These days, there’s no shortage of stunt cocktails out there—drinks made with zany, unusual ingredients: Sweet peas! Bacon! Hen-of-the-woods mushroom garnish! Cotton candy! Rose foam! These exhibitionist drinks invariably scream, “Look at me!”

And, yes, while I’m often the first one at the bar to order a stunt cocktail, it’s not what I want to serve at a dinner party. For that, I want something elegant, understated, and most importantly, something that complements food. But not a complete introverted wallflower of a drink, either—I want something delicious and balanced, a drink that can hold its own.

Enter the Sparkling Ginger Daisy cocktail. This drink, with a hint of warm ginger and sprightly champagne, is what I want my guests sipping while the Macy*s Thanksgiving Day Parade is on, and the turkey is still roasting. And as everyone’s sampling my signature cornbread stuffing laced with rosemary, as well as my sweet potato casserole sprinkled with ginger and cinnamon, they’ll be washing it all down with these daisies.

The drink starts with equal parts crisp gin and zingy Domaine de Canton ginger liqueur. (I love this stuff. If you buy one new bottle of booze this holiday season, I say this is the one.) Add to this a splash of tart lemon juice for balance and grenadine for rosy, festive color, and top with the lightness of bubbles. Together, these flavors meld together into a sippable sparkler that becomes an easy guest at the dinner table.

It doesn’t scream, it doesn’t whisper. It’s a perfect conversationalist.

Sparkling Ginger Daisy
by Kara Newman
from Spice & Ice
(Chronicle Books, 2009)
Makes 1 cocktail

A daisy is a classic juice-based cocktail sweetened with grenadine or a red liqueur, and often topped with sparkling wine. Here, the bright spice of ginger plays against a backdrop of bubbles for a festive holiday sparkler. And if you feel like gilding the lily, try one or both of the optional special touches below.

convert Ingredients
1 ounce Plymouth gin
1 ounce Domaine de Canton ginger liqueur
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon grenadine
Brut champagne

Method
1. Combine the gin, ginger liqueur, lemon juice, and grenadine in an ice-filled mixing glass.

2. Stir until well chilled, and strain into a champagne flute.

3. Top with champagne.

Optional touches:
1. Rim the flute with sparkling sugar before pouring in the drink.

2. Garnish with a cherry at the bottom of the flute.

Recipe © 2009 Kara Newman. All rights reserved.
© 2009 Leite’s Culinaria, Inc. All rights reserved. Terms of use.

I am not ashamed to admit it publicly: I’m a Solanum tuberosum freak. Yep, so lock me up and throw away the key to the pantry. In other words, I’m a potato fanatic. I wave my freak flag high and proud. I worship all sizes and shapes of this seductive tuber. In fact, so deep goes my freakiness for the starchy little fellows that I have on many occasions eaten for dinner nothing but a big-ass bowl of mashed potatoes. (And, yes, I’m well aware of all the big-ass references you’re probably thinking of that can be inserted here, but I’d happily risk your sniggers than be less than my true, unadulterated self.)

Sometimes I do make a concession to dietary diversity and add other food stuffs for a well-rounded meal, such as sour cream (dairy) and chives (vegetables) to baked potatoes or eggs (dairy and protein) to sautéed potato slices for a potato frittata. I’ve even gone all leafy-green vegetarian on myself and stirred sautéed spinach or Swiss Chard into my bowl of sexy, tuberous goodness.

My latest obsession is potato pizza. The recette du moment that I’m hooked on contains no tomato sauce (one less nutritional source, I know) but makes up for that with bacon. And, as I’m sure you know, add bacon—a food group unto itself—to anything, and it suddenly catapults the dish up the slippery slope of the food pyramid, besting fruits, vegetables, and lean meats. Just ask Dr. Regina M. Benjamin, President Obama’s Surgeon General nominee. (One look at ole ‘Gina, and you know she worships at the altar of bacon, bless her heart.)

I’ve been serving this pizza since summer, when it made its debut at a casual dinner hosted by our friend artist Gary Komarin in Roxbury, CT. I brought along a few pies, and they were gone in no time. Everyone weighed in with their comments (apparently, when it comes to pizza everyone’s a critic), but I got the greatest idea from Gary’s neighbor Candace Busnell of Sex in the City, Lipstick Jungle, and One Fifth Avenue fame: “Top it with a fried egg and you have breakfast.”

Needless to say, with my number one desire always being to round out my diet and eat as healthfully as possible, I did just that the next morning. Of course, I added a drizzle of white truffle oil. You can never have enough vegetables.

Recipe
Potato-Bacon Pizza

These days, if you love cocktails it’s assumed you also love the hit TV series “Mad Men,” which in turn assumes you love a good dry martini (gin, natch, not vodka), one of the ad world’s hallmark drinks sipped over and over throughout the series, most frequently in triplicate during long-gone expense-account lunches.

Okay, I’ll cop to the “Mad Men” season pass. But if I admit I don’t love a dry Sterling  Cooper martini, do I have to give back my cocktail credentials? Because I don’t. In fact, my taste veers straight to the other end of the flavor spectrum: I love a sweet, creamy, luxurious drink, the polar opposite of a “dry” anything.

Very uncool of me to admit to this, I know.

If a dry martini is a perfect aperitif, then the Fiery Almond is the equivalent of dessert. Think of it another way:  dry-roasted almonds versus a luscious slice of toasted pound cake crowned with melted chocolate sauce. The first coaxes the appetite, the latter satiates it.

The problem with sweet drinks is they sometimes can be cloying. But I’ve found that a hit of spice helps alleviate that and cuts the overall smack of sweetness. So I’ve added a chipotle-and-cocoa rim to this drink. On a spicy scale of 1 to 10, the heat in this dessert-like drink rates a big fat zero. That is, until you add the chipotle-cocoa rim. With this one easy but impressive touch, the spice level soars anywhere between a 7 and a sizzling 10!  I recommend using a two-to-one cocoa powder-to-chipotle ratio, but use the chipotle solo if you have the steely, unflinching swagger of Don Draper.

This libation will never see the inside of a Madison Avenue boardroom, but it’s perfect for sipping in front of the fire as autumn gives way to winter, or for capping off a great meal with a hint of sizzle and a touch of lingering sweetness. But my favorite: defiantly imbibing it in front of the tube while watching those martini-swilling characters on “Mad Men”—on TiVo, of course.

The Fiery Almond
by Kara Newman
from Spice & Ice (Chronicle, 2009)
Makes 1 cocktail

convert Ingredients
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
1/2 tablespoon chipotle powder
3/4 ounces amaretto
1/2 ounce Kahlua
1 ounce light cream

Method
1. To rim the glass: moisten the rim with amaretto. Combine cocoa and chipotle powder in a small dish or shallow bowl. Carefully dip the rim of the glass into the powder mix to coat.

2. In a bar shaker or kitchen tumbler, shake together the amaretto and Kahlua over ice; strain the mixture into an old-fashioned glass half-filled with ice.

3. Gently pour the cream over the back of a spoon to create a “float” on top of the fiery almond without disturbing the rest of the drink.

Like it hot? Visit the Kara’s blog,  Spice & Ice, and more.

Recipe © 2009 Kara Kewman. Photo © 2009 Antonis Achilleos. All rights reserved.
© 2009 Leite’s Culinaria, Inc. All rights reserved. Terms of use.

I’ve made no bones about why I hated advertising while I was a copywriter and, later, an associate creative director in countless agencies. Well, I didn’t hate it all 18 years that I worked in the industry, but toward the end, it was mind-bendingly painful. (Have you ever gotten to that point in your career where you fantasized about carrying around sharp objects praying someone got into an argument with you?) During meetings, all I could think about was being in my kitchen baking. What ameliorated the interminable idiocy of creative dingbats and cowardly account people was I got to bring in my perfectly baked goods for all to enjoy. At least that gave me some satisfaction.

And nowadays it’s rare when I see a print ad or TV commercial that makes me think, “I wish I had done that.” That exactly what happened when I saw the ads for the 2009 Sydney International Food Festival, created by WHYBIN/TBWA. Although ads without copy are the bane of most writers with a healthy ego—after all, we have to pee on the ad somehow to mark our creative territory—I would’ve been quite content to have nary a word of mine of them. They’re brilliant. They instantly communicate the message: foods of the world, in an extremely clever way. (And I don’t mean that in the condescending way a creative director says: “Oh, David, that’s sooooooo clever.”)  Each flag from a participating country is made up of ingredients indigenous to that country. Here, host nation Australia has its flag made from a big ole minced meat pie with star cutouts and ketchup stripes. Click to see the rest of the flags in the campaign.

The ads also gentle poke fun at the viewer because, at least for me, I didn’t recognize every flag or know every ingredient used to make them, so it reminded me that I could learn a thing or two from this festival. And speaking of festivals, I’m sure this campaign will be seen in the upcoming awards festival season.

I got to admit, it’s almost enough to make me get nostalgic and haul out my portfolio. But sorry, mad men, I’ve got an apple pie with streusel topping with my name on it going in the oven any minute.

Nambé, a family-owned company famous for creating stunning tabletop collections since 1951, has just launched a jaw-droppingly beautiful line of sculpted ovenware that I’m absolutely lusting after. The Butterfly Casserole (above, and with lid below left) has a gorgeous, organic shape with a swooping rim and scooped handles that dresses up even the most mundane of dishes, like salads or soups. But with that profile and finish, just imagine what it can do for your truly spectacular dishes. Ever since I saw it, I’ve been fantasizing what my lobster macaroni and cheese with white truffle oil would look like in it. (Okay, I lied. What I’ve really been imagining is me toting this out and placing it ever so slowly in the middle of the table so my guests can catch their reflections dripping with envy.)

Designed by Neil Cohen, the casserole, as well as the similarly shaped Butterfly Baker (right), is perfect for roasting. The pieces have a nonstick surface that makes serving even the most stubborn of dishes a breeze.These lovely pieces can go from oven to table to fridge, plus they can also keep cold food cool and hot food warm longer than a regular casserole dish or roasting pan, thanks to their patented metal alloy construction. But that’s all a bunch of engineer-speak to me. When it comes to these beauties, it’s all about looks. So call me shallow. With the casserole and baker in my batterie de cuisine, even cooking failures will never look sexier. For more information, or to discover other knock out designs, visit www.nambe.com.

Prices
1-quart Butterfly Casserole with lid | $200.00
2-quart Butterfly Casserole with lid | $250.00
3-quart Butterfly Casserole with lid | $300.00

1-quart Butterfly Baker | $150.00
2-quart Butterfly Baker | $200.00