It should be spelled vermooth

I've finally discovered Vermouth!

Isn't that ridicules? I've made recipes that call for vermouth but I am the queen of substitutions so not having vermouth has never bothered me. Now I'm trying to expand my cooking experiences. I decided to try this pork chop recipe with creamed spinach and ran to the store for a few things, one of them being vermouth.

I quickly headed over to the booze isles. It's smallish but they have a nice selection of cheep, mid priced and expensive stuff. They will surely have vermouth. I make a round of the isles and get to the end. I find my favorite wine is on sale and pick up a bottle of that. I do not find the vermouth. On my second lap I find a pumpkin liqueur at a blow out price. I pick up a bottle of that. No vermouth to be seen. I do a quick Google search. Maybe I can see what the bottle looks like. Of course there is more than one brand (duh) so that's no help whatsoever. It's a smallish liqueur section, I will look at every damn bottle till I find it. Which I do, with the mixers. You know, the grenadine and margi mixes, none of which have alcohol in them. Why would I look there? They have sweet and dry. I go for sweet. And it's cheep! Like under 5 bucks.

It doesn't occur to me to ask for help. There is never any help at the super market liqueur isle. If I could have found a 19 year old box boy to help me I'm sure he would have known right where to find it. Which worries me about our yoot. Just a little.

I made Julia Child's pork chops and creamed spinach. The vermouth was fragrant and sweet and was such an improvement that I think I will now cook everything in it. The creamed spinach was really really great stuff. It did not call for vermouth but just for fun I decided to add a little to it. I have to say that Julia's recipe's are delicious, they are also a lot more work than I'd like to do after work. I need at least a couple of hours for just one dish and speaking of dishes, Julia, is it really necessary to dirty every pot and pan in your cupboard? I do have a dishwasher but never put my copper bottoms or Teflon pans in there. And 90% of my pots are copper bottomed or Tefloned.

In other news the weather is warming. Lovely lovely sun and warmth and I've been so missing it. Except now it more uncomfortable than anything and we even had to open a window at midnight as it got so hot and stuffy. I broke my vacuum. Again. I hate my vacuum. It's expensive, has all the whistles and bells and I hate it with every dusty dirty fiber in my body. I don't vacuum often and when it gets to the point where I HAVE to vacuum or else, the damn thing breaks. That is how it is now. An inch or so of dust and several inches of pug hair. No vacuum. I'm tempted to hire the cleaners just to vacuum. It would cost about as much as the repair. . . . . just thinking out loud.