Want to make a cocktail that will guaranty Ohs and Ahs?
I had such a cocktail last Friday while on a small 45 min cruise in Old Montreal port.

The Hibiscus Martini

Yes that is a real hibiscus flower in my glass. And it is edible!

How cool is that?The barmaid was thrilled to prepare the cocktail, my companion and I both wowed at the stunning presentation and as I sipped my cocktail on the top deck of the ship our neighboring table had to interrupt and ask what I was drinking. My companion alwso ordered a drink that night with the flower: the Hibiscus Mojito.

This martini is pretty much the classic Cosmopolitan Recipe but made with white cranberry juice. At the bottom of the glass is placed one wild hibiscus flower. How does it taste? kind of like a marashino cherry but with a petal texture. I liked it a lot.

White Cosmopolitan Cocktail

- 1 1/2 oz vodka
- 1 oz white cranberry juice
- 1/4 oz Cointreau
- splash of fresh lime juice

Mix all ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice. Strain into a chilled martini glass.

These flowers can be purchased in syrup. The small jar contains 11 flowers. Check out the Wild Hibiscus website to learn more, order and find recipes.

After the Fruit Dropping Party I had a large amount of cut up citrus fruit leftovers. What to do? That will come in a future post but from this recipe I had still an unused portion, about 1 cup, of boiled down citrus flavored sugar syrup made with oranges, grapefruit, lemon, lime, strawberries, sugar, red wine, anise star, ginger, lemon fizz water.

What a great frozen concoction I could make with that! I had a small concern thought as I have only made ice creams up to now but never a cream-less frozen dessert. Would it get rock solid in the freezing process, what cream and eggs do prevent in ice cream? Not if you know a few tricks:

- Sorbets and sherbets often use a bit of lemon or lime juice. In this case they are the base of the syrup. An acidic juice will convert table sugar to simple sugar preventing crystallization (solid ice).

- BOOZE! Adding a touch of alcohol to your frozen dessert will help keep it a bit soft. Why? Because alcohol only freezes around -114 °C (-173.2 °F). When a bit of alcohol is mixed in well its particles will remain liquid and keep the whole mass from sticking together.

I had an unopened bottle of Mezcal that was given to me by a friend who went to Mexico. Mezcal has an intense smoky flavor, an acquired taste. However I thought the smokiness of this drink would be subdued by the citrus intensity and this frozen treat could pass for an exotic Margarita knock-off! Oh was I ever right. I adore this flavor! It’s a new favorite.

Citrus Mezcal Sherbet

1 cup milk
1 cup citrus flavored simple syrup (or what ever you have)
1/8 tsp salt
1 to 2 tbsp Mezcal (or tequilla)

Ice cream machine
- put everything in the machine at once and operate as per manual

Hand made
- Mix all the ingredients
- Pour into a shallow container and freeze until solid around the outside and mushy in the middle
-  Stir with a fork and freeze until firm

When I was coming up for my title I did not know if it was a sherbet or a sorbet, so off googling I went. Turns out it is definitely a sherbet. A sorbet will have zero milk product in the recipe and it is basically flavored iced water. Had I omitted the milk it would have been a sorbet. Sorbet can also go by the name of Granita in Italy or Agraz in Northern Africa.

But I decided to add a cup of milk so this recipe automatically falls into the sherbet category. Apparently by U.S. federal regulation, sherbets must contain a minimum of 1 percent and a maximum of 2 percent butterfat. The word sherbet derives from the Persian sharbat, an iced fruit drink. Sharbat is popular in the Middle East and in South Asia. At its base sharbat is also iced water flavored with syrup made from fruits and/or extracts of flowers and herbs.

India seems to be the first to dilute the syrup in milk, or evaporated milk. Thai Basil seeds can be added (pre-soaked in water and added) after for effect. I guess someone than decided to freeze the mixture and we have today’s Sherbet.

Hey, psst…wanna by some Miracle fruit tablets? Have you ever heard of the Miracle berry and the hallucinogenic games it can play in your mouth? This is the coolest thing! The Miracle berry is a fruit originally grown in West Africa and has been used for centuries but of course the word of mouth spread only after the European dropped in for a visit/invasion. This berry makes sour foods taste sweet.

The berries contains a glycoprotein molecule called miraculin which coats and binds to the tongue’s taste buds when eaten. Science has extracted this molecule and successfully created a edible tablet which does the same thing than eating the fruit. Scientists have made the tablet yet they still don’t know why the phenomenon occurs. The one thing they know for sure is that miraculin messes around with your taste bud receptors.

Ever since I read about the Miracle Berry I have been so eager to try it. After some online shopping I found miracle fruit tablets at a very reasonable price. Finally the packet arrived in the mail. Right away I sent out an email to invite a select group of friends to my Fruit Dropping Party.

Why is it called that? Best guess I have is you are meant to eat acidic food so I assume is is a play of dropping acid? Such parties are also nicknamed flavor tripping parties. Let me assure you miracle fruit tablets are not a drug and are perfectly legal. It is however a subject of controversy as well, see last paragraph.

We were a party of 8 guinea pigs for this tasting experiment. Everyone brought a food to contribute. We all took a tablet and let it dissolve in our mouth, making sure we swished it around the whole tongue. The tablet itself tasted quite sour ironically. Then we all felt a earthy/powdery residue on the tongue. Someone volunteered to take the first lemon bite. It worked! We all jumped on the acidic buffet. See Karyn here bite into a lemon…

It was the strangest food spread I had ever seen: oranges, limes, lemons, grapefruit, tamarind, unripe mango, tomatoes, strawberries, pickled vegetables, sourdough bread, goat cheese, sour cream, salt and vinegar chips, salad with a balsamic vinaigrette, a sour candy called Toxic Waste, red wine and Guiness.

Not everyone reacted the exact same way to all foods but all found foods unusually sweet. A lemon still tastes like a lemon…just really sweet. Same for all other citrus. Tomatoes and unripe mangoes were so sweet ans strawberries were almost to sugary. The sour cream, the bread and goat cheese only had a slight effect but there was an unusual sweetness to it. Vinegary foods were less tangy but still had a bit of kick to them. The toxic candies were still sour..perhaps because it is a chemical sourness? Guiness had a more chocolaty taste to it. Bit I think the biggest shock for all was red wine: it tasted like Kool-Aid made with 5 cups of sugar, it was unbelievable.

We just ate in amazement for about 40 min until we started noticing the effect of the tablets was slowly wearing off. The effects can last between 15 to 60 min. At this point some guest were really happy I had bought antacid tablets. You flavor perception made be different but your stomach sees no difference! Oh boy! Many had a slightly sensitive stomach the next day. But it is totally worth it once to try. We had such a blast.

I highly recommend this experience. It is not expensive so get some and have your own Fruit Dropping Party. Just make sure to supply a bottle of antacid tablets too!

By the way Miracle Fruit tablets are great for those lacking appetite due to the metallic taste resulting from chemotherapy. Diabetic patients and dieters can use it as a way to calm a sugar craving without the calories or playing with their sugar levels.

But the US government has put a stop to any such research. It is legal to grow,buy, sell and consume Miracle berries on their own. It cannot be added legally to foods though because the FDA suddenly decided to classify it as a possible food additive instead of a food (as first planned). Why? Well there are stories that the sugar industry was not to happy about the whole situation. All we do know for sure is that in 1974 the one company developing miraculin for the diabetic market had to close its doors when the FDA slapped the food additive label. Such a label involves years of research and a whole lot of money, more then the Miraculin Company could ever dream of having. Did I mention too that it is a fact the offices of the Miraculin Company were ransacked not log before the FDA stepped in? Hmm, make your own conclusions.

This Tuesday the blogger, columnist and journalist foodie world was all gathered at Restaurant  Biron for delightful bites, copious punch and lively conversation. Congratulations to Charlotte for this event! Pictures are each worth my thousand words for this post. Much more was served there is only so much I can do with a drink in one hand and food in the other.

Great open concept kitchen

Iceberg lettuce with panko salad

Kobe beef tongue and calamari

Oyster bar for Oyster Shootres

Melon Shooter

Mackerel Maki Rolls

Clean, modern yet warm décor

During the long week-end in May I head to Toronto to visit my good friend Susan. We had such an awesome time. I have a few blogs coming soon about the food of the short trip. This one is more of a show and tell. Turns out my Montreal friend Augustin was also going to be in Toronto at the same time.

While Susan stayed home and rested and prepared a “Lost evening” (yeah the religious night of the last show ever) I met up with Agustin for a foodie exploration of Kensington Market and Chinatown. I was half way though a book called The Fruit Hunters at that point and I knew I would find at least a handful of these mysterious fruits I had been reading about.

That book will be making an appearance, several, soon on this blog. A very weird book to read that affected me a lot. Get ready soon enough to go into the dark and exotic world of fruits! Until then enjoy a little windows shopping of my picture below. Pics in markets by Agustin Leon.

Cactus napoles in Kensington market by a Latin grocery store

Rabutans in Chinatown

Inside the Rabutan shell. Flavor and texture is just like gummi bears

Durian – when cut the smell is putrid but the flesh tastes like heaven…so they say. To big to buy and travel with. Have to wait till I get to taste. Some countries ban people from bringing in Durians in hotels and public places because of the horrid smell once cut.

Mangosteens in Chinatown

The inside of the mangosteen. Wonderful delicate flavor somewhere between a citrus, a peach and vanilla ice cream

Vanilla beans and cocao beans from Mexico. My friend Susan, with whom I was staying, just got back from Mexico. She shared with me some of her foodie Mexican stuff.

Susan also gave me a bottle of Mezcal.

Yep that is the one with a worm in it. Kinda off-putting. No, I have no intention of eating it.

Did you know:Only certain mezcals, usually from the state of Oaxaca, are ever sold con gusano (worm), and that only began as a marketing gimmick in the 1940s. The worm is actually the larval form of the moth Hypopta agavis that lives on the agave plant. Finding one in the plant during processing indicates an infestation and, correspondingly, a lower quality product. However this misconception continues, and even with all the effort and marketing to represent tequila as a premium—there are some opportunist producers for the shooters-and-fun market who blur these boundaries