Red Wine Granita and a Confession

Dearest, darling fellow foodbloggers,

I have a confession to make. I'm jealous. I've been sitting here looking through all your beautiful posts, kicking myself for not commenting as always, bookmarking recipes... and all summer I've been reading about your trips to far off destinations - Cyprus, Italy, Greece, Croatia - many of which are places I really want to go. It makes me just a little bit sad. Don't get me wrong. I love your travel photography, and your stories about the food you ate. I'm thrilled that you got to go on such fabulous vacations, and that some of you get to go every year, but man. It's hard being the young, broke blogger on the block. I have been very lucky in my life. I've had opportunities to visit and live in Europe, and I'm far better off than most people in the world. With all the work I do with impoverished populations, I know I'm being a big fat baby. The smart thing to do would be to meditate, reflect on all my blessings, and stop being attached to material things.

But I have to admit it. I miss eating in restaurants, especially outdoors. I miss the ocean like a lost limb. I love my town, but it's smack dab in the middle of the country and I won't be leaving it until next August, with the exception of the occasional half hour trip to Kalona for Amish groceries. I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever actually make enough money to go on exotic holidays like the ones you blog about. Let's face it - I'm not the marrying kind. I'm never going to have double incomes, and if I do, we'll both be women and therefore statistically not making very much. But I'll try to be optimistic. I dream of one day having the money for a KitchenAid, and an apartment with plenty of cabinets, and enough bookshelves so my cookbooks aren't sitting on the floor, and ingredients - oh, the ingredients! I'm determined to one day make enough money to have culinary lavender, vanilla beans, matcha powder, orangeflower water, and all the other things I need to make those lovely recipes I see on your blogs. Maybe I'll even live somewhere with a Trader Joe's! So put in a quick prayer for me, or some good vibes if you're not the praying kind, that one day I'll be posting about gorgeous foodie vacations of my own. I'd appreciate it. :-)



Red Wine Granita

1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1/2 bottle red wine

Stir sugar and water to dissolve and bring to a boil over medium heat. Let boil a few minutes, then remove from heat. Cool a bit. Stir in the wine, pour into an 8" baking pan, and cool completely. Cover and freeze about an hour or until crystals start to form. Scrape with a fork, or if you're using a non-stick pan like me, a small rubber spatula (the one that comes with a Cuisinart is perfect). Scrape every forty minutes or so until crystals are more-or-less dry.

My thoughts:

I must admit this isn't my favorite. A spiced variety could have been better, and I'm wondering if it would just freeze by itself without the sugar. The taste is too much like alcoholic grape juice. I needed to use up this bottle, which I really liked (Red Truck Merlot, I'll blog about it later), but it's naturally just a bit sweet and that was perfect. Cold red wine is also just a little weird, and it doesn't freeze as well because of the alcohol. The good thing about that is that you can keep it around forever, because it will never freeze into a solid chunk.