Blood Orange & Vanilla Whisky Sour

Some weeks are vodka weeks - straightforward & easy.  For some, complex but comfortable gin is more fitting.  And then there are those formidable weeks, packed with obscurities and paradoxes.  Those are best capped off with a good, old-fashioned whiskey cocktail.  And this week was definitely a "whiskey week."  It wasn't a bad week, just complicated, filled with interruptions, with contractors flooding the house, insurance adjustors descending on the roof, an enormous work project that filled every available nook and cranny and a kid home sick with the flu all week.   Luckily this "whiskey week" happened to fall during blood orange season.  That makes things less complicated.

Vanilla & Rum Biscotti

Is it just me, or does it seem like the whole northern hemisphere is buried under a blanket of snow this week?  This would be just fine with me except that instead of going back to school on Thursday like they were supposed to, the kids have had two consecutive snow days, officially making this the longest Christmas Vacation ever  - or at least it feels that way to me.  I've been working from home and spending countless hours on and off over the last two days with the snow shovel in hand, trying to kick this cabin fever, while the kids make artificial sledding hills out of the mountains of snow I'm dumping into our very flat yard.  I've discovered that it's through mundane activities like snow shoveling that my mind becomes its most creative and that's especially useful when you're snowed-in & haven't been to the market in almost a week.  I should have been coming up with creative ideas for what to make for dinner but instead I was daydreaming about what sweet treat I could whip together for a little afternoon snack - going through the contents of the (very bare) pantry in my head as the shovel scraped back & forth, up and down the driveway.