Time to talk about SANGRIA

Is it time to talk about sangria?

My girlfriend Michelle (here we are at the SUPER BOWL!) emailed me this week looking for a SANGRIA recipe.  It made me so happy, because I LOVE SANGRIA....I had just made a pitcher of SANGRIA on Sunday night and even took some pics -- you lucky readers!  (I'm trying to mention SANGIA as much as possible, can you tell?)

Here's the thing.  It's almost silly to try to give a recipe for sangria.  (It's like giving a "recipe" for salsa.)  You can basically put anything in there, and voila -- it's salsa...or sangria...you know what I mean.
But here is my base, my everyday standard sangria.

Ingredients: lemon, lime, peach, apricot, plum, red wine, soda water – OPEN MIND?

Slice 1 lemon, 1 lime, 1 peach, 1 apricot, 1 plum (Make pretty rounds with the citrus.) Put slices in a pitcher & cover with ¼ cup sugar. (You can add brandy too at this point, one quarter cup – to fortify it as my husband says.) Let stand at room temperature for half hour. Then muddle up the fruit a bit with a wooden spoon, the sugar will start to dissolve with the juices. Add a bottle dry, red wine (Spanish, inexpensive works great – don’t splurge on good wine here, you don’t need it, save that for a linen napkin dinner party.)f Stir thoroughly and let stand at room temperature for about an hour. Just before serving, add ice cubes and 1 cup of soda water. Stir briskly until it is very cold and serve it in chilled glasses. There’s no sense arguing over sangria – if you google there are at least 100 different recipes with all different fruit. Just make what YOU like.

Here's a shot from last summer.  I poured this glass and hand to GAWD --- the fruit just looked back at me with this happy sangria smile.  Do you see it?  Of course you do!