Well broil my biscuits!

Tonight I turned on my oven and started preparing biscuits. Partway through I realized that the oven wasn't heating. Pretty sure that the heating element is gone (it happened in the oven at our old house), which is both happy (replaceable, not too difficult) and sad (more work for Robert, not positive that we can get the part since the oven is old).

More immediately, how was I to bake biscuits? A quick internet search revealed that most people roundly rejected the idea of using the broiler (ours still turns on just fine) to bake anything. It would burn the top to a cinder and leave the interior raw, cats and dogs would live together and the fabric of the universe would unravel.

But I really wanted to cook biscuits. Mostly because I had no other plan for dinner and really need to go to the grocery store.

So here's what I did. I turned the broiler on high and let it heat up the oven. Then I put the biscuits in on the lowest rack. I set a timer for half their cooking time and closed the oven door with a prayer. When the timer went off I turned the broiler off and left them in there...well, I meant to leave them in there for the rest of the cooking time, but I forgot and left them in there until we were ready to eat, probably twice the amount of cook time they had left.

Results? Yes, you can broil biscuits in a pinch. Mine turned out beautifully golden on top and lily white on the bottom but they were cooked through and delicious!

In which my front door is nearly yellow

Yes, I've become mildly obsessed, why do you ask?

I think one or two more coats should do it...

Home improvement project? Or contemporary art installation?

Today I started painting our front door. The original color was sage green, and I never liked it. So I decided to re-paint it in an egg yolk yellow. Great idea right?

Well, as soon as I put the first daub of paint on it was apparent that it was going to need 3-4 coats. Nothing like a light color over a dark!

Robert walked by as I was working on it and commented that the door, in its current condition, would look at home in a contemporary art gallery.

I agree. I'm calling it "DIY".

Now with more cocktails!

Cocktail, anyway.

It was one of those serendipitous occasions. There I was, on Facebook, and there was the post from my friend Lucy, describing the drink she was having at the Atlanta airport.

"One of the more peculiar cocktails I've drunk", she wrote, "bourbon, vanilla syrup, fresh raspberries (so far, so good) topped up with Stella. Atlanta airport is a strange place."

Well, when I read that I sat up a little straighter in my chair. Raspberries? Vanilla?? Bourbon??? Bourbon is a booze I'm trying to learn to like, and I figured that pairing it with raspberries and vanilla couldn't hurt. Stella, Lucy tells me, is a beer that in the UK is associated with "drunken lads getting violent." I suggested that swapping the Stella for prosecco would be more civilized and more delicious, and she agreed.

But when, after writing up my freshemen's final for tomorrow, I wanted a celebratory drink tonight, I found that we had no prosecco. Robert suggested leaving it out, and thus a new drink was born.

We call it the Ginger ATL. It's sweet, smokey, and slightly tart, and you should try it straight away.

Here it is, posing with our vampiric basil plant (seriously, this plant wilts in the sun, and perks up in the shade. So weird). But really! Look at the gorgeous raspberry color of the drink!

If you'd like to make it at home, here's how. Makes 2 drinks.

5 oz bourbon
1.5 oz simple syrup, infused with vanilla (we used my homemade vanilla extract for this, which is extra strong and extracted into vodka. We used about 1tsp of vanilla, but you may need to add considerably more if you're using a regular store vanilla.)
2 T rasberries
1/2 lemon

Put the raspberries in the bourbon and muddle them, but don't totally destroy them. Add the vanilla infused syrup, and add it.

Stir.

Pour over ice.

Squeeze some lemon juice into each drink, serve, and be happy.