The Restorative Powers of Girl Time

It seems to me that almost everyone has a happy place; the place where the stress of life instantly melts away and is supplanted by a feeling of well being, of calm.  I have many happy places.  Places that are an antidote to the office and to the daily grind.  Some of my happy places are very far away and infrequently visited. The top place on that list for me is Rome.  But, since its hard to visit a place like Rome very often, I also have happy places that are more local and convenient.  I visited one of them this weekend.

Each year, a group of my best girlies and I go on a long weekend away.  We don't go far and we don't go fancy.  Usually it is somewhere within the NY tri-state area and ever since one of my friends inherited a log cabin in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, it has been one of our go-tos.  The goal of our girl's weekend is to do as little as possible, eat and drink as much as possible and to laugh.  Our most recent weekend delivered on all of those things.

We have a few traditions that we tend to stick to, like making a midnight run to Walmart (just because we can) and hitting up the American Ribbon Factory.  And while I get how a side trip to a place where ribbon is made and sold has a "Griswald-esque", world's largest ball of twine ring to it, we wouldn't trade it for anything.

One of the greatest surprises of the trip was a meal that we had at a restaurant called "Garlic" in Stroudsburg, PA.  It was literally around the block from the Ribbon Factory and had some of the best food that we have had on our many trips to PA.  The restaurant is primarily a steakhouse, but offers many seafood dishes. I am disinclined to order seafood in a landlocked state, so we all went with the steak side of the menu and it did not disappoint. We had an array of Filet Mignon, NY Strip and Ribeye steaks and while I hate the term "bread program" this restaurant had a strong one.  Thinly sliced, chewey sour-dough type bread was delivered to our table warm and studded with roasted garlic cloves.  Along side the slices were a few ciabatta rolls, that revealed Italian herbs and sundried tomatoes when opened up for buttering.  Any surprise we all filled up on bread?

When we got back to the cabin, it was prosecco and birthday cake in celebration of one of our friend's birthday.  I made one of those cakes that spills out sprinkles when you cut it open, which actually worked out and did not collapse before offering its yield of colorful spillage.

As lovely and relaxing as the weekend was, it is the time spent with friends that makes the trip restorative and satisfying.  Everyone works very hard and has minimal time to get together.  This gathering of women is an opportunity to kvetch, to bounce things off like-minded individuals and to laugh.  Mostly to laugh.  And as I reflect back, I know that I got so much more out of the weekend than six, ten yard spools of Christmas ribbon.  I came back to center and got my head right. And while we did not solve any of the great problems of society, we made each other feel better and we figured out who tracked the deer poop up the stairs.  You know who you are and we all still love you.

The true sign of love for a friend is making them a cake that vomits sprinkles

What, no snacks?

Mashing Up My Cocktails

Italy is my favorite place on the entire planet, bar none.  Not a day goes by when I am not daydreaming about my next trip. When I think about travel, it is always Italy first, but every now and then, I let my mind wander to other European destinations that are on my bucket list.

Lately, I have been thinking about Spain.  Like Italy, it has a relaxed way of life, centered around a cafe/bar culture with iconic food and drink. We are considering a run to Madrid in the winter, if we have enough airline miles to do it for low/no cost.  The very possibility of this has gotten us doing research.  And when we do trip research, we dive in pretty deep.

One of the things that came out of our research about Spain is a drink called the Tinto de Verano.  It is essentially a slightly sweetened red wine spritzer.  Similar to a sangria, but simpler and made by the glass, a la minute. This summer, I discovered that I LOVE a similar Italian drink called an Aperol Spritz.  The composition of an Aperol Spritz is equal parts Prosecco, Aperol and Seltzer.

This afternoon, my husband opened a bottle of red wine and started experimenting.  He threw a healthy glug of aperol into his glass of wine and topped it with a splash of seltzer.  It was unexpectedly delicious. I added a couple of slices of fruit and got the measurements down to a repeatable recipe and a cocktail was born.  It's kind of like the bad baby that resulted from a foolish night of passion between the Tinto and the Spritz.  We have named the love child "Bacio da Madrid" or Kiss from Madrid.  Give it a try before it's officially cider and whiskey weather.

BACIO DA MADRID

5 oz Fruity Red Wine (Rioja, Shiraz, etc)

1 and 1/2 Tablespoons Aperol 

4 Oz Seltzer (orange flavored seltzer works really well here)

1 Slice Lemon

1 Slice Orange
Ice

Fill a large wine goblet or tall glass halfway with ice.  Pour over the wine and aperol and mix well with a spoon.  Drop in the lemon and orange slices and stir again.  Top off with Seltzer.

Mommy

Daddy

Bad Baby