Stone Sour

If you haven't figured it out yet from previous posts, Kathy and I are partial to cocktails made with rye whiskey.  If you like a good cocktail, and have not experimented with it yet I would highly recommend trying it - either a Sazerac or a Manhattan would be a good place to start.   

If you would rather have something citrusy, here's another rye drink to add to your collection. The Stone Sour is a whiskey sour variation from California, but don't hold its origin against it - it is very good. Best with one of those homemade cocktail cherries.

If you don't have any rye in the cupboard, I'm sure this would also be good with bourbon.

The Island

Back in July, I shared a rough sketch of an idea we had for a new kitchen island.  Doing the sketch ended up being the fun part.

When we first started thinking about an island, we had researched local cabinet makers and visited a couple that had been recommended or whose work we had seen around town.  The fellow we talked to at the cabinet maker we chose was pretty impressive, and the company did a lot of work for good home builders and businesses around town, so we decided that they would be a good choice.  Things came up, and we put things on hold for a while, and when we went back the fellow we were working with had left for greener pastures.  

We had spent a lot of time thinking about details of legs, drawers, colors, work surface - even made a mockup  the size we were thinking about to make sure it would work well in our kitchen.  Discussed and compromised on surface height.  And we (mostly Kathy) went through way too many iterations of specification documents. Eventually, the specs were right. (As an aside, we were also working in parallel with them on built in shelving, with all the same frustrations.) Among other things the specs included trimming a bit off the top of the legs we had selected.

Picked granite for the top in San Antonio, and made arrangements with the fabricator in Fredericksburg. (When you live in the Hill Country you learn quickly that you have to go all over the place to get what you need - thank goodness we have the internet and email to reduce the pain a bit.)  Looked like we were set.

Then a bit of reality set in. Color samples came back wrong, problems with specified drawer glides, miscellaneous other small problems, and we ended up having to settle. Nothing major, but a lot of preventable irritations. (On the parallel project the shelving had to be rebuilt.)  And despite the specs, the cabinet maker did not trim the legs, leaving the final product about an inch taller than what we had asked for - a height that I had originally thought would a good working level, but not ideal for Kathy. We decided to accept the island rather than fight it any longer.

Craftmanship on the final product is great, and think it will work very well in our kitchen.  But I suspect Kathy will always be a bit irritated by it.

Summer Treats - Mojito

It's really a little too late for summer treats, but here in Texas and a lot of the south it still feels like summer.  And with recent rains I was reminded of that by the sudden explosion of peppermint and spearmint that we grow in pots on our patio. (Remember that we do not have a vegetable and herb garden because of the various beasts that frequent our yard - as one of our dear departed neighbors used to say in her Texas twang "It's a regular Jooo-rassic Park out there". But I digress....)

Anyway, we grow the mint for one purpose only - making Mojitos, one of our favorite summer treats.  It is a very simple, refreshing cocktail of rum, mint, and lime, and it is perfect for sitting out on the patio watching beasts on a hot summer afternoon. 

It is not at all traditional, but the drink is also pretty good with one of those cocktail cherries!

With the recipe linked above, I have included a post from Spice Lines, one of my favorite food blogs.  In it, Courtenay Dunk, the author, gives a bit of history and her take on Mojitos.

I hope you enjoy Mojitos as much as Kathy and I!