Later in the day I did a taste test of doughnuts — Giant Bakery vs. Maple Doughnots at Grocery Outlet. Fog crashed this video so you can get the cat’s opinion, too.
I found out today that my blind friend Nan likes horseradish, would like to try Fireball whiskey and has never had a margarita.
Today, as it is the start of weekend and expected to be the hottest day of the week, Nan and I planned to head to Park Avenue Market to use some hoagie coupons from The Teenager’s marching band fundraiser.
But Nan hadn’t listened to the rest of my message— she was already distracted by thoughts of cucumber salad.
So we’re standing at the deli counter and I order a 10” Lebanon bologna hoagie with bacon lover’s cheese and lettuce, tomato and pickles for the teenager and I to share. And I order Nan’s turkey hoagie with bacon lover’s cheese, mayo, lettuce and onion.
We’re scoping out the salads and I ask her if she planned to take me up on my offer of coming over to eat our sandwiches together and mix up the apple pie cocktail from the ingredients I ordered from County Seat Spirits.
The teenager always likes to get one of the massive deli pickles. So as Nan was realizing we were about to have way more of an adventure than a simple trip to the grocery store, the teenager is pointing out to me that one giant pickle is 99 cents whereas two are $1.69.
Now no one needs two giant pickles.
But I say yes, get two.
She turns 16 Tuesday, I can’t deny her pickles.
So Nan excitedly accepts my offer to stay for dinner and promptly tells me that we need to buy apple juice.
While we wait for our deli orders— summer bean salad and cucumber salad for Nan and slab bacon and liverwurst for me—Nan and I explored the $1 bags of chips.
Apparently Nan loves horseradish so we picked up the horseradish cheddar potato chips for us and Jalapeño Popper Herr’s cheese puffs.
The teenager also wanted tuna salad, so I bought some celery and tuna.
And me, being me, I bought a cow tale and a coconut candy watermelon slice. You gotta have dessert.
We unpack the sandwiches and chips on my dining room table, and the chips were just like horseradish, some bites were just right and some the fumes went straight up your nose.
And then, we started mixing.
I get the vanilla vodka, cinnamon vodka, wine glasses, shot glasses, trays of ice and a cocktail shaker.
Nan is impressed that I have a cocktail shaker.
We pass the bottles around so everyone can smell the vodka. I usually hate vodka. This vodka is distilled from cane sugar and impresses me. The cinnamon vodka smells like Christmas.
First go:
2 ounces vanilla vodka
2 ounces cinnamon vodka
4 ounces apple juice
Result: strong
I add two more ounces of apple juice to the cocktail shaker. Nan approves.
I am merely tasting as someone has to drive Nan home.
I slice the candy.
Nan has never had a cow tail before.
The teenager tastes the alcoholic beverages and approves. We have a discussion about her 21st birthday.
Nan and I plot a trip to the liquor store and mixing Fireball with diet ginger ale.
I mix a batch of the cocktail which I put in a quart mason jar with a plastic screw lid so Nan can keep it in her fridge.
I drove Nan home as the rain started to fall. I had slipped a cocktail into the freezer for myself. This is good vodka.
I’ve tried to incorporate the spirit of my “staycation” two weeks ago into my everyday life. I have tried to embrace a more carefree joie de vivre.
I think to some extent it is working.
Scrolling through my blog feed, I see lots of random home-cooked meals, even more pizzas and fast food… I mean, what crazy mood swing prompted me to eat TWO blizzards from DQ in one night???
My dental work on Wednesday was a huge success and has prompted such a physical and emotional relief— because when you’re slowly paying off more than a thousand dollars in dental bills and something is not right, it drains you.
It reminds me, as life often does, that our struggles never really end. The only destination in this journey is death, regardless of what milestones we try to hit along the way.
Some days it’s harder to get out of bed than others, but hopefully there is something for all of us to appreciate and something we can do for the world.
I opened my Lock Keeper Gin from County Seat Spirits last night. Mixed a shot of so with equal parts carbonated water and a light French lavender soda.
Gin by itself has a clean but bitter taste, in my opinion, with the Lock Keeper Gin bursting with a strong citrus aftertaste. The light blend of lavender gave the gin just enough sweetness to be undetectable in my cocktail. I find gin way smoother and easy to mix than vodka, which I know is an unpopular opinion.
Angel Ackerman 