Letters & Libations: Mr. Zip Cocktail

He’s always “on thyme!”

This is the cocktail we served at the Letters & Libations birthday party. I think it was a hit, based on the amount of gin consumed at the party. (We only served this cocktail and also beer and wine.) Naoto is the kind of bartender who tops off your cocktail when you’re not looking, though. The Mr. Zip is a simple gin gimlet, with a bit of a twist. We swapped out the lime juice for lemon and we added a hint of thyme to the simple syrup.

Thyme Simple Syrup

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup water

Handful of fresh thyme sprigs

In a pan on the stove, dissolve sugar in water. Once sugar is completely dissolved, remove from heat and add thyme sprigs. Steep for 30 minutes and strain into a container. Chill before using. The simple syrup will last up to a week in the refrigerator. This makes enough syrup for five cocktails. (You can adjust the amounts based on the size of your party, but the basic recipe is the same: equal parts sugar and water, and a handful of thyme.)

Mr. Zip Cocktail

2 oz gin

3/4 oz thyme simple syrup

3/4 oz fresh lemon juice

Add all ingredients to cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake, shake, shake. Strain into cocktail glass and garnish with a sprig of fresh thyme. Enjoy with friends, preferably while writing letters.

 

Mail Reads: The Post Office Book, Mail and How It Moves

The Post Office Book: Mail and How It Moves was a gift from my pen pals in Wisconsin, Angela and Penny! It is a fun little paperback they found at a bookstore and sent to me last year. It’s super cute drawings really get into the nitty gritty of how mail gets from one mailbox to another. It was written in the 80s, but I think the illustrations are timeless, though things are a little more high tech now. It starts with a little history of early “mail.” And then they jump into “modern mail.”  I like how it shows different types of mailboxes: mail slots, apartment mailboxes, rural mailboxes, and PO boxes.  It’s fun to see how automated things were in the eighties compared to the older books from the fifties and sixties. And I think things are even more automated now. Based on my post office visit a few years ago, my understanding is that humans are only sorting things at the very end of the mail journey as letter carriers are sorting for their own routes.

Have you seen any other good kids books about the post office?

Mail More Chocolate

Happy Weekend! Do you have any plans? I am going to my friend Jackie’s art opening on Sunday at Oak Park Public Library and spending the rest of the weekend getting ready for my own craft show next weekend. I’m a terrible procrastinator so it’s going to take some discipline for me to start this early. I have a couple of new Mother’s Day card ideas that I’d like to make for the show so, I need to start making them if it’s going to happen!

In other, mail-related news: I got a stack of mail themed chocolate bars for my birthday from my friend James. (He’s always on-theme!) The stamps and cancellations on the wrappers make them a perfect letter writing treat to send to a pen pal or a snack for a letter writing party. The candy bars are made by Chocolove in Boulder, Colorado and it looks like almost all of their bars have a little mail theme. Cute, right?

Have a relaxing weekend! See you on Monday!

P.S. This is not a sponsored post. 🙂

Mail Reads: Mr. Zip and the U.S. Mail

I’ve added to my collection of books about mail! Mr. Zip and the U.S. Mail is another book designed to teach kids about the U.S. postal system. Someone posted it on Instagram last year and I found it on Amazon through a used book dealer for $5. It’s an old school library book in excellent condition. I’m no reading level expert, but it feels like it was written for a younger audience than this book that I wrote about a few years ago. It was written in 1964 by Jene Barr and it follows Mr. Zip, a letter carrier, through the mail delivery system. (I really wish we still had small letter boxes on posts like the one next to the traditional blue box! Can you still send a baby chick in the mail? Jimmy is mailing a thank you note to his Uncle Mike for sending him a stamp book. It’s so funny that we think of mail as “slow” nowadays when it was considered fast back then. But this is a pretty fun predictor: someday maybe we’ll be sending chocolates and letters to our friends on the moon!

P.S. Another old book about letter writing…this one is for grown-ups!

Letters & Libations Invitation

When Naoto told me his party idea, my only request (besides meatballs and a signature cocktail) was that he send paper invitations to the party. I love a paper invitation and I’m almost never organized enough to send one. When I saw this moving announcement, I decided to play around to see if we could turn it into an invitation and we could! Naoto took care of the rest. We decided to add two times to the invitation in case people didn’t want to write letters, but almost everyone came during the “letter writing” time anyway so it wasn’t an issue.

Naoto added a festive picture of Presley to the back (because I wouldn’t let him use one of me!) with a little note. I kept an invitation for my “scrapbook” which is really just a pile of ephemera in a drawer waiting to become something…I love a paper invitation.

Letters & Libations Stationery

As I mentioned the other day, Naoto had special Letters & Libations stationery made especially for the party. He knew that Donovan sometimes makes special stationery for the Letter Writers Alliance letter writing socials so he commissioned her to draw something that incorporated letter writing and cocktails. He met with Donovan to chat about the plan and she came up with a few designs. Because he knew I would probably want to use the stationery beyond the party, he let me choose which one I liked best. This was the winner…a perfect cocktail coupe with a stack of mail ready to go. I love that the top letter has a little paper airplane on it and it’s addressed to me from the LWA. (But that detail is small enough so others could use the stationery without it being weird.) Donovan formatted the image so two sheets of stationery fit on an 8.5×11 sheet of paper. Naoto had them printed at the UPS store, where fifty copies cost $5. (He brought his own paper, Superfine White from Paper Source from my stash at home. I love Superfine papers…almost anything–fountain pens, gel pens, felt pens, pencils–writes nicely on it.)

I now have a nice leftover stash of my own personal stationery and the ability to print more. I’m so excited to write some letters on it this week! (By the way, I’m staying on top of my letter writing this week…how about you?)

Letters & Libations Party Decorations

Naoto was a little worried about party decorations so I told him I’d handle it. I love making garlands and I already had a bunch of supplies leftover from last year’s Write On Party.

I just strung a bunch of airmail envelopes from the ceiling and then made a garland with First Day Covers and old postcards from my vintage paper drawer. And for the “centerpiece” I made a giant paper airplane based on this Oh Happy Day tutorial. I just used eco white roll wrap from Paper Source and drew lines with a pink and blue Sharpie. Then I used this tutorial to fold the plane. I haven’t folded a paper airplane since grade school so I needed a little refresher course.

Presley was impressed.

Naoto made a kraft paper tablecloth for me with “post office” written in several languages and he even drew the Japan Post mascot for me! We scattered some airmail envelopes on the table with the stationery and called it done. Simple but on-theme. Presley enjoyed pushing the mail truck off the table. She doesn’t like being left out of the letter writing fun.

Simple, and at the end of the day, everything is reusable (especially for National Card & Letter Writing Month happening now!) and recyclable!

Letters & Libations

For my birthday this year, Naoto threw me a Letters & Libations party, complete with a theme cocktail, letter writing, and lots of friends. It was so fun and a perfect beginning to a new decade. My only regret is that we didn’t get more good pictures… So, about the cake…we got it at our local bakery, Kay’s. When Naoto ordered it, he asked if they could do red and blue (airmail colors!) and draw an envelope on the cake. Simple, right? I mean, and envelope is a rectangle with a triangle inside. (Even I can draw an envelope and I’m terrible at drawing!) They said they couldn’t do an envelope but they could do a pencil and a notebook so he figured close enough…well…that’s what we got. Funny, right? It still tasted delicious. Birthday cakes are my favorite…nothing fancy, just white cake with buttercream frosting.

When Naoto sent out the invitations, a few people wondered what a letter writing party was. I was feeling a little nervous about making my non-letter-writing friends write letters, but it all worked out in the end and almost everyone wrote a letter! I even had some Mr. Rogers stamps on hand for people to use and Naoto had some special stationery made for me. (I’ll share that soon!) I was so happy to see tables of friends writing letters and drinking cocktails at my dining room table. It was really the best birthday gift ever. (Confession: I didn’t write a letter!) We ate Freddy’s meatballs (pretty much a party standard around here) and Lou Malnati’s pizza and salad, cheeses, chips and salsa, and Karen made her famous pimento. Naoto turned my desk into a bar and mixed up a signature cocktail for us…I’ll share that soon, too.

My heart is full, and I’m well-stocked for National Letter Writing Month.

Happy Easter, Happy Spring

Happy Easter (if you celebrate) and Happy April! It’s still quite cold here in Chicago, which is the norm for early spring. We’re still working out our Easter menu, but I have my spring cocktail napkins all ready to go.

(Vintage card purchased from the Forest Park Emporium. One seller there has the best old paper treats. Bunny paper is Japanese washi from my stash.)