Z.A. Maxfield

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Sunday Brunch – March 16, 2013

March 16, 2014 by Z.A. Maxfield

saupload_mad_20hatter_20tea_20partyLast week, we were all about the whips and chains! I’m so glad my authors didn’t all agree on one or the other. Diversity is more fun at the brunch table!

Tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day, and I hope you’re all getting your very American St. Patrick’s Day meal of corned beef and cabbage ready. I think this year I’ll make colcannon and see if the kids like it. With my offspring, you can’t go wrong with potatoes and butter, I wonder if that’s true if there’s cabbage mixed in?

I want to know what you’re planning for St. Patrick’s day celebration. Do you go out? Do you stay home? Do you watch The Quiet Man? Do you turn off the TV and let your  “petty fingers” do the rest?

If I were a drinking girl, I’d be tipping a pint of Sam Adams or Heineken for for proving that some businesses can put principle over profit.

For a bonus prize: The best made-from-scratch Bloody Mary mix recipe — just the mix, not the cocktail — wins an “I heart St. Nacho’s” T-shirt like the one William, my lovely assistant (pictured here) is wearing!

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 Either leave it  in the comments or email it to zamaxfield at zamaxfield dot com. I like ’em rich and spicy, and I want to make them without all the additives you find in the mix bottles at the store. Help a writer out here! I’ll be in your debt.

Today’s question is also about liquor:

“It’s prohibition again, what are you trying to concoct in your bathtub?”

3-16 Sunday Brunch - Cynnara Tregarth - Cover We all know that if it’s prohibition time– my family is doing its part to help those in need. That’s right– my family used to help those in their time of need receive the life-saving benefits of whole grain alcohol from that wonderful land up north known as Canada. *grins* Once again, it means that I’ll be carrying on the tradition since I’ve been learning how to make wine, mead and spirits for the past couple of years. Don’t look surprised. You thought it was all research for books, I know, yet, I knew years ahead of all of you that this time was coming again. Which is why I stockpiled enough supplies to make the necessary arrangements for sacramental wine and mead.

The next thing on my list– spirits. Between you, me and the wall– it’s for cleaning and for cooking– but hey, you make sure the cook, the diners and everyone else gets a sip or two of the good ole bathtub vodka. 😀 Distilled by these hardworking hands– you can even use it to create special dishes like penne pasta with vodka sauce. I love my food, which does show up in my writing. Occasionally, my love for alcohol creeps in too. but I think I managed to keep that away from the Department of Revenue this time…What’s that noise? Did you hear that? Run for your lives– it’s the coppers! Don’t let them have the flask I gave you. Run! Run! Run! If they catch you– they’ll make you sing like a canary if I don’t skin you first. Now go!

Purchase Treaty Of Desire: Loose Id   Amazon  B&N   ARE 

3-16 Sunday Brunch - Kate McMurray - Cover

My go-to booze of choice lately is gin, so that’s the easy answer. Although, actually, I think I’d do pretty well in a speakeasy. If I’d been alive in the 1920s, that’s certainly where I would have gone for my cocktail fix. I love the idea of glamorous people in hidden locations drinking and dancing and carrying on.

New York City loves a novelty bar, but I imagine the faux speakeasies now are not the same as they were during Prohibition. I went to a party once at a bar in the West Village that billed itself as a speakeasy, and certainly it was just as hard to find; I walked by it three times trying to find the place because the only signage was a tiny sign on a non-descript door, and then you had to go down a dark staircase and get past a bouncer. The place was quite posh, but it’s hard to get excited about paying $20 for a cocktail, no matter how skilled the bartender is. Still, it seems so classy, well-dressed people sitting around in dim lighting, sipping from martini glasses. (This is my life in my imagination.)

Not to peddle in stereotypes, but Brooklyn is also this hotbed of people making their own stuff, and alcohol is not an exception. I went to a homemade beer tasting once and some of the beers tasted pretty good, even though I was baffled how anyone in Brooklyn could have space in their living quarters to brew beer. (I mean, my bathtub can barely fit a person. I don’t have a clue what brewing beer involves, but I imagine it would need more space than that.)

Hopefully the US has learned its lesson where Prohibition is concerned and so that I never have to solve the problem of how to make gin in my bathtub.

But if you like a little baseball with your illicit cocktail, check out my story “One Man to Remember” in the Playing Ball anthology put out by Dreamspinner Press. It’s a Prohibition-era historical romance between a rookie baseball player and a sports reporter, and they do indeed visit many a speakeasy.

Purchase Playing Ball:  Dreamspinner Press   Amazon

ShorelineDrive

I’m so happy to be here at Sunday Brunch! And maybe it’s because it’s brunch time and I have mimosas on the brain, but if it were Prohibition, I believe the drink I’d miss the most would be champagne. Or prosecco, cava, sparkling wine…I’m not picky! If it bubbles, I like it. I’m not sure it’s possible to brew sparkling wine of any type in a bathtub, but I’d be willing to give it a shot if that were the only way to get a flute full. Because champagne isn’t just about feeling fancy or even tasting great–it’s about celebrating life’s biggest (and smallest) moments.
 
Life is hard sometimes. We all know it, we all experience it, and we all (if we’re honest) have a tendency to focus more on the hard times than the good times. It’s human nature to notice when the going gets rough, while smooth sailing tends to go unremarked. We dwell on our problems, our mistakes, our regrets. But for me, an essential component of living a happy life is taking the time to dwell on the good stuff. At my house, we take every opportunity to break out the bubbly! Turned in a proposal for the next book? *POP* Settled a dispute between colleagues at work today? *POP* Walked the dogs a whole mile without the little one snarling at anything that could swallow him in two bites? *POP* *glug* *Ahhhhh*
 
One sip of dry, toasty, effervescent champagne and I remember that life is good. Savoring the flavor and the heady tickle of the fizz helps me savor my day with all its triumphs and accomplishments–some big, some not so big, but all worth enjoying. And if I can sip that flute of sparkling wine in a hot bath with a heartbreakingly emotional novel, then I’m basically in heaven. So that’s my advice to all of you: pop a cork, pour out some bubbly, and relax with a good romance.* The happiness that celebrating yourself brings will outlast the buzz from the alcohol.
 
Cheers!
 
Lily Everett
 
*Like, for instance, any of ZAM’s books! Or if you’ve already read all of those, you could try my latest,Shoreline Drive. It’s the second book in my Sanctuary Island contemporary romance series, but don’t worry, you can read it as a stand alone! Comment on this post with the name of your favorite cocktail, mocktail, wine, or beer, and I’ll choose one commenter to receive a signed copy of Shoreline Drive along with a custom Sanctuary Island beach tote.
 
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Filed Under: author friends, drawings, Sunday Brunch Blog

Comments

  1. Z. Allora says

    March 16, 2014 at 1:25 pm

    First, you find a girl named Mary… ehhhhh, no I did not just type that!!!! Promise it was your imagination! I don’t drink all that often so I have no clue how to make any mixed drinks so it would be cheating to google it.

    Interesting (& funny) ideas of bathtub alcohol… may it never come to that for all my drinking friends!
    Hugs, Z.

  2. Z.A. Maxfield says

    March 17, 2014 at 8:55 am

    I think I like the idea of speakeasies, like Kate said, but since I don’t drink I wouldn’t suffer from the lack of alcohol. But you’re right. I hope it doesn’t come to that.

    I do love a good alcohol free Bloody Mary. Something super spicy with a garnish of fat green olives. But the prepared mixes are altogether too salty and I’m looking for something more natural. I did find one in Food Network Magazine, curiously, in this month’s edition! (Alton Brown, you must be my Fairy Godfather.)

    That doesn’t mean I still don’t welcome any recipes y’all have out there!

  3. Neene says

    March 17, 2014 at 12:21 pm

    Don’t think I have ever even tasted a Bloody Mary, so can’t help you there, sadly. But favorite drink? 😀 though it’s no fair to make me choose only one. It’s always great to sit down and relax with a beer, though. But since I don’t have a bathtub, I probably won’t be brewing it myself (but my dad used to, back in the seventies. He might have some great tricks :P)

    • Z.A. Maxfield says

      March 17, 2014 at 12:53 pm

      Bloody Marys are my favorite, because I enjoy spicy tomato juice and I don’t drink, so that’s something I can reliably order without the alcohol and still look like I’m having a drink with my friends. (Besides they’re often garnished with olives, my guilty pleasure.)

      I enjoy beer as well, and sometimes I get a non-alcoholic beer. (St. Pauli N/A is my fave.) You don’t need prohibition to brew beer though, lots of people have taken on making their own beer as a kind of “fun in the kitchen” project!

      I had a friend whose dad made mead and also kosher pickles. YUM!

  4. Trix says

    March 18, 2014 at 3:03 pm

    I did cook corned beef and cabbage, actually (though I admit I much prefer the sandwiches and Reubens I get from the leftovers in the coming days). I’m a lightweight when it comes to alcohol, but I did try making a half-and-half last night (the layers did stay separated for a little while), and I had my mom make her excellent Irish coffees. I’ve never actually had a Bloody Mary, but I imagine grating fresh horseradish into the tomato juice might make a difference (I think a Microplane is the only way to go)…

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