chocolate, awkwardness, and win a cookbook!

One day soon I'm going to write a book filled with awkward encounters involving the opposite sex. It will include, but won't be limited to, spilling drinks on myself, spilling drinks on others, falling over on dance floors, "difficult" conversations, and technology problems faced when attempting to effectively use facebook's messaging function. It might also include some recipes.

Until that time, having my name and recipes in a published book along with other cooks, and without embarrassing stories, will have to do. Whittaker's chocolate have released a cookbook A Passion for Chocolate and it includes a brief history of this 100-year old New Zealand company, tips on how best to melt and use chocolate in cooking, and over 65 recipes from guest chefs. Including me! I'm in esteemed company: Martin Bosley and Ruth Pretty for example also feature, and there are some beautiful recipes. All filled with chocolate.

I was doing recipe testing this time a year ago, and as a result for the book I've done Peanut Slab Cookies and a White Chocolate Macadamia Cheesecake. 

GIVEAWAY!!! GIVEAWAY!!! GIVEAWAY!!!

It's now available in stores (and retailing for about $37) but I've got a copy of the book that I'd like to give you.

To be in to win, all you have to do is email me your name and postal address, and include either a funny or embarrassing story OR a photo of something you've cooked recently - bonus points if it's a recipe or idea from heartbreak pie. Please put 'giveaway' in the subject line, and I'll draw the winner next week. 

For more chocolate: I made a great gluten-free chocolate cake last year on Good Morning but the onscreen ganache was slightly disastrous (please ignore the photo, and the cake is delicious with or without raspberries!). These dark chocolate cookies are a hit regardless of what you put in them. And there was once a time when my friend told me the guy I was seeing was as lucky as having won lotto, because my chocolate cream cheese brownie was life-changing. See also: emotional afghans, hollywood slice, and using Guinness to wake up in the wrong room at a backpacker's hostel, compared to using Guinness in a chocolate cake.

I'm looking forward to making myself feel better with all your entries, so get emailing!

silver lining

It has been a very long week, a very, very, long week. Last week feels like an eternity ago, but just before the week that seemingly won't end (so facemeltingly sleepy) was another one, again so full. So full, of people and column writing and eating and a splash of cooking and some pretty sweet settling in to my new home.

So my new home, I have learnt, has a morning bus lane outside it. There's ambiguous signage right outside my door, and I found out the hard way when my car was towed on Tuesday morning. It set the tone for the day. The sunshine tried its hardest to cheer me up; the cafe I decided to patron on my lunch break did not, what with its surly service and below-average coffee (lift your game, Shaky Isles Britomart).

I thought the silver lining came mid-afternoon when I left my desk for some fresh air (and a snickers bar) and remembered I had a bottle of Tanqueray at home (duty free from my parents, thanks very much). This lead to me tweeting about how gin and tonics would be consoling me post picking up my car from the towies. Turns out twitter is the best place to whinge, because that first lead to an invite to an opera screening opening (free drinks and nibbles!) and then to an invite to an adorable French movie with a recently acquired new friend. I laughed and laughed through The Intouchables (highly recommended) and when driving home I was just overwhelmingly grateful for, well, everything really. Smiling and singing loudly to myself like a maniac (standard solo driving behaviour) all the way home, it had been a roller-coaster of emotions, but after everything just a great end to a day with such gloomy beginnings.

Before the movie, I just had time to whip up a stir fry (bok-choy, broccoli, sugar snap peas, green beans, noodles, fancy peanut butter, soy sauce, chilli, fresh lime, mungbean sprouts) and really, that one gin in the sun whilst cooking aforementioned stir fry, was so necessary. I had earlier thought I'd indulge in some Quina Fina tonic, a new fancy (expensive) but NZ made, and very good, tonic. Fun fact! Gin and tonic is popular in hot countries because the quinine in the tonic is alleged to keep mosquitos away. Further fun fact! I once used all of my letters to get 'quinine' on a triple word score in a closely fought scrabble battle. It was one of my proudest moments to date.

Quina Fina is usually stocked at both Glengarry and Nosh, but on this fateful Tuesday both had sold out. Running swiftly out of time with panic setting in, I resorted to the petrol station for some standard Schweppes, but they didn't even have the decency to stock it in the first place. Thinking quick, I had a flashback to a gin and juice being a thing, and also gin and grapefruit totally being a thing, so I bought a wee bottle of Frank Sparkling Ruby Red grapefruit.

Well. Again with the silver lining, as if the post car-tow movie invite wasn’t silver lining enough. Add fresh mint and fresh lime to gin and sparkling grapefruit and you have yourself a million dollar drink. Refreshing, relaxing, post-shit-day, pre-awesome-movie; this drink comes highly recommended as the weather warms up. You deserve it.

The Ruby Tuesday

Many people quicker and cleverer than I have already named other cocktails the ruby tuesday, but my hastily executed googlesearch showed them all to be different, so here’s yet another.

Ingredients

Gin

Sparkling ruby red grapefruit drink (if you’re in NZ, Frank’s is perfect. Pink grapefruit juice some sparkling water would do the trick as a substitute)

Fresh Lime

Fresh Mint

Ice

Cut lime in half, add one cross cut slice to your glass (teacups work well), then squeeze the remainder lime’s juice into the glass.

Clap a couple of mint leaves between your palms and add to the glass, then add ice.

Chuck in a shot of gin (size dependant on how bad your day has been and whether you have to drive in about 5 minutes) and top up with your sparkling grapefruit. Reeeeeelax and enjoy.