Monkling's Blog

Theresa: “Couldn’t you have popped me out a week earlier?”
Me: “You were 3 weeks early as it was. Why?”
Theresa: “Formal is a week before my 21st birthday. I won’t be able to drink.” Then she thinks a bit. “Maybe they won’t proof me. Or if they do, maybe they’ll let it slide since I’ll be 21 in only 6 more days.”

Speaking of drinking, I think this is an appropriate place to get to another of Lanny’s comment about adult drinks.

On New Year’s Eve, 2 years ago that “Anonymous in a Hick Town” poster was visiting with her almost fiancée. We decided we wanted to make Chocolate Martinis but we didn’t have all the ingredients. We did find a drink called a Chocolate Monk but I decided to change it around a bit. The resulting drink was renamed.

I felt it appropriate for it to have Frangelico in it, don’t you think?

Chocolate Monkling:
Mix equal parts Bailey’s Irish Cream, Kahlua, Frangelico, and Creme de Cacao. Shake well with ice.

There you have it – my very own drink.

Here’s the first mystery:

To everyone except maybe my sister, this image is a mystery. Y’all are wondering what the heck is that stuff. Some of you are thinking gross, disgusting thoughts about what it might be. I assure you – it is not what you think.

The second mystery is what will explain the first. Mystery #2 is: just what the heck is in Sambuca? It smells like licorice. It tastes like licorice. When I searched for what Sambuca has in it, there were some recipes consisting solely of star anise, vodka and simple syrup. I refused to believe that was authentic. If we were talking about Anisette, sure. I could believe that. Not Sambuca, though.

The more I searched, the more mysterious it became. I was certain that one of the main ingredients in Sambuca had to be elderberries and/or elder flowers. This conclusion was based on the fact that I saw elder mentioned and the botanical name for elder is Sambucus.

I’ve had such fun making Limoncello & it came out so good, I was determined that I was going to figure out how to make Sambuca. I got all the ingredients that I saw mentioned on various websites: elderberries, elder flowers, licorice, star anise. I figured I’d cover all the bases & just get everything.

That’s where it got even more confusing. Neither the elderberries nor the elder flowers smelled anything even remotely like licorice. Stranger still, the licorice root didn’t smell like licorice. Wouldn’t you think licorice root, the very thing licorice is named for, would smell like it’s supposed to??

And so the great Sambuca experiment will be carried out. That is what is in the photo – experiment #1. It seems an awful lot of liqueurs and brandies are made by monks so who better to pull off an experiment like this, eh?

Y’all know that random, odd things pop into my brain which I then feel compelled to share with my blog readers. Today’s random, odd thing has to do with cooking, just in case you didn’t get that from the title.

Something on someone’s Facebook caught my eye and got me to thinking. It was about cooking chili with beans and then picking them out. Now I’m wondering how many people cook things they don’t like.

I don’t do peas. I might cook them but I can tell you right now, it’ll be a cold day in hell before I ever make pea soup. With just plain peas, you can contain the smell somewhat but the soup – blech! It’ll make the entire house smell like peas, which means I’d have to leave.

That was one of the good parts about moving out of my parents’ house. I never again had to sit at the dinner table and see things like liver or other disgusting stuff I hated. I never could figure out the liver thing with my mom. Even she didn’t like it but she had it in her head it was good for you so, naturally, she had to cook it for us.

By the way, speaking of picking beans out of chili and gross things my mom used to cook, sometimes for dinner my mom would make macaroni and peas; always with elbow macaroni. I’d pick every single damn pea out of there. There was an issue, though, because sometimes peas could be hiding inside an elbow. You had to be real careful eating that stuff.

I blame my father for the whole pea thing. He was one of those, “You’re not leaving until you eat everything on your plate!” kinds of fathers. He basically forced me to eat the things when I was young. My kids benefited from that. I never, ever forced them to eat something they didn’t like. If they had a problem with what I cooked for dinner, they knew where the cabinet was that had the cold cereal.

If you’re married, you might cook something for your spouse that you don’t like, just to be nice but how often do you do that? Are there things you absolutely won’t cook or even allow in the house?

I’m pretty sure I mentioned once before that we have a webcam. We use it to talk to Stephen on Skype and I love it except when the boy doesn’t sign on for days & days. Then I leave him messages in Italian in my status window. Sad, pathetic Italian messages about how I need to talk to my son.

Anyhow, one day I was talking to him and he was drinking something green. He asked me if I knew what it was. I didn’t have a clue. My only guess would have been that it was some sort of mint stuff.

Steve tells me, “It’s green sambuca. It’s illegal in the US. Want to know why? Because it has codeine in it.”

I did a bit of research on that & found a rumor saying not that it had codeine in it but that certain other ingredients, when mixed may produce something similar to codeine. In any case, I doubt that’s true.

When we were visiting Stephen, he took us to a restaurant he goes to often, I think called Abruzzo. (I need to confirm that with him.) Like all the other restaurants he took us to, this was fantastic. I don’t think I ever tasted an artichoke as good as there. And the pasta… oops. Let me wipe the drool off my keyboard.

We were stuffed but Steve insisted we order dessert because, if you order dessert, they bring bottles of sambuca to your table: white, black & green. Naturally we all tried the green. And ended up buying 2 bottles of it to bring home.

Then came the doubt. What if it really is illegal to bring into the US? Will the nab us at customs? What if it’s perfectly fine to bring it home but the bottles break? Now that would have been even worse than if they took the bottles from us.

When we packed up to leave on that last day, I wrapped the bottles in bubble wrap. (Lucky thing I had used bubble wrap to safeguard all those Christmas cookies I brought to Steve!). Then I wrapped them in clothes. Then I put that in a plastic bag. An elephant could have sat on that suitcase & these bottles wouldn’t have broken.

The airport wasn’t a problem. There were no beagles sniffing out my booze. There was no x-ray machine searching for forbidden alcohol. There was no sticky green liquid oozing out of the seams.

I am now the proud owner of a bottle of green sambuca. Still one burning question remains – why are there deer on the label? What do deer have to do with sambuca?

The first time we went to Italy was Feb. 2000. We went with a group of high school boys, saw all the sights and had a lot of fun. One thing we discovered there was hot chocolate. Now let me tell ya something – Italian hot chocolate is like nothing you’ve ever tasted here in the states. It is not just chocolate milk that’s been heated or a packet of powder mixed with hot water like you’re making instant coffee or something equally horrid.

Nope. Italians know their food and their drinks and even hot chocolate is different there. Italian hot chocolate is like drinking a cup of melted chocolate. It was the richest, most delicious thing I ever tasted in my life. Ever since that time, 9 years ago, I have searched American stores and online for the stuff but I searched in vain.

Then it happened. We found it in Rome, a little envelope of heaven:

That was basically the only souvenir we brought home. The problem is, we didn’t bring home nearly enough of it. Luckily, I now have a son who lives in Rome and who knows where the nearest post office is. Of course this is the same person who has yet to buy a single Italian postage stamp…

This is what we have accomplished so far:

We are not done yet. Still in the lineup are the Holly Wreaths and the Neopolitan Rainbow Cookies. Then there is the experiment cookie I’m going to make. Or, make up. We’ll see how that one turns out. If it’s good, it may be another family tradition.

Many of these cookies are tradition. My mom used to make many of them & therefore, they must make an appearance at Christmas. Are there any cookies that are a must have at your house for Christmas; special holiday cookies that are required under the penalty of banishment into a corner with only stale cookie crumbs to eat as punishment if the cookies are missing?

I decided to come back and identify the cookies. Starting in the upper, left – gingerbread men (yeah, self evident). Then we have the chocolate swirls. Next are snickerdoodles (Neala’s recipe) but instead of cinnamon/sugar, we went for colored Christmas color sugar. Then something new: pignoli nut cookies. (They are NOT pine nuts. Not in this house!) In the middle we have Virginia’s oatmeal cookies. Then thumbprint cookies. The Christmas tree cookies are one my mom always used to make. The white ones are mom’s crescent cookies except I have reshaped them and they are now called snowball cookies. Last are the candy canes.

Today we began The 12 Day of Christmas (Cookies). Well, I began it, anyway. The anticipated goal is to make 12 different kinds of Christmas cookies. I’m not sure we will reach that goal but I can tell you we are, theoretically at least, halfway there.

Why theoretically? Because currently sitting in my refrigerator, there are 6 batches of cookie dough. Since they are not baked, they cannot be called cookies. Therefore, technically, I have not made any cookies yet.

Normally Fridays is my official house cleaning day. I do my cleaning on Fridays so that I can sit on my butt for the entire weekend and do absolutely nothing. This weekend, however, Theresa and I are planning a baking marathon so the cleaning went out the window. My house is a mess but hey, who cares? We’re doing way more important things here. We’re doing cookies.

Now let me get to the whole ‘red’ part. One of the cookies that has become a holiday tradition around here are candy cane cookies. They consist of 2 bands of dough (red & white) twisted together and shaped like… yes! You guessed it! Candy canes.

Today I learned something about coloring cookie dough with food coloring. If it doesn’t seem to be mixing well with a spoon, you probably don’t want to put your hands in it and knead it. The good part is, at least red is a naturally occurring color. Better to have a red streak on my palm than oh, say a blue or green one.

I’m not sure if everyone knows what strufoli are so first off, I had best explain. When we were kids, we used to call them Honey Balls. They are little balls of dough (made with flour and egg) that are deep fried. Then they are covered with honey and piled into a triangular mound sort of like a Christmas tree & covered with colored round sprinkles. You must use the round type. Nothing else is allowed.

You can see a picture of them here. The recipe that goes with the photo, however, is not how we used to make them.

Strufoli are only made at Christmas time. In our family, it was one of the traditional Christmas cookies (although I’m not really sure you can call them ‘cookies’) and they were made every single year. It just wasn’t Christmas without them. I recall my grandmother making them also but they weren’t as good as ours.

For all the other cookies, mostly it was my mom who baked them. I’d help or I’d take over making some but my father never got involved in the cookie baking. Except for the strufoli. That was an annual tradition. Big Al & mom would make the strufoli together. Always.

A few years before my mom died, she was in the hospital for 4 months. It’s a long story but the short version is, she went in for surgery for a brain tumor, developed every complication under the sun, had several more brain surgeries plus assorted others & we didn’t think she’d ever come home. But, through some miracle, she did come home – right before Christmas.

After being in a hospital bed for 4 months, she needed to use a walker and she certainly wasn’t up to cooking or going out. We were, however, going to have Christmas. My siblings & I decorated the house before she arrived home. We were all ready to have Christmas with Mom, something we never thought we’d be doing only a month prior to that.

I don’t remember the details of who cooked what. My dad may have cooked Christmas dinner that year or we may have all brought something. Those details are gone into the black hole of my mind. What I do remember is my dad made strufoli.

After dinner, the desserts came out. All the cookies, the cakes, the pies and my father proudly put down the platter of strufoli because, after all, it wouldn’t be Christmas without them. I can’t remember who took the first one.

“What are those black things in there? Did you put something different in the dough?”

“No,” my dad said. “I made them the same as we always do.” We passed them around, examining them.

“Uh, Dad. These don’t look right. I think they’re bugs.”

My mom looks at them and agrees. “Didn’t you see there were bugs in the flour?”

Big Al replies, “I thought it was supposed to look that way.” He pops the strufoli into his mouth. “I think they taste better like this!”

Frank tries one, as well, because… well he’s just strange. “They taste fine to me!” And if that wasn’t bad enough, being married to someone who has no problem with eating bugs, it seems the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Stephen ate some, too. Theresa remembers one of my brothers eating them, too, but we can’t remember which one.

This year we’re having Christmas Eve over my father & his wife’s house. I’m thinking of making strufoli. I will, however, be checking the flour for insects.

Last night I was lazy. I didn’t feel like cooking anything complicated. Instead, I decided I’d just stick a burger under the broiler. If the man likes burgers and fries when we’re out, then why wouldn’t he like them at home, right?

After a few minutes, I heard noises. Noises that you’re not supposed to hear coming from your oven. A wood burning stove, maybe, but not that broiler inside my oven. I turned around and noticed the oven was unusually bright. Yep, that would be due to the flames shooting up. Is this what they mean by “Flame Broiled”?

When I opened the oven door, flames shot out of it. It’s amazing the knobs weren’t completely melted off. That would have been a much better photo but I was a bit busy at the time.

As a result of the little fire, there was also a bit of smoke to accompany the flames. Well, more than a bit. Enough to set off the fire alert thingie. It was then that I discovered 2 things:

1. My dog isn’t completely deaf.
2. If there is ever a real fire and I need to be saved by my dog, well we’d be burnt to a crisp before that would happen.

My dog, the one who is not afraid of thunder or fireworks was terrified of the alarm. He had an accident. I sent him outside to clean up. Afterwards, we attempted to get him to come back inside. “No way,” he said, “I’m not coming back in there. That’s where the bad, scary noise was.”

Yep, if the house was on fire, we wouldn’t have Lassie to drag us out of the house and save us. Nicky would probably behave like my parents’ dog, Sammy, who was afraid of thunder. He’d run into the bathroom and hide in the tub.

This is the Table Mascot we created at my cousin’s wedding, many years ago:

Yes, that is a rose in her teeth. (Yes, it is a female. You may be able to make out the long hair and veil.)

We did carry on the Table Mascot tradition at other weddings but I think this may be the only one captured on film.

Only my family…