I fully intended this week to be devoted to Eat your Way To Love and Beauty, but somehow I ended up drinking my way to oblivion and incoherence!

But you know what?  I can now honestly say that I didn’t spend the weekend getting tanked on cocktails. I spent the weekend doing research and development.  For you dear readers, I did it for you!  I’m selfless like that.

I found a version of the first cocktail I made, the Oh Calcutta, in Eat Your Way To Love and Beauty.  This combines pineapple, grapefruit, lime and…. curry powder!  Yep, a curry flavoured cocktail!

The Swami’s version of the Oh Calcutta suggests you mix the ingredients with spa water.  I assumed that was a euphemism for vodka when making my version.

Now, I normally like my cocktails pink and sweet so this was a bit of a shock to my system!  Initially I wasn’t too keen on it.  Gradually though, the Oh Calcutta won me over.  It’s actually has quite a complex flavour profile (whoo hoo, look at me using the foodie words!).  There was a slight bitterness from the grapefruit, sweetness of the pineapple, heat from the curry, sour from the lime…the more I drank it the more I liked it!

I was still thinking about it  the next day and I decided that, interesting as it was, it needed something  more and that something was a little salty kick.  So, I made it again but this time I edged the glass (badly) with some ginger salt.  I made the ginger salt by bashing some ginger to death in the mortar and pestle and then adding some salt to the mix.  I twirled the glass in this.  It doesn’t look great but it tasted amazing!

In my first version I toppped the entire drink with grapefruit juice instead of using a mixer, in the second version I mixed grapefruit juice and sparkling water.  The result was slightly less bitter which I preferred. I also used ruby grapefruit juice so there was a pink tinge to my cocktail!

I’m now thinking ginger beer would be good in this too….version three may well happen next weekend!

But the weekend of cocktails was not over because it’s feijoa season and thanks to a tree that is fully laden over at my mother’s house we are swimming with them…

For those of you unfamiliar with a feijoa (aka the pineapple guava), it is a fruit much beloved by New Zealanders, and apparently Russians and Californians.  It is:

“green, ellipsoid, and about the size of a chicken egg. It has a sweet, aromatic flavor. The flesh is juicy and is divided into a clear gelatinous seed pulp and a firmer, slightly granular, opaque flesh nearer the skin”

Boo, Wikipedia boo!  That does nothing to convey the joy of the feijoa – huh…come to think of it from now on, I’m going to be calling them fe-joy-as.  I  once read in an aromatherapy book that you need to be careful when burning Clary Sage oil because the smell of it can make you feel as if you are drunk!  I feel a little bit the same about the scent of a feijoa, it is a kind of fruity, floral, heady smell that…it’s what I imagine heaven smells like.  Not that I’m likely to find out.  There is no doubt in my mind which way I’m heading.

Feijoa Marketing Board…don’t even think about it stealing this, I’m slapping a ™ on “Fei-joy-as…what heaven smells like” ASAP. Happy to negotiate with you on the licensing of my intellectual property for your commercial gain though.  Call me.  I’m easily bought.

Mind you, someone at the FMB is doing their job.  These babies are currently selling in the supermarket for $2 each!

When I told mum I was going to do some feijoa cooking for this she wanted to know if I was going to make jam.  It’s that kind of comment that makes me wonder if I’m actually adopted….Jam.  Pffft…why make jam when you can make cocktails?

I found a wonderful blog called Feijoa, Feijoa which is bursting with recipes for feijoas and has an whole section devoted to cocktail recipes.

I made the Odessa Cocktail purely because I had all the necessary but each one of the cocktails sound delicious.  And as for the recipes…this may well become one of my favourite sites!  There are also several jam recipes for my mother to make.

The recipe for the Odessa Cocktail can be found here:

Odessa Cocktail

If you’re wondering why my simple syrup looks like Coke or coffee , it’s because I only had brown sugar in the house. I think it worked though, it added a treacly depth to the syrup.  (coincidentally, Treacly Depth would be the name of my indie band…)

The Odessa is a lovely cocktail, it’s sweet but with a little tang from the lime and exactly the kind of cocktail I normally love! Coming after the Oh Calcutta, it seemed a little simple but it was still delicious! My advice to anyone making it would be to strain it really well.  I put mine through a tea strainer and it was a little gritty.  I would use a finer strainer next time.

I’m going to be spending my week sidling up to people outside the supermarket and asking “Psst…want a feijoa? ..One fifty each or three for three…and they smell like heaven”

Have a great week whatever you do!