Russian Spring Punch

We were supposed to have Grand Mimosas today, for our second day of New Year's celebrations, but somehow between Patrick and I we forgot to buy Grand Marnier, so we had regular mimosas instead, nothing to tell about there, and then I found another recipe involving champagne for which I had the ingredients: Russian Spring Punch. We lucked out when we found this house five years ago, in that there was a terrific row of raspberry bushes in the backyard, and so far we haven't killed them, and enjoy a huge crop of raspberries every August. I still have bags and bags of raspberries in my freezer from last summer.

Russian Spring Punch contains raspberry puree, fresh lemon juice, creme de cassis, vodka, simple sugar syrup (made by boiling sugar with water - how simple, and useful!), frozen raspberries and a lemon slice. It's quite good - just the right amount of tartness (is that a word?). It may be my go-to New Year's drink from now on. Not that I have ever before had a go-to New Year's drink. In fact, today was the first time I've actually made a mimosa. I had several on Erin MacDonald's wedding day, with the rest of the bridal party in her suite before the wedding, and a couple at Teresa Larson's brunch last winter, and I think perhaps in high school, at my friend Eva's... not sure though; that's a bit of a haze. Mostly in high school I just snuck kahlua from Mom and Dad's "liquor cabinet" (which generally contained an ancient bottle of whiskey, 3/4 full, and a sticky-rimmed bottle of kahlua, and not much else).

Lovely walk by the Atikokan River this afternoon, while Pat and Caleb and Jule and Caleb's friend toboganned at the old ski hill. I crossed the frozen river on the swinging bridge, and climbed a steep rocky hill in the tracks of a deer or wolf or some other wild creature, my knee-high Sorels protecting me perfectly from the thick snow, holding on to tree trunks so as not to slide backwards and break my neck, and was rewarded with a view of the golf course, the river, the hospital, a helicopter taking off, the snowmobile path. I thought about Tiger Woods, and "The 12 Days of Mistress", and whether or not to go to Las Vegas this March, and whether or not to go to Lutsen skiing in two weeks, and other such deep existential things.

This, by the way, is a picture of the peak-to-peak gondola at Lutsen. Not Whistler exactly, but still pretty good. Again I feel lucky to live where I do. When the rest of the world runs out of gas and power, we'll be fine here, with our wood stoves and moose and deer and raspberries.