We are coming up on the one year anniversary of our first Pandemic lockdown. Not sure if that’s something we really want to be celebrating, but I feel it should be recognized and noted. Here’s what I said about Covid at that time. Not much has changed. Still staying home, still baking and perhaps drinking a bit more than I did a year ago.

When my husband and I first met, we used to snuggle up on the couch together and watch TV. We loved L.A. Law, Moonlighting and Dallas. The theme song to Dallas was my Friday night lullaby. I don’t think I ever stayed awake for an entire episode. My husband always had to give me a recap in the morning.

Over the years, we got busy with life and kids and we stopped watching TV together. We had very different taste in what we liked watching. I adored any and every medical show and he loved the science-fiction fantasy genre.

During the first week of lockdown last March, we decided to start eating dinner in front of the TV every night and watch a series together. He had rules though, never more than one episode an evening. He is not a binger like me. We had our dark and violent phase, watching Ozark, Fauda, The Hunters, Goliath and Your Honour. I guess we needed to believe that the Pandemic wasn’t so bad, compared to what these people were living through. Then we needed to tone down the gore, so we watched The Crown, After Life, Broadchurch, The Queen’s Gambit, Atypical, Billions, and The Undoing. I even tricked him into watching Bridgeton, and after two episodes, he was hooked!

My husband is nothing, if not, consistent. He is a deep thinker, and after every episode he would recount all the plot holes he uncovered. He would say, “that would never really happen” or “that’s just not realistic”. I asked him if he did the same thing when watching Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings, and he responded, “well those are different.”

We have recently started watching Mad Men. After each episode, my husband comments on the amount of smoking and drinking that goes on. How did they get any work done???? I am in awe of the period costumes and glamorous cocktails and horrified at the chauvinism and sexism. We’re only on Season 2, but I suspect the women of Mad Men are about to change.

This beautiful cocktail was originally created in the late 1800’s at a Philadelphia hotel bar, called the Clover Club. It was quite the swinging hot spot in its day. The original was made with raspberries, but since it’s almost spring, I went with strawberries. It’s a gin based drink, with citrus juice (typically lemon, but I went with lime), fruit based simple syrup and egg white for emulsification and froth. I made my own strawberry simple syrup by simmering sugar water and strawberries for about 5 minutes. Then I mashed the berries and let them sit for 30 minutes before straining.

If you’re concerned about the raw egg whites, you can just leave it out or substitute aquafaba (the liquid in canned chickpeas). It will froth up quite nicely.