A good familiar creature

Current book: Look Homeward, Angel
Pages read: 224-332

Eugene finally goes to college! Everyone hates him there! Helen gets married! Gant keeps threatening to die but still won't! That's all!

I really wish I had more to say about this book, but I just don't. It's a story about Eugene growing up. I neither like nor dislike it, really. Eh.

In food-blogging related news, the chocolate mousse cake I made last weekend for a gluten-free friend of mine came out well. It was made almost entirely of eggs and chocolate, with a little sugar and water thrown in. It baked up into something akin to solid chocolate pudding. I think I'd make it again, but I'd be inclined to serve it with a dark fruit sauce and whipped cream. Also, when it was in the midst of construction, just after all the ingredients had been put together in the bowl, it sucked onto the whisk like Newtonian fluid. I wanted to perform experiments on it.

The sangria I made was amazing, as usual. I don't mean to brag, but I make truly excellent sangria. (The first time I ever had sangria, I realized that it was what I always thought wine would taste like when I was a little kid. I'd read about feasts in books, and they'd be eating roasted meat and drinking rich, red wine, and I'd imagine what it would taste like: dark and smooth and fruity, more interesting than juice, but still cold and sweet and beautiful. And then I tasted real red wine. Vinegar with a hint of lighter fluid was not what I'd had in mind. Late,r sangria was a comforting revelation.) I will share with you my secrets, loyal audience, because I'm selflessly altruistic. There are two things that are important: do not put liquor into your sangria, despite recommendations from the masses, and use, if at all possible, unsweetened fruit juice. The best result I've gotten comes from the method that follows:

1) Take one bottle of cheap red wine (I recommend Charles Shaw Shiraz, if you've got a Trader Joe's) and pour it into a pitcher or large bowl.

2) Add 1/4 of a bottle of Rose's grenadine.

3) Add an entire small bottle of maraschino cherries and their juice (about 12 cherries and 1/4 cup of juice).

4) Add 1 cup of unsweetened cherry juice. (I've also had success with unsweetened currant juice. If you can't get unsweetened, tart juice of some kind, cut some grenadine.)

5) Juice one large orange or two small oranges into the mixture. (Spanish tangerines are the best, if you can get them.)

6) Slice another large orange or two small oranges and add to the mixture.

7) Refrigerate for at least 12, preferably 24 hours.

Ta-da! Best. Sangria. Ever.

I also made white citrus sangria last weekend, which was a bottle of champagne with grapefruit soda, cherries, and oranges. I'm not willing to call it the best white sangria recipe, and therefore won't give you specifics, but I believe I'll tinker with it as a base recipe in future.

Sangria is considerably more interesting than Look Homeward, Angel. Trust me.