As the second part of our series of guest food bloggers, 7x7 welcomes food stylist Katie Christ. Katie worked as Culinary Producer for the first season of Top Chef and in 2008, she won the first ever Food Network Challenge for food stylists. Tune in to get a taste of Katie's inspirations as she eats and drinks her way through our fair city.

In celebration of my birthday month, I’ve been ordering up drinks around town. I do my best to keep up on food and drink trends, so in the name of bona fide food styling ‘research,’ I went out exploring and found a few treasures:

During that glorious and disturbing summery weather patch, I sought out a little something frosty and found the Boston Swizzle at Nettie’s Crab Shack. Made with bourbon, citrus and grenadine, it’s not only my new favorite spiked snow cone, the condensation on the metal julep cup just begs for a message or design to be carved into it. I’m looking forward to having a little condensation graffiti fun for the camera soon.

Another ice-centric discovery for me was at Nihon—that is, if you prefer your whiskey on the rock (yes, singular). Instead of using standard ice cubes, Nihon uses a single sphere of ice to minimize dilution of the whiskey. I loved the ice sphere in the brandy snifter and how beautifully the light played on the super-tasty Japanese whiskey. Ice sphere: Duly noted. [Ed’s note: You can buy the sphere-of-ice molds, oddly, at Paper Source in the Marina.]

Photo by Annabelle Breakey

I’d been told about a cocktail flight at Luna Park and I love variety, so ordered one up. In addition to variety, the “Fancy Flight of Cocktails” also delivered what is normally one of my least favorite things: a paper doily. In this instance, though, I was surprised to find that I actually thought the doily was kinda sweet, in an old-fashioned romantic kind of way. You can see my ode to the trio in the champagne cocktail below (there might not be a doily, but it’s a nod to an old-fashioned sensibility), which I shot the following day.

Cocktails aren’t everything though. I had this perfectly delicious and refreshing non-alcoholic sparkling Jasmine tea on a recent outing to Crown and Crumpet. It’s become my new favorite hostess gift! So, if you’d like a bottle of your own, invite me over for a homecooked meal—I promise not to judge it by its looks.