Pink of Perfection

Do you, as much as I, mourn the death of the cocktail hour? That pre-dinner drink sipped at sexy bars by ladies in rustling, jewel-toned cocktail dresses and their dates, or the libations stirred in a tall glass carafe at home and taken on the davenport while the phonograph plays? It is somewhat of a mystery to me how I could be so nostalgic for something I’ve never really had, but there it is. I have something of the old-timey in my blood.

So when my sister loaned me The Best of Everything, my morning commute was taken over by an appealing retro world replete with supper clubs and checker cabs. In this juicy novel about New York career girls in the 50’s, recent college coeds are filing up from the steamy hot summer subways, eating lunch at the Automat, having affairs with the boss, living in hovels with Murphy beds, getting illegal abortions, and really just hoping that they’ll find the right guy in the end. While their escapades of the heart might not strike a chord with all contemporary readers, their struggle to pay the bills and negotiate the ugly corporate world and find meaning there will. Who can’t identify with being dead broke four days after cashing your paycheck, window shopping on your lunch break, and figuring out how to cook dinner for one?

One evening on my commute home, an older woman leaned over to me while I was reading. “Isn’t that a fun book?” she whispered, as if we both shared a secret knowledge of a dark, hidden world. It is a fun book, and it’s also a boozy book. When these girls are out with horrendous blind dates, dreamy older guys, or the boss, they drink martinis. And not dirty vodka martinis, like this girl likes, but dry gin martinis. A classic martini.

The best part about nostalgia is you can bring what you like from the past into the day at hand but leave the bunk behind. I move to bring back the cocktail hour, its long-stemmed glassware and all the twinkling glamour of a well-shaken creation. But rampant sexual harrassment in the workplace, smoking on airplanes, and beef chip aspics? Let’s leave those far, far behind. Pass the vermouth, please.

The Classic Martini
Serves 1

Where else to turn for an old recipe than an old cookbook. This comes from 1948 tome I found at a Pennsylvania antique mall, The Discriminating Hostess by Ella Liner Lambert.

3 tablespoons dry gin
1 1/2 tablespoons dry vermouth
stuffed olive
lemon peel

Fill your cocktail glass with ice cubes to chill. Then pour gin and vermouth into a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Stir until thoroughly mixed and chilled. Dump out the ice from the cocktail glass and drop in the olive. Strain the gin and vermouth mixture into the glass. Twist lemon peel over top.