For many, Champange is the drink of choice for their New Years Eve and other holiday and special occasion parties. Keeping the champagne cold and at constant, chilled temperature is a key part to making sure the flavor of your champagne sparkles at your event.

Below is a short but helpful video which will help you properly prepare your ice bucket for serving champagne at your next party or gathering.

Enjoy!

You can see other recent Weekend Video Spotlight Videos here.

You can also see HuggingtheCoast.com’s growing collection of food, cooking, and travel videos here.

Please join us tomorrow to see this week’s Hugging the Coast.Com Week in Review, an overview of last week’s special food features (as well as selected previews from the week to come).

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Freshly made homemade eggnog is a traditional Christmas delight, a far cry from those eggnog drinks you buy from the supermarket in a prepackaged carton.

Best of all, it’s surprisingly easy to make your own eggnog as the video below shows. The nice thing about this video eggnog recipe from Cooking.Com is how velvety smooth and creamy it is. The secret, a little whipped cream whisked in just at the end.

After you’ve watched the video, you’ll find a link to a printed variation of this eggnog recipe from the folks at Cooking.Com just below it.

Enjoy!

A Homemade Eggnog Recipe from Cooking.Com

You can see other recent Weekend Video Spotlight Videos here.

You can also see HuggingtheCoast.com’s growing collection of food, cooking, and travel videos here.

Please join us tomorrow to see this week’s Hugging the Coast.Com Week in Review, an overview of last week’s special food features (as well as selected previews from the week to come).

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Since so many of us will be flying home for the holidays this Christmas season, I thought this was the perfect time to share a sneak peek of the way things work in the President’s Air Force One Kitchen.

As you might imagine, flying on Air Force One is quite a bit more comfortable and luxurious than typically experienced in the not-so-cheap seats in Economy Class where you are lucky to get a bottled water and a tiny plastic wrapped airplane snack.

Air Force One’s restaurant style kitchen consists of two galleys where 5 chefs work to make food for the President, his family, advisors, visiting dignitaries, members of the press, security team, and assorted guests. Dishes in the past have ranged from filet mignon, chicken parmigiana, quesadillas, chili, and macaroni and cheese, to apple pie ala mode.

The Air Force One chefs can prepare food for up to 100 people at a time. (Something to keep in mind while you’re rushing to make food for party guests in your own cramped kitchen.)

Wondering what President Obama ordered on his inaugural trip on Air Force One? A medium well cheeseburger and fries.

Wondering how former President George W. Bush took his coffee? Black with Equal. First Lady Laura preferred skim milk with Splenda.

According to the White House Website’s Air Force One page:

“Inside, the President and his travel companions enjoy 4,000 square feet of floor space on three levels, including an extensive suite for the President that features a large office, lavatory, and conference room.”

You can see the presidential peek into the Air Force One Kitchen Video below. After you’ve seen the short video, you’ll find a link just below it which will take you on a fascinating tour of the interior of Air Force One so you can gasp at all the leg room (and the thought of a refreshing shower at 30,000 feet).

Enjoy!

Now that you’ve seen the Air Force One Kitchen, here’s a video which will give you a closer look at much of the rest of the interior of Air Force One.

You can see other recent Weekend Video Spotlight Videos here.

You can also see HuggingtheCoast.com’s growing collection of food, cooking, and travel videos here.

Please join us tomorrow to see this week’s Hugging the Coast.Com Week in Review, an overview of last week’s special food features (as well as selected previews from the week to come).

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We’ve all heard the fruitcake jokes and many of us have believed them. For many of us, fruitcakes are on par with something as culinarily frightening as the episode where the kids on The Little Rascals came across some Limburger cheese.

In the popular culture, fruitcakes are often depicted as the scary, unwanted Christmas gift you get from the strange lady down the street who knits booties for her goldfish. But done right, a proper fruitcake is a pleasure to eat; a delicious traditional food that expresses the spirit of the holiday…a spirit which is all about preserving the flavor of the season with friends and family.

Below is a fruitcake recipe video which combines the best notes of the traditional fruitcake with some delicious modern twists.

Since this is a preserved fruit cake, ideally you’ll want to make it a couple of weeks before you plan to enjoy it or give it as a gift. This fruitcake recipe can be made with liquor, or for those who wish to avoid using liquor, you can use orange, cranberry, or apple juice instead of bourbon or rum.

As the video points out, despite fruitcake’s bad reputation, in 17th century England, singles used to put a slice of fruitcake under their pillows to help them dream of the person they would marry…a surprisingly romantic history for such an unfairly maligned cake!

Enjoy!

Curious where many of the commercial fruitcakes you see come from? Claxton, Georgia, home of the Old Fashion Claxton Fruit Cake Co. and Georgia fruitcake Co. holds that honor.

You can see other recent Weekend Video Spotlight Videos here.

You can also see HuggingtheCoast.com’s growing collection of food, cooking, and travel videos here.

Please join us tomorrow to see this week’s Hugging the Coast.Com Week in Review, an overview of last week’s special food features (as well as selected previews from the week to come).

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If you ask me, the humble slice of toast is one of the most comforting foods ever. Easy, portable, and inexpensive to make, toasted bread is often the first food one learns as a child to cook, and as we all know a little buttered toast is a surefire way to make certain your breakfast eggs don’t get too lonely.

As someone who used to have a classic red diner booth as part of their collection of American diner memorabilia, I know what it’s like to track down antiques and collectibles; the thrill of the hunt in thrift stores and yard sales, and the deep satisfaction that sets in when you get your newfound treasure home.

To paraphrase Robert Duvall in Apocalypse Now, I love the smell of 50’s formica in the morning!

Below is a video about one such collector, Chuck Eissler, whose passion for collecting toasters started with the one he grew up with…a 1926 Hotpoint Flopper. 300 toasters later, many of the toasters are worth $500 each or more; some even sport ceramic sides instead of the chrome and nickel plated ones many of us first used when we were young.

You can see some of his beautifully designed antique toasters in the video below. Enjoy!

There’s also a good article about Chuck Eissler’s toaster collection here.

If you’re interested in antique toasters you might also want to visit the Toaster Museum’s gallery of Unbelievably Expensive Toasters and the Toaster Collectors Association.

You can see other recent Weekend Video Spotlight Videos here.

You can also see HuggingtheCoast.com’s growing collection of food, cooking, and travel videos here.

Please join us tomorrow to see this week’s Hugging the Coast.Com Week in Review, an overview of last week’s special food features (as well as selected previews from the week to come).

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