Cocktails without recipes...
And elk, moose, deer, bighorn sheep...
I’m recently back from a trip to see my family in Colorado. My husband and I spent most of a week there, and primarily to spend time up in the mountains where my sister and her husband have a (relatively) new cabin.
While up there, we took a drive up into the Rocky Mountain National Park to do some light hiking and hopefully see some animals. We were lucky enough to see a bunch of elk, moose, and deer, as well as a couple bighorn sheep. Thankfully, no ticks!
It was fascinating to experience two different weathers or climates too. In the course of, oh I don’t know, about an hour driving, we moved from quite sunny, 70–80°F temperatures, then 50°temps and snow on the ground below the tree-line, to experiencing snow flurries above tree-line at the Alpine Visitors Center at the top of Trail Ridge Road.
It was wild. And through that experience, and on our hikes up to Alberta Falls and then around Bear Lake, it became so noticeable and easy to reflect on how all kinds of different organisms were up there learning how to be in their different worlds. The differences between the plants that grow above tree-line versus those below, for example, and how those differences describe what it means to live where they live.
And I think having those noticings was helpful too, then, around the breakfast table with my family. That the different kinds of conversations with the different members of my family — and the ways I perceived them and felt itching to respond to them, and the ways that others responded as well — all were descriptions or reflections of how each person is learning how to be in his/her/their worlds.
And subsequently, noticing how — perhaps because I was feeling like I had come down with a head cold, and feeling unable to handle a difficult discussion topic as well as I wished — the way I was making sense of how to respond was different than it might be at other times. And how flummoxing that can be.
Because it means there is no recipe.
A way that I might have been able to deal with difficult conversations with a specific family member at one point in time may just not be a way that works at another point in time! Because I wasn’t feeling sick (and more irritable) at the earlier moment, and they weren’t hungry waiting for breakfast to come at that later moment, as just two possible examples. There are potentially infinite numbers of changes and differences from one moment to the other, in each of us, in the setting, in the infinite number of differences in context between the two moments.
And I’m thinking about a project I’ve started this early summer, which is I’m trying to recreate two different cocktails I’ve had in the past year. Or at least, recreate what my memory of them holds, to the best of my ability.
I had both of them at restaurants, and while I did take note of the list of ingredients for each cocktail from the respective menus, it’s not quite the same as having a recipe. So the project to a large degree is about trying to figure out the amounts and proportions of each ingredient. And how to create some of the ingredients from scratch.
So far, I have been very pleased with the results!
First up was a cocktail called Vermilion that I had at the restaurant COQODAQ. Gin, Cocchi (I’m just using an extra dry vermouth), Salers, and tomato water. Making the tomato water is fun and pretty simple as it turns out, and I feel I’ve been quite successful with approximating what I remember the original cocktail to taste and mouthfeel like. (It’s maybe something a bit like a dirty, White Negroni. Amazingly smooth and well-rounded, and the essence of tomato flavor really shines through beautifully in its vegetal way!)
Next up is to try recreating the Cilantro Spritz from the restaurant Bonnie’s. Empirical Cilantro, cilantro cordial, lemon + salt, celery soda, and sparkling wine. The cilantro cordial is the ingredient to create from scratch, and this cocktail as a whole feels more daunting because it’s much more unusual to me. There aren’t similar cocktails I know to reference for comparison in terms of how much of each ingredient to use. But therein is the fun.
Or at least some of the fun. The real sparkle of magic will be in the serving of these cocktails to friends, the sharing of them with others, and all of the conversations and ideas and love shared while drinking them together.
More travel is ahead for me this summer, as I will be going to Finland in August and Portland OR in September to participate in Warm Data Host Trainings, (with a little bit of Boston and Portland ME thrown in between for more family and friends related stuff,) so a string of cards beginning with an airplane, moving through a star, and ending with a teapot is not surprising to see. There is still much more inspiration and learning about hospitality to come during this summer’s journeys.
I’ll be co-hosting a series of People Need People gatherings this summer, beginning next week on June 30 and running every other Tuesday through September 22.
People Need People sessions are the online version of Warm Data Labs, a format where participants share personal stories and conversations, in exploration of the multiple contexts and patternings that shape our lives, relationships, and the world around us. In times of fragmentation, it can be a nourishing and refreshing way to gather, share stories, slow down, and find one another again.
You are warmly invited to enjoy all seven or simply attend one or two to experience the different flavors! Click here for more information and to register.
Everyone is welcome and there is no need for prior knowledge or experience. You are welcome to come as you are, with all your messy complexity and whole selves, and explore the changing world we are living in.