Wednesday, June 27, 2007

The year's midnight

Suse at Pea Soup and Stephanie at humanities researcher's mentions of the Winter Solstice have reminded me that I too celebrated the solstice, which coincided with the return home of one of my oldest friends from foreign parts; she stayed with me while recovering from jet lag, and on the night of her arrival home we made some mulled wine.

They say you have to do something 27 times before it becomes a habit, which explains why I forgot to take photos for blogging purposes.

Take one (1) bottle of decent red, something not too bossy that will accommodate additions, and pour it into a saucepan over low heat. Shake the cinnamon jar over it a bit. Tip the honey over the pan and squeeze till you think that's enough. Chuck in six or seven cloves.

Heat gently, stirring. Don't let it boil, just get it nice and steamy. (Actually you are supposed to heat it with a red-hot poker but that presupposes an open fire, which I could, but do not, have. The alpha tortoiseshell's tail would be on fire before you could say 'Too perverse to come in out of the rain', quite apart from the labour-intensiveness and the cost of firewood.)

Strain into pretty mugs.

Drink.

Repeat.

5 comments:

genevieve said...

Now I feel a bit warmer. Thanks for that :)

Anonymous said...

Sadly mulled wine, like vodka, has been spoiled for me by an immature excess accompanied by menthol cigarettes.

Suse said...

That ThirdCat, she just nails it every time, doesn't she?

Classic.

Kerryn Goldsworthy said...

She does.

I know exactly what she means about *gags* vodka, too.

TimT said...

I just made some of this and have been drinking it while reading your 'handwriting and memory' post. I'm dying to know, how did you describe 'fold the flour' in over the phone?

I once made a soup that called for 'one cup of boiled water, chilled'. I knew that it meant one cup of cold water, but couldn't believe it. A few minutes after getting the ingredients ready, I was dialing my mother up...