I am SOOOOO drunk.

I came home and told shadowflyer, "Zaphod Beeblebrox, this is a very large drink. Hi."

Let me rephrase that.

I came home after TEN AND A HALF HOURS and told shadowflyer, "Zaphod Beeblebrox, this is a very large drink. Hi."

Carlos, our dishwasher and sometime prep cook, was out sick today.

shadowflyer looked at the options, and informed me that the only soda we had in the house was Diet Cherry Coke.

BLECH.

He then offered to mix a Minute Maid frozen lemonade pop with rum. I thought of the "lemon meringue martini" that kay_taylor had mentioned, and said "use the vanilla vodka." See, we THOUGHT the Stoli Vanil would mix well with Vanilla Coke, but it doesn't. It does mix well with frozen pina colada concentrate, I've discovered.

It also mixes very nicely with frozen lemonade. Write this down. I'm sure it'll be useful.

I got SO much done today. And mostly we kept the boss out of the kitchen.

Tomao basil soup, four Big Ass Cans of tomatoes worth. Cook's Illustrated taught me the trick of roasting the canned peeled tomatoes in the oven to concentrate the tomato flavor, so I did that. Otherwise, it could hardly be simpler -- sweat onions and garlic with bay leaves, add the tomatoes and their liquid, simmer, add basil, purée. Yay immersion blenders.

Broccoli salad. Still no red wine vinegar (tomorrow), but a mix of cider vinegar and rice wine vinegar was adequate.

Pesto for the fresh mozzarella sandwiches, yay.

Roasted off the last of the chicken breasts. Roasted off more bacon.

New egg salad, of course.

Bar cookes -- lemon squares and macaroon bars.

Portioned just TONS of turkey. A whole roasted turkey breast.

Boss bought a whole brisket for the store today, too, with the intent of making barbecued brisket sandwiches. I said "I know how to do an amazing brisket. Do we have a net connection here?" Yes we do. Cook's Illustrated to the rescue again -- I used my site membership to call up their recipe, and the brisket is coated with their spice rub and wrapped in plastic in the fridge waiting for me to cook it off tomorrow. I may yet convince boss that the store should ante up the $25 for a year's site membership, it's so very useful to have access to their archives. I am SO not giving her my own paid-for password.

You have to understand, just about every recipe I've brought into the store that hasn't been pure improvisation has been a Cook's Illustrated one. The sour cream corn muffins that the carb-avoiding boss can't resist, The cranberry orange nut bread that used up our excess buttermilk. Okay, the spicy apple cheddar nut bread came from Family Circle -- somehow or other I got a free subscription to that and it started turning up in my mailbox, and that one was in the Christmas issue, and it sounded worth a try since we had WAY too many cases of apples left after Thanksgiving, and actually it was pretty good. But mostly I swipe my good recipes from Cook's Illustrated or the Moosewood cookbooks. Never ever fails.

Also helped Jen haul out the trash and did two huge sinkfuls of dishes.

TEN AND A HALF HOURS.

I am NOT cooking dinner tonight. I did tell shadowflyer what to make: Schezuan green beans, and heat up the frozen potstickers and red bean bao.

And I brought home a pecan pie from the store. I deserve a serious dessert.

I am SOOOO drunk.

And how are you?