Cheers from (left to right) Karen, Ellyn, Greg, Kathleen, Dan, and Ilise
The Foodies (formerly known as the Supper Club) are a group of friends who love to cook, eat, drink, and laugh together – plenty of each occur at our periodic themed dinner parties. Friends and family like to live vicariously around our feasts so we’ll share the stories, pictures and recipes here from time to time. Click here for previous Supper Club posts, and here for the group’s origin story.
Road Trip! That’s what our hosts Dan and Greg originally had in mind when selecting this theme, and then they sharpened the focus to Route 66 – one of the original roads in the U.S. Highway System and a major route for westward migration beginning in Chicago and traversing through Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, ending the journey in California.
Also known as the Will Rogers Highway, Main Street of America, and the Mother Road, U.S. Route 66 has earned its place in popular culture through song, television, and stories of road trips past and present. The famous song was written by Bobby Troup and first recorded by the Nat King Cole Trio in 1946. Since then it’s been covered by numerous musicians, several of whom you’ll hear on Greg’s fantastic Route 66 Playlist coming up just a little later in this post.
Road Trip! That’s what our hosts Dan and Greg originally had in mind when selecting this theme, and then they sharpened the focus to Route 66 – one of the original roads in the U.S. Highway System and a major route for westward migration beginning in Chicago and traversing through Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, ending the journey in California.
Also known as the Will Rogers Highway, Main Street of America, and the Mother Road, U.S. Route 66 has earned its place in popular culture through song, television, and stories of road trips past and present. The famous song was written by Bobby Troup and first recorded by the Nat King Cole Trio in 1946. Since then it’s been covered by numerous musicians, several of whom you’ll hear on Greg’s fantastic Route 66 Playlist coming up just a little later in this post.
Get Your Kicks on Route 66 |
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The Menu:
- Drinks – Ilise & Ann: Route 66 Cocktails; Various wines including a trio of Chasing Harvest pinot noirs from 2009, 2010, and 2011
- Appetizers – Ellyn: Frito Pies, which originated either Texas or New Mexico – the debate still rages on
- Main Course – Greg & Dan: Barbecue Texas Beef Brisket; Turquoise Room Pork Carnitas; Oklahoma Joe’s Best Beans on the Planet; Kansas Kreamed Korn Kasserole; Whitmore Farms Macaroni Salad; plus several delicious sauces
- Dessert – Karen & Kathleen: Banana Splits, the one dessert featured on nearly all truck stop menus along Route 66
In this post we’ll do a drive-by of the drinks and appetizers. (Main course and dessert will be covered in the Part 2 post coming soon.) Please continue reading for the rest of the story, photos, recipes, and Greg’s road trip playlist celebrating Route 66.
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This is a lengthy playlist and well worth your time. With an abundance of great songs, it parallels our journey from Chicago – where U.S. Route 66 begins – through the Midwest, South, Southwest, and winds up at the California seaside.
Whenever we cross a state border within the playlist you’ll hear a new iteration of the famous song. So let’s gas up the car, pack a cooler, crank up the tunes, and hit the road! |
Although certainly not an advocate for drinking and driving, I do think that this particular road trip will go really well with a cocktail. Perhaps a lovely Route 66 cocktail created by Foodie Ilise? Here’s what she has to say about it:
By the time of Prohibition, rye was the primary whiskey used for cocktails. Although it might be fitting that gin be used as the base for a drink since during prohibition that was the staple alcohol, I’ve opted to go with rye as it was said to be the mobster Al Capone's drink of choice and he had a lasting effect on Chicago just as Route 66 did.
Templeton Rye refers to rye whiskey originally made in Templeton, Iowa, during the prohibition era as a way for farmers in the Carroll County area to supplement their income. Amber in color, it was considered to be of particularly high quality and was popular in Chicago, Omaha, and Kansas City speakeasies and was Capone’s drink of choice. More recently "Templeton Rye" has been introduced as a brand of whiskey.
To represent all the various areas of the country that Route 66 traverses I’ve included the following ingredients:
Templeton Rye – Chicago, Springfield, IL, St. Louis, MO.
Hot Peppers - Tulsa and Oklahoma City, OK, Amarillo, TX, Santa Fe and Albuquerque, NM, Flagstaff, AZ
Date Syrup and Oranges – San Bernardino, Los Angeles, CA and ending in Santa Monica, CA. Date Palms were planted in the Coachella Valley of California, which is approximately two hours east of Los Angeles, in the early 1890s. And now, plantings cover over 6,500 plus acres. Orange seedlings were originally planted in 1840 in what is now downtown Los Angeles as well as Riverside which is just south of San Bernardino and where the navel orange originated in California.
In addition to the cocktail we served three vintages of Chasing Harvest Pinot Noir, allowing a great opportunity to make comparisons year over year. All were tasty but most of us enjoyed the 2009 best of all for its deep, earthy flavor and rich red color. Especially appropriate for this theme, the name refers to the winemakers’ habit of “road tripping” across the globe, chasing the grape harvest from southern to northern hemisphere and back again.
| Printable Recipe- Route 66 Cocktail |
Route 66 Cocktail
Recipe source: Ilise Goldberg inspired by the Chicago Cocktail
Ingredients:
Hot Pepper Infused Date Syrup:
Recipe inspired by: The View from Great Island blog
Ingredients:
Instructions:
Click on the photos to enlarge them and read the captions.
Recipe source: Ilise Goldberg inspired by the Chicago Cocktail
Ingredients:
- 2 oz Templeton Rye
- ¼ oz orange liqueur such as Cointreau
- ¼ oz Hot Pepper Infused Date Syrup (see recipe below)
- 2-3 dashes of bitters
- In a shaker mix rye and date syrup together to allow the syrup to dissolve into the rye. Add Cointreau, bitters and ice and shake. Pour over one large ice cube in a doubles glass and garnish with an orange peel.
- I chose to infuse the chiles into the date syrup with chilies instead of into the rye as it is more versatile, but infusing the liquor is an option if you prefer.
Hot Pepper Infused Date Syrup:
Recipe inspired by: The View from Great Island blog
Ingredients:
- 1 cup date syrup
- About 3 Tablespoons crushed red peppers (about 10 small dried peppers) (or to taste)
Instructions:
- Put the date syrup and the peppers in a double boiler or a glass bowl or measuring cup over a saucepan of boiling water.
- Mix the peppers into the date syrup and heat for several minutes until the temp is about 150° F. A thermometer isn't necessary, but you don't want the date syrup to get too hot. Turn off the heat and let the date syrup sit over the water and steep for about 10 minutes.
- Taste the syrup – if not enough heat add some more peppers and repeat step 2.
- While the date syrup is lukewarm, strain it into a clean jar.
- The date syrup can also be served with cheese. If you don’t have easy access to date syrup honey may be used instead.
Click on the photos to enlarge them and read the captions.
Now that our road trip has been underway for a while we’re probably due for our first rest stop and a snack. Ellyn provided the perfect treat – Frito Pies – taking junk food to new, magnificent heights. The origin of these babies has long been debated between Texans and New Mexicans, but Ellyn neatly sidestepped the controversy by selecting this recipe from Mabel's Smokehouse, an Oklahoma-style barbecue restaurant in Brooklyn. (Cue the Pace salsa TV-cowpokes: “New York City?!”)
This dish is served right in the Frito bag, topping the corn chips with homemade chili, chopped onions, cheddar cheese, and jalapeños. We all know that Ellyn is a world-class chili chef, but when combined with the other ingredients -- OMG, so good! I didn’t know how much I craved this dish until I had inhaled it all and went looking for more.
Click on the photos to enlarge them and read the captions.
This dish is served right in the Frito bag, topping the corn chips with homemade chili, chopped onions, cheddar cheese, and jalapeños. We all know that Ellyn is a world-class chili chef, but when combined with the other ingredients -- OMG, so good! I didn’t know how much I craved this dish until I had inhaled it all and went looking for more.
Click on the photos to enlarge them and read the captions.
Well it goes from St Louis, down to Missouri |
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Well, that just about wraps up this leg of our Route 66 journey. Be on the lookout for Part 2 coming soon, which will feature Dan and Greg’s bonanza of main course dishes and the proverbial cherry on the sundae from Kathleen and Karen.
Yum, that was delicious! What's next? Stay tuned to find out ...
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