cocktail time! sandra lee cocktails for stripping paint and blacking out, illustrated edition
weather: 🌦️ i feel bad for everyone stranded here because of the flight groundings. they came on the one dreary weekend of the whole year
critters: house spider
right now i'm in the home stretch of a bad cold. mild illness always makes me nostalgic. i only get sick a couple times a year as an adult, but i constantly had upper respiratory bullshit as a teenager, which (for millennials) is a condition that will have familiarized you with the wasteland of 2000s daytime television. food network is what i switched to when i got sick of gameshows, baby cartoons, and days of our lives
my absolute favorite daytime food network show was semi-homemade cooking, hosted by our once and future vodka aunt (and former mrs. cuomo), sandra "two shots of vodka" lee. the kwanzaa cake was the #1 crowd anti-pleaser online back in the day (and everyone even slightly familiar with judaism did a double take at the marshmallow-stuffed hanukkah cake), but of my actual dimetapped experiences watching the show, i can't remember much beyond the dreamlike tablescapes, her glam mom outfits, and ~cocktail tiiiime~
cocktail time is when sandra doesn't entirely follow the recipe.
here i have collected my favorite jet fuels from her oeuvre and illustrated them as tribute. i eyeballed the recipes from their episodes. wouldn't recommend making these yourself--i'm not great at eyeballing and you do not have aunt sandy's titanium liver
lush lagoon | video | official recipe
in a cocktail shaker, combine ~3 TB mashed kiwifruit, a handful of ice, two shots of vodka, two more shots of vodka, a shot of midori, a splash of simple syrup,1 and a tablespoon of the brine from a jar of jalapeños. stir. that's right, stir. i know you put everything in a cocktail shaker, but you're on TV, so you're gonna stir. pour into martini glasses and float a slice of kiwi on each
fun fact! this drink is named for sandra lee's birthplace. before hosting a food network show, she was a mermaid2
pink elephant | video | official recipe
place a handful of ice cubes in a 64-oz. pitcher. pour in a couple fingers of limoncello, four shots of chambord, four shots of berry vodka ("berry vodka is berry good," says ms. lee), and three ounces of white cranberry juice. stir. serve in martini glasses with adorable pink elephant decorations in the stems
the episode's demonstration of the pink elephant displays some egregious disobedience of the written directions. do what she does, not what she says, and what she does is waterboard you with blood-red liquor
blu-tini | video | official recipe
the parts measurements in the written version make the drink sound much more sane than it is. surely this is one martini, right? or a shot? wrong! party pitcher
drop a handful of ice cubes into a 64-oz. pitcher. fill it about a quarter of the way with equal parts blueberry and vanilla vodkas. glug in a shot of blue curaçao and stir. pour into martini glasses and garnish with blueberries. the ice is all the mixer you need, coward
passionate dream | video | official recipe
place a generous handful of ice in a 64-oz. pitcher. add a cup and a half of pomegranate juice, the same amount of unsweetened cranberry juice, six packets of splenda, you heard me, and however much vodka this is ("that's g--that's probably plenty," says guest martha):
then add an ounce of lime juice and a cup of seltzer. (quoth sandra: "oh no, i'm glad i put that much vodka in there. you'd have totally diluted it.") serve in champagne flutes. in the words of our pal martha, "i'm scared"
doreen's butter rum coffee | video | official recipe
i almost can't believe this is from an easter episode. almost
the written recipe is adorable. one shot of rum? half a shot of bailey's? precious. aunt sandy assures us that using the actual coffee pot in this recipe is nice because you can see the measurements on the side. this is not information she uses, but it is available to you, the viewer
brew half a pot of coffee. to the coffeepot, add what has to be like five shots of butterscotch schnapps, that same amount of vanilla rum, and two shots of bailey's. pour into large heatproof mugs. top with cool whip and heath toffee bits
recipe courtesy sandra's friend's mom, to whom you should not speak until she's had her coffee