Sangria is a delicious party punch-ripe red wine with summer fruit and sparkling fizz-that’s easy to make and easy to serve. This version is sweetened with strawberries, and only lightly spiked with orange liqueur. Serve well-chilled with small bowls of salty almonds.
Ingredients
- 2 bottles inexpensive
- Merlot wine
- 1 cup sweet port wine
- 1/2 cup orange liqueur, such as Cointreau or Triple Sec
- 2 navel oranges
- 1 lemon
- 16 ounces strawberries,
- 24 to 36 ounces tonic water, well chilled
- Mint to garnish
Directions
Sangria should be prepared at least 12 hours before serving, so that the fruit juices can infuse the wine with their flavor. At least one day before serving, mix the wine, port wine, and orange liqueur in a large pitcher or container. Cut the oranges and lemons in half lengthwise, and then into half-moons. Stir into the wine mixture. Hull the strawberries and cut them in half, then mix them into the wine as well. Using the back of a long spoon, muddle the strawberries into the bottom of the jug, smashing them and releasing their juices. Cover the jug and chill overnight, or up to 3 days.
Just before serving, stir in the tonic water, adjusting to taste. Serve in tumblers or wine glasses with a sprig of mint to garnish.
Makes 24, 8-oz. servings.
Day: May 26, 2011
Tiger, Tiger by Margaux Fragoso
This is a memoir that is a somewhat unsual one because it covers the lifespan of a young girl from the age of 7 to 21. It is a story of a real-life Lolita, and if Nabokov’s famous work fascinated you even remotely, this post-modernist work from the 1980s onwards set in one of the most populous areas on the East coast of the United States will certainly do much more than fascinate. It will astonish and alarm, as it will repel and repulse, even as it draws you into a world of tragic proportions where families are dysfunctional to the point of being the enablers of the victimization of such a young girl.
But what is interesting is how the perpetrator is humanized by her own victim to the point that one begins to understand the Stockholm syndrome with some clarity.
All in all, one of those stories akin to watching a bad road accident: you wish to look away, but you can’t. Besides, if you are a female reader, and especially one with young daughters of your own, it is almost out of a sense of parental duty that you feel compelled to read through this story of a young girls’ journey to hell and back– knowing all along that the young girl in question didn’t even realize that she had been on this long journey herself.
Guinness Tastes Better in Ireland. Does it? via Slate Magazine
President Barack Obama visited Ireland on Monday, where he had a Guinness at a pub in Moneygall (the tiny town where his great-great-great-grandfather was born). He remarked that the last time he’d ordered a Guinness in Ireland, during a stopover at Shannon Airport en route to Afghanistan, it was much tastier than any he’d had in the United States. “What I realized is you guys are keeping all the best stuff here,” he concluded. Was the president blarneying his hosts—or is Guinness really better in Ireland?
It is. After the Institute of Food Technologists asked tasters to sample the so-called “black stuff” in 71 bars, 33 cities, and 14 countries over the course of a year, they gave it an average rating of 74 points out of 100 on the Emerald Isle, about 20 points higher than it got anywhere else. “This difference remained statistically significant after adjusting for researcher, pub ambience, [and] Guinness appearance,” the researchers noted.
Freshness is the key factor. Beer is liquid bread, or so the saying goes—both are made out of grains and rich in carbohydrates—and just like a baguette, the fresher beer is, the more delicious it tastes. (Wherever you are, order the kind from the closest brewery, the experts advise.) All Guinness sold in Ireland, the United Kingdom, and North America is made in Dublin—so the time it takes for a keg to cross the Atlantic puts it at an immediate disadvantage. What’s more, since your average Irish watering hole probably sells more Guinness than its American counterpart, the chances are that much higher that a patron there will get a pour from a fresh keg. Regularly cleaning taps and draft lines also helps keep taste at its peak, as the Irish know; when the machinery isn’t thoroughly rinsed, old beer can accumulate and degrade, so that the alcohol in it becomes vinegary. Bacteria and mold can form, too.
Additionally, several beer experts told the Explainer that a publican outside of Ireland is more likely to use an inferior combination of carbonating gases. A proper pint, which has a carbonation level about half that of a normal beer, is served using a precise blend of carbon dioxide and nitrogen. The former accentuates some of the sharper components of the brew. Nitrogen, used primarily to stabilize the head, adds creaminess while mellowing the taste of the roasted barley that gives Guinness its coffee-like flavor (and dark color).
via slate.com
Mladic, Your Time Is Up!
Associated Press
BELGRADE, Serbia—Ratko Mladic, Europe’s most wanted war crimes suspect, has been arrested in Serbia after years in hiding, the country’s president said Thursday.
Serbia has been under intense pressure from the international community to catch the fugitive. Mr. Mladic has been on the run since 1995 when he was indicted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal for genocide in the slaughter of some 8,000 Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica and other crimes committed by his troops during Bosnia’s 1992-95 war.
icture taken on Aug. 10, 1993, shows the commander of Serbian forces in Bosnia General Ratko Mladic, cente.
“On behalf of the Republic of Serbia we announce that Ratko Mladic has been arrested,” Boris Tadic told reporters. He said the arrest was made by the Serbian Security Intelligence Agency.
Mr. Mladic will be extradited to the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, he said. He did not specify when, but said “an extradition process is under way.”
“We ended a difficult period of our history and removed the stain from the face of the members of our nation wherever they live,” he said.
Mr. Mladic personally led his troops in the Serb onslaught against Srebrenica, an enclave supposedly protected by U.N. peacekeepers. Thousands of Muslim men and boys were killed there and the town’s name has become nearly synonymous with the horrible bloodshed of the Balkan conflict.
“I want to congratulate Europe and [Mr.] Tadic,” said Munira Subasic, head of the Association of Mothers of Srebrenica. “I’m sorry for all the victims who are dead and cannot see this day.”
Serbia has been under intense scrutiny over Mr. Mladic, with the chief U.N. war crimes prosecutor, Serge Brammertz, complaining earlier this month that authorities were not doing enough to capture him and other war crimes fugitives.
Mr. Brammertz was scheduled to report next month to the U.N. Security Council about the Balkan country’s efforts. Mr. Brammertz’s regular reports on Serbia’s compliance are crucial for the Balkan country’s efforts to become a European Union member candidate. The EU has conditioned Serbia’s membership bid on the arrest.
With Mr. Mladic’s arrest, “we have opened the door for the negotiations and membership in the European Union,” Mr. Tadic said.
Prosecutors have said they believed he was hiding in Serbia under the protection of hardliners who consider him a hero. Mr. Mladic was last seen in Belgrade in 2006.
Croatian media, which first broke the story, said police there got confirmation from their Serbian colleagues that DNA analysis confirmed Mr. Mladic’s identity. Belgrade’s B92 radio said Mr. Mladic was arrested Thursday in a village close to the northern Serbian town of Zrenjanin.
In Brussels, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen hailed the arrest, saying Thursday that almost 16 years since Mr. Mladic’s indictment for genocide “his arrest finally offers a chance for justice to be done.”
Foreign Secretary William Hague congratulated Serbian authorities on the arrest.
“Today should mark the beginning of a new chapter for the countries of Western Balkans,” he said.
Tens of thousands of NATO troops were deployed to Bosnia in 1995 to safeguard a U.S.-sponsored peace agreement between that nations’ warring factions. They have since been withdrawn and replaced by a much smaller European Union force.
The United Nations had declared Serb-besieged Srebrenica, some 60 miles northeast of Sarajevo, a protected area for civilians. But the few hundred Dutch Blue Helmets on the ground were left short of credible weaponry or a clear mandate to protect the town.
Srebrenica fell to the Serbs after senior U.N. commanders dithered on Dutch requests for air strikes and its overwhelmingly Bosnian Muslim residents swarmed the U.N. military base, seeking refuge. But the peacekeepers allowed the Serbs to take away the townspeople when Mr. Mladic said they wouldn’t be harmed.
The shootings began shortly after, and the bodies of the victims were bulldozed into mass graves. Since then, the bodies of thousands of the victims have been recovered, identified through DNA tests and laid to rest.
—Alistair MacDonald contributed to this article.
via online.wsj.com
Apéritifs and Hors d'œuvres: Unnecessary Essentials For Civilization
These are the unnecessary things before a meal, but if available, will make the meal very pleasant, not to mention your company during the meal also very pleasant! In the case of the apéritifs, however, these are limited to those of legal drinking age, although the hors d’œuvres have no age barrier associated to their consumption!
One popular aperitif in my house of late has been a variation of the traditional Bloody Mary, only I use the Clamato cocktail tomato juice mix which makes for a very sweet-and-spicy beverage quite similar to the BM, only not so gloppy. Oh, and hold the celery stick, please. And what’s the poison, you ask? Why, Absolut or Grey Goose, of course!
And with an aperitif like that, what might be a suitable hors d’œuvres? Why, Papads, of course!
So, there you have it– a blend of the East and the West in so elegant a manner, I guarantee you will become completely civilized in no time!
044/365/01
Fresh veggies at my local Whole Foods. My favorite in this bunch is the eggplant, aka, brinjal.
