Friday nights were always date night in this house.
When the kids were young that meant family dinners out. Nothing fancy. Chili's. TGIFriday's. Cheeseburger In Paradise. Pizza.
As the littles grew Friday nights changed. They were going to football games. Or had to work. Or met friends for a movie.
Friday nights became TBHITW and my date night. Better restaurants. Fancier fare.
And always, around 9:00 pm TBHITW would ask me, "What's our toddy?". We always shared a cocktail and relaxed into the weekend on Friday night. Not big drinkers, it was our one evening a week to unwind with a libation. I would go through the list: wine, or a cosmopolitan or an appletini.
Friday nights are hard, lonely nights now.
I eat alone.
Or sometimes don't eat at all.
I read. I cry. I go to bed.
Last night around 8:30 pm someone knocked on my door. When I answered it, I found my friend Anne standing on my front porch and she asked, "What's our toddy?"
She made me laugh.
I made cosmopolitans. We sat on the patio in my backyard and burned a healing candle that her oh so wise daughter gave to me.
My neighbor has lights strung all across his backyard and their glow, along with the candle were just enough to soften the darkness of the night.
Sometime around 11:00 pm my neighbor came out and leaning over the fence, handed us canoli from Carlo's Bakery (you know Carlo's, he's the Cake Boss).
The sixteen year old came out and joined us for canoli.
And we sipped cosmopolitans and ate our canoli under the glow of a thousand stars and a healing candle.
Angels walk among us and we call them our friends and neighbors.
Cosmopolitans: makes 2
1 cup vodka of choice (I LOVE Tito's. A small distillery out of Texas. If you can find it, try it!)
1/2 cup Cointreau
Juice of 1/2 lime or splash Rose's lime juice
1/4 cup cranberry juice
Crushed ice
Fill a shaker with crushed ice. Add the vodka, Cointreau, lime and cranberry juice. Shake vigorously for 30 shakes. It HAS to be 30 shakes. Really hard. The perfect martini has tiny slivers of ice crystals floating on top. That keeps it cold from the first sip to the last.
Sip with a friend on a starry night.
