July 1, 2020

Zoom

Kleenex, Xerox, Google, Thermos….And now a new word has entered our lexicon: Zoom

That one word conjures an image in our minds; a screen filled with faces pops up in front of us, and a sense of community is established – albeit virtually. While the Covid19 pandemic has kept us apart physically, technology has enabled us to be together.

Beyond my basic business meetings, I have mediation and book groups via Zoom with people well into their 80s who are house-bound. From my home office I’ve been invited to join many coveted events such as the Aspen Institute.

But probably one of my most treasured Zoom experiences has become my weekly Zoom Cocktail call with two lifelong girlfriends. It’s hard to describe how much I love them. We have weathered so much over the years: cancer, divorce, moves and illness are sprinkled in with a lifetime of memories from Girl Scouts, college visits, weddings, babies and now our annual getaway vacation.

To give us perspective, I asked my sister to help us take a look back to another period of time when our life was drastically altered by another novel virus – the Spanish Flu. Her thoughts are below…

Looking back to 1918 and the so-called Spanish flu was similar to our current situation. Local directives shut down everything from kindergartens to saloons; quarantines kept people out of work and away from friends and family. Nobody talked about “social distancing” but fear was rampant and they practiced it with consistency.

They had technology too: the telephone.

Though it had been 42 years since Alexander Graham Bell made his historic first phone call, his invention was still in the process of becoming the norm. Even in 1920, only 35% of homes in the U.S. had a telephone. But in a time of quarantine—self-imposed or otherwise—the ability to contact outsiders from home was bursting with societal benefits.

By the time the Spanish flu struck, telephone service was already being marketed as a boon to those forced to shelter in place. “People who are in quarantine are not isolated if they have a Bell Telephone,” one ad helpfully pointed out.

People took advantage of the telephone in ways even phone companies couldn’t have predicted. In January 1918, like today’s Zoom weddings, a soldier quarantined at Louisiana’s Camp Beauregard, John B. Caldwell, married his sweetheart, Lorene Smith, via telephone.

So, while many of us are beginning to have Zoom fatigue and yearning for the past I’m embracing it and have decided to use it to lean into the future.

With this spirit in mind, we thought it would be fun to take a “break” from slow cooking and put bring some spice into your life with our Zen Cocktails.

We turned to our friend and mixologist, Erica Helms from Apologue Liqueurs for inspiration. We discovered Apologue (Chicago company/fellow B Corp) a few years ago and enjoyed (as they say) their unique palate provoking ingredients.

We look forward to slowing down, Zooming and sharing some new recipes for you to savor this summer.

Zen Moment

“Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone – we find it with another.”
― Thomas Merton

Saffron Americano

By Meg Barnhart Published: July 1, 2020

Yield: 1 cocktail (1 Servings)

Kleenex, Xerox, Google, Thermos….And now a new word has entered our lexicon: Zoom That one word conjures an image in our …

Ingredients

1 oz Apologue Saffron Liqueur
1 oz Sweet Vermouth (preferably something herbaceous like Punt e Mes)
3-4 oz Soda Water
1 Lemon Peel

Instructions

Combine the Apologue Saffron and sweet vermouth in a collins or rocks glass. Add ice and top with 3-4 ounces of soda water. Garnish with a lemon peel, expressed and inserted into glass.