Beverages

Wonderful but very rich, eggnog is best served in small portions. Though good hot or cold, I always serve it hot in the winter. This can be made a day ahead of time and kept in the refrigerator.

Make this when you have invited serious chocoholics to brunch, and keep in mind that the finest hot chocolate starts with the best possible unsweetened chocolate. I use Callebaut or Scharffen Berger. Sweetened condensed milk is a mixture of sugar and whole milk, and it serves here to both thicken and sweeten.

This is good for a lunchier-leaning brunch with steak and potatoes. I like to use Tempranillo or Rioja wine in this festive drink, which looks beautiful on the table. Start the sangría a day ahead of time so that the fruit can marinate. Once it’s made, sangría will keep for two days in the refrigerator.

Cinnamon is the spice that makes Mexican hot chocolate the exotic warmer that it is, and we also add pinches of cloves and cayenne for good measure. This is especially good following Huevos Rancheros (page 111), but it’s a warming treat at just about any brunch.

This cocktail is made with homemade pink lemonade and vodka. A traditional cosmopolitan has cranberry juice and lime juice rather than lemonade. We use Triple Sec, but another orange liqueur such as Cointreau can be used instead.

This just may be the perfect way to start a celebration. Be sure to use good Champagne, and chill both the Champagne and the grapefruit juice before mixing them.

It used to be that blood oranges came around only at Christmastime and had to be flown in from Malta. Now, however, they are grown in California and Florida and have a much longer season. We show them off in what’s become a signature cocktail at Bubby’s.

Festive and fruity, this is a natural starter at brunch. For best results and maximum freshness, use freshly squeezed cranberry juice and make the drinks just before you plan to serve them.

Nothing says brunch like a perfectly spiked Bloody Mary. Bubby’s Bloody Mary is famous for being a cure for hangovers. Mostly, it gives a spicy kick that will help you sweat it out. Using a sixteen-ounce glass leaves you plenty of room for the ice and garnish.

This is just the kind of recipe found in a Junior League or church cookbook. It is greatly improved upon by using fresh juices and sorbet instead of canned juice and sherbet. But, one can also use the old canned standby.

The quality of the ingredients makes all the difference in this drink, so use the absolutely best vodka and great olives.

Fresh cranberry juice is worth learning to make for its vibrant flavor and color. We use frozen berries most of the year, and they actually make a more consistent juice than fresh, which are available only six or eight weeks of the year. A pound of frozen or fresh cranberries should give you about 2 cups juice. It is important to strain the juice through a very fine sieve. We use a fine chinois, also known as a China cap, to strain our juice. A chinois is actually a conical sieve with a very fine mesh. Use a spoon or even a pestle to press the juice through the chinois.

Make this in the summertime, when sweltering days coincide with watermelon season. It’s a beautiful and thirst-quenching drink that everyone loves, so make plenty. The watermelon adds a lot of beautiful pink color.

Named after the golfer who declared his love for it decades ago, this libation is a classic and refreshing tea and lemonade combination with a special little Bubby’s twist: pink lemonade with rose hip and mint teas. Few beverages are more refreshing.

Lemonade is reminiscent of sultry afternoons and evenings spent on a screened-in porch in the days before air conditioning, when it was so hot no one wanted to move off the porch for anything more than a lemonade refill. This is my basic lemonade, which Bubby’s make lots of in the summer. You can make it a few days ahead and store it, tightly covered, in the refrigerator. Pink lemonade gets its rosy color not from a chemist’s kit, but from fresh cranberry juice. Sweeten this ade with a light or heavy hand, depending upon your taste. One of the great things about homemade lemonade is that you can customize it to how much of a sweet tooth you or your guests have.

With the fresh, zesty taste of basil and garlic, these juicy sausages are a perfect homemade accompaniment to a variety of egg dishes. Ask the butcher to grind up the pork butt, and make sure the pork is well chilled (32°F) before starting on this recipe. The meat and fat need to stay very cold during the grinding and mixing process. Otherwise, the sausage comes out mealy because the fat doesn’t maintain its form and melts into the meat.

Young summer squashes of any sort grill rather well, but better if you salt them first, so that they relax rather than harden over the heat. As soon as they are lifted off the bars, I toss them in dressing, keeping them moist and silky. A side dish, and very good with mozzarella or feta.

A huge pie, lighter and (slightly) less trouble than a lasagne, this is as satisfying as winter food gets. Even with top-notch chicken and heavy cream, it is hardly an expensive supper, and it feeds four generously (some of us went back for seconds).

It’s late March and green leaves as sharp as a dart are opening on the trees that shield this garden from the most bone chilling of the winter winds. The mornings are still crisp. You can see your breath. Stew weather. Unlike carrots, rutabaga becomes translucent when it cooks, making a casserole the glowing heart of the home.

A poaching broth for fish, a chicken, or a lumbering piece of ham is all the more interesting for the inclusion of a leek or two. They soften the stock, bringing the flavors of onion, carrot, and herbs together. The ham recipe here is my standard “food for a crowd.” Poached ham slices neatly, even when it falls off the knife in chunks, and can be kept waiting patiently in its own stock without coming to any harm. I often serve it with creamed spinach. I include it here partly to show ham’s affinity with parsnips and also because it’s a useful recipe and I wanted to get it in somewhere. This seemed as good a place as anywhere. I usually buy a ready-tied piece of boneless ham from the butcher for this. It needs no soaking, but will benefit from being brought to a boil in water, drained, and then rinsed before being cooked in the apple juice.