Friday, June 20, 2008

Hopskip

This drink is a tribute to my Cornell days, and comes with a long and storied tradition. It was developed in Risley, the Cornell performing arts dorm and my residence for all four years on campus, as a way of making extremely cheap alcohol taste palatable. It soon migrated to Cornell's Debate Team via Cornell Debate alum (and minor CDA legend) Emmanuel Schanzer, where it has gained a reputation across the Ivy League as the absolute best way to get completely sloshed on a budget. Such is its magic that even experienced drinkers will have problems knowing how much is too much. It tastes innocently like lemonade, and it packs the kind of punch that leaves unsuspecting debaters waking up in foriegn locations and searching vainly for their pants.

I stumbled across a recipe for it a few days ago, while sorting through a few of my school things. I was tourney director for the Cornell Debate Tournament for two years while I was on the team, and one of the duties involved was planning the party. Apparently I wrote down the hopskip recipe at some point for that, perhaps to remind myself to get supplies. Anyway, here's a remnant of my college days. I preserve it mostly for nostalgia's sake, as god only knows when I'll next be called upon to provide drinks for two hundred plus people. It's suitable for service at most parties, but should not be served without some sort of warning to guests, as most people drink themselves stupid the first time they encounter it. (I told you, it was invented to disguise the taste of bad booze. It does this, admirably. Perhaps too admirably as people don't realize how much they've actually consumed.)

Hopskip

1.75 liters vodka (this must be the absolute cheapest you can find. If you're paying $10 for two liters, it's too expensive)
6 cans lite beer
4 liters sprite or your local generic equivalent. Being Cornell, we used Wegmans' generic: W-up (pronounced "wup").
1/3 liter lime juice (eyeball it)
2 cans frozen concentrated pink lemonade

Find a large container and mix ingredients thoroughly. At Risley, there is an official 35-gallon tub that acts as the hopskip vessel (to be absolutely true to Risley tradition, someone's arm was the stirrer in lieu of spoon, but this is not strictly necessary). For Cornell Debate events, it is frequently served out of a trashcan, although a new bag (or two or three) is strongly recommended for this method of service. This basic recipe makes about eight liters, but can readily be doubled, trebled, or quadrupled to fit a given crowd size.

Servings: How much a single recipe serves has always been a matter of debate, and attempts at scientific tests have yielded different results based on the respective participants' alcohol tolerances. Nonetheless, eight people is a conservative estimate (and those eight people will be really drunk), while fifteen or twenty is a more likely number.

Turkey Meatballs

Holy crap, these are good! I'd never tried cooking with ground turkey before, but when I noticed at my grocery that it's both cheaper and healthier than ground beef, I thought I'd give it a go. Orangette provided a recipe for me to riff on, and I was ready to cook.

And oh man, these are fabulous. Even my red-meat-and-potatoes parents loved these. They're fast, easy, and delicious. What more could I ask of a first experiment with turkey? I think I'll be using it more often.

Turkey Meatballs

1 lb ground turkey meat
1 medium onion, diced
2 eggs
2 tbsp fresh basil, shredded
1/2 cup toasted pine nuts
1/2 cup golden raisins
1/2 cup plain fine bread crumbs
1/2 tsp salt
Pepper
Cumin (a few shakes. I probably used 1/2 tsp, all told)
Olive oil

Mix everything except the olive oil together in a large bowl. Use your hands and get it all gooey, but try to avoid overmixing, since that just makes the turkey tougher. Make little balls about an inch wide (lean towards the smaller here; larger take too long to cook and the bottoms might get burnt) out of the mix. Heat a thin film of olive oil to just over medium heat, and saute your meatballs in batches so they don't get too crowded (too close together and they steam instead of sauteing, which ruins the consistency). Turn them as they color on the bottom so that all sides get evenly cooked. When they're done (check one with a fork if in doubt), drain them on a plate with a paper towel to catch any excess oil.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Cure for a Sore Throat

For the last week, I have been sick, sick, sick, and miserable. My throat sometimes feels so large I swear it's about to crawl out of my body and go find adventures of its own. During one of these occasions, I turned to the internet for sore throat remedies, and discovered that everything that helps a sore throat apparently tastes awful. When I couldn't sleep for a second night for coughing, I resolved to try a few of them anyway, using ingredients I had lying around in my kitchen. So, after a few days of trial and error, here is my recipe for a sore throat remedy that works wonders for me. I'm posting it here so that I don't forget it, and should I (god forbid) ever get this bad again, I can make more.

Sore Throat Remedy

2 1/2 tbsp white vinegar
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp chili powder
Salt
Water
Yogurt

Mix together the vinegar, lemon juice, chili powder, and a few shakes worth of salt in a microwaveable measuring cup. Add about a cup of water, and whisk it all together. Microwave for 20 seconds and whisk again, to get all the chili powder to go into solution. Microwave for another 30 seconds or so, and test with your finger to see if it's warm, but not so warm it might burn your tongue. If it needs a few more seconds in the microwave, go ahead.

Hold your nose, take a sip, and gargle. It doesn't taste as vile as you might think, and once you gargle with about two sips of it you'll fall in love, because it makes your throat feel about 80% better almost immediately. Keep gargling sips until your throat no longer feels like a survivor of trench warfare. Finally, eat a few bites of yogurt slowly to nullify the taste. The yogurt completely cuts the chili and vinegar taste out of your mouth, so there's no bad aftertaste, just a better throat.

Repeat every two hours or so, or as often as you need to.