Channeling the Dead or Orange Crush for 6

My favorite cookbooks are the ones that make me feel things along with feeding me good food. At the moment I feel like I have good momentum with this  challenge having knocked out 5 out of 58 cookbooks. I just have to convince myself that I can't afford to slack off and I can complete this challenge. The moment I think I am ahead, is the moment I fall behind, and start procrastinating. The little voice in my head starts whispering doubts and discouraging me when I start to hesitate.  If I hesitate, it is almost as good as quitting.  Fortunately I am not doing this challenge alone.  My good friends Lizzy is doing this challenge with me and my good friend GAT has just jumped aboard also.  I am pretty sure that all things can be accomplished with a little bit of help. I am really excited to read about the next cookbook from Lizzy and GAT and if you are interested in reading their take in this madness, please check out their blogs at HaveYouReadIt and CookingWhileSloshed.  

The cookbook that I used you are not going to find in a book store. You will not find it for sale anywhere. The cookbook I am talking about is nothing more than a hand composed notebook from Jon's grandmother who has passed on. If you are following along on Library thing to the books that I am covering, it is simply titled Jane's Cookbook.   I have never met my husbands grandmother, she passed on while he was a teenager. However, I do feel like I know her. I know her through the stories that I have heard about her, and the going through stuff in a forgotten attic. I am now getting to know her a different way, by going through one of her cookbooks. In a way it is like channeling the dead, because I now know that she had a deep love for seafood and entertaining, and that is something I don't think I would completely understand until reading the cookbook. There is crab or shrimp in almost everything.  There are few and far between chicken recipes and I think that roast beef was just myth when I go through the cookbook. 

I have come to love the very distinct hand writing and willingness to try just about anything.  This sense of adventure and loving to cook certainly shines through when my husband is in the kitchen. The only thing that doesn't look like it got passed along to him was a love of seafood, which made this cookbook a little bit difficult to utilize.  I, however have found a recipe that I could try right away and book marked another for a future adventure. (Yes, I will someday write about Chocolate Elephants, but today is not that day.)

The recipe that I tried was titled Orange Crush.  After a busy Saturday of shopping, wedding and out to eat with my husband, all I wanted to do was sit back, have a refreshing libation.   Not thinking about anything but following the recipe, I pulled down a mixing bowl and started to pour the ingredients into a large mixing bowl.  That probably should have been my clue. One: A person should not need to get out a large mixing bowl if they are making drinks for two. Twenty, yes a mixing bowl is needed.  Two: A mixing bowl would be over kill. I discovered rather quickly that the recipe for Orange Crush was really meant for 6 people, and that I had a lovely refreshing drink that I was not going to finish in one sitting. If I did I would be overloaded of vitamin C and probably a bit drunk. 


After pouring my husband and I both a drink that tasted like fresh oranges and had a fair amount of orange liquor in it, I quickly decided to pour the rest into a pitcher for the fridge and have it for breakfast. A person can only drink so much orange juice, even if it does contain liquor. I am also not entirely sure what the difference is between a Screwdriver and an Orange Crush, other than the fact that you float Champagne on the top. I would certainly make this recipe again, but probably not for just Jon and me. 

Choose Your Own Adventure

It is New Years Day. A day that is often used for digestion of the past years events and a stew pot of hopes and goals for the up coming year. It is a time for reflection. Every year I try to make the same resolutions. This past year I would like to think that I kept up with them pretty well, and I plan to use the same ones for 2014.  I firmly recommend these resolutions to anyone, because they are more about perspective and self growth than ego and image.

Resolutions
1. Develop a closer bond to family.

Example: 

I did not use to think that I personally had a lot of family, and the ones that I do have I am not super close to. Part of me has always wanted to have one of those that a person reads about. You know the type; quirky, lovable, reliable, loyal with a dash of angst to keep it all interesting. My family isn't that. My family is like magnets, we repel each other the closer we get.  I love them, because of their dis-function. Their dis-function has made me a better person. 

My dad has spent almost thirty years not talking to any of his siblings. This past year through long talks with my dad, I am now in contact with aunts and uncles that I vaguely was aware that existed.  While it might not be a super strong bond at this moment, it is enough of a bond that I am 93% sure that none of my new to me relatives will be stealing a kidney from me in my sleep and that I come from a line of off the wall black sheep. I am sure not every one out there has family that they have never met, that doesn't make this resolution any less worthy.  

If I had not taken the time to invest in a closer bond with my father, we would never have started talking about family or even family history. Even if I had never had additional family out there, it was really nice to hear some stories about his experiences that I have never heard before.  I recommend to everyone to take the time to have the long talks with a family member, because you never know what you are going to gain from the experience until you do.

 

2. Go on more adventures. 

Example:

I use to think that my life was boring, and nothing ever happened in it. It was true, because I never moved past my comfort zones and did anything new.  For the past couple of years I have made a point to plan some adventures, because I have found that adventures just don't happen without a little help. Or at least the good adventures don't start out with a little help.

I think that if a person wants a life of adventure they have to create it. This past year I have explored caves, thrown surprise parties, consumed foreign liquors (Yeni Raki & Cachaca to name a few), talked to strangers and made myself vulnerable with new friends. None of that would have happened if I had not made the effort to do something. Adventures come in many shapes and sizes, and can be as interesting as trying new recipes from a cook book, or as dangerous as sky diving, but they are all considered adventures and are worth doing. I recommend to everyone to do something out side of the everyday normal, because who wants to read a memoir about grocery shopping?