..I’m just sayin.

The only coffee makers and coffee grinders tht I could find that are US made are by Bunn. They are all commercial products and over 500.00

I don’t know about you but that is a little out of my price range.

If you know of a coffee grinder that is made in the US please leave a comment with a link to it!  All of this outsourcing is getting to me. I was looking for a soapbox to get up on but they are all made in China….

image:Via CPSC

I do. Back in the early 1960s air conditioning meant throwing open the windows. I swear you could hear the ring of the bells of the ice cream truck for miles. In fact, in our neighborhood, you could look out the window and see kids sitting there, waiting for the right moment to hit their mom’s up for some money.

You did this carefully. There was finesse and timing involved. If you did it too soon she would shake her head and say she didn’t hear any ice cream truck…but wait one minute too late and you couldn’t get there in time. You timed the quest for ice cream money as carefully as you timed a trip to the bathroom during Bonanza.  Timing was everything.

So…you waited and the minute you could hear those bells clearly you made your pitch as earnestly as you could, eyes wide and innocent, fingers crossed behind your back for luck. A few beads of sweat on your forhead didn’t hurt.  Then you rushed out the door and waited with the other lucky kids while the unlucky kids glared at you miserably from the sidelines, or sidled up to you hoping to get  a lick.

When I saw this story in the Boston Globe it brought all of those memories back. Imagine, not an ice cream truck but a coffee truck. Not just any coffee truck but a truck holding artisan roasted coffees, top coffee technologies, and lots and lots of coffee.

A moment of silence please.

The brilliant mind behind this is Bob Weeks. He roasts his own coffee in 6 lb batches at his home. And apparently this is pretty darn good coffee.  He then sells various coffee drinks to a variety of customers who are, no doubt, waiting impatiently for the sound of his truck…

This is so cool.  And best of all? I have my own money now.

“Hey! Stop! Coffee Man!”…….

image:sxc (photoshopped by marye audet)

I have been on the lookout for various teas that can be used for chilled drinks and popsicles lately. Of those that I have tried I think that (so far, anyway) Stash’s Mangosteen Green Tea is on the top of my list.

The tea is a nice amber, almost diluted cola color with a pinkish tinge. The flavor is what is outstanding. I used a little sweetener and it brought out the complex flavors. I am really not sure whether to describe this as cherry coke or chocolate cherry or something in between. Fruity and sweet with just a slight tang…I think I lean toward cherry coke. Not the chemically cherry coke of the 21st century but the old fashioned cherry cokes where you mixed coke and a little cherry juice. I am pretty sure that this is going to be the next popsicle flavor at our house.

I really liked the strength and flavor of this tea, and the kids liked it as well. It would be a great base for punch, mixed with club soda for Italian sodas, or even slushees. Give it a try and see what you think. I am not a big fan of green tea but this one is superb.

image:maryeaudet