My sons and I were in a store the other day, one full of kitchen and household wares. We were searching for a birthday gift for their grandmother. One of my boys decided he wanted to spend some of his own money to pick and purchase a gift. We browsed. There were bread baskets and kitchen towels, lemon zesters and delicate vases. He was especially enamored with a salt and pepper shaker and some globe-like candles. But the topper on the cake came later when he had been searching high and low for a perfect gift and beelined over to me to tell me about his quintessential find: ornate cocktail glasses. Anyone else see the humor here? I just started laughing: my 11 year old thinks martini glasses are a good gift idea. Way to go, mom, I think to myself. Nice influence.

So I steered him away from that particular gift option, though I could not hide a smile when thinking of his grandma opening a gift that encourages imbibing. Maybe we should throw in some martini olives for good measure? Fortunately, he settled on a lovely baking dish and kitchen towel to match. She will love them.

I will say this: if he had gotten her those [actually quite stylish] cocktail glasses, I would have considered including the ingredients for this birthday-worthy concoction:

Silky Pear Simple Syrup Lemons Pear Puree or Pear nectar Knob Creek (Bourbon)

For one cocktail, mix 2 oz Knob Creek, juice of one lemon, 1 oz pear puree, 1/2 oz simple syrup. Shake and chill over ice; strain into martini glass and serve. If you cannot find pear nectar, buy a jar of pears in syrup, take one half of a jarred pear plus an equal amount of syrup and puree in blender. And for the record, those cocktail glasses really were cool.

Oh, and Meeta from What's for Lunch Honey? had a fabulous idea to host a liquid dream mingling, where folks from around the blogosphere send drink recipes to her. She will list them all after September 10. The Silky Pear was my contribution.