Mulled Wine recipe... circa 1869, full of spice and mothballs

Traditional English Mulled Wine, I couldn't have said it better myself. In fact, if I was born in the 1900's I may have said it like this and it wouldn't have even been funny.

An authoritative recipe can be found in Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management at paragraph 1961 on page 929 to 930 of the revised edition dated 1869:(from Wikipedia)

1961.-TO MULL WINE.

INGREDIENTS.- To every pint of wine allow 1 large cupful of water, sugar and spice to taste.

Mode.-In making preparations like the above, it is very difficult to give the exact proportions of ingredients like sugar and spice, as what quantity might suit one person would be to another quite distasteful. Boil the spice in the water until the flavour is extracted, then add the wine and sugar, and bring the whole to the boiling-point, when serve with strips of crisp dry toast, or with biscuits. The spices usually used for mulled wine are cloves, grated nutmeg, and cinnamon or mace. Any kind of wine may be mulled, but port and claret are those usually selected for the purpose; and the latter requires a very large proportion of sugar. The vessel that the wine is boiled in must be delicately cleaned, and should be kept exclusively for the purpose. Small tin warmers may be purchased for a trifle, which are more suitable than saucepans, as, if the latter are not scrupulously clean, they spoil the wine, by imparting to it a very disagreeable flavour. These warmers should be used for no other purpose.

Okay, back to me: She doesn't say this, but don't boil the wine, just heat it. Otherwise, you lose the booze and that is a very sad state of affairs indeed.

Simply Sally - Fennel Salad

Ok, I admit it, I went to a meat draw at a Legion recently. My friends and I won a ton of meat, huge thick cut steaks and pork. It was fabulous, we barbecued it up and felt like barons for a night. Strangely enough, one of the things that we ate that was most memorable was a salad, a very simple salad. Thinly sliced fennel in a bit of walnut oil, crushed walnuts, sliced cucumber, lemon, salt and shavings of a good Parmesan. We started the meal with it and we were drinking a German riesling which paired amazingly. On a tangent; if you were blindfolded at any liquor store, got someone to push you towards the German riesling, you would have an 80% chance of stumbling into a really great wine and an equal chance of breaking some bottles. Riesling`s the kind of stuff that would make fried eyeballs taste good. Two of my favourite producers are Selbach and Dr.Loosen, both make dry wines from the Mosel region, showing great acidity, fruit and that lovely stoney minerality. But back to the salad, fennel is definitely an unsung hero of the produce department. And I have no idea why, with its soft licorice flavours and a great crunch. It`s very subtle, though, so don`t mix it with anything too powerful; like the brainy kid in class that`s actually really cool, she`ll never speak up if you sit a bully next to her.