A Little Toddy for the Body

I've spent a good ten minutes searching my own blog for the toddy recipe I was sure I posted last year, only to slink over to the WSJ site in defeat to pull it up from their archives. So that this appalling situation will never again occur, I enshrine here the ultimate Hot Toddy for your (and my) delectation:

In a large cup, combine 1 spoonful honey, juice of ¼ lemon, 1 cinnamon stick, small dash tabasco (optional but recommended) and the tea bag of your choice. Stick 3 cloves into 1 small lemon wedge and add to the cup. Pour in a slug of bourbon, as much or as little as you like. Fill cup with boiling water, stir well and let steep 5 minutes. Savor slowly; repeat as necessary.

Here's the original article from last January, with a slightly different recipe (they recommend cayenne instead of Tobasco, but I found the Tobasco blends better). This is absolutely drinkable and repeatable, and you don't feel bad about it because it's mostly tea and stuff that's good for you.

But wait, you say! I don't come here to read about your drinking, MrsDarwin; I come here to see photos of William! Well, we aim to please, so here's William giving his sister the suspicious eye:

And since I'm on writing a post, which hasn't happened since last year, I believe, here's what I'm watching/listening to these days.



I told Darwin that I would marry him all over again if he could play the tambourine like that. And Lawsy-day, I would give my figurative eye teeth if I could play the pianny like Scott Bradlee.

I'm working through the books I received last Christmas (2012), and in particular The Lion Sleeps Tonight by South African journalist Rian Malan. Malan is provocative, profane, and a damn good stylist. Here's the essay I was reading aloud to Darwin this evening: The Beautiful and the Damned, about the Miss World 1993 pageant. (The link has all but the last few paragraphs of the piece.) The only problem is that I have no South African accent for reading aloud, and all I know about South African pronunciation comes from Sharlto Copley's character in District 9.

What are we watching? As a family, we spent our evenings last week working through the 500 minutes of the BBC's 2005 production of Bleak House, a Christmas (2013) present from my dad. We paused after every episode to discuss plot developments, and even Diana showed a surprising grasp of plot, though she insisted on calling Mr. Tulkinghorn "Tulky". Stepping down a bit on the cultural front, the kids have been enthralled with the new antenna on the TV, which allows us reception of the aptly named Antenna TV channel. Antenna TV shows classic mid-century sitcoms, so we've been steeped in the arcana of Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, and Green Acres. My verdict: Bewitched and Jeannie are one-gag shows, and if you've seen two episodes you've seen them all. Green Acres, on the other hand, is consistently funny and often hysterically absurdist. Eddie Albert is marvelous, and Eva Gabor is a talented comedienne who has the perfect grasp on her character. Plus, in one episode, she gave the most beautiful recitation of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "How Do I Love Thee" sonnet, approaching high art, and all for a toss-off gag so peripheral to the plotline of the show that I can't find any video after an hour and a half of searching through the Green Acres channel on YouTube.

And now William is demanding his very own toddy. Good night, dahlings, as Eva would say.