I’m headed back to work at the end of next week, and I’m feeling some feelings. It's sort of like coming back from vacation. I don’t know if you do this, but whenever I am about to be done with a vacation, I grieve a little bit. Sometimes a lot. Maybe I spent the last few days sleeping as late as I want or spending good time with my kids who are growing up oh, so fast. Or maybe I am dreading turning back into a taught, frazzled husk of a woman whose every second is accounted for from the moment she wakes up in the morning until she falls exhausted into bed, and whose only salvation will be the sweet release of death.
Shit. Sorry. What were we talking about? Oh, yes, vacation!
I do a little bargaining with myself on every vacation I take, like I’ll go back home, but I’m going to still be in vacation mode. I’ll carve out more time for myself or learn to make that curry dish I couldn’t get enough of or try to surf on Lake Michigan.
My results are decidedly mixed.
Last week, however, I pulled an old piece of paper out of my wallet that I’ve been carrying around for quite a while. It’s a recipe for an amazing pineapple mezcal drink Scott and I couldn’t get enough of when we were in Honolulu a couple of years ago. I couldn’t remember the name of it, so I googled the menu at Nobu. Turns out it’s called the Pineapple Mezcal. I’ll confess to being a little disappointed at such a pedestrian and obvious name for such a great cocktail. But after sitting here for a few minutes, I guess I don’t really have any better ideas. Feel free to float them.
A Pineapple Mexcal, pictured next to the tropical scented candle
that I’ve had for a year and finally lit the other night.
Here's the recipe. Be warned that Green Chartreuse is $70 and you only need a single bar spoon of it, a truly frivolous endeavor. We'll just have to find other ways to use it.
1.5oz Mezcal
.25 Pineapple Puree
.25 Yuzu (we used lime juice)
.25 Simple Syrup
Pinch of Cilantro
Spoon of Roasted Pineapple
1 Barspoon of Green Chartreuse.
Step 1: Have Scott mix it up and serve it to you. There is no step 2.
1.) It was with this mindset that I idly clicked on this story about the drink recipes we’re googling during quarantine. It was fascinating. Alaska is drinking hurricanes, Nevadans are drinking grasshoppers. So many of you are out there doing Kamikaze shots! What? I’m very concerned that folks in the Carolinas and Louisiana are going to get diabetes. And Missouri! You guys had to google the recipe for a gin and tonic? Fun fact! It’s gin and tonic. Be better, Missouri.
I googled the recipe for my other favorite vacation drink, the When Doves Cry. It’s also Mezcal based, so you can sense a theme here. But, while I was googling, I came across this entire list of Prince-themed cocktails for you to dig if you will, as well as an alternate recipe for a pineapple mezcal drink that I’m only sharing here because I want to beat this bartender with his own old-timey hipster ice mallet. I’m so sick of ironic waxed mustaches. I can’t even with your hipster bullshit any more, sir!
2.) Quarantine happened right around the time that Better Call Saul ended it’s fifth season. Oh, how I love that show! In its way, it's better than Breaking Bad, which is a bold statement for me to make. The funny thing is that I thought this was the final season, and it turns out I was completely wrong, so there’s something we can all look forward to. I was thinking that I might write something about our collective feelings about Kim Wexler vs. Skyler White, but it turns out that I don’t need to, because the internet exists. I was completely taken aback years ago during the Breaking Bad run when I discovered that fans hated Skyler. Like, excuse me for not wanting my husband to be a drug-dealing murderer. Walter White was a selfish asshole who destroyed everyone around him, but sure, go ahead and hate Skyler. But I digress. This is all part of a larger pattern of sexism and misogyny. How else to explain hating women for standing up to difficult men? I love Kim Wexler and her amazing ponytail, but I feel slightly guilty about that, too, because a girl like Kim Wexler doesn’t actually exist. Except, of course, in the minds of men.
Oh, and please enjoy this takedown of a popular and upbeat musical based on a story of mass rape!
3.) Speaking of gender and entertainment, Scott turned on the utterly charming, informative and fascinating The Story of Soaps the other day. I definitely watched General Hospital during the Duke and Anna years, and can honestly say I arranged my college coursework around All My Children. The Story of Soaps makes such an interesting point about how the daytime soaps got away with so many timely, racy and topical storylines because, since it was “women’s television,” the top brass wasn’t really watching. But we wouldn't have have Breaking Bad with out One Life to Live. The soap opera as feminist and subversive. Who knew?
And as long as we’re on the topic of television, please enjoy this ad for Dyke and Fats. Dear Lord, make this a real show, amen.
5.) Did you know that this week was the 40th anniversary of the Mt. St. Helens eruption? I was 8 at the time, and remember it fairly vividly. My aunt lives about 60 miles away, so this was sort of a family emergency. Plus, every GenX kid can relate to the remote, almost charming danger of things like volcanos and quicksand due to their outsized presence popular culture when we were kids. I treasured my Wyler’s jar of actual Mt. St. Helens ash that my aunt sent me that has disappeared from my possession in the intervening years. Anyhow, this led down an internet rabbit hole at the bottom of which was Pompeii! The British museum has an 88-minute movie about Pompeii that I plan to watch over the weekend. I it found after reading an article comparing the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius to the COVID-19 pandemic.
And thus, we have come full circle.
Have a lovely weekend, my friends. Be kind to yourself.
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