Sometimes you just don’t need a recipe to know what your body craves. This is one of those days, because it’s chilly and rainy and I have a bad cold. One of those I don’t want to do anything at all kind of colds.

I have been battling it for 5 days. It started typically enough with a scratchy throat. By the next day I had a stuffy nose, but no fever. In fact if it weren’t for the stuffy nose I would have said I felt just fine. I had just about convinced myself that it was not a cold at all, just a mild allergy flair up.

But, alas sometime in the night these sniffles moved into my chest and sat down with a great heavy thud! My chest is so congested that it actually feels as if a great big bear is sitting on it while sticking a long feather down my throat. Tickling away for his own amusement. The tickle leads to a cough, the cough leads to hack and the hack brings up some of the nastiest stuff you’d ever want to see.

The only way to calm the tickle and stop the process is to drink warm tea. And I mean constantly. But a man’s gotta eat too. But I have no stomach for any sort of tid-bit or noshy thing. So it’s toast for me. Tea and toast with a little butter and honey for comfort. more »

Entertaining is fun. If I were to give you one piece of advice for stress free party planning I would say, “make like a Boy Scout and BE PREPARED”. The best way to be prepared is to spend a lot of time preparing. But what if that’s just not possible? Can a person be prepared “on the fly”?

I say yes and I can prove it. You see, I have this friend. We are not just friends, I would say we were great friends. Despite the fact that months and months can go by before we see each other again, though we live just a few miles apart. Part of this is because we are such great friends, there is no pressure to constantly work on the friendship. But the other reason we go so long between visits is entirely my fault, because I tend to blow her off sometimes. Unconsciously. I am not harboring any beneath the surface ill will– I promise. We are able to laugh about it (believe it or not). But I admit I have stood her up at bars, left her standing out front movie theaters (holding 2 tickets). I even failed to pick her up at the airport once. more »

Laissez les bons temps rouler! That’s the official saying of Mardi Gras and a great way to get the party ball “rolling”. Particularly since we are celebrating Mardi Gras this week.

So raise a glass and join me in a hearty “Cheers”! In this case the glass I am raising contains a very purposefully chosen cocktail known as the Sazerac.

Now a Sazerac is a classic cocktail from New Orleans. While the origins of many cocktails are lost in a boozy fog, the source of the Sazerac is well-documented. In fact it may be the very first drink to actually coin the word ‘cocktail’. Which seems to have been a mispronunciation of the French word for eggcup– cocquetier.

Which may seem odd until you know the history of this potent potable. You see one of the key ingredients in a Sazerac is Peychaud’s Bitters. These bitters were named after the owner of a New Orleans Pharmacie about 1830. This Mr. Peychaud began serving an elixir to customers with various digestive ailments, and he served it in an eggcup (get it?). This elixir became the precursor to the Sazerac. more »