My library is in the process of being shut down for the winter. Water turned off at the street, pipes inside emptied, things covered and put away. It sounds so romantic, shutting the summer place down for the season. But sometimes, I wish I could pick the building up and move it a hundred miles outside of Los Angeles. Other times, I appreciate that it is planted in the middle of nowhere and the solitude that affords. Mostly, I'm proud to be a part of the "stock" that comes from there, the kind that reaches across the table or the aisle or whatever necessary to stop things that are to no one in the room's benefit, like the Keystone XL pipeline, which would have menaced the land 30 miles east of Burwell.
For now, with much gratitude for all of these blessings in my life, I'll cook my way through Thanksgiving and the rest of winter here in California (poor, poor me) in anticipation of the next summer season filled with lake-going and puzzle-playing friends and family out in this lesser known region of Nebraska. I made a drink for you, library, and raise my glass to next year!
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| The hot water will be ready in 2012. |
Burwell General Store
Serves: 1
Somehow, these ingredients are almost always available on the bar at the library.
Ingredients:
2 oz Rye whisky, your choice, Pendleton is usually stocked in Burwell
1 oz Cointreau
6 oz boiling water
2 turns cracked black pepper
1 orange wedge
1 cinnamon stick
1/2 tsp cane sugar, optional
Method:
In a clear heat-safe mug, add water, cracked black pepper, cinnamon stick, whisky and Cointreau. Squeeze orange wedge into mug, drop it in and stir contents. Add sugar if you desire a sweeter drink, let steep together for three minutes, then serve. Put on a sweater and curl up on the couch with a good book.
When I am cold, I usually reach for mulled wine or hot Serbian plum brandy, but hot whiskey drinks would do in a pinch. No, I have never been to Nebraska, but a nice, rainy day here in SoCal would feel so much better with a glass of this hearty drink:) Cheers, my friend!
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