Claire LaZebnik - Knitting Under the Influence

Kathleen broke the silence. “I’m knitting something for you,” she said. “That brown afghan thing I’ve been working on all month. It's for you-for your den.”

“Really?” he said. “I didn't know that.”

“Neither did I,” she said. “But I’m pretty sure it is.”

His leg found hers under the blanket. “No one's ever knit anything for me before.”

“That makes us even,” she said. “I’ve never knit anything for anyone before.”

CLAIRE LAZEBNIK: I was born in Newton, Massachusetts, the youngest of five children. My father once claimed my umbilical cord was never completely cut, which may explain why I went to a college (Harvard) only twenty minutes away from home. I was sixteen when I entered college and couldn't even drive; I left when I was twenty and still couldn't drive. I moved to New York (so I wouldn't have to drive) and puttered around there for a while before ending up in Los Angeles, where you have to drive. I failed my first driver's license test-so badly the DMV guy made me get out of the car and drove the last block by himself-but passed the second time, bought myself a car, and became a true, if reluctant, Angeleno.

In L.A. I wrote for magazines, including GQ, Vogue, and Cosmopolitan, and met my husband, a TV sitcom writer. We got married in 1989 and from 1991 to 2000, I pretty much kept myself barefoot and pregnant. I gave birth to three sons and one daughter, and when the youngest was six months old, I decided I was done producing kids and gave birth to a novel instead. Same as It Never Was (St. Martin's, 2003) was also published in England and Australia, translated into French, and made into a movie called “Hello Sister, Goodbye Life” for the ABC Family cable channel.

My oldest son was diagnosed with autism at the age of two and a half, which led to my meeting Dr. Lynn Kern Koegel, who runs the Koegel Autism Clinic at the University of California, Santa Barbara, with her husband, Dr. Robert Koegel. One day Lynn asked me to write a book with her, and a year or so later we published Overcoming Autism: Finding the Answers, Strategies, and Hope That Can Transform a Child's Life (Viking/Penguin 2004). I also have a son who has celiac disease and a daughter who has Addison's disease, but I have yet to write a book on either subject.

I taught myself to knit from a book back when I was in high school and happily knit my way through many a boring college seminar. I didn't like to measure or block and the sleeves always came out too long or too short. Which was fine with me: I’ve always believed that with knitting it's the journey and not the destination that matters.

Cats, dogs, and children put a crimp in my knitting habit-I’d leave half a sweater sleeve and come back to find a big old tangled knot-but now that the kids and pets are older and knitting is actually considered hip, I’ve returned to my old love.

Claire

This novel is a cautionary tale: if you drink and knit, there will be consequences. Of course, if you're anything like our heroines, you're willing to risk it. So invite some friends over, pull out your knitting, and mix one (or more) of the five following drinks inspired by Kathleen's, Lucy's, and Sari's knitting projects.

Light and tropical-and likely to make you reveal a little more than you intended.

2 oz rum

1 oz Triple Sec

3 oz ginger ale

pomegranate juice

grenadine

maraschino cherries

Combine the rum and Triple Sec in a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Strain into a highball glass filled with ice cubes and pour in the ginger ale. Add a splash of pomegranate juice and a splash of grenadine. Spear several maraschino cherries on a toothpick and lay across the top of the glass. (Girls like to eat cherries and guys like to watch them eat them.)

Indulge yourself. Elegantly. You deserve it.

1 oz blue Curaçao

champagne

star fruit

Pour the blue Curaçao into the bottom of a tall champagne flute. Fill the glass with champagne and garnish with a single slice of star fruit, dropped sideways into the glass so the star shape is visible.

Striped Cropped Sweater

Youthful and a little kooky. (I’m not entirely sure if you should shoot these or eat them with a spoon, but I suspect you'll have fun figuring out which way works best.)

1 (3-oz) package each berry blue, strawberry, and lemon gelatin

4½cups boiling water

1 cup vodka

frac12; cup Citron vodka

Mix berry blue gelatin with 1 ½ cups of boiling water and stir until completely dissolved. Add frac12; cup of vodka. Fill 20 2-oz clear shot glasses? full with mixture and refrigerate until solid. Meanwhile, mix strawberry gelatin with 1frac12; cups boiling water and stir until dissolved. Add the remaining frac12; cup of vodka and stir.

When the blue layer is solid, pour the strawberry gelatin on top, filling up another? of each glass. Put glasses back in the refrigerator to harden.

Mix the lemon gelatin with 1frac12; cups boiling water, stir to dissolve, and then add the frac12; cup of Citron vodka and stir.

When the strawberry layer is solid, fill the glasses to the top with the lemon mixture. Put back in the refrigerator and chill at least one more hour before serving.

The Cozy Brown Afghan

This one's my favorite. It's alcoholic comfort food.

1 oz coffee liqueur

½ oz chocolate liqueur

½ oz Irish Cream liqueur

chocolate-covered cinnamon reception stick

Mix coffee and chocolate liqueurs in a small cordial glass. Pour Irish Cream liqueur over the back of a spoon so it floats on top. Garnish with reception stick. Bliss.

The Tangled Skein

Drink too many of these and you're likely to end up in a complicated situation that's difficult to untangle.

1½ oz tequila

1½ oz Lemoncello

2 oz orange juice

maraschino liqueur

lemon zest

Shake the tequila and Lemoncello with ice in a cocktail shaker. Strain into a martini glass and add the orange juice and a dash of maraschino liqueur. Using a lemon zester, make long narrow strips of lemon zest and toss them into the bottom of the glass-you can tie them into knots first, if you still have that kind of motor control.