Here’s another one of the cocktail recipes that didn’t quite make it into the book! This was a difficult one to cut from the recipe list, and as I’m writing this I’m still wondering if that was a bad idea. Submitted for your consideration: the Espresso Martini.

Dick Bradsell was a cocktail legend, creator of the Bramble (another cocktail I was sad to cut from my recipe list) and the Treacle, a rum and apple twist on the Old Fashioned. He was also one of the first luminaries of the craft cocktail renaissance! His exacting standards and meticulous care for detail helped bring about the idea that mixing drinks could be an art form.

Shameless Self-Promotion:

FRIENDS. SHONDA! RHIMES! posted a reel about cookbooks and called Let’s Make Ramen! one of her FAVORITES. Shonda Rhimes is holding my book in a video! Shonda Rhimes has been cooking with a book I drew!! I may never recover from seeing the sentence “@shondarhimes tagged you in a reel” pop up on my phone. I was riding on the #74 bus at the time and I gasped out loud, probably startling a few of my fellow passengers. Watch it on facebook or instagram!

What I’m Into Lately:

In my ongoing experiment where I’ve been asking my favorite people to recommend me their favorite books, this week I read Till We Have Faces, by C.S. Lewis. I was raised (extremely) Catholic, and read all of the Narnia books as a kid, as well as his Space Trilogy, and even The Screwtape Letters and The Great Divorce. By my early 20s, I had left the Church and become (extremely) disillusioned with Catholicism and with organized religion in general. My friend Adelaide recommended this book to me, and I put off reading it for a while, worried it would be another heavy-handed religious allegory.

Which… okay, it still seems to be a bit of a religious allegory, but it’s a much lighter and more nuanced touch than his other books. It’s a retelling of the myth of Cupid and Psyche, from the point of view of Psyche’s older half sister, Orual. I liked Orual immensely; I loved her as much as I loved Olympia from Geek Love. I enjoyed this book a lot more than I was expecting! It’s a lovely and deeply introspective story about love, at turns uplifting and destructive, and all the selfless and selfish forms it can take.

What Toki’s Into Lately:

Did the Young Prince immediately claim the empty box from our latest Chewy order? But of course.