Yajna Patni

I am drinking the Ten Ren Lapsang that y'all hate so much, and I cant lie. It is seriously one of my favorite teas. I make it with water on the rolling boil, and am drinking it with a big glug of milk, goat milk as it happens, and it is piney and smokey and delicious. Reminds me of good strong scotch. It was cheap too! $2 an ounce, although i can see you all shake your heads and say for a reason..... While at Ten Ren I also drank their raspberry black tea milk bubble tea... an old favorite of mine, and delicious. They have my favorite bubble tea anywhere I think. This is the Ten Ren in College Park MD..They have a little cafe and some tea,I have never been to the one in NY.

I am a big fan of Vinho Verde. Around here bottles run about $5 to $7, which is not under $5, but in the area.

I have never heard of a cocktail with potin.... its more a drink it get really really drunk for free. When i was in high school people made it, and cleared it with bleach. Not going blind was the best you could hope for...

In general, milk sweets are not very complicated to make. However, they require a lot of practice to get them just right. Mishti Dohi is just like that. You just need to figure out the trick. The way I learned milk sweets, was watching other people make them, and if at all possible, that is by far the best method.

Mishti Dahi is HARD to get to set... I have made it best with unpasteurized and unhomoginzed milk, btu that has more to do with the texture than the set. For it to set it just all has to be at the exact right temperature. I am not familiar with the different yogurt brands you are listing. But be sure it has live cultures. Once you put the culture with the cooked down milk you need to keep it at the same temperature as the milk.So a constant warm temperature. Out side may or may not be good depending on what the temperature is where you are. I make regular yogurt in the gas oven with the pilot light on, but i think mishti dohi needs to be slightly warmer. I made one kind that worked well, not strictly mishti dohi, but a variant that was set in a water bath. I think it was in a book by Madhur Jaffrey, and it may have been a recipe from somewhere in a place that was once in the USSR.... Sorry for my memory not being that sharp. I am pretty sure thought that for mishti dohi, the temp needs to be hotter than for regular dahi, and it also needs to be kept more constant. It is pretty unforgiving. It can be done though!

I have one of those 60's brat pack style suitcases. I got it on ebay for $3.00. I see them a lot, if you search portable bar, or vintage portable bar. It would not hold books though. Mine has room for three bottles, or two bottles a shaker and some bitters a shaker, 5 little glasses, a stirring spoon and a tray for serving the cups on. I usually use it for camping, and pick a two bottle cocktail, Manhattan or martini usually to make.

Since when can you find paddy here? I stuff my luggage with bottles of it when ever I go home!

O yes, my purpose is to enter the world of tiki this summer. I was looking at making a Mai Tai to start, having whetted my whistle so as to speak with a thrown together one earlier this year.

I have read this whole thread, and now my head is spinning (not from rum yet). What to get???? I can get two bottles right now. I have had Goslings black label for dark rum in the past and found it tasty. I was thinking of getting the barbancourt, as it is readily available in my locality.... I now can;t decide.. I have $2o or under for each bottle. Tell me what to do. I will report back, but there are too many choices.... please?

I find the ethnic store kinds to be stronger and more full of flavor than health food store brands, but it could be simply due to higher turnover in my neighborhood.

Wait... did I actually put in writing I am not persnickety? because I am. I do not like anything from celestial seasonings, and I do not like fake fruit flavored tea, except for blackcurrant, when I am sick because it tastes like Ribena and is therefore comfort food. I like my mint tea made with fresh mint. I like my chamomile either loose, or in bags from the Greek or middle eastern store, these kinds come out strong and bitter enough to make me happy. And for the most part i don't like blends. So i guess i am persnickety. Just not about the boiling water. O and i like hibiscus best plain, bought as Jamaica from the Spanish grocery store.

I always get it in tea bags, which I get usually from the Brazilian grocery store in my neighborhood, but the European stores have them too. I just put a bag in the cup and pour boiling water on it. I use on the boil water because i am so used to doing that for Black tea. It has a very very slightly mucilaginous mouth feel and grassy taste that i enjoy. I am persnickety about my black tea and its preparation, but not at all so about tisanes.

I like plain rooibos. Good and strong and can hold up to milk. I also like linden tea, and mint.

I usually run from the flavored teas too. I do however really like unflavored rooibos, which seems to be hard to find in Boston. At home in London and Dublin it is everywhere. I have been on a flavored tea bender though... Most recently a kiwi pomegranate one. I would predict that i would hate this. But it has an intriguing flavor. I cut it half and half with my every day tea from the Middle Eastern Store, so it is not too flowery/fruity. I do make it strong and drink it with milk. I mentioned it to a friend and said i might have to hand in my English citizenship and i had gone over to the dark side. I was losing my "edge". She commented i might be just losing my narrow mind. hmmmm

Pressure cookers make great quick risotto.

8 oz of chocolate is a lot for 3/4 of a cup of stout to overcome. maybe some white chocolate could sub?

My own mixed Russian Caravan. Definitely tasty, and hopefully will give me the oomph to get going today.

I like my martinis both with orange bitters and a twist, and also with an olive. Recently i have been putting a strip of salt preserved lemon rind, it is really tasty.

I thought "flask cocktails" were my guilty secret! Usually gin and some tonic. keep the gin in the freezer for a while first to make it as cold as poss. I have made a mojito and dumped it in to a water bottle. Ice mint and all. I was very tasty. Best water i ever drank.

Are oreo's still dairy? word on the grapevine is they have gone vegan. And i think Hydrox always were.

Hi Chris! you right. Typo ooops.....I love Kowloon! and i used to love even more the other route one Polynesian place that has been gone for years and whose name i forget. I am actually right now eating my cereal from a giant Kowloon fogcutter for two goblet/bad ass cereal bowl. I live in Somerville MA, and i got the trader Vic nips at the liquor store right next door to my local Foodmaster Supermarket. I don't think it even has a name, it just says Liquor in neon outside. Really small and really really um, basic. I think i could make some orgeat, and start figuring what i should get for some decent rum! Summer fun!

Wow Andi! that is amazing!

oops. and the juice of a lime. dang it would have been nasty without that.

I made my first tiki drink tonight! It is probably all wrong. But it was delicious. I have wanted to try one for a while, due to my thrift store tiki glass collection, er, problem. I made a Mai Tai. I had a bit of dark rum left over from making coquitos at Christmas, it was Gosling Black label, pretty cheap, and to my completely undeveloped palate kind of delicious. I found a nip of trader joes gold rum at the local liquor store, and figured even with my wretched budget i could make a mai tai. I used a recipe that sugested using amaretto if you can not find orgeat. I can find orgeat, i am just totally broke so i cant really buy it. So.... probably totally wrongly i used it. I had 2 oz of dark and 2 of the gold rum, one of cointreau, and one of the amaretto, and a little simple. I shook it, and poured it over some smashed up ice. I cant stand slushy drinks, so the ice was basicly just pounded with a big screw driver in a plastic bag. I put it in to one of my naked lady tiki glass, stuck in one of my many many swizzle sticks and drank. wonderful. maybe not right or perfect... but if until now the only tiki drink you had was scorpion bowls or gross hyper pineapple Mai Tais at Kowloon, a great thing. I could taste the dark rum and the light rum. I loved how the dark sugar taste of the dark rum played with the orange. I will definitely be saving up for some rum bottles.

My mom used to make jam like this.... lots of company for the boring fruit prep.