Cucumber luge

I am going to cut to the chase: This post is hopelessly passé. I planned it for the end of March, when the bone luge (drinking sherry out of a bone) was all the rage. I’m sure no one hip has thought about a bone luge since the time it still rained in Wisconsin. But I mentioned it here, and I intend to follow through. Here was my issue: Vegetarians want to drink booze out of random vessels, too.  This must have really been nagging at me back in March because I woke up at 6 a.m. the first morning of my vacation in Boulder pondering it. Aha! I would create the first vegetarian bone luge.

Dan and I mapped it out over lunch at Pizzeria Locale. We had to replace the bone with something unoffensive to non-meat eaters. Our first thought was celery, but then we moved on to cucumbers. A plan was in place. We recruited our hosts, Mary and Jeffrey, who were mildly intrigued by our probably misdirected passion for this project. We bought the necessary supplies and embarked on our adventure. The first step was hollowing out the cucumbers in order to create a proper runway.

Step two involved coming up with the proper technique for pouring a shot of vodka down the cuke slides into our mouths (this was spring break 2012 after all). Dan took the lead on this one, working out the perfect angle. Needless to say, chaos- and a bit of a mess- ensued. But so did a delicious dinner of cucumber and pineapple salad, salmon (so I’m really a pescatarian at times, but I still don’t want to drink out of a bone) and grilled kale. It was a heck of an evening. And while that fleeting trend may be long gone, don’t be afraid to hollow out a cucumber this evening, pour a shot of your favorite liquor, and toast to the rain.