Enjoyed: Friday, April 5, 2024

Listed on the menu: Yes, as “1881 Old Fashion” (sic).

Ingredients: Four Roses Bourbon, Aromatic Bitters, House-Made Porter Syrup, with an orange peel and a maraschino cherry.

The occasion: When I learned that my son and his fiancée were traveling to my sister-in-law’s home for the solar eclipse, I promptly decided that we needed to join in the fun. Happily, my sister-in-law and her husband were sweet enough to accommodate all of us, so I started planning our trip to Indianapolis, which was in the path of totality. How fortunate for us all! I wanted to break up the nine-plus hour drive with an overnight stop along the way, and perhaps a bit of sightseeing. Chillicothe, Ohio, seemed like a perfect location, since we wanted to see the Leo Petroglyphs and to tour the Westcott House (designed by Frank Lloyd Wright) in Springfield, Ohio. Chillicothe’s charming historic district had several interesting options for supper and a drink.

My rating: **** out of 5. I picked this restaurant since it advertised thirty beers on draft. I was not surprised, therefore, that this cocktail used beer in its signature house-made simple syrup. The deep porter flavor plus the always-lovely Four Roses bourbon made the drink taste rich and almost creamy. I would have awarded an extra star, however, if the bartender had rubbed the orange peel around the rim and if the cherry had not been a maraschino.

Final thoughts: We really do need to visit more small Midwestern cities. Downtown Chillicothe, for example, contains lovely architecture and fun places to eat and drink at very reasonable prices. (Full disclosure: our first stop of the evening was a bar called “Steiner’s Speakeasy” and I paved the way for this Old Fashioned with an award-winning margarita made with Mexican-street-corn-flavored simple syrup. So good. Seems like Chillicothe’s bartenders are creative with simple syrup!) Oh, and the total eclipse of the sun? We had clear skies and a clear view. Worth the trip for this once-in-a-lifetime, breathtaking event.

We have a new roof! It’s been almost a month of waiting for estimates, for insurance authorization, for a slot on the preferred roofers’ calendar, and for a non-rainy day. At 7 am this morning, the weather forecast looked promising, so the crew arrived. I chose to stay in the house, but maybe I shouldn’t have–those men worked for hours as they stripped the old roof, repaired the numerous holes left by the fallen tree, and added brand-new shingles. A cloudburst at about 2 pm did not slow them down, thankfully, although I fretted about their safety up there. (The gutter crew comes tomorrow, weather permitting.) Needless to say, there was consistent hammering, heavy footfalls of the six guys up there, and the occasional THWUMP as a crew member moved a stack of shingles to another location. Noise, there was so much noise! I didn’t like it! And there were so many vibrations, which even caused pictures on the wall to tilt and glasses in the cabinet to clink together. It was a long, long day, but now, as I write, I hear a thunderstorm approaching, so I am grateful the roofers worked so quickly! I promised myself a drink at the end of it all to soothe my nerves.

Of course, Dear Husband had to go out of town on business, so I am drinking alone. He hopes this is his very last overnight business trip before his retirement, and I don’t blame him. I don’t blame him one bit! He was scheduled to arrive at his final destination at 1:30 pm yesterday, but Mother Nature had other plans which resulted in major flight delays and re-routings, so he arrived at his hotel room at 1:30 am. Yup, a twelve hour delay. It was a long, long day, indeed.

Last week I made candied grapefruit slices, since I had purchased too many grapefruits that I stopped eating when I realized they did not sit well with my allergy medications. I was left with a small jar of grapefruit simple syrup, so I put it to use today.

Husband is not home, as I said, so this drink (loaded with fruit, right?) serves as my “salad” for today. I think my supper is going to be Easter leftovers. Truly, the only good part about being home alone is that I don’t cook at all.

In a lowball glass, stir together 2 ounces of vodka with 2 ounces of grapefruit simple syrup. Add fruit, ice, and maybe a Luxardo cherry. Stir and enjoy.

OK, I will admit it. I am green with envy this St. Patrick’s Day, because Dear Husband is in London and I am not. Granted, he is there on business–the last international trip before he retires. The conference doesn’t start until tomorrow, so today he wandered over to Trafalgar Square, where he discovered that many people in England were wearing green and celebrating. Then he found a floating pub on the Thames and snapped photos of the London Eye and Big Ben while he sipped on a Guinness.

OK, and I am also feeling sorry for myself, because I could have been there with him. He has been to England on numerous occasions, and even took me along in August 2010. (I loved it.) I wanted to go with him again, and I even started making reservations for afternoon tea and for excursions to Stonehenge and to Cambridge. I even booked an airbnb in Wales for us for next week.

Then I cancelled everything, absolutely everything, since the trip status became tentative and stayed that way until last week. I didn’t want to risk losing the money spent on deposits and airfare. And then we decided that someone needed to stay home to babysit the tarp on the roof (see previous blog entry).

This St. Patrick’s Day is even more special to me, since now I have fond memories of last year’s vacation in Ireland. In fact, the last time I had an Irish coffee (prior to today) was at the airport right before we left Dublin.

So I needed a drink today. Stonehenge, Cambridge, and Wales are now on the retirement bucket list. I have high hopes of getting there in the next few years. And since Dear Husband won’t be working, we can take the time, even, for a nice train ride to Scotland, since I hear they know a little something about distilling…

To 1 cup freshly brewed hot coffee, add 1 tablespoon brown sugar and 1 1/2 ounces Irish whiskey (I chose Jameson’s since we toured their facility in Dublin, and because the Red Breast bottle isn’t yet open). Stir well. Add whipped cream on top, if you prefer, but if you are avoiding lactose and calories (like me), you may froth some almond milk in a separate glass and gently place several tablespoons of foam on top of the coffee.

Slainte! Special thanks to my son for the gift of the “potato fairy” doll.

Late last Sunday morning, as we were sitting at the kitchen table in our pajamas, and chewing on homemade waffles and slurping down caffeinated hot beverages (curse you, daylight savings time!), we heard a crack and then a “kaboom!”, which made the entire house shake. I think we both jumped up and shouted “Tree! F***!” at the same time. We ran toward the back bedrooms, because we were convinced there was now a gaping hole where a wall used to be. Amazingly, everything looked fine, so we ran outside and saw a 60, maybe 70 foot tall white pine, which had toppled from the edge of the property, sprawled across the entire roof of our ranch house.

Fast forward to Monday morning. A tree company we had used years ago put us at top priority, and by 8:15 am, a crane (!!!) and an industrial-sized chipper/shredder were parked at the end of our driveway and the crew got to work. Once the tree was lifted, the damage was revealed. Yes, the roof was punctured in ten places, but no other structural damage was found. Our savior was the maple tree in front of the house, which broke the fall, so to speak, of the pine. The maple sacrificed a few major limbs, true, but it’s proven to be resilient. In fact, back in May 2000 when a microburst hit the property, the very same maple was “decapitated” and its limbs blew out windows in our mini-van, yet the tree lived on. Its shape isn’t pretty, but this maple is now my favorite tree on the entire property.

And now for some advice. Always have a rainy day (or in this case, rainy day followed by gusts-of-high-winds day) fund, if you can. Keep the money in a checking account that also works with PayPal or Venmo or the like. So when an emergency happens on a weekend, and/or if the company helping you prefers a check, and/or if the insurance company is swamped with claims and can’t get to you for a day and a half, at least you can proceed with the first steps to take care of the situation. Once we retire and the paycheck income gets replaced by pension income and/or Social Security funds, I think having a generous rainy day fund will be absolutely necessary for my own peace of mind.

Meanwhile, the blue tarp is keeping the water out of the attic, the insurance company has been very cooperative, and we’ve signed a contract for installation of new gutters and an entire new roof with a 25-year warranty, which will definitely outlast our stay in this house. Silver lining, I suppose. And this is still less–even adjusted for inflation!–damage than we sustained during the previously-mentioned microburst, but that’s an even longer story. Most importantly, we are physically unharmed, thank goodness, but maybe still a little shaky.

This drink is also called “Maple Leaf Cocktail”. In a shaker with ice, combine 2 ounces bourbon, 1/2 ounce pure maple syrup, and 1/2 ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice. Shake well and strain into a glass with a cinnamon stick. Stir well, to get more cinnamon flavor.

1. He was a middle child. He had two older brothers, then two (maybe three) siblings who died in infancy (probably of scarlet fever, he once told me), two younger brothers, and then a baby sister.
2. His mother never knew who her parents were, since she was handed over to be raised by a foster family who were paid–initially–for her upkeep. Some of his siblings believed their mother was an illegitimate “love child” from a wealthy family, but he preferred to believe that his mother was given away in order to save her from persecutions being inflicted on Polish nobility by the occupying Russian Empire.
3. His peers, during his early teenage years, called him “Philosopher” because he enjoyed reading, learning, and sharing information.
4. He saved his younger brother’s life by swimming into middle of the Vistula River near Warsaw and then pulling his brother to shore. However, the only reason the brother was in the river was because he and his buddies dared the little brother to go into the water.
5. He started smoking at the age of 16, and quit cold-turkey on the eve of his youngest daughter’s birthday. (She was 6? 8? I forgot.) Definitely the best gift ever. Then he became addicted to Wrigley’s Doublemint gum.
6. He was 16 when the Nazis invaded his beloved Warsaw. He witnessed so much destruction and pain. Toward the end of the war, he was being held in a Nazi prison camp in an old castle in Lublin, in what is now eastern Poland. He experienced profound hunger, body lice, and getting teeth knocked out by a Nazi guard’s rifle. He heard random prisoners being executed, and prayed he would be spared. In the 1970s, he returned to Lublin to see the castle, even though he was trembling and in a cold sweat, because he wanted to face the demons still giving him nightmares. (I think it helped!)
7. While in prison, he was savvy enough to pick up key phrases in both Russian and German, and was often called on to translate the orders the Nazis would bark at their prisoners. He believed his language skills earned him a slightly better level of treatment, since the guards needed him. Also, he could ask the German kitchen workers to ladle his daily ration of soup “from the bottom” where the heavier chunks of food were, versus “from the top” which meant only broth.
8. His German skills improved even more from 1945-1950, while he worked as a military policeman at a US Army base in West Germany. He also started learning English and started wishing to emigrate to the USA. Eventually, a Catholic priest in Cedar Lake, Indiana, sponsored him and helped him settle in Hammond, Indiana.
9. His loyalty and patriotism to the USA was just as great as his Polish pride. He hung an American flag by the front door for every legal holiday. He had amazing vocal skill and a lovely baritone voice, and frequently was asked to sing both the American and Polish national anthems at community events.
10. He also wrote skits and poems for Polish community events. He loved to perform on the stage, and sometimes even involved his daughters. (I can still recite some of those poems.) For years, he kept a Santa Claus costume in a trunk in the basement.
11. He was not given a middle name by his parents, so he eventually added “Adalbert” which is the English-language name of Saint Wojciech, which was also his father’s name.
12. While still a bachelor in the 1950s, he visited France and Italy. He met a French girl or two (had some photos to prove it) but I only heard about how breathtaking Rome was, especially St. Peter’s Basilica.
13. And while a bachelor, he managed and sometimes played in a community soccer league. He was a fan of all the Chicago sports teams, and his favorite players had Polish surnames. In 1976, he travelled to Montreal, Canada, so he could see some of the events of the Summer Olympics. He managed to score a ticket to a track and field day, and witnessed both Polish and American athletes winning gold medals.
14. A buddy from his time in Germany, Frank, invited him to come to Hartford, Connecticut, for Easter 1958. Frank was hosting a dinner for some single Polish girls. One of these girls was your grandmother, who told me she was attracted to the guy who was singing in the kitchen. She also thought Frank was attracted to her, so becoming a competition of sorts between the two men. Well, you know who your grandmother picked. They were married in late January 1959.
15. When your grandmother arrived in Hammond shortly before the wedding, tongues wagged. Surely this was a shot-gun wedding, since it was so rushed. Well, the oldest child (me!) was born two and a half years later, so do the math.
16. Even though he was gregarious and enjoyed being the center of attention, he also valued the peace and calm of days spent fishing. He even bought a special travel case for his poles, which he took to Poland for a reunion/guy vacation with his brothers in the mid-1970s.
17. Besides fishing, he also enjoyed singing in choirs, riding his bike around town, playing his electric chord organ (by ear, since he never learned to read music), growing vegetables in his garden, and doing crossword puzzles. And he never “cheated” and looked at the answer key, but instead looked for answers in dictionaries, encyclopedias, and atlases.
18. When he learned that I was pregnant with the first grandchild, he told my husband, “You better make sure it’s a boy.” After living with a wife, two daughters, and even a female dog, he wanted another male in the family. Happily, the first of two cherished grandsons was soon born, but looking back, his abundant love for his three granddaughters was evident.

Husband and I both need to submit retirement applications in April, so we decided that this dreary, rainy Saturday afternoon would be the perfect time to sit down and look at matters. We each brought out our respective manila folders (yes, some of us still write things down on paper!), pulled up some websites and spreadsheets, and started taking more notes. There are so many decisions to make, especially for Husband, who has been the (by-far) primary breadwinner. What is the optimal day of the month to retire? Do we want full survivor benefits for me? (Duh, yes.) Should we both start drawing on Social Security at age 67, or do a 62/70 split? How much life insurance should we keep? Whose IRA will we touch first? Is the portfolio balanced well enough to account for inflation? And so on.

Needless to say, about three hours later, I needed a drink. My head was swimming, and I needed to relax. Our discussion will continue until final decisions are made, and I know we will re-visit our manila folders time and again.

Tonight’s cocktail is also called the Lillet 50-50. Combine 1 1/2 ounces of gin with 1 1/2 ounces Lillet Blanc in a shaker with a few cubes of ice. Shake well, strain into a Nick & Nora-style glass, and garnish with citrus peel.

Ah, my favorite kind of winter-weather event: gently-falling snow, both of us home from work, electricity and heat working, and plenty of bread and milk in the house. Today is Martin Luther King, Jr,. Day, as well, so we are grateful for having a paid day off, too. What a perfect afternoon to concoct a cocktail.

I was hoping, all afternoon, that schools would be closed tomorrow. I did get my wish, and even Husband’s employer has declared a snow day due to the expected dangerous road conditions. I am relieved that my loved ones in Tennessee and northern Virginia can work from home tomorrow. Whew! One less worry for this mom.

Yes, snow days can be a treat. Once we are retired, that treat goes away. Hmm, I suppose I will miss that little thrill of getting THAT phone call which announces that schools are closed. Ha, who am I kidding? Once we are retired, every day in January can be a snow day! We can lounge around in fleece sweatshirts and fuzzy slippers and sip hot chocolate whenever we want, and we can keep the alarm clock off for good.

And yet, I have been known to feel guilty for squandering my snow day on lounging around and sipping and sleeping. We will need to draft weekly schedules in retirement so we don’t squander our days away. We are already talking about it. Mop-Up Mondays and Taco Tuesdays have been penciled in, for starters.

Today’s cocktail fits a frosty theme. Here’s my spin on a rosemary lemon martini.

In a cocktail shaker, combine 2 ounces vodka, 2 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice, 2 Tablespoons simple syrup, and a cut up sprig of rosemary. Add several ice cubes and shake very well. Strain into a chilled martini glass and garnish with another rosemary sprig and a curl of lemon peel.

Enjoyed: Sunday, December 31, 2023

Listed on the menu: No, no drink menu here, but undoubtedly the bartenders can create any classic cocktail to accompany the classic dishes on the menu.

Ingredients: Well bourbon, simple syrup, bitters, muddled cherry, muddled orange slice. And lots of ice. Had it not been a super-busy evening, I would have asked our waiter for more specifics about the ingredients.

The occasion: This was New Year’s Eve! We suggested a “classic Charlottesville” evening out to our dear friends, and we discovered that most of us hadn’t been to the Aberdeen Barn (self-proclaimed as a “big-time steakhouse”) in many years. One of our group remembers eating here when he came for his job interview at UVA. My husband remembers taking me out to a celebratory dinner here when we learned that baby number one was on the way. It was high time to re-visit this local institution (family owned and operated since 1965!), and we all had a lovely meal to ring out the old year.

My rating: *** out of 5. Although the glass was overloaded with ice, I could tell that the bartender was not skimpy with the bourbon. The drink was also less sweet than I expected. This was a “man’s drink” for certain, one that would have met with approval from my parents’ generation. No frou-frou drinks for wimps here, no sir! If that steak won’t put hair on your chest, this cocktail will–especially if you drink most of it before the ice starts to melt. (I did.)

Final thoughts: Even though every table was occupied when we arrived for the last seating of the evening, the quality of the food and of the service was great. And our dinner companions made the evening even more memorable. Happy New Year to all!

1. The Kroger-brand flour, versus a name brand.
2. The low-pressure weather system hovering over the East Coast.
3. The dryness in the house, despite the drizzle outside.
4. The traditional Polish Christmas carols playing in the background reminded me of my late father singing in the church choir, so I was too sad to focus.
5. After I switched to more modern Polish Christmas songs from a Spotify playlist, I was distracted by trying to understand the lyrics.
6. My daughter, with the gifted hands of someone who actually completed a college major in sculpture, was not there to help. (She’s way better at this than I am–does pierogi talent skip a generation?)
7. This is the first Christmas since my mom passed away, so I was too sad to focus. Or maybe, since I wasn’t using Mama’s recipe per se, she was haunting me by putting a curse on the dough.
8. I failed to have a shot of vodka before starting this whole damn thing.

Enjoyed: Friday, December 8, 2023

Listed on the menu: No, the menu had mostly “beach” type drinks, but bartender had a decent selection of bourbon and was happy to make me happy.

Ingredients: Woodford Reserve bourbon, simple syrup, angostura bitters, cherry, orange piece.

The occasion: Every December for the past several years, I plan a long weekend trip to put Husband and me in the mood for the upcoming holidays. This year I chose the Northern Neck of Virginia, and specifically the Kilmarnock area. We booked a festive yet cozy bed-and-breakfast for two nights. I found lovely activities for us, too: seafood restaurants; two wineries; an “illuminated” parade of boats and nautical-themed floats; a walk along the sandy shores of the Chesapeake Bay; a fishing museum; and a concert of Cajun holiday music by Beausoleil. Oh, and I finished my Christmas shopping.

My rating: *** out of 5. The Woodford is always tasty, but I would have preferred a touch more of simple syrup, which I could barely discern. Our affable bartender/part-time fisherman told me several times over that he would be tending bar in the main dining area later that night, where he had a few special simple syrups, and he suggested we return. I think he wanted to impress me, but the choices were limited since it was lunchtime. By dinnertime, however, the sun would already have been down, so depriving us of all the gorgeous views of the coves.

Final thoughts: Kilmarnock is a cute little town but full of retirees, we discovered. There are plenty of places to fish, golf, walk on a beach, sip wine, and eat seafood. We liked the quiet pace, but we won’t be moving there since so many businesses close for the winter, real estate prices are now through the roof, and the nearest big hospital is over an hour’s drive away. These are valid concerns for us! Happily, these Rappahannock River communities ship their amazing oysters all over the state, so we can easily re-live our memories.