R. Loeffelbein's WHATCHAMA COLUMN: "Top 10 Summer Cooler Drink Recipes"

      It’s summer time and the living is HOT! It is the time we wrack our recipe files for summer day coolers, to relieve the heat, and hot sippers, to allay early morning or evening chills, while, at the same time, trying to please everyone’s palate.
      Whether it is just for one person’s after-work pick-me-up or for a group foray on a punch bowl on the patio or at a picnic, give up small prayers of thanks to all those who have spent past years experimenting with assorted ingredients and taste testing the ten resulting esoteric, tasty non-alcoholic recipes following that I have begged, borrowed, bought and bartered from family, friends and assorted other hosts.
      There is, of course, a place for the more mundane “Kool-Aid” and simple spinoffs I personally appreciate, like adding two rounded teaspoons of cherry or strawberry Kool-Ade/Country Time to a cup of cold milk, as well as the jillion assorted soda pops, flavored waters or bottled iced cappuccinos on the market, but it seems more sociable if a host offers self-mixed drinks, especially if they are unusual enough to serve as conversation starters. An upside is the host gaining an instant aura of sorts among the guests as being inventive, offbeat and fun. That’s no little thing.

1) Start with the SUPER SIMPLE SLUSH, incorporating two items usually consumed separately, lemonade and ice cream, A 13-year old girl passed this recipe on to me: In a tall glass of lemonade (either packaged or fresh from scratch) add enough vanilla ice cream to form a heavy slush. Stir to a smooth consistency. Best lemonade you’ll ever drink!

2) Cooler #2? Iced soup! No kidding. It’s cool, refreshing AND filling. I call it RED EYE.

After emptying 10 ½-ounce can Tomato soup into pan, fill soup can half full of water and add to soup.
Add one tablespoon lemon juice, saving the lemon peel for garnish.
Add small bottle club soda just before serving, to keep bubbles fresh.
Pour over cracked ice in wide-mouth glasses. Garnish with lemon peel.
Makes 3-4 servings.
     If you want some go-with-it treat, try brown-and-serve rolls stuffed with chili, or refried beans, or a mix of tuna fish, mayonnaise, mustard and pickle relish.

3) If anything can replace the coffee break, CONNIE KELLY PUNCH is it. I don’t even know who Connie Kelly was, but you will become the most popular person at work with a jug of this for TGIF afternoon sharing. And you won’t even need anything to go with it. Kelly may live in perpetuity for this, though in anonymity.

Refrigerate one 6-ounce can frozen lemonade and one 6-ounce can frozen orange juice until ready to  use.
Then mix them together in a large pitcher (or large thermos), with ¾ cup white granulated sugar, one teaspoon vanilla and two tablespoons honey, and pour into 10 cups cold water. Add ice.

4) The ALL-AMERICAN PICK-ME-UP includes several ingredients eaten in copious quantities, just not usually combined.  But what is more American than peanut butter, especially with apples, honey and yoghurt, which are its ingredients.
      Try a peanut butter and sliced sweet pickle sandwich with it. Or a peanut butter and jelly one sprinkled with raisins, mixed nuts and M&Ms or gumdrops. Or experiment if you want. I’ve even served ice cream with peanut butter topping for dessert.

Combine in blender and process until smooth (1-2 minutes at high speed):
1 ½ cups apple juice (or cran-apple juice),
One 8-ounce carton plain yoghurt,
 ¼ cup either creamy or chunky peanut butter,
 Two tablespoons honey.
Add two ice cubes, blending until all ice is crushed.
Serve cold. Makes about three cups.

5) “Tailgate” picnics have long been popular at football games, parades, rodeos or wherever else station wagon or pickup truck owners find themselves temporarily cut off from customary food and drink supply sources. Self-service food and drink is set up on these vehicles’ tailgates, thus the nomenclature. TAILGATE NOG is a quick energy drink, healthful, refreshing and a supplemental source of calcium and minerals. And it tastes good too.

Chill one 12-ounce can papaya nectar.
Peel one medium-sized banana and cut into chunks of slices.
Combine all in blender and process two to three minutes at high speed until smooth.
Serve cold. Makes about three cups.

6) Hawaiian themes are popular and easy to arrange. Have everyone come in print shirts and sarongs or muumuus, drape strips of flowers around everyone’s neck, float more flowers in the punch bowl or pool and bring in a hula instructor. Set plates around of stone ground crackers or tortilla chips and bite-size pepper cheese chunks, sweet and sour pickle chips and Polish Kielbasa sausage slices. (Never mind that these have nothing to do with Hawaii. No one will care. They go great with HAWAIIAN LUAU PUNCH.)

Ingredients:
3 large lemons, 4 tablespoons black tea, 2 cups white granulated sugar,
1 teaspoons vanilla, 1 teaspoon almond extract,
2 28-ounce bottles ginger ale, 1-2 cans Hawaiian pineapple tidbits (or fruit cocktail).
Freeze cans of pineapple (or fruit cocktail).
Wash lemons, extract juice, add rinds to sugar and 4 cups of cold water in sauce pan, then heat, stirring until sugar is dissolved.
Boil 2 cups water and pour over black tea and steep for 10 minutes.
Strain tea and add it. Cool. Stir in vanilla and almond extract.
Chill until serving time. Serve in punch bowl, adding chilled ginger ale.
Extract pineapple as whole cylinders (or fruit cocktail) from cans and float in punch.
Makes 15 cup servings.

7) Eager to impress boss, new neighbors or critical in-laws? Try LASSI, a yoghurt-based drink typically found in Yugoslavia and Middle Eastern homes. Prepare it in front of guests, giving a running spiel on yoghurt’s economy, nutritional qualities and mythic ability to promote longevity.

Combine one cup flavored yoghurt, one teaspoon ground cumin,
one teaspoon salt in a deep bowl and whisk until smooth.
Slowly pour 3 cups ice water in to desired consistency until ingredients are blended.
Taste for seasoning, Pour into glasses and garnish with lemon wedges or mint sprigs.
Makes four servings.

8) Even the ingredients in SUNSET SIESTA TEA  - cinnamon and almond - seem to blend just right into a restful respite at sunset while rocking with good friends on the front porch or sipping in the hot tub.

Ingredients:
One individual Pekoe tea bag (or ¼ cup freshly brewed, or very hot instant/freeze dried coffee, if preferred)
4 drops almond extract. 2 dashes cinnamon and one cinnamon stick, 2 teaspoons white granulated sugar, one rounded teaspoon non-dairy creamer, a dollop of whipped topping.
Place almond extract, cinnamon and tea bag (or coffee) in mug.
Add 1/4 cup boiling water and brew 3-4 minutes. Remove tea bag.
Add sugar and creamer and stir. Garnish with whipped topping and cinnamon stick.
Makes one serving.

9) This change-of-pace hot drink, RUSSIAN TEA, might be called the anorexia nervosa breakfast, because it is a stimulating waker-upper for those days when breakfast just doesn‘t sound like a good enough reason to get up.

Combine ¾ cup instant tea, 2 ½ cups (or one 18-ounce jar) orange-flavored instant breakfast drink, 1 ¼ cups white granulated sugar, one teaspoon ground cinnamon, ½ teaspoon ground cloves and a dash of salt in large jar.
Store in jar, tightly covered, until ready to serve.
To serve, place one well-rounded teaspoon of mix in cup or glass.
Add boiling water and stir until dissolved.
Garnish with lemon slice and cinnamon stick.

10) “Tope” is an out-of-favor word designating an interjection used in wishing good health before drinking. It is apropos for gatherings where guests may be young enough to require boozeless punch. Citrus to the rescue.

Chill one 23-ounce bottle sparkling water, 6 cups orange juice, and 3 cups grapefruit juice.
Thickly slice two oranges.
Combine orange and grapefruit juices, 2 tablespoons grenadine, one tablespoon honey in a large bowl. Stir to dissolve honey.
Add orange slices. Just before serving add sparkling water.
Makes about 24 4-ounce servings.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:
TEABERRY PUNCH combines two rounded tablespoons of instant tea, 2 cups cranberry juice cocktail, ¼ cup lemon juice, and sugar to taste in one quart of cold water. Makes 6 glasses.
RASPBERRY PUNCH incorporates ½ gallon vanilla ice cream, melted, and 3 10-ounce packages of frozen raspberries, thawed, mixed with 3-4 quarts of chilled ginger ale in a punch bowl and stirred until smooth. Makes about a gallon.

      Of course, there is no accounting for differing tasters since everyone has preferences acquired from various venues over time. To point up just how disparate tastes can be, a BOOBY PRIZE selection is also offered.
      Swedish millionaire and retired tennis professional Bjorn Borg used to swig his own concoction by the gallon for quick energy pickups while on the tennis tour. He never named it, so we’ve done that for him. We’ll call it BJORN’S BELLYASH.
      Mix carbonated lemonade with black currant syrup. That’s it! Personally, I have to wonder how anyone could do that to their taste buds!

R. Loeffelbein's WHATCHAMA COLUMN: "Father's Day Origins"

     The first Father's Day may have been celebrated in 1908...or 1909...or maybe 1910. It might have been 1916 or even 1936!
     Most sources credit a Spokane, Washington, woman named Sonora Smart Dodd, for being the driving force behind this observance, when she stated fathers deserved equal recognition with mothers, who had been recognized decades earlier.  
     Mother's Day, according to World Book, was suggested in 1872, but didn't really receive national recognition until May 9, 1914 when President Woodrow Wilson signed a joint resolution of Congress for it. The next year, he proclaimed it an annual national observance.
     Dodd, as well as her five siblings, including a newborn, were raised by their father, William Jackson Smart, after their mother died giving birth to the newborn. Dodd began calling for a Father's Day in 1909, after hearing a sermon promoting a national Mother's Day. But a statewide celebration was first held June 19, 1910, in the state of Washington, according to World Book Encyclopedia.
     Other sources deliver other claimants, of course. For example, Mrs. Charles Clayton of Wes Virginia had promoted, unsuccessfully, such a holiday as early as 1908. But the idea gained wide acceptance over the next half-dozen years, even being approved by President Woodrow Wilson in 1916. Finally a national Father's Day Committee was formed, in 1936.
     Even then it was not until 1966 that President Lyndon Johnson signed a proclamation designating the third Sunday in June as Father's Day. And it was left to President Richard Nixon to make it an official permanent national observance.