To stretch your summer a little longer, try this recipe for making a Pimm’s Cup cocktail at home. Last week, I was on a staycation. Ken and I had talked about a big vacation this summer — maybe to Ireland, or Spain. The economy took a nosedive, and we thought maybe Vancouver, or Sonoma. Then we bought a house. Which means that the house was our vacation. And our Christmas. And our birthdays. Los Angeles real estate is insane. If I can’t be traveling the world, I will at least be drinking fruity cocktails, because a vacation just isn’t a vacation without some sort of exotic libation. I could go with the standard margarita, or the froofy Pina Colada. The weather was a little warm for an Irish whiskey, and much as I love the $4 bottle of Spanish wine I’ve been buying at Trader Joe’s, it doesn’t exactly scream “vacation.” (More “Oh my GOD the traffic was horrible, I need some wine NOW please.”) Being a raging Anglophile, I like to imagine that I was staycationing not in my modest ranch house with a slightly overgrown backyard, but in my Georgian country house (shall we say Oxfordshire? I do love Oxfordshire), with grounds designed by Capability Brown (and cared for by a team of handsome gardeners, headed by a genuine eccentric). Perhaps I could play a bit of croquet, or retire to the library, or take a stroll down to the sheep meadow. And if you’re imagining yourself into this kind of staycation, nothing will do quite so well as a Pimm’s Cup. [...]