On Saturday my husband was setting up to bake his famous Chocolate Fantasy Cake for our neighborhood block party and unfortunately this required him to enter the “Cabinet Of Death”. Everything in this deep island cabinet is balanced on either a lime juicer or a spaghetti strainer (it’s my hidden talent). I have lazily rigged more booby traps than a Raiders of the Lost Ark movie, minus the snakes and human skulls but probably with just as many spiders.

I could hear pans crashing to the floor, curses flying, and the occasional passive aggressive comment about my housekeeping skills (mostly unfounded). I was trying to ignore it but it got to me. Damn it. But I had to admit that cleaning out that cabinet would feel good…I love throwing things out, though mostly other people’s things.

I shut the computer and carefully emptied the whole mess on to the floor. After sorting through everything it occurred to me that in order to put things back in an organized manner I’d have to clean out Cabinet Of Death #2 (we have 3 of them). It became a scary domino effect. You see, COD2 is even taller and deeper than COD1, so this was not a task to be taken lightly. In fact, Brian suggested that I clear my schedule and double check out our insurance deductible before beginning. I love a challenge, this was gonna get done!

Going through the cabinet was like going back in time. The front of the shelves held things that we currently use but the farther back I went the more memories I found. There was pea puree baby food that I think might be from our first child (he’s 8 now), biscotti I bought for a very special Easter brunch 2 years ago (I kept this- biscotti feels hard and stale no matter when you eat it), a broken Thomas the Train Christmas ornament that I meant to glue 4 years ago, and more, much more. But my most treasured find was a little red box that contained my grandmother’s favorite recipes. I opened it up and saw a variety of cookie cutters and a handful of recipes that I couldn’t wait to read. Notice I didn’t say “couldn’t wait to cook”. I don’t often cook.  It’s not that I can’t, it’s just that cooking is a huge time and cleaning investment with little return. We eat out a lot.

Anyway, when I read the top recipe I thought to myself, “Now this I can make!”. I’m going to share this fabulous recipe with you now…

Recipe: Cherry Tomatoes (vague, I know)

Ingredients:

cherry tomatoes

vodka

kosher salt

(that’s it!)

I was excited because I had most of the ingredients except the tomatoes and kosher salt unless I substituted with limes and margarita salt.

Steps:

1. Blanch tomatoes, put in cold water and skin them (sounds like bitch to do, aka time consuming)

2. Chill vodka (already done Granny)

3. Soak tomatoes in vodka then dip in kosher salt

4. Voila, lick your fingers and ask for I.D. before serving.(ok, I added that).

The best part of the recipe is the last line “These are used as hors d’oeuvres”. Without that clarification I can understand how one might confuse these with a cocktail. Oh, and if you’re having guests over for the first time, make sure to light your breath on fire after each one- it’s quite impressive and they’ll be talking about it for weeks!

My grandmom must have had some kick ass Bridge nights!

In case you think I’m making it up, here’s a pic. Notice that the top of the card says “Favorite Recipe”. Mine too!

*By the way, I was totally kidding about keeping the biscotti.  If you ever eat it at my house it’s fresh…but you prob couldn’t tell the difference anyway.