Election day has finally arrived.... And we imagine many of you will be gathering with friends to watch the results roll in. If you care to make a party of it, our friend Payman made two tasty cocktails inspired by the candidates. The Juan McCain uses aged Panamanian rum, aged Irish whiskey, sour cherry juice and bitters. The Baroque Obama combines African Rum, American Gin, Maraschino liqueur, Hawaiian cane syrup, Hawaiian plum extract and organic lime juice. Try them out and enjoy! Get the written recipes here!

The Juan McCain:

The Baroque Obama:

Sophia and I are in upstate NY.  Yesterday we were filming at Eve's Cidery in Ithaca-- we will be posting the video we made with Ezra, Autumn and James of Eve's Cidery the last week in September so stay tuned! Now we're in Cooperstown, we're going to spend the weekend canning and preserving foods, next week we are participating in The Last Supper, a multimedia arts show in Brooklyn on September 20th. We are doing a food installation- a recreation of a food pantry so we are busy bees this weekend getting prepared for the show.

Since we've been filming for the past few days I had a lot of editing to catch up on so that was most of the evening.  As I was editing away in the kitchen, Sophia was cooking us a tasty dinner-- she was testing a recipe we will be posting next week, a low-sodium soup for Senator Harkin.

 This is how we like to work, cozily traveling, good company, good food- cooking and creating as we go.

The other day I went to the farmers market with my boyfriend and we bought a huge bunch of basil. I have found that since herbs are usually sold as a huge bunch for a very low price, it is worth only buying 1 or 2 types at a time. A lot of recipes include a few herbs at a time, but in order to not let any go to waste, I have had to scrap my fantasies of multiple herb salads while only cooking for two. Instead, I have just started putting the herb of the week into everything I make. Sometimes the combinations are matches made in heaven, while other times you find that you don’t like the way certain herbs accent other flavors. However, in the end, you end up learning what goes well with what by taste. And you don’t have any waste. For example, in the beginning of the summer, I found Apple Mint at the market. I was fascinated by the new herb and bought the bunch. It was so much mint that I did not know what to do with it, so I just started throwing it into everything. We ate it in salad with tomatoes, on fish, in mojitos, in everything. I loved its flavor, but when I finally used the rest up in an ice cream I had discovered my favorite use for it. Apple Mint Ice Cream was my great success for the month of July.
This week our intensive herb was basil. I have been using a leaf or two as a garnish for everything, but last night it appeared in almost every dish. For cocktail hour I made a basil- cucumber mojito. Along with the drinks I prepared a ceviche with fresh Stonington, CT scallops (local for me). I cut the scallops in half both ways and set them in lemon and lime juice with a hint of garlic to “cook” in the acid. After about an hour and a half, I seasoned them well with salt and mixed them with diced heirloom tomatoes, thinly sliced red onion, and thinly sliced basil. Following that we had cantaloupe melon with feta cheese from Beltane Farm and basil chiffonade. And of course for our main dish there was a side of pasta with a classic pesto. I love basil, but what I love more is learning about what it goes well with and what it does not. There is no shame in throwing an herb in something and later realizing that it was not the best choice. The reward of learning all of the flavor nuances of the herbs is much greater than wasting Summer’s verdant bounty.