You have got to try this super decadent, melt-in-your-mouth, super sweet treat! It is finally starting to get chilly in South Carolina, and I decided to pull out all of the stops with the desert for the dinner party. You can make these in a variety of different ways, but there are some pretty standard approaches.
First, wine is a must. However, there is an on-going debate about whether you should use red or white. I do not suggest sitting on the fence for this one, decide and move on. I however, decided that I really wanted the red coloring offered by the red wine, but not the flavor, so instead I used Relax, a Riesling (it’s amazing and sweet!) and some red sparkling grape juice. I would suggest trying out a few whites before deciding on what to use, especially if you are going to add sparkling grape juice to the mix. Seriously, taste the combination first. On a slightly different topic, if you go with just a white wine, throwing in some dried cranberries and/or cherries a couple minutes before the syrup is finished reducing is a colorful, tasty touch; they will re-hydrate a little and add nice texture to the dish too. I suppose you could add these to the red wine/grape juice version of this dish too, but they won’t be a visible addition to the dish.
I grew up making bread. As I’ve been told, the first recipe I ever knew by heart was a cornbread recipe. But as I’m getting older, the sad reality is dawning on me that a diet entirely dominated by delicious bread and baked goods is not going to be very waistline-friendly. That being said, I still make bread all the time; now I just make smaller amounts of it, but that is not always an easy task given that bread recipes often do not scale easily/evenly. So this is a simple bread recipe that only makes 12 (albeit a fairly large 12) garlic knots. If you have a significant other, great, now you can split it evenly and distribute the consumption. If you have a significant other and kids/niece(s)/nephew(s)/neighbors/friends, even better. But I should warn you, you might not give these up so easily once you’ve tried them!
One of the first things I do upon moving to a new town is try to find my go-to Chinese take out restaurant. Sadly, it has proved more difficult than usual in Columbia, but I have found nicer sit-down Asian places to visit. So far my favorite is Tsunami, which is in the Vista. On my first visit I tried warm, kiwi-flavored Sake (something that I strongly recommend sharing with friends if you want any chance of getting home safely. (Don’t worry, my friend ordered it and I just had a sip because, goodness knows, I can’t hold my liquor.) During that visit I also decided to order a couple sushi rolls rather than a main course while everyone else ordered more filling meals. One of our friends is Jain and cannot eat anything requiring the death of another organism and he ordered fried cheese and spinach rolls of which I was quite envious.
. Admittedly, there are plenty of moments that caused me to cringe, but there was also a lot of interesting information to be gleaned about the insides of the restaurant business (at least as he portrays it).
