Articles in the Beverages Category

It’s been a while since I made sodas at home, and the first one I tried was inspired by some fresh ripe organic fruit picked up at the Alemany Farmer’s market. It’s a cross between a regular cream soda and a pear soda. We drank four liters of it in less than a week. The directions here are somewhat terse. For more complete information on equipment used, try the book Homemade Root Beer, Soda & Pop by Stephen Cresswell.

Kompote is a pleasant lightly-sweetened fruit drink, best served cool as a summertime refreshment. In Russia, it’s made with apples, pears, plums, and berries (strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, but never raspberries–they were too precious a luxury). In the summertime, fresh fruits were used, and dried fruits in the winter. Compared to juice, it’s a bit thicker and reminiscent of the fruit that made it, but not as forceful a taste.

Julia Child was a childhood icon of mine–I used to watch her cooking show “The French Chef” religiously when I was young, which some would say was a harbinger of things to come. After living many years in Cambridge, Massachusetts, she moved to Santa Barbara, California. She loved to frequent a small taco stand called La Super-Rica Taqueria just a bit further down Highway 101 from Santa Barbara. We’d often stop at Super-Rica on trips between San Diego and San Luis Obispo. When eating Mexican food, I sometimes find it …
A Radler is a typical summer drink for Women and children in Germany. It is also known as a “Kaputes Bier” or “Ruined Beer”