Monday, February 14, 2011

Creating Stories - Negroni - LOVE


This is not a Valentines story. I want to be very clear about this. I am extremely loved and taken care of on a daily basis. I want to keep it that way.

This, my friends, is a story about love, friendship, courtship and a long caring relationship that creates countless stories.

Oh yeah and a love potion - a cocktail  recipe like no other.

This is our anniversary.

The proximity to Valentines Day, was unintentional. Our wedding was in the middle of a road trip, on a Mexican beach, barefoot, with family surrounding us. It was simple, it was perfect. We were living out of "Goldie" the van, climbing and biking our way across North America with our trusty side kick of a dog.  His ring was purchased from a sweet little Mexican street vendor and my beautifully simple dress was found at a beach shop in a perfect little beach town.  It was love not fuss. It was a party, not once was it stressful. It was beautiful and I watched J cry and knew this is for real. 


These past few years have been amazing, full and meaningful. These past few years we have created wonderfully wild stories that we will tell our kids and then grandchildren. These stories will explain why we most likely will limp, have creaky joints, numerous scares and sun spots. Our bookshelves will be lined with first edition climbing guides and pictures of forest, oceans and trails. With relatively few married years that we have together our stories are deep and rich and I look forward to many more that lay ahead of us.  I have a new sparkly ring that sits next to the one given to me on the beach.  It signifies where we started and where we are going.
Love for me comes in the form of a red bearded, Irish Pop Eye, southern gentleman who can do ANYTHING.  I am inspired by his zest for the outdoors and his natural yearning to play outside. I try to keep up and I learn so much in the process. Our lives together has made me a better person and naturally a better athlete. He has learned patience because I like to move like a sloth while he darts around like a hummingbird. We work it out.


Our adventures, love, future plans that include more wild adventures are the things that make our lives meaningful together. We don't let things gather dust, continue to make exciting plans, and weekly dates as we battle through hardships and challenges but come out on top at the end of the day (or at least by the end of the week). We talk about having little ones some day.

Our love comes in the form of longing gazes across a crowded room, a passing kiss while moving about the house, faith and trust in each other and space to be ourselves.

We are a team.

We have it all. We have each other.


This is my love potion served as a small sip to start an evening.

Start with Campari, the bottle is sexy enough alone being Italian and all, a perfect ingredient for a love potion. Campari is considered bitters, which is a refreshingly simple infusion of fruits and herbs that is deep red in color. Campari is then mixed with gin and sweet vermouth at which point you get a Negroni, love potion. The Negroni is considered an apéritif, a pre-dinner cocktail intended to stimulate the appetite and/or love.

Nigroni

makes one cocktail


One part Gin
One part sweet vermouth
One part Campri

orange peel garnish
Combine ingredients in an iced filled shaker, shake until well chilled and strain into you favorite cocktail glass. Garnish with an orange peel.


Go ahead and be stimulated for whatever comes your way and have a wonderful evening!


Shared with the Monthly Mingle hosted by Paulchen's Foodblog

5 comments:

  1. What a beautiful love story and how wonderful the chapters are still being written...All the best adventures to you...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi there Michelle!

    My name is Steve Walters and I recently started blogging at http://www.eatingbangkok.com, which is currently being updated with recipes, but in the next few months will be my vehicle for covering the food and restaurant scene in Bangkok Thailand.

    I am now in the process of meeting as many food bloggers as I can and I found your site http://ladystiles.blogspot.com recently and was pretty impressed. I've added your site to my Foodie Blogs list here: http://www.eatingbangkok.com/foodie-blogs/ and would also like to add you to my blogroll.

    If you could add my site to your blogroll and write back to let me know it has been added (foodie [at] eatingbangkok.com) I will add you to mine as well and the exchange would be greatly appreciated!

    As you might imagine I am very excited to get moved to Bangkok and get started on covering the food scene there as I feel it is an area that isn't well covered by English speaking bloggers. I plan on adding loads of great reviews, pictures and even video and will be holding contests as well. It should be fun, entertaining and informative for everyone that visits.

    Thank you so much in advance for adding me to your blogroll and I look forward to reading your posts (I've subscribed!) and maybe even featuring some of your own posts as I do plan on a weekly roundup of Thai themed recipes and posts from other food bloggers.

    Warm regards,
    Steve

    P.S. If you are on Twitter I would love to have you as a follower and I follow back:
    http://www.twitter.com/eatingbangkok

    ReplyDelete
  3. Beautiful story and amazing pictures of your cocktail!

    ReplyDelete
  4. How great that you did a love potion. Excellent and such a lovely story.

    ReplyDelete

THOUGHTS & COMMENTS.....