Here's A Toast

Most every Friday I go to work with tears in my eyes. I know this doesn't make sense -- it is Friday, after all. But at 7:25am, when I am about a half mile away from my school, I always hear the familiar jingle that identifies a new segment of StoryCorps, the NPR program that helps people record their life stories, archiving them to leave a lasting legacy for their families and loved ones. Like a Pavlovian dog, just hearing that jingle gets my tear ducts ready to flow, and like a junkie who knows that showing up to work in tears just doesn't make any sense, I can't help myself. These conversations are just that compelling. Sometimes they're funny, sometimes sad, but they are always a fascinating look into two people's lives and the connection that exist between them. In a world of news that often feels removed, these stories are very real. Birth, death, and love, the essence of human existence, are the most common topics, and these conversations illustrate that no matter how different people might seem on the outside, we share more similarities than differences with one another.

StoryCorps began 10 years ago with a little sound booth in Grand Central Station, and a recent special celebrating its anniversary highlighted one of the first couples to enter the booth, Danny and Annie Perasa. I dare you to follow this link and listen to two of the many recordings this couple made at StoryCorps and not be moved by the power of their words. I was relieved that this special came on during a weekend when I had nowhere to go and a box of kleenex close at hand.

30,000 StoryCorps interviews have now been recorded and archived in the Library of Congress, and people from all walks of life have stepped into a sound booth for 40 minutes and left a slice of their lives. David Isay, the founder of StoryCorps, said recently in an interview, "The StoryCorps experience reminds us that if we take the time to listen, we'll find poetry, wisdom, and magic in the stories of the people we find all around us." Arriving at work one day a week in tears is a small price to pay for that magic.

Now I've been sitting at my computer trying to figure out how to segue into a cocktail; kind of the way I feel every Friday morning as I segue into work. But I learned an interesting fact over the holidays about why we clink our glasses together to make toasts, and it seemed like the perfect piece of information for this blog. Bear with me, I'll find a connection soon. My son, who has become a world history guru thanks to his first AP class, gave me a book for Christmas called, The History of the World in 6 Glasses. The book chronicles the development of beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and coke and gives the reader a quick history of the world through these beverages and their lasting effects on mankind. In the early days of beer, around 6,000 BCE, there were no beer steins, or any glassware for that matter,  so people would sit around a tall vessel and sip beer together through straws. Today, we symbolically reunite our glasses into a single vessel by clinking them together and making a toast.  Perhaps not the tightest segue, but you have to admit it's an interesting piece of history.

This holiday season reminded me how much I love Ina Garten's recipe for chipotle-spiced nuts. And they pair nicely with a French 75, which is a great way to use up some of the extra Prosecco you have on hand after making some poinsettias. Happy New Year to you all. May your year be full of strong connections to loved ones.

Chipotle Nuts
(adapted from Ina Garten's
How Easy Is That?)

3 cups unsalted cashews
2 cups whole walnut halves
2 cups pecan halves
1 cup whole almonds
1 T vegetable oil
1/3 cup pure maple syrup
1/4 cup brown sugar
3 T orange juice
2 t ground chipotle powder
2 T dried rosemary
Salt to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a bowl mix the nuts with the oil, maple syrup, brown sugar, orange juice, and chipotle powder. Add 1 tablespoon of rosemary and 1 teaspoon kosher salt. Spread the nuts on  a large cookie sheet and roast for 25 minutes, stirring two or three times, until the nuts are glazed and golden brown. Remove from the oven and sprinkle 1 more tablespoon of rosemary and 1 teaspoon of salt. Transfer the nuts to a large piece of parchment paper or wax paper (otherwise they will stick miserably to the cookie sheet) and allow to cool. Store in an airtight container.

French 75
1 oz brandy
3/4 ounce Simple Syrup
1/2 ounce fresh lemon juice
Champagne or Prosecco

Shake the first three ingredients well with ice and strain into a champagne flute. Top with Champagne or Prosecco. You can make simple syrup by combining equal parts of sugar and water. If you use extra fine sugar, you do not need to boil the water in order to dissolve. Mixing 1T of each makes just about 3/4 of an ounce.