All I wanted was a good slab of shepherd’s pie. Is that too much to have asked? Apparently so, because in one week in London I couldn’t find a single pub that served it. There were bad burgers galore, some pretty damn good local beers, but no shepherd’s pie. One pub even had an entirely Indian menu.

Dan had to go for, yes, a conference, but this time I successfully wheedled my way along. It’s only been five years or so since I’ve been to London, one of my favorite cities on the planet, but the place has undergone a distinct change in the wrong direction. I have nothing against Starbucks, but please – not on every London corner. The number of chain stores, chain restaurants, chain supermarkets (there was a Whole Foods across the street from our hotel) was just a bummer.

As for English food, I’ve always had a taste for it – when it’s well prepared, that is. A badly made dinner is a badly made dinner everywhere on earth, England included, but English food tends to have a terrible reputation that’s quite unjustified. But recently, chefs all over London have gone locovore – menus spell out precisely what region of the country the lamb comes from, the sea that bears the cockles, and so on, and by and large it’s all quite delicious.

But no shepherd’s pie! I’ll have to make my own.

In the meantime, I found myself in one dark pub sitting around with several men who appeared to be veterans of the Boer War, and I was considering simple things to do with the Guinness I was drinking other, of course, than drinking it.

The easiest of all is the delicious and delightfully messy Shrimp Boiled in Guinness. Here’s the recipe, complete with some suggestions to keep your evening from turning into a laundry nightmare:

My nephew, the lanky 6-foot-5-inch science teacher (and I assure you he got none of those genes from me) was visiting the beach house a few weeks ago, and at one point Dan and I sent him on a shopping trip to the Pines Pantry to get the makings of dinner.

As usual, he returned with twice as much stuff as we’d asked for; he lives in a half-gentrified, half-dicey section of Brooklyn, and he delights in finding things in the Pantry he can’t buy within a mile of his apartment. (Let’s be fair: the Pantry isn’t big on gandules and sofrito, and the infinitely cheerful check-out girls aren’t protected by a massive wall of Plexiglas.) One of these items was a six-pack of Gosling’s ginger beer. It was quite hot that weekend, and the Gosling’s – plain but chilled – really hit the spot.

I guzzled most of mine, but just as I reached the last gulp I had my Proustian moment: in place of Proust’s madeleine was a great but all-but-forgotten cocktail, the Moscow Mule: a shot of vodka goes into a glass with ice, and ginger beer fills the glass. It was a great cocktail in its day; I used to drink them with my high school teachers. (Oh get off your high horse! Big deal! I smoked pot with them, too. Bless them for treating me as an adult.) But I thought it was time for an update, this being the 21st century and all, the Moscow Mule seeing its heyday in the 1970s. So I added a secret ingredient, and suddenly the old Mule got back up on its feet and became even more of a crowd pleaser.

The secret ingredient is Domaine de Canton’s delicious ginger liqueur. Used in moderation – this is very important, people – Canton’s intense ginger flavor only magnifies the spicy yet somehow fruity flavor of the ginger. It’s not a must; it’s hard to find. (Order it on the Internet if your local liquor emporium doesn’t stock it.) But it adds just a touch more intense ginger flavor to the drink. You only need a little bit for each cocktail, and it’ll last forever in your liquor cabinet.

Dan and I threw one of our summer cocktail parties yesterday, and the cocktail du jour was the updated Moscow Mule. I had to rename it, since it was no longer my hip English teacher’s Moscow Mule. Judging by the sheer number of drinks our guests had, the cocktail named itself: the Ginger Binger. It goes down so easy that you may find it difficult to get out of your seat at the end of the party. Your guests may feel the same way. So beware.