55 Comments
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Emma's avatar

I am also drinking less and I am dying to hear more about your "weird DIY whiskey faker"!

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Catherine Newman's avatar

Hi! I posted a recipe for it last year, here: https://benandbirdy.blogspot.com/2022/03/really-really-good-non-alcoholic-booze.html If you try it, please report back!

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Liz Woodbury's avatar

The cans of sparkling de-alcoholized Riesling at Trader Joe's are also shockingly good! (esp when what you're looking for is a sparkling wine sub that's not apple juice)

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Catherine Newman's avatar

That sounds great to me.

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Joanna Goddard's avatar

omg this is a pro tip! thank you!!

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Kim's avatar

Thanks for this! I will try it

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Lisa J's avatar

I love that you just say how much you love to drink. Like, it seems like there is so much “sober” talk everywhere, with people saying they’re having SoberTober or DryJanuary or whatever and it is so healthy and good and I’m like if drinking alcohol is wrong, I don’t want to be right. BUT also I need to cut back a little too so yay for the fun bougie mocktail suggestions!

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Catherine Newman's avatar

Oh mannnn, yeah. I love it. And I feel better when I'm not drinking, which is SO ANNOYING to me I can hardly take it. Trying to get my compulsive moderation on. Sigh.

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Donna McArthur's avatar

I was in the exact same position as you and Lisa. Never in a million years would I have thought I'd quit drinking, nor did I want to. I was an Olympic champion at it and loved it. But it began to take more than it would give and I am just not a moderation kind of gal. I would only have a couple of glasses but could never really enjoy if it was just one. I laughed out loud when you said you're a low-level alcoholic! Ha! Me too. So many people couldn't understand it when I stopped drinking and when I did all my similar-age friends started telling me how terrible they felt with the wine.

Thanks for this awesome recipe!

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Holly P's avatar

There is an entire non-alcoholic drink store in my city! https://www.thesobrmarket.com/collections/all

Thanks for the chickpea recipe, I would like to try it without hot sauce because I am spicy enough

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Catherine Newman's avatar

[moves to Canada]

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Sarah's avatar

So, while we’re on the subject of peri-menopause (oh, we weren’t!?) I can no longer drink many things b/c they make me feel horrible, including delicious things like seltzer. But also vodka and soda, wine, gin and tonic etc. Additionally, I can no longer eat chickpeas bc they make me explode. 😑

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Catherine Newman's avatar

Are you being treated for GERD? Have you been tested for h. pylori? Am I your Jewish mother?

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Sarah's avatar

I do have GERD. I take Nexium. I have had a colonoscopy/endoscopy and it’s normal enough... I don’t know about h pylori testing. 🤔

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Meagan Francis's avatar

Ha! I love and identify with the term “placebo-able”. Also drinking a lot less these days for health and self-preservation reasons. I have found a bottle of Fevertree grapefruit soda over ice scratches an itch.

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Catherine Newman's avatar

Okay, nice! xo

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Joanna Goddard's avatar

I also deeply love drinking wine. not in a "exhausted mom" way or a "let's-get-pissed-and-find-trouble" way, but in a "relaxes my shoulders, rosy-es my cheeks, tastes like fresh apples and pears, makes the night feel magic, makes me want to kiss the world." I take regular breaks to make sure I'm not a low-level alcoholic, but I really do love the full experience of wine (from chatting with the wine store guys to twisting the corkscrew to giving toasts to topping up people's glasses) and feel I would have loved being a sommelier or winemaker or wine critic in another life!

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Catherine Newman's avatar

You would be such a great sommelier! Imagine looking at a daunting wine menu and then who comes over is YOU! But yes, I love drinking--both beer and wine--in a very holistic way. I know what you mean. The magic.

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Asha Dornfest's avatar

I barely drink wine but after reading that loving and beautiful description I want to run out and stock the cellar and pop the corks!! (I don’t have a cellar and am not sure if I have a corkscrew.)

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Lauri's avatar

I am struggling to drink less. I will blame it (as I am blaming most things) on menopause.

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Beth's avatar

I drink a lot less because weed is legal in my state. I don't know if that's better or worse? But I feel less achy in the morning (alcohol flares my stupid autoimmune diseases). That canned beverage sounds AMAZING though just to have around!

Buffalo chickpeas! The best! That sounds like a better recipe than mine which is air fry them and put a lot of sauce on them.

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Catherine Newman's avatar

Yes! Weed is such a great off-ramp for me from heavier drinking.

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My Friend Lisa's avatar

Because I am Bill Gates all of a sudden!!!! Good one

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MYS's avatar

I truly love your writing and I laughed out loud really hard at the line about celery and scrubbing in for gallbladder surgery. A delight.

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Catherine Newman's avatar

Ha ha ha, thank you!

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Becka's avatar

Buying the first right now and making the second tonight!

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Malena Watrous's avatar

Also in the low-level alcoholic club, and 4 drinks per week sounds like a reasonable cutting down goal. (Like-it's probably not a good idea to start drinking wine while cooking dinner and predictably finish half a bottle by the end of it, right?) Also: cocktails are my weakness. So happy to hear of this sub.

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Lindsay's avatar

Opening wine while cooking dinner is my downfall, but it feels so right and also makes me feel like the lead character in a Nancy Meyers film. The struggle is real.

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Catherine Newman's avatar

So real. I love drinking while I'm cooking and also drinking while I'm eating, and after. Sigh.

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Malena Watrous's avatar

When I'm tasked with cooking dinner night after night, it also feels like the least I can do is treat myself to some wine while doing so? But... maybe not the healthiest of habits.

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Lindsay's avatar

That sentiment resonates strongly.

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Catherine Newman's avatar

Sigh.

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Catherine Newman's avatar

I will be shocked if you don't love it, but please report back!

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Quin's avatar

I am rising to the challenge of Dinner is a Can of Chickpeas, because we do eat them a lot (even though I don't actually love chickpeas): Deb at Smitten Kitchen's Chickpea and Butternut Squash Salad, and also her Chickpeas and Spinach (espinacas con garbanzo) which is way way better than the name sounds (olive oil! smoked paprika!). And for a low-cook night, Butter Chicks - throw chickpeas and cauliflower into a bottled butter chicken sauce (KFI here) and add coconut milk to taste.

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Catherine Newman's avatar

Oooh Butter Chicks!!!

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Jeanne C's avatar

Another SK recommendation: tangy braised chickpeas. I skip the mushrooms and almost always serve it with cornbread. Yum!

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Robin P's avatar

This buffalo chickpea salad sounds divine and I will make it as soon as I bash the broken door open to my pantry (doorknob broke, keeping hostage all those cans of chickpeas) or until I figure out how really do you get those hinges off the door?

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Catherine Newman's avatar

Ha ha ha! Poor chickpeas!

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Aarika's avatar

Deborah Madison has a yummy chickpea spinach situation I’ve loved. https://www.spokesman.com/stories/1998/feb/18/chickpea-stew-will-delight-vegetarians/

Also alcohol, sigh. I sadly do not do well with moderation in social situations and I feel terrible after I drink. Body and brain. Then I feel myself over explaining every time someone asks me why I’m not drinking and I feel so lame? Which is silly. This is my current journey.

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Catherine Newman's avatar

I make a version of that too! With smoked paprika and sherry vinegar. Yummmm. I over explain too! You can feel someone's attention seeking shelter in some remote recess of their brain. Sigh.

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