Bloody Sunday

While the weather was making up its mind whether to keep raining or give us some sun as ominous, Stephen King-like dark clouds threatened the sky uptown, I began to sort out the freezer. And what to my wandering eyes should appear? A nip of Absolut Peppar vodka! Well, grabbing the little bottle, I left the freezer task behind and set out a jar of Maille cornichons (French style gherkins) and cocktail onions on the kitchen counter, along with a container of pitted garlicky Mt. Athos olives from Whole Foods and artfully punctured a few of these items with a knotted bamboo skewer (always good to have on hand) to compose a garnish for my Sunday Bloody Mary!

I moisted the rim of a tall glass with a lemon wedge, and then rolled it in an equal parts mixture (1/2 tsp each will do) of Five Spice Powder and Celery Salt before putting a bunch of ice in the glass and pouring in the vodka. I added most of the contents of a 5.5 oz can of Campbell's tomato juice, squeezed another wedge of lemon, squirted some lime juice from a plastic lime and a few dashes of Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce. A few grinds of fresh black pepper went in too and after a few stirs with a stalk of celery, it still felt a little flat. I knew it needed horseradish but regrettably, I discovered our jar of Gold's grated prepared horseradish expired last year--so I grated a clove of garlic with a microplaner and it absolutely did the trick. Blasphemous? Not sure. But we do what we can in a pinch. As Diana Vreeland replied to an airline hostess who had just informed her that they couldn't fulfill her request for Apple Brown Betty as they didn't have any on the plane, she commanded, "Fake it!"

Cheers everybody!