¡Olé!

My Beloved and I are not big drinkers of alcohol. Most of the time, we just have water with dinner, or sometimes a glass of wine, so where my urge to make Margaritas came from is anyone's guess.

I was making chili (more about that later) and my invented recipe seemed dry, so I thought to add a little liquid and I thought, "Why not tequila?" These ideas just come, sometimes. Anyway, I hauled out the duty bottle of tequila, which we have had for at least 10 years, and splooshed enough into the pot of chili to loosen it up a tad.

When I was taking the tequila out of the cupboard, I spied a bottle of Margarita mix which we probably bought along with the tequila 'way back when and never used. I decided it would make the perfect cocktail for dinner.

Actually, it made two - one that wasn't very good because the proportions on the bottle of mix are all about using lots of mix, and one that wasn't half bad.

For the first one, I used table salt along the rim of the glass, stuck there with water. Too salty. And the ratio of the mix was off - too sweet. So, I changed the proportion from 4-1 to 3-1 (mix to tequila), coated the rims of the glasses with lemon juice, then Hawaiian red salt, and shook the tequila/mix concoction vigorously with ice cubes.

A side note: My Dad had a wonderful silver cocktail shaker that he used to make a martini for himself and my mother nearly every evening of their married life. I didn't have one (my younger brother inherited the silver one) but I improvised - a travel coffee mug works very well as long as you slide the little door in the lid closed before shaking. Uh, don't forget that little door, or put your thumb over the hole. Enough said.

Anyway, poured - ice cubes and all - into the salt-rimmed glasses and garnished with a sprig of cilantro, it made a very nice cocktail before dinner.  So, we had another one with dinner! Are we living large, or what?  ¡Olé!