Recipe: Red Carpet Reviver
A Low-ABV Aperitivo Drink for Your Oscar Viewing Party
It’s (Almost) Oscar Night
Before you go to bed tonight remember to set your clocks and watches ahead one hour for Daylight Savings Time. The trade-off to losing an hour’s sleep is the promise of longer days and later sunsets in the weeks ahead, but wasn’t this custom supposed to be put to sleep a few years ago?
Also tomorrow… the 96th annual Academy Awards will be broadcast, this year starting at 7:00 p.m., an hour earlier than usual. Even after living in Seattle for over a decade I still never quite got used to the earlier start-times of major broadcast events like the Oscars and the Super Bowl. But I see the benefit now when I stay up “late” to watch the west coast NBA games, which tip off around 10:00 p.m. And watching the first round of NFL games in the morning frees you up your Sunday for other activities (or additional football games).
When I lived in Seattle I worked with a gentleman named Terry, a longtime and influential book buyer (for the University Bookstore and then Amazon) who celebrated the Academy Awards like his birthday and Christmas rolled into one.
Terry, a confirmed bachelor of a certain age, has a cutting, David Sedaris-style with with a soupçon of the great Charles Nelson Reilly, and his annual Oscar party was less a viewing party and more of an all-day brunch. The invited friends mixed and mingled and gossiped for a few hours, but watching the Oscars was serious business for Terry and only select VIPs got to stay for the actual ceremony. He had no time to debate “who wore it best?” or idle talking during the show itself, so for as the pre-show countdown clock ticked down, he would offer any stragglers a not-so-subtle “Ahem.. tick-tock, tick-tock..” while tapping on his watch to get them out the door.
When I finally made the A-list for his Oscar brunch, he told me he would have Champagne on hand for Mimosas, but asked me to whip up something special to honor the occasion, adding, “Just don’t make a mess of my kitchen and don’t get everyone drunk.”