One of my favorite pastimes is reading.  I assume that this type of non-strenuous pastime will be one hobby that I will be able to do for the rest of my life (unlike parasailing or surfing- ha ha).  It’s also one of the things I plan to do a lot more of as I get older, when I have more spare time.  As much as I love reading, I really don’t have scads of time to do it.  I usually try to read before I go to sleep at night, and between chores and activities on the weekends.  A book that doesn’t grab me will sit on my nightstand for weeks with the bookmark in roughly the same place.  A great book will keep me up at night, even on the days I am thoroughly exhausted from getting up at 4:30AM.

I recently finished “Big Little Lies” by Liane Moriarty.  I had heard about the book when the HBO miniseries was advertised, and I just happened to find it at the used book place I frequent. It revolves around three women of various ages who have children in a kindergarten in a small town by the ocean in Australia.

I haven’t yet seen the miniseries, and I almost don’t want to.  The book was so good, and I find that movies never seem to measure up.  And while I like the casting of Reece Witherspoon as Madeline, the character with the best lines (and shoes), some of the other actors in the cast don’t live up to how I’d imagined them.  Better for me to keep my vision of those characters as it is rather than have it destroyed by an actor that I don’t think is a good fit.

In the climactic scene towards the end, which is also referred to in flashback scenes throughout the book, the parents of Pirriwee public school are overindulging in  “pink fizzy drinks” at a school trivia night while they wait for the caterer and the MC, both delayed by bad traffic.  The teachers who prepared the drinks allegedly miscalculated the portions of the drinks when they made a big batch (“these are the people teaching our kids math” says one parent).  The drinks cause more than a few of them to get drunk and….well, I don’t want to spoil it for you.  You really should read it.

Some of the characters guess at the ingredients of the fizzy drinks, and since they all enjoyed them so much (and got so tipsy), I thought it would be fun to try to recreate them.  I looked online and found a couple bloggers who made up their own pink fizzy drinks, but they either included ingredients that weren’t mentioned in the book, or they left out ingredients that WERE mentioned.  I am nothing if not a rule follower, and every ingredient mentioned in the book is in this version. I’m pretty sure I got the portions right, so you won’t get drunk if you have only one.  Although having only one will be practically impossible, they are just that good.

Pink Fizzy-tini

3 ounces strawberry puree (one cup semi-frozen strawberries, one ounce vodka and one ounce simple syrup)

3-4 ounces prosecco or your favorite champagne

mint leaves

To make the strawberry puree, add the strawberries, vodka and simple syrup into a blender and blend until smooth.  Pour 3 ounces (or about half) of the mixture into a martini glass, then add the champagne.  Pour the champagne slowly as it will fizz up and over the rim if you’re not careful.  Mix the puree and champagne together with a spoon, then add mint leaves as a garnish.

If you can, drink these slowly- the parents of Pirriwee public school didn’t and some of them regretted it.