Hopdoddy's Hail Caesar Salad

The Sandia Rose cocktail. Watermelon lemonade with rosemary and gin.

I don't usually order sweet drinks, but I was feeling frisky, and I'm glad I tried the Sandia Rose. I would have liked more rosemary flavor, but the watermelon tasted fresh and natural, meaning that it didn't have that artificial, chemical taste that you sometimes get in frothy, flavored cocktails. And they certainly didn't skimp on the gin. Boy. After a few sips, I had to ask Shane to help me out. Nobody wants to be tipsy at noon.

The Hail Caesar. My new favorite order at Hopdoddy.

I was over-the-moon thrilled to see that Hopdoddy replaced their Farm Greens bowl with a different salad called the Hail Caesar. I liked the Farm Greens bowl OK, but it didn't wow me. The Hail Caesar, though? It's my new fave. It includes romaine hearts, baby romaine leaves, delicious spicy-fried chick peas, shaved parmesan, something called potato hay, which is basically just gorgeous little fried potato matchsticks, and Caesar dressing. You can add beef, buffalo, tuna, turkey, or a veggie patty for a few dollars more, but I can't see how any of that would add to the near perfection of this salad. Of course, my only complaint is that there was too much dressing, but I always complain about that with pre-dressed salads.

I also love that it was served on the same tray as the burgers and not in a bowl. That gave it a kind of deconstructed quality, making it terrifically easy to eat.

Now that I know about the Hail Caesar, Shane's going to get to go to Hopdoddy a lot more often.

Tamarind Margaritas

Tamarind Margarita at Vivo

This was so good, I'm putting Make Tamarind Margaritas at the top of my Make Soon list. I've found a few recipes online, and I'll probably start my recipe testing with this one from Food & Wine. It's gonna be a grind slogging through one tamarind margarita after the next, but I guess that's the price of being a food blogger.

Halloween Don't

If someone tells you that you can make an awesome martini by soaking candy corn in vodka and adding some Butterscotch schnapps, DON'T believe them. It's a trick. A proper martini should be as pale and bright as Tinkerbell's fairy lights, not heavy like this sugary cough syrup concoction.

But, if you saw some pretty photos of a Candy Corn Martini, wanted to believe in them (even though a voice in your head said it was too good to be true), and actually tried to make said apocryphal cocktail, you can still salvage your libation lulu, your beverage blunder, your potation miscalculation, with a little ingenuity.

Add a short pour of this nightmare (and diabetes) inducing mixture to a tall glass. Now fill the glass to the top with mineral water. Ice optional. This creates a surprisingly refreshing drink, sort of like a Halloween-themed ginger ale . . . with vodka. But at least it won't leave you wondering how many seconds you have to live until your heart stops beating.

You can add a splash of it to coffee, too, the way you would Bailey's, or Kahlua. It's actually quite pleasant, as long as you don't add too much. This should be treated like any other simple syrup, which is what it is.

Or try it drizzled over ice cream. I mean, if you're drinking this stuff, you're already about to die. You might as well die with ice cream.

So, there you are, ladies and gentlemen. I'm out here making the big mistakes so you don't have to. I hear your heartfelt gratitude and take my bow . . .

Ransom Old Tom Gin

Made in Sheridan, Oregon, Ransom Old Tom Gin claims to be a historically accurate revival of the predominant Gin in fashion during the mid 1800's. I can believe it. Don't let its folksy appearance fool you. This stuff will knock you on your backside and give you a whopper of a headache, if you overindulge. Take care.

Ingredients: malted two row barley, corn, juniper berries, orange peel, lemon peel, coriander seed, cardamon pods, and angelica root.

Elder Fashion

I tried to post this on Friday but ran into some technical difficulties. So, make this new cocktail on Sunday night instead, because who doesn't need a cocktail before heading back into the fray on Monday morning?

It seems like everyone is drinking St-Germain lately. And that's cool. Full disclosure: I'm not really into sweet drinks, and to my palate this elderflower liqueur tastes a tad like rotten grapefruit. I mean, not entirely rotten, but definitely on the verge of going off. I still like it, of course, because I dig strange tastes and smells, and when you need St-Germain, well, nothing else can quite fit the bill.

I think it would be nice to mascerate fresh berries in it, the way you would with limoncello, for spooning over angel food or pound cake, but CHOW gave me another idea: the Elder Fashion. It's a take on the Old-Fashioned, which is basically rum, rye, or bourbon, Angustura bitters, simple syrup, and citrus, maybe with a cherry thrown in. Like a lot of cocktails, it has many variations, and the Elder Fashion is successful, I think, in paying homage to the original while sprucing up its old ways.

This recipe is from New York City's Death & Co. They advise using Plymouth Gin, but I wanted to buy something made closer to home. I asked the main buyer at Twin Liquors if there was a gin from Central Texas and found out that there's one from Houston called ROXOR. But even though it's supposed to have a slight grapefruit flavor, I'll admit that I didn't buy it simply because of the bottle. Hey, I'm a sucker for good design, and that bottle screamed So 1990's to me. So I chose Oregon-based Ransom Old Tom Gin. With its orange and lemon peel, coriander seed, and cardmon pods, I think it paired well with the St-Germain.

I made another change, too. Since St-Germain is so sweet, I decided to play that up with a sugar rim. I just twisted the rim of my glass against a cut grapefruit and then twisted it again in some sugar. Superfine sugar would work well, but I just used regular.

I also put a generous squeeze of grapefruit in the cocktail itself, giving it a fresher and less (to my palate) moldering flavor.

By the way, the guy at Twin Liquors suggested that the makers of Treaty Oak Rum might be working on an Austin-made gin. Here's hoping.

Enjoy!