Cocktail Hour, Issue No. 3: Airplane Old Fashioned

Meet Lola the sweetest floof-a-rella, enjoy an old fashioned on an airplane, pack an 'oh sh*t kit' and learn how a Stradivarius is repaired. Plus all your Midwestern snow carving and food news. Enjoy!

Happy Friday, y’all. We made it to Cocktail Hour!

Thanks to everyone who participated in our first discussion thread this week. I’m trying to figure out where even is the Midwest, and your thoughts and comments helped explore how lived experience compares to the lines on a map.

I’ll be back this Sunday with another scintillating conversational topic: Midwest cocktails! So look for it in your inbox and definitely weigh in!

Now for the news from the Midwest: Last week a Minnesota team took home the big prize at the World Snow Sculpting Championship – that most Midwestern of sports. (Don’t call it ice carving! It is not!) This weekend, 12 teams are competing at the International Snow Sculpture Championships in Breckenridge, Colo., including two from Wisconsin. But alas, the snow carving competition in Frankenmuth, Mich., had to be canceled due to warm weather. But in St. Paul, Minn., residents dug a snow tunnel to get through public sidewalks. 

A whole passel of Midwestern restaurants got a nod from the James Beard Foundation this week, when the organization announced the semifinalists for its annual best chef and restaurant awards. Of note: The Bestie™’s favorite sushi chef, Hajime Sato, was nominated for his restaurant, Sozai, which he opened in the Detroit area after moving here from Seattle. And Mamba Hamissi and his wife, Nadia Nijimbere, were nominated for Baobab Fare, the restaurant they opened in Detroit after arriving here as asylum seekers. (Listen to my interview with Mamba!) Maybe there’s a spot in your town that you need to check out? 

That’s all the news I want to talk about this week. The rest is pretty depressing (and I’m a journalist!). So let’s get to this week’s cocktail. Cheers. 🥃

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What I’m Drinking: Airplane Old Fashioned

By the time you read this, I’ll be on an airplane en route to New Orleans with Lovey, Friend Shana and The Consort. So what I’ll be sipping this week is an airline old fashioned, courtesy of Shana.

She bought a kit that includes a tiny bottle of bitters (see above; isn’t it so cute!?), two sugar packets and a spoon so you can stir one up with whatever brown liquor your airline is serving. It makes two drinks, which is perfect since Shana and I got bumped to first class, but our gentlemen friends did not. 🤷🏻‍♀️😂

Did I mention she also brought snacks, including three – three! – varieties of M&Ms. (Though, clearly, peanut is the only correct choice. And no, I don’t understand why they got rid of the candy characters for Maya Rudolph. I mean I love me some Maya, but it seems like they could figure out how to make animated characters evolve.)

I love having a prepared friend. (Especially because I’m still packing as I’m typing this letter.)

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MUST HAVE: Oh Sh*t Kit

Seriously. Shana has an “Oh Shit K*t” for life and travel, which I asked her to dump out and itemize.

Presented, generally, left to right in vertical rows:

1. Wallet: Contains all the normal standards, plus some paper clips, safety pins and bandaids

2. Sunglasses

3. Hand sanitizer

4. Keys

5. Tide pen: Find this size in the travel minis section of Target/CVS/wherever

6. Wee tiny multitool. Like me, it is prepared to do all the things. Includes scissors, bottle opener, screwdriver, knife, pliers, etc.

7. Paper fan

8. Tinted lipgloss w/ SPF

9. Pen

10. Fold down shopping bag: Carry home all the things - vinyl from the flea market you didn't know you were going to need; spontaneous liquor store purchases; etc.

11. Kleenex (technically these are Puffs, so facial tissue, whatever )

12. Blister protection stick

13. Skittles: We're friends so I'm going to admit this. I stole these from a child’s Halloween stash. I *did* have their parents' permission to be pillaging. I really did plan to eat them — Wildberry Skittles are awesome — but every time I see them in my bag they make me laugh. So, yeah, I'm wandering around pretending to adult with stolen Halloween candy in my bag.

14. Battery powered mini fan: Our last several international trips were to very, very hot places. This is a step up from the paper fan. Yes, I'm still carrying both.

15. Blotting papers

16. Mirror, a hair tie and some bobby pins.

17. “Uncle Hugo,” my vintage pillbox: Last used by my Great Uncle Hugo to hold fish hooks. Now contains various pills, obvs. Makes for fun conversation with The Consort: “Hey, should you maybe have a conversation with Uncle Hugo?” ... Which is code for you could really use a Xanax.

18. Ginger chew

19. Hand lotion

20. Tic-Tacs

21. Bug Bite Thingie: Does it work? If you get to it asap, yes!

22. Skin So Soft insect repellent towelette: Do these work? 100% and they don't smell or leave a gross film on your skin.

23. Shower wet wipe

24. Various tiny packets of sunscreen

25. Tampon/pad

26. Facemask: Because, the actual plague. In a washable bag in case I drop it on the floor or something. Added bonus: No rando has told me to smile in 19 months.

27. Wet wipes

Disclaimer from Shana: I was not built to be an outdoors person. I am allergic to everything. I could get a sunburn in a dark closet. I get double digit bug bites while wearing long sleeves and pants. I'm generally 5-10 degrees warmer than I'd like. So I come prepared. This pile seems a bit batshit, even to me, but it's all because *a thing* happened, not just paranoid speculation.

Note from Amy: This is just the basic kit. She also has specialized kits for specialized fuckery. 

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What I’m Reading: Hell Bent and American Nations 

When I travel, I like to take at least one fiction and one nonfiction book with me because I never know what mood I’ll be in. I’m still reading Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo — which is getting delicious, so I’m definitely bringing that. It is the sequel to Bardgo’s bestselling book, The Ninth House, which was a fave of mine when it came out in 2019. I will say, the first couple of chapters of Hell Bent left me wondering what was happening and whether I should reread The Ninth House first. But I pushed through and now I’m hooked. 

For nonfiction, I’m taking Colin Woodard’s American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America.  I’m working on learning the history of the Midwestern region – how it was formed, what it includes, how it is defined, etc. – and this has been recommended several times. I’ve just started it, and it’s already an educational and compelling read. You’ll be hearing more about it and all the Midwest history books on my #TBR pile. 

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This Week’s Feels

mygardencountry

A post shared by Follow us for more 👍👍 🇦🇱🇺🇲 (@mygardencountry)

Shana is mine. (The Bestie™ would make me behave.) Who is yours?

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3 Things I’m Reading on the Interwebz

1. How Does John Becker Unlock the Sound of a Stradivarius? By Elly Fishman

There are other luthiers with expertise in instruments from the Italian craftsman’s golden period, from 1700 to 1725, but master violin restorers are rare — around 20 worldwide now — and Becker is widely regarded as the best. At 64, he has worked on more than 120 Stradivarius violins — likely more, he says, than any other living person. “He’s probably as fine a woodworker as lives on the planet today,” says Fulton. “Without men like him, these things would have decayed into splinters long ago.”

2. “Could Black Flight Change a Model of Integration?” by Debra Kamin 

American suburbs have long faced the issue of white flight, where white families pack up in large numbers as demographics shift and more residents of color move in. But in Shaker Heights, it’s Black families who are leaving. Many of them point to initiatives rolled out over the past decade meant to combat systemic racism in the classroom — good intentions that they feel have done more harm than good when it comes to their children’s academic achievement.

3. “On Elon and Me: Identifying the Autism to Asshole Pipeline” By Karawynn Long

At one point in late November, overtaken by a fit of Are You Fucking Kidding Me, I fell down a minor rabbit hole of reading journalistic articles describing the bizarre, often horrifying worldviews currently popular among tech billionaires, Musk among them. And an unexpected, eerie thing happened: the more I read, the more I felt like I recognized the substructure beneath all of it.

Because I used to think that way, too.

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Weekly Cute Critter: Lola the Floof-A-Rella!

I met a reader in the wild this week, completely by accident! My friend Katy and I had gone to see the film All the Beauty and the Bloodshed at the Detroit Film Theatre, and Lovey was driving us home after the show.

As we approached Katy’s house, we spotted a woman walking this giant floofy dog. Lovey and I immediately squee and want to meet it. Katy, who is not an animal person, explained that this is her neighbor dog Lola, who often waits for her at the end of her driveway. Katy has never pet Lola. We cannot not pet Lola. 

We pull over and say hello, and as we’re discussing our dogs (while Katy laughs at us), Lovey mentions that last year we lost our goodest boy¹, Hank the Tank. Lola’s mom, Adina, asks: Wait, are you Bar\Heart? Yes, yes, I am!

And so, of course, I had to introduce y’all to Lola, the sweetest floof-a-rella. She’s an elderly Bernese Mountain Dog who can’t walk very far but who still loves to go out and sniff and say hello. To make sure Lola gets her adventures and love from strangers and can still get home, Adina brings along her chariot. Have you ever seen anything so cute?

Three cheers for Lola!

Ok, y’all. That’s it for this week. I’ll pop into your inboxes on Sunday with a new discussion thread and see you on Tuesday for some more Midwestern musings. And then it will be Friday again and time for more cocktail shenanigans.

1. Hank was our goodest boy. Lincoln the #bougiebull is our most adequate-est boy.