My stress dreams are often odd. . .

So, I dreamed that I was tending bar at some function somewhere, and I'd gotten some lemons out of the cooler.

And it turned out that those were the LAST lemons, and the chef needed more for a dessert. So this became a huge problem. (Nobody knew that I was the one who'd taken the last lemons, so nobody was mad at me, but I knew.)

The chef needed to get more lemons, which meant that she'd have to leave, drive somewhere else, and buy them, but she couldn't, because she'd already started cooking and couldn't leave the stuff. So someone suggested that I was a pretty good cook, so I could watch stuff while she went shopping.

I agreed, and looked into the kitchen, and realized that I had no fucking idea what to do. Fortunately, the chef hadn't left yet, so I ran over and asked for instructions.

She started telling me what had to be done, and I realized that, not only did I not know how to do any of that, I didn't even know what half of it MEANT. I told her that I couldn't do this, and find someone else.

There WASN'T anyone else, and the manager, and some other folks, told me that I should just do it, because, anyway, if I screwed up, the guests wouldn't know it was me. They'd blame the chef, and they, in management, knew it wasn't her fault, so she wouldn't get in trouble, and they wouldn't blame me, because I was in over my head.

I threw a tantrum, saying that I COULDN'T just do a bad job like that, because it'd be a bad guest experience, and I couldn't do a good job, because I didn't know how. I woke up shortly after knocking a chair over in my tantrum.

Honestly, though, I know WHY I was having that specific stress dream last night. . .

The stress dream I mentioned in my last post had some important factors that let me know exactly what I'm stressing about. I was tending bar, but being asked to handle a creative cooking/recipe creation and execution task which I'd never done before. And also, lemons and lemon peel.

See, I just entered into a cocktail competition that will be held on Lis's birthday, in New York City. It's sponsored by a cognac marketing and promotion agency in France, so I've created a cognac-based cocktail that I'm entering.

I'm terrified, of course. This is the first time I've entered a cocktail competition, and this is the sort of thing that the best of the best go for.

I know that I'm going to be knocked out in the first round, because that's what HAPPENS your first time entering a contest. And that's okay -- your first time competing in ANYTHING, you're there to get used to the process of competing, more than really trying to win.

I'm calling the cocktail the C Sharp. Cognac, calvados, and Domane de Canton ginger liqueur, shaken and strained into a cocktail glass, garnished with a generous slice of lemon peel.

It's really quite good. I don't know that it's competition quality, but it has a few factors that I really like. Beside the taste, which works reasonably well, it's all French ingredients, and it's pretty darned simple to make, involving no unusual ingredients or equipment.

Since this is a contest to promote cognac, I'm hoping that the fact that this is something that any bartender can make is a selling point.