If you are one of my old foodie readers (from when I was strictly doing food-blogging about Indian food and then about culinary medicine), then you might have also become a cocktail enthusiast over the years too, like hubby and I had. (Of note, being an enthusiast doesn’t have to mean regular usage–we all need to keep in mind what Huberman thoroughly discussed very well here, illustrating the harmful effects of alcohol systemically).
With food, once you start cooking/baking at home a lot, you gradually over time become a little engaged in food snobbery. Not like the pinkies-up-only or the hoighty-toighty attitudes. No, I mean that you get a little particular and choosy about where you will indulge (with your pocket and your taste buds), because it’s all about moderation and balance. You end up preferring real ingredients to restaurant versions of dishes and you skip the dessert if you have a tried and true favorite of your own and you fear disappointment at the restaurant (i’m thinking of the best strawberry pie ever which I now only have it/bake it once a year or the best Pasta alle Vongole outside of Italy) You get what I’m saying right?
The same can be said about cocktails. I’ve come to view them as I have viewed desserts in my life for the last 15-20 years.
I choose them carefully because I can’t have them all of the time.
Choosing carefully means I bake less and therefore spend less money on quality ingredients because I’m simply using them less. Choosing carefully with cocktails means if we go out, we spend the money on crafted cocktails and if that’s not an option, I end up not choosing one in the first place. Do you guys think that’s snobbery? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
I’m bringing up cocktails because the ones I tend to like are made with bitters. So we have amassed a collection of bitters and now I’m on to the next step–finally making my own bitters! But now because of my training in functional medicine and my interest in herbal medicine, I’ll be using them simply for digestion…..not really for cocktails.
And so next week, stay tuned because I’m going to bring bitters (foods and herbs and more) into the whole conversation with food-as-medicine and how they have an ancient role in the world of ancient medicines and how they work as digestifs —-past just what an Aperol Spritz does 🙂