Cocktail Time!

My feelings about Sandra Lee of the Food Network are quite clear, as you can see from this June '07 post to my other blog after a trip to the gym:

I find it a form of cruel and unusual punishment when you are at the gym and the hanging TVs above your head are tuned to the food network. Not only is it the food network, it's Sandra Lee's show. Nothing is worse, in my opinion. If she is not using Tater Tots to substitute for potatoes, cool whip topping for real whipped cream, or making this (ugh), she is pouring vodka into a chilled champagne glass and calling it a cocktail. Plus her eyes make her look dead inside. Easy on the eye liner for God's sake.

On second thought, maybe all the TVs in the gym should be her show. The loss of appetite is basically instantaneous.

I'll admit, though, that at times she is a guilty pleasure of mine. Not because I believe that anything she makes is edible, but because it's kind of like trying to peel your eyes away from a train wreck. A canned-pears-Cheese-Whiz-bottled-Italian-dressing-as-a-marinade train wreck, so to speak.

And without a doubt, it happens: Cocktail time! While the aforementioned vodka beverage is a slight exaggeration, her cocktails are usually weird, inconvenient and, more often than not, gross. She rims her martinis with shaved coconut and graham cracker crumbs. What a mess! She actually makes something she calls a "Beer Margarita". Mixing beer and tequila on purpose. Might as well save yourself a trip and pour it directly into the toilet since after "dos o tres" of those babies, that is exactly where it will end up my friend.

But who doesn't love a good cocktail? And recently, 7 p.m. at my house has become a our own little "cocktail time," mainly due to the efforts of my husband. He is definitely a gin man and enjoys it in all its forms. He is also trying to re-establish his relationship with whiskey after a fateful night that involved a late night voice mail message to me that went something like this: "I threw up...but just a little." Ahhh, college.

On a recent trip to BevMo, Grant came back with bitters, Benedictine and crème de menthe and was ready to begin some mixology. He asked me what I wanted to try. The first ingredient sounded gross. The second one looked like it was bottled in about 1743 and smelled like paint thinner. The third one sounded pleasing. The cocktail he made me was called The Stinger He made me one with vodka, shaken with ice and served in one of my festive red martini glasses. It tasted like a candy cane...a delicious, drunken candy cane. Sandra Lee would have been proud.