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From Ice Skating to S’Mores, to Silver Bells and thousands of ornaments on a towering tree, this after-Christmas view of the Hotel Del Coronado’s holiday fun and decorations from San Diego’s Fox 5 will definitely convince you to put the Hotel del Coronado at the top of  your Christmas 2012 celebrations!

A Magical Christmas in San Diego

Enjoy this fun guest blog from redweek.com

Tasty English Food with Odd Names

Spotted Dick  

You laugh now, but this is actually an incredibly tasty treat so popular that Heinz even offers a canned variety. Spotted Dick is a type of English dessert, much like a pudding or custard, with currants or raisins mixed throughout. “Spotted” refers to the dried fruit in the mix, though different reasons have surfaced as to the “dick” part of the name. One theory has “dick” stemming from an abbreviated form of the word “pudding” and here’s how: pudding becomes puddink becomes puddik becomes dick.

Black Pudding  

This traditional breakfast side in England might be more easily identifiable if it were called by its alternative name: blood pudding. Yes, this breakfast sausage (a savory pudding, not like your neighborhood Jell-O) is made with dried animal blood mixed with a filler, usually suet or vegetables. And I’ll tell you this: it’s a lot tastier than some of the other pseudo-animal byproduct meat dishes that we get served up in the U.S. If you want an authentically English meal, try a black pudding

Cornish Pasty 

I must’ve eaten at least one pasty every week while I lived in England. They’re like fast food but not fried: they’re sold at little pasty shops (the one near my house was the West Cornwall Pasty Co.) and you can take it on the go. The small to medium ones can fit in your hand; the larger ones take a little more care since they’re pretty darn big.

Traditional pasties are filled with stew beef, potatoes and onions but there are all sorts of variety like breakfast pasties with egg to Thanksgiving pasties with turkey and cranberries. Cornish refers to the county of Cornwall which is strongly associated with the food; pasty is derived from pastry which is used to make the baked dough pocket for the food.

Rent a timeshare in England, and you’ll have a good excuse to become proficient in English – food, that is!

Analise Marcus is an avid anglophile and food lover. She recommends booking affordable airline travel with an Travelocity promo code so you have plenty of funds to research all the local culinary delights wherever you go.

Ollie Cake Winning Quartet

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“Ha ha Paul, your mom made us a Gooseberry pie, and it was yummy”

As a newly-wed, were you the recipient of a wedding ‘prank’ (or two) ? Perhaps you were the perpetrator?

This cute story found it’s way to me and I thought it would be fun to share. It might stir up old memories. If it does, I hope you can remember the ‘fun’ and laugh about it all now as this person does!

“Anna made us a gooseberry pie the first year we were married, and if you have ever used gooseberries before, you know how much labor stemming and prepping them is. When it came out of the oven and I had the first bite. It was awful!  It was salty and not sweet. We checked the sugar bowl she had gotten the sugar out of for the pie… it was SALT. When we had gotten married, someone — “PAUL”– had gotten into our house and tricked out our house. They took all the lights out of the fixtures, put potatoes under the couch to rot, put raw egg in the shampoo bottle, powder sugar on the sheets, pulled labels off all the cans. And the one that really pissed [ticked] me off ruined my pie by putting salt in the sugar bowl!  Some of the things we found immediately. Other things like the rotted potatoes, and egg in the shampoo took time.

Oh well kids will be kids.

It has made me laugh and have something to “remind” my nephew about. My brother had the key to my house, and I think he was in on it too, especially since his wife chastised him for bringing it up, again. He at least harvested the berries and stemmed them to make the pie.”

How are things? I know, I know, I should have written sooner. After all, we’ve been together for five years now – can you believe it? As they say, ‘time flies when you’re having fun’. We’ve definitely had some fun together.

I remember when we first met (almost by accident). I never imagined that we’d hit it off like we did. Back then, everything about you seemed magical to me. You were so different than what I’d known before. You were so full of surprises – and every day I spent with you seemed surreal and wonderful.

Visiting the Forbidden City in Beijing on my very first trip to China in 2005

Remember the day I saw a woman carrying a baby in one arm and using her free hand to help push her husband’s three-wheeled truck (filled with plywood) up a hill? Or the time a man carrying an unsheathed, giant meat cleaver stood next to me on a crowded bus and I was the only person who seemed to notice? Remember the long bike rides I used to take out into the countryside west of Zhengzhou? Those rides always made me feel like an explorer – and each new village I rode into felt like a discovery.

Remember my English students back then? The freshmen wore their over-sized camouflage uniforms while they marched around the campus, looking as if their nervous energy might cause them to combust. Remember the first day of class when they began cheering and applauding the moment I walked through the classroom door? I felt like a Rock Star.

And the food. China, you’ve always seemed to understand the way to my heart. You’ve given me noodles…unbelievable noodles. Fried noodles served in flimsy Styrofoam bowls on the street. Giant bowls of thin noodles in salty beef broth. Thick noodles, handmade by young men in track suits attempting to hip-hop dance, stretch noodles, and entertain large crowds of noisy customers simultaneously. And my favorite – noodles covered in mud-colored, salty, garlic-laden, bitter sauce. Yes, I love your noodles.

But beyond noodles, you’ve opened my eyes to a world of food I never knew existed. You stretched my palate – no, stretched is the wrong word – you destroyed my palate, and rebuilt it China-size; bigger, wilder, better. You taught me to love tofu. And fresh yogurt served in glass bottles with paper lids. And wheat gluten marinated in oil, vinegar, sugar and spices. You served me baked duck heads, deep fried eel bones, barbecued dog, pickled chicken stomach, stir-fried flowers, roasted pig snout, grilled scorpion, and so much more. When I didn’t love the flavor, I loved the ingenuity of your cuisine.

With my friend, Cole, during my first trip to the Great Wall in 2005. I've been back four times since.

For me, China, your food typifies what I love about you. Over the past five years, I’ve never known what to expect. Sometimes you frustrated me with your unpredictability, but I was never bored. As with your food, your people, culture and language have also stretched me into someone new; someone more patient, open-minded, and concerned with the World beyond my own neighborhood. To borrow a term I know you love to use – You’ve truly made my life so much more “colorful”.

As you know, China, I’m in America now. I’ve been here for about a week, and it’s been great seeing my family again. I love America – but you already know that. America is my home – it’s where I’m most comfortable, and where I’ll always fit in best. But, that doesn’t change my love for you. Life isn’t found in comfort.

I’ll miss you while I’m away, and I’ll think of you daily.

Love,

aaron

Aaron Carmichael is an author of short stories and was both a teacher and a student in China.

Maybe it’s because we seem to have ‘settled’ into the heat of summer — early ‘dog days’ (those long, lazy-hazy days I always thought were August) – but when this post from Epricurious showed up, offering recipes for lovely refreshing drinks, I was intrigued and almost instantly refreshed!

Sweet Peach Tea

If a picture paints a thousand words, then these photos fill volumes! Peruse the recipes and enjoy the creative and innovative combinations of fruits and teas and herbs: Tarragon-Spiked Lady Grey Tea; Sparkling Tamarind Tea, Strawberry-Kiwi Sangria with Rose Geranium, Sweet Peach Tea, Apio-Rey, and Watermelon-Ginger Agua Fresca.

Tarragon-Spiked Lady Grey Tea

Apio-Rey

Some have a bit too much sugar for me, but that can be adjusted. And some of the steps can be a bit involved with steeping, soaking, and straining for a clear liquid. I am lazy and don’t need the clear pristine nectar. I don’t mind the cloudiness and actually prefer the extra ‘pulp’ fiber.

The sparkling waters make them festive but ‘still’ water is acceptable; or give them  more ‘spirit’ with a splash of tequilla, rum, white Muscat, or Prosecco.

Click here for the full list of Spritzers, Virgin Versions, Punches, Iced Teas, Ades, & More.

Then re-fresh yourself during these long, lazy ‘dog-days’ of summer!

STEP ONE:

Start with cake mix or recipe that holds it’s shape ….

STEP TWO:

Bake two cakes and at least two cupcakes — for the eyes!

STEP THREE:

Stack the cakes,  sticking them together with a butter cream frosting.

Cut the cakes into a semblance of the desired shape.

Add the cupcakes for the eyes, and secure with toothpicks.

STEP FOUR:

Frost the cupcake ‘eyes’ with plenty of frosting to round them out.  Begin spreading a

thin layer of white frosting for a base.  Give up on that and add blue frosting paste to the white.

Begin covering the cake  with a thin layer of blue.  Stop and fill in the big black mouth.

Go back and start adding ‘fur’.

STEP FIVE:

Finish up the ‘fur’ around the mouth and sides.

STEP SIX:

Add real chocolate chip cookies…even the crumbs.

Oh yes, and add eyeballs with the black frosting

and …VOILA! COOOOKIE MONSTERR!!

STEP SEVEN:

Add candles.

Light… And you have a happy four year old!

Fresh Apricot Pie — something I grew up with and just happens to be a favorite of mine, always satisfying both my taste buds and my memories. Even my husband has learned to anticipate and savor this refreshing and delicious pie, so I don’t get it all to myself anymore (not that I ever did!). My siblings also share the Apricot Pie passion and memories, letting me know when they’ve indulged in the family apricot pie, often for breakfast!

Our mother served it to us for breakfast.  Making it with a whole wheat crust, sweetened with honey and served with a good cheddar cheese, she believed it is more nutritious than most breakfasts, especially cereals and pop-in-the-toaster ‘fruit’ things.

Since I am not, and haven’t been for a long time, living where fresh summer ‘pie’ fruits are abundant, I drool while anxiously awaiting the appearance of the apricots in the store this time of year and then pay dearly for enough to make a pie, allowing just one pie each season. Accompanied by slices of a robust cheddar cheese, we enjoy our pie from breakfast, morning ‘coffee’,  through lunch and afternoon ‘tea’ and past dinner to a bedtime snack. That is, IF it lasts that long — we have to discipline ourselves to keep from eating it all in one sitting!

So, here it is – the Annual Apricot Pie…drool away:

Fresh Apricot Pie Filling

Whole Wheat Pie Crust

Ready for the Oven

Fresh Apricot Pie Baked & Ready to Eat!

Happy 4th of July!

Celebrate ANY day with this delicious version of a banana split  - ANY time of the day from breakfast through dessert for dinner!

Slice bananas over  (or top with) a rich Greek Yogurt. Cover with sliced strawberries and blueberries. Finish it off with a sprinkle of chopped nuts (toasted or raw) or a crunchy granola. Delicious!

I truly believe that  the presentation of food changes its flavor and improves the over all experience of any type of food or drink. As Tammy at Prairie Homestead says in her post about finding treasures such as attractive serving dishes at yard sales, “I’m a big believer that you eat with your eyes first”. I agree!

I do believe my coffee tastes better when it is ‘artfully’ served. Whether in a lovely ceramic cup or a paper ‘to go’ container, the ‘coffee art’ on top sets it off and mixes in nicely creating a delicious and satisfying coffee drink.

This Coffee Latte Artwork is becoming a huge aspect of coffee houses and their service.  My first encounter of a lovely decorated latte was at Lola Coffee in Phoenix.

Since then, I have experienced and enjoyed several…especially a variety of designs at Cartel Coffee Lab and other places like Urban Beans.

All of these coffee works of art take talent and is every bit as artful as a painting.

Watching the process is like a magic show.    You see it happening but it is hard to believe what the end result is with just a pouring in of milk and swishing it back and forth a bit. Coffee Art Magic

THOSE are the ones that truly impress me. However, even the others that are decorated with artful movements and additions of dark coffee or even chocolate, are amazing, too, and deserve recognition for talent it took to create them!

The following photos were sent to me by a friend.

FEAST YOUR EYES ON THESE WORKS OF ART:

And my favorites:

Those magic shows? You just have to watch! Here is another one of the many videos showing this magical talent.