In the South, summertime heat can get the best of your intentions to cook dinner. Toss a salad, cut a few ripe tomatoes from the garden, fire up the outdoor grill (anything to avoid heating up the kitchen) and call that dinner. Better yet, serve something you grilled the day before and avoid fire altogether.
Visitors bearing homemade treats are always welcome at my home during the holidays. A gift of handcrafted limoncello made by friends a few years back was sipped with extra pleasure, illustrating that gifts handmade with care are treasured all the more by the lucky recipients.
The fresh local strawberries from Agriberry at the South of the James Farmer’s Market presented me with a problem : eat them all up until they are gone, really gone, or make a tasty cocktail mix with cilantro and fresh lime juice? I simply had to taste one, just one, and then another, and then…there were none left to make my spring beverage. So it’s a good thing Little House Green Grocery carries Agriberry’s strawberries, because my plan would have been foiled, as the market only comes around once a week and I had to strike while the berries are at their seasonal peak.
When winter’s chill is in the air, your fireside alcoholic beverage of choice may be hot cocoa with a splash of Kahlua, mulled wine or hot spiced apple cider with a splash of rum. I love to warm up with a hot drink but a chilled, tart and not-too-sweet cocktail hits the spot and whets my appetite for the piping hot dinner feast to come. My favorite beverages live among the innovative cocktail offerings of Acacia Mid-town here in Richmond, Virginia. Alas, evenings out on the town are limited, so if I have a hankering for a cocktail the mixologist must be me, or perhaps my neighbor Janie, who makes fabulous themed cocktails for dinner gatherings with friends. For this autumn’s outdoor viewing of the film noir classic Gun Crazy, Janie prepared sidecars, the vintage mixed drink, authentic and refreshing, with her usual verve and enthusiasm.