I recently discovered the merits of the hot toddy. I started drinking them over the December holidays after I woke up one morning with a head cold and sore throat. Although I was skeptical that this centuries old hot drink would help me feel better than a regular cup of tea, I was happy to sip something a little different. I became a convert to its medicinal advantages, however, when after a few sips the rough soreness in my throat dissipated while warmth radiated throughout my body. I'm not kidding here. That hot toddy really did make me feel remarkably better.

The hot toddy was supposedly created when tea came to Scotland, and, as you might expect, the Scots felt the need to add a little of their mother's milk -- that is whisky -- to the brew. Since then, hot toddies have become synonymous with the idea of body-warming goodness on cold days. In addition to being hailed as a cold and flu remedy, hot toddies are said to also cure insomnia, which make sense to me.

Some people make hot toddies with tea, a sweetener, and lemon, along with whisky, brandy, bourbon, or rum. I like using either black tea or chamomile as I think the flavors nicely accent the drink, but you can really use any type of tea you like, or just leave it out all together. I've also made an alcohol free hot toddy for my daughters, which is an option if you're making the drink for children or prefer yours without alcohol.

And, speaking of the alcohol, I've been using brandy simply because the Scotch whisky I have on hand is expensive and so I want to enjoy it on its own. I also use brandy because it has a natural sweetness that lends itself nicely to honey and lemon in the drink. Whisky, however, is the historical choice, so if you have some and aren’t as stingy as I am, you should give it a try. Rum and bourbon are also an option, although I haven’t tried them.

So whether you're sick, can't fall asleep, or just chilly and in need of a warm drink that will exude heat throughout your body, a hot toddy may just do the trick.

Hot Toddy

Makes one cup

Ingredients:
1 cup hot tea
1 shot brandy, whisky, bourbon or rum
1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 Tbsp honey

Preparation:
1. Make a cup of tea the way you like it (that is, strong or weak and with whatever type of tea leaves you like).
2. Stir in the alcohol, lemon juice and honey.
3. Enjoy

Related BAB Posts:
Drunkard, Heal Thyself
Starve a Fever, Feed a Cold

Before we left for Scotland, we heard many warnings about the horrors of Scottish and British food. People seem very keen on laughing at haggis and detailing horrible meals they’ve had or heard about in the UK (Spotted Dick anyone?). Well, I'm here to tell you that Scotland has some truly wonderful food. But, like anywhere else, it' usually found in restaurants and inns that are run by discerning folk who like to purchase quality ingredients, often locally.

Although restaurants that offer well-prepared dishes from organic and/or local ingredients can be difficult to find once you leave your home turf, there are a few wonderful online sites that will do some of the groundwork for you. I spent some time on both TripAdvisor and Chowhound before we left town, and it paid off. The reviews on TripAdvisor led me to some great country inns with fantastic food, and Chowhound helped me find a restaurant or two in Edinburgh that we really loved. We also had the benefit of getting some sound advice from friends in the know -- which is always the best option if you have it.

So here are some of the excellent places we found with the help of our fellow posters at TripAdvisor and Chowhound, as well as our beloved friends. We were even lucky enough to stumble upon one by ourselves. These culinary gems are definitely worth looking up if you’re traveling to Scotland. I would also love to hear about other sites people use to find great restaurants or inns while traveling.

The Barley Bree Restaurant with Rooms, just outside Crieff and about an hour north of Edinburgh. (Found using TripAdvisor) -- This lovely inn has comfortable beds and a very nice host, Fabrice, who also happens to be a French chef. Fabrice makes everything from scratch, including the bread, and seeks out fresh local produce and meats. For dinner, he served one of the loveliest butternut squash soups I have ever had. It was velvety and creamy without being overly so. He also added slivers of some pickled ginger, which added a bit of spiciness. It was truly great.

This inn also offered the finest breakfast we had in Scotland. It was a sort of Scottish Breakfast/French petit dejeuner that started with yogurts, homemade stewed prunes, grapefruit slices, nuts and porridge, and finished with eggs, homemade sausage, back bacon, haggis (a lovely version created specially for the inn by a local butcher), roasted tomatoes and mushrooms. If you’re going to The Trossachs, this is definitely a great place to stay.

Heatherfield House, in Oban on the western coast about an hour outside Glasgow. (Found using TripAdvisor) -- Heatherfield House is run by Gary and Sue, a very nice British couple. One of the reasons I chose Heatherfield is because they have their own chickens and use their eggs for their complimentary breakfasts. So, after a fantastic night’s sleep in the extremely comfortable beds and a shower in the nicest bathroom we saw in Scotland, we sat down to a full Scottish breakfast. We started with berries, yogurts, muesli, and English and Scottish cheeses, before digging into the main portion of the eggy meal. I cannot stress enough how perfect the eggs are at Heatherfield. They are laid either the morning they are served, or the morning before, and the freshness of flavor and texture prove it. The homemade sausage (made at the inn) and back bacon were also fantastic. The dish was also served with blood pudding, and from what I can tell, it was a great version of this dish. I, for one, found that I am not a blood pudding fan, however. No matter how nicely it was made and seasoned, in the end, I can barely suck on a cut finger, let alone eat something that was essentially blood and suet in a casing. After breakfast, my daughters frolicked in the garden while the chickens pecked at worms in the wet dirt. Gary and his wife were very gracious hosts. It was really a perfect place to stay.

The George Hotel, in Inveraray about 30 minutes outside Glasgow. (Found using TripAdvisor) -- A small hotel run by the same family for the last couple of hundred years, this inn is nicely updated and has the quintessential Scottish pub on the main floor. The dining room is also nice, but as kids weren’t allowed inside for dinner we ate in the pub. This was just fine with me; the pub kitchen offered the best fish and chips we had on our entire trip. The full Scottish breakfast the next morning, which is included with a night's stay, wasn’t nearly in the same league as Barley Bree or Heatherfield House, but I think at that point we were spoiled. Our room, however, was beautiful -- complete with a whirlpool bathtub and view of Loch Awe.

Oink, in Edinburgh. (Discovered on a fluke while walking by) -- Oink is a new restaurant on Victoria Street in Edinburgh’s Old Town district. Each morning the folks at Oink present an entire roasted pig in their front window, and by the end of the day, that pig is stripped clean. Oink offers sandwiches of pulled pork on white buns with crackling or without. I got one with the crackling, but wouldn’t do so again: it was so hard I thought it would crack my teeth. The pork, however, was beautifully cooked and very tasty, but I must admit that I was craving a vinegar and tomato-based Southern-BBQ sauce to go with it. When I asked if they had one, or at least some vinegar, they said that many Americans ask for it, but they instead had a “chili sauce.” Excited at the prospect of something resembling a Vietnamese or Thai chili paste, I instead found that their chili sauce was the equivalent of a jar of Picante salsa. Oh, well. The pork was still mighty fine.

The Mussel Inn, in Edinburgh’s New Town. (Found using Chowhound) -- If you like mussels, this is a great place to go. There is a constant parade of heaping pots of fresh local mussels going from the kitchen to various tables in this small restaurant. In addition to the mussels, I ordered some freshly-made pasta with mushrooms for my daughters, which was quite good, and some fresh scallops for me. I was pleasantly surprised to find that they offer the entire scallop -- not just the white meaty part Americans traditionally see, but also the roe, which is the coral-colored softer part not usually served here, despite its delicious flavor.

Urban Angel, in Edinburgh’s New Town. (Heard about from a friend) -- If I could bring any restaurant home with me, it would be this one. Urban Angel provides Fair Trade, Free Trade, organic, and local fare at a fairly affordable price. I loved the natural and organic ingredients we found in our soups, salads and sandwiches at lunch and hear they have a spectacular dinner as well. I had an incredible frisée salad with couscous, white beans, almonds, and chorizo, while my daughters stole my delicious cream of mushroom soup and homemade bread out from under my nose. I dream of a restaurant like this opening within walking distance of my house.

It's probably not going to surprise anyone to hear that one of the things I love about being in a foreign country is experiencing the food. But this simple pleasure became far more complicated when I started traveling with kids. I have tried to raise daughters with a sense of gastronomic adventure -- and for the most part they are willing and excited participants in our culinary outings -- but when you're in a different time zone, all bets are off as the crabby-child factor increases with each 1,000 miles you journey from home.

I know many parents who spend their first days on vacation seeking out food items that will be acceptable to -- as the Scottish would say -- their wee bairns. Even if a child eats a fairly healthy diet at home, they often recoil when plates of “exotic” foods are placed before them elsewhere. A friend of mine had to search out pinto beans and French fries on a recent Mexico vacation as her son refused to eat anything else, while another friend of mine was frustrated to find her normally food-compliant daughter would only eat chicken fingers and pasta during their summer holiday. My daughters are thankfully less demanding (which may be due to the fact that I become temporarily deaf when they try to become picky eaters). But although our girls were happy eaters during our recent trip to Scotland -- devouring haggis, local mussels, scallops, and other fine local dishes -- I think they were more willing to try new foods because we also strived to provide an equal amount of food they felt comfortable with.

So there we were, all four of us in Scotland, ready to explore castles, lochs, and the many culinary delights available, but also on the search for food that would be easy on a kid’s stomach. Thankfully, finding kid-friendly food turned out to be much easier than I could have ever dreamed as it turns out that Scotland is the land of the panini. Yes -- the panini. Although there were also plenty of toasties (the UK equivalent of the grilled cheese sandwich), Italian paninis was available wherever we went. Imagine my sense of motherly relief when I found out I could get my children’s three favorite foods -- mozzarella cheese, tomatoes and basil -- melted in flat bread wherever we traveled, including small towns, large cities, and airports.

Although there were some variations of the panini we failed to try, such as the haggis panini, more often than not, my daughters had some sort of melted cheese sandwich for lunch. These little bundles of toasty goodness offered them the calories they needed to march around castles, up and down long streets, and through museums and galleries, while also providing a sense of culinary calm so they could branch out and explore other dishes at dinner. As a friend of mine told me when we got home, "There's nothing like melted cheese to soothe a tired kid," which is why I will be forever thankful to the person who brought the panini to Scotland.

I’m curious to know how other parents address food issues while on vacation. Also, has anyone else out there found something unexpected, and mercifully kid-friendly, on a recent vacation?

I recently got married (and changed my name from Kim Goodfriend to Kim Laidlaw, in the off chance that there was any confusion) and my new mother-in-law and her partner, who I've only met on one other occasion, came to visit us...all the way from Edinburgh, Scotland.

Now, I adore my mother-in-law, but I was a little intimidated when she announced that she only likes to eat Italian and "normal" food. What would I ever find to prepare for her? How could I possibly wow her with my culinary prowess? What if I made something she hated? Was my imagination going off the deep end?

The solution came with a trip to the SF Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market on the first Saturday of their stay. We arrived early and made an initial pass through the crowd, just to get our bearings. She was enthralled with all the fruits and vegetables and foodstuffs she'd never seen before. We left the guys on a bench near the bay and went off on our second pass, sniffing this, trying that, and all the while, I kept asking her what she liked or disliked. In this way, I managed to cobble together my first dinner for my new mother-in-law.

First stop--and a pretty safe bet--was Shogun Fish, who display their freshly caught salmon and halibut every Saturday. We chose two thick gorgeous, incredibly fresh, deeply red, wild salmon fillets. I mean, who doesn't love salmon?*

*Note: Um, actually I don't. In fact, I rarely like salmon. I particularly loathe farm-raised salmon which I find flavorless. However, when it's fresh it can be absolutely delicious. And I've become quite a fan of smoked salmon in recent years. Which is a good thing, because my husband and his entire family are Scottish. And they love smoked salmon. It's like a national dish. Second only to fried things. And maybe haggis. Oh, wait, and whisky. Yes, whisky is a food group. But I digress...

We also gathered just-dug-up fingerling potatoes, fragrant heirloom tomatoes, wild arugula (aka rocket as it is called in the UK), crunchy lemon cucumbers, figs, and a decadent array of cupcakes from Miette.

Dinner was a raving, smashing success (can you hear the musical crescendo in the background?). We started with sliced figs topped with triple-cream cheese, basil, and aged balsamic. The main event included grilled salmon simply dressed in fresh oregano, olive oil, salt and pepper, along with roasted fingerling potatoes and a salad of cucumbers, tomatoes, and arugula. All of it was washed down with a gorgeous bottle of Navarro Edelzwicker.

Unfortunately, in my fumbling, nervous, slightly overwhelmed culinary haze, I never managed to get out the camera to capture said delicious amazing dinner. But, we were left with a good chunk of leftover salmon, given that I have a knack for over-purchasing. Which brings me to my very own mother (I think I'm establishing a theme here)...

One of my childhood faves, and one of my mom's specialties, is salmon croquettes. Yeah, I know I already blasted salmon. But this is Fried Salmon. In cakes. With sauce. And it truly is, in my opinion, one of the best ways to use up your leftover salmon.

Salmon Croquettes

1 1/2 cups cooked salmon
1 egg, separated
1 handful saltines or water crackers, crushed to bits
1 tablespoon aioli or mayo
Oil for frying

Make sure that the salmon is free of any bones or skin, then put it in a large bowl, breaking it up into large flakes with your fingers. Add the egg yolk, cracker bits, aioli and salt and pepper to taste, then gently stir together to combine. In a separate bowl, whip the egg white to medium peaks (don't overwhip!). Fold the egg white into the salmon mixture. Gently form the salmon mixture into patties, about 2 inches in diameter.

In a large frying pan, heat about 1/4 cup of oil over medium-high heat. Carefully add the salmon cakes and fry, turning once, until crisp and golden on both sides, about 8 minutes total. Remove to a paper-towel lined plate to drain, then serve with the aioli.

Sort-of Aioli

1 egg yolk
1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
3/4 cup light olive oil or a mixture of olive oil and canola oil
Juice of 1/2 lemon

Note: This is not garlic aioli which is why I call it sort of aioli because in some strict foodcamps that is the only aioli there is. However, I don't really happen to like garlic (with a few specific exceptions) so if you want to add it, go right ahead.

In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the egg yolk and mustard. Add a pinch of salt. Slowly add the oil, very slowly, a dribble at a time, while whisking. Make sure that all of the oil is incorporated into the yolk before adding more. The mixture will continue to thicken the more oil you add. If it gets too thick, add a bit of the lemon juice. As you get near the end, you will find you can add the oil a bit more quickly. Once you have added all of the oil, whisk in the lemon juice. Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve alongside the salmon cakes.