Great news!

We have a solution to the coffee bean situation and my dependency problem.

I know, you’ve probably been worried about that since Thursday.

NO, I am not doing the healthy thing and quitting coffee.  Trust me when I say that would not be the healthy solution for those around me.  I was on Day 2 of super expensive salted caramel mochas from Starbucks — you know, the drink that’ll top your allotted caloric intake for the day in one, deliciously fell swoop, and I was starting to think that it wouldn’t be so bad, going to work solely to pay off my new expensive coffee habit and finally caving to the muffin top threatening to spill over my pants.

But then.

Then Justin saved me by being brilliant.

And that’s the thing about spouses: Just when they start to get under your skin and you’re working up the nerve to suggest that maybe you should live next door to each other instead of with each other because then there’d be no more whiskers in the sink and it would be quiet when you want and there would be no snoring in the middle of the night — just when you’re about to explain how if he never buys any computer stuff ever again and you start buying regular coffees instead of salted caramel mochas, it’s possible you could afford another house next door — just when all that is about to happen, spouses go and do something brilliant, and you’re reminded that you would probably miss the stupid whiskers in the sink.

So this brilliant thing Justin did is he remembered that somewhere in the bowels of our kitchen cabinets we had stowed away a Magic Bullet.

And no, not that kind of Magic Bullet, you dirty, dirty readers.

That’s a silver bullet — not to be kept in the kitchen, lest it be confused with this kind of bullet:

The as-seen-on-TV kind.  Basic cable.  Not Showtime.

A friend once gave it to me as a birthday gift, and now, almost 8 years later to the day, we’re putting it to use.  Because it grinds coffee beans.  As Barb pointed out in the comments of last week’s post, it’s not the most pleasant sound to listen to first thing in the morning.  BUT.  But it only takes 3-4 seconds of pain before I can smell those fresh ground beans, and then.

All is right with the world.

Except.

Except now I’m kind of terrified because it’s my turn to do something brilliant.

See, Justin’s probably about ready to buy tent for me to sleep in the back yard, because I haven’t done anything brilliant as of late and am starting to get annoying.

Enter last night’s cocktails.

We’re not normally “cocktail” kind of people.  We’ll usually crack open a bottle of wine or pour a couple of fizzy beers come happy hour in our household, but last night?  I pulled out the shaker and made something a little more… buzzworthy.

(Blurry photo taken with my camera phone.  But this time it might not be the phone’s fault it’s so blurry.)

So buzzworthy, in fact, that you’ll forget to take a photo until after you drink it.

In case you missed the recipe last night on the Domestiphobia Facebook page, here it is.  A recipe from my friend Mel for the (Almost) Perfect Sidecar:

• 2 chilled martini glasses
• Sugar
• 3 Tbsp fresh-squeezed lemon juice (I’m told the bottled stuff leaves an aftertaste).
• 2 Tbsp. Cointreau (it’s a liquor made from bitter oranges — you could probably substitute with less-expensive Triple sec)
• 1/4 C. brandy
• 4 brandied cherries (2 each) I’m lucky because Mel made these herself and then gave me some, and now I’m spoiled for life.  But don’t worry, you can buy them, too.

Simply fill your shaker with ice, pour in the lemon juice, Cointreau, and brandy, and shake that moneymaker for a good few seconds after condensation forms on the outside.  Pour the sugar onto a small plate and dip the rim of your martini glasses into it.  Then pour in your drinks and plop in a couple of cherries.

YUM.

These were almost perfect, except for the fact that they called for vanilla sugar, which I didn’t make or buy.  Apparently it’s as easy as adding a vanilla bean to a jar of sugar for 6 weeks, but I didn’t want to wait that long.

And you know what?

I don’t regret it.