Post-call White Russian

Ah, the White Russian. I used to think kahlua with milk was good, until I tried it with vodka and cream.

It snowed today and so far the snow has stayed. Global warming has delayed our winters and our springs, but at least we still receive a pile of snow each winter, and can ski and toboggan and all of that. There's nothing worse than frigid weather without snow.

I drank a White Russian with lunch, the most delicious pasta I've ever had, which I'm proud to say I invented: small shells, salmon mixed with a bit of mayonnaise, avocado, arugula, olive oil, white wine vinegar, sea salt, and pepper. Then I fell asleep. I did not make perogies. I did manage pork chops and mashed potatoes and salad for supper, before hockey and karate and an invigorating walk in the dark snowy town, small plaster houses drenched in Christmas lights, TV's on in living rooms, cats perched on sofa-backs peering out front windows. I listened to the first half of No Line on the Horizon and thought about the meaning of U2's 360 Degrees Tour. They are preparing us for their departure, assuring us that they don't need us anymore, and we don't need them. They open with "Breathe": "There's nothing you have that I need - I can breathe." And they close with "Moment of Surrender": "At the moment of surrender to vision over visibility, I did not notice the passersby and they did not notice me." For "With or Without You", instead of singing to a girl on stage, Bono flings the steering wheel mic around, plays with it, rants at it, that stupid inanimate thing stuck to the ceiling. He can't have us anymore - he's decided, or has been told, by Ali, or God. He is moving away, "getting ready to leave the ground".

I am post-call, after a quiet weekend.

Screwdriver & Cape Codder

I hate vodka. Vodka with orange juice, vodka with cranberry juice, yuck, yuck, yuck. It all tastes like a cheap drunk, like Vodka Specials in Regina bars when that was all I knew how to order, eighteen years old and trying to make up for lost time. No one outside of Saskatchewan seems even to have heard of these things: vodka with 7-Up and a splash of lime. I wish tonight I'd stuck with wine.

Planning to make perogies on Monday, after a weekend on call. And to drink with that... Chi Chis? Maybe will skip ahead to the White Russian instead.

I'm realizing that if I actually go on with this I'm going to be spending a fair bit of money stocking my liquor cabinet. Vanilla vodka, lemon vodka, berry vodka, cranberry vodka, cucumber vodka, pepper vodka, orange vodka, sake, Chambord, Polish vodka, Zubrowka Bison Grass vodka, melon vodka, creme de cassis, strawberry vodka, apple brandy, Pisang Ambon, raspberry vodka, honey vodka, Russian vodka... and that's just the first chapter. And where, I wonder, will I obtain kumquats, and passion fruit syrup, and Mirabelle plum puree, living, as I do, in the bush? I suppose I could grocery shop in Winnipeg at Christmas, instead of visiting with my grandmother and those cousins I rarely see.

Oh, the sacrifices. Surely I will be pleased to have accomplished such a feat, though, in the end?? And just think, I will never have to apologize for not owning cucumber vodka again...

A Mennonite Girl Learns to Mix Drinks

Like much of the world, I have been inspired this past year by "Julie & Julia" - the blog, the book, the movie - wherein a depressed 30-something New Yorker decides to cook her way through Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking", 300-and-some recipes, in a year, and blog about it. I too wanted to come up with a project, something that I could tackle nearly every day, something new, something ambitious, enjoyable, educational, that I could also write about. Tonight, after several glasses of Castillo de Almansa Reserva 2005 (quite good), while flipping through Cocktail Genius by Allan Gage 2004, it came to me. Over the course of the next year, I will make every one of the 300 cocktails in this book, and never again will I have to say, "I think a mimosa is orange juice with champagne, but I'm not sure." I will be able to order Highland Slings with confidence in cocktail bars all over the world, serve Mayflower Martinis to guests, and welcome myself home with a Body Shot after a tough day at work.

As a Mennonite girl, I was not raised in a home that was comfortable with the regular consumption of alcohol. There was a bottle of kahlua in the cabinet that Mom would occasionally break out, splashing a little on her ice cream if she was in an adventurous mood. I sometimes snuck a few sips to my room. Other families served wine with supper and sat around drinking rum and Coke while playing cards on a Friday night - not ours. At my grade twelve graduation party I had to bum sips of beer off my friends while nursing my thermos of hot chocolate and pretending to be drunk. Of course I have learned lots since then, in the past (ahem) eighteen-or-so years, but now, before I get old, maybe it's time to get serious, get organized, become a connoisseur.

Tonight I will begin at the beginning, as I happen to have all of the ingredients on hand, at Chapter 1, "Vodka". I don't like vodka very much. I recently discovered gin, which combined with tonic water and a wedge of lime is just about perfect. However, according to Cocktail Genius, vodka's "versatility and mixability... has made it a firm favorite in bars all over the world", and I am looking forward to exploring its potential as a base for all manner of fruity concoctions.

The cocktail is called a Caipiroska. I muddle a segmented lime with brown sugar and sugar syrup, which I've become adept at cooking up, as it's an ingredient in the raspberry gin punch that I fell in love with last summer. I do not have crushed ice. I do not have ice - so I am making some while writing this. My kids are at karate, accompanied by their father, and my undisturbed time is limited. I sew Jule's grey Webkinz kitty's mouth back on while I am waiting, then log on and slowly, slowly, on our slow high-speed internet upload a photo of a sunset in our backyard, because it is pink and lovely and makes me want a cocktail.

I break up half-frozen ice cubes with a fork and add them to my tall blue glass, which is supposed to be a old-fashioned glass, whatever that is. Then 2 measures of vodka. Is that the same as 2 ounces? Whatever... a couple of shots of vodka should do. The final result is really quite sour. Did he really mean an entire lime, chopped up? Who is this Allan Gage anyways? What are his qualifications?

I have homemade guacamole and salsa, though, which should go well with this. It is all very reminiscent of Mexico, nice for a cold snowless November night in Canada. Oh wait - vodka, I think, is Russian.

I have a long way to go.