Stay thirsty. Or don’t. We are all going to die anyway.
One way or another, it’s the apocalypse.
Whether it’s lava in Hawaii, nuclear war with Iran, or civil war here in the good ‘ol U.S.of A, it seems like the end is nigh.
But meanwhile, here in Baltimore, the city is spring blooming with new life that temporarily hides the trash and rats and decay and hopelessness that normally decorates Charm City. For this one week or even possibly this one month before the whispering gloom of humidity descends, Baltimore on the eve of the apocalypse is beautiful.
Either way – hopeful and blooming or despondent and withering under the heat of the certain destruction – you need a [seasonal] drink.
Enter the Sugar Snap Pea Spring Cocktail.
Leave me alone about the name. I’m bad at drink names and blog post titles. It’s about the drink.
Start with a sugar snap pea simple syrup and go from there. My particular friend and I tested it three ways; below are all of them. Seriously? You can’t go wrong with any of them.
Sugar Snap Pea Spring Cocktail
Start with the sugar snap pea simple syrup, then proceed to the variations below.
Sugar Snap Pea Simple Syrup
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
1 cup rough chopped fresh sugar snap peas
Method
Bring water and sugar to a boil in a heavy saucepan over medium heat. Add snap peas and let boil for one minute. Turn off heat and let cool completely. Use a mesh strainer to remove the sugar snap pea bits. Keeps in the ‘fridge for a week.
Variations
For all of these, fill a highball glass with ice (we used whole cubes but crushed would be fine). Add ingredients in order and use a barspoon to combine. Squeeze that fruit in the cocktail. It’s not just for decoration. Jeez.
Prettiest of All
1.5 oz. Empress Hotel PURPLE GIN*
1 oz. sugar snap pea simple syrup
Tonic of your choice (we used good old Seagram’s but you could surely get fancy AF with artisanal bullshit if you must. That makes it more about your tonic water than the syrup, but hey. That’s on you.)
Lemon wedge
Prettiest of All, Variation
1.5 oz Empress Hotel PURPLE GIN*
1 oz. sugar snap pea simple syrup
Lemon seltzer
Lemon wedge
Most Sugar Snap Pea Flavor (my personal favorite, even though it’s not the prettiest)
2 oz. Tito’s vodka
1.5 oz. sugar snap pea simple syrup
Lemon seltzer
*Be very, very jealous that you do not have a good artist friend in Vancouver, Corey Hardeman, who is not only incredibly talented but is also incredibly generous and thoughtful and who sends you beautiful paintings of grumpy owls and paint-thumbprinted bottles of purple gin that just are not available anywhere else so you can drink elegant and beautiful cocktails whenever you like.
Court’s indulgence. This picture is blurry. It was a long day.
It’s not often that things on TV are pretty much exactly the same in real life.
Last week I sat on a jury for a five-day trial. The defendant was accused of 24 counts of crime, including first-degree rape and possessing a weapon when he wasn’t allowed to possess a weapon.
(Fun fact: the defendant’s last crime was prosecuted by Ruth Bader Ginsberg in 1993. Federal drug charge.)
I have never sat on an actual jury; I have been called for jury duty three times in my life, and mostly it’s just lots of sitting around and watching movies like How To Lose a Guy In 10 Days and Avatar. This time was different, and I was quickly seated as Juror #4 by noon on my first day of reporting, then sent home until Monday when the trial would begin.
Everything about the trial was pretty much what it looks like on TV: the dramatic opening and closing statements, the cross examination, the witnesses getting testy with the defense attorney, and, finally, conflict (and resolution) in the deliberation room.
Time seemed strangely fluid as well; hours would pass in the courtroom in what seemed like minutes, but in the deliberation room, every minute was an agony of waiting. At the end of the day we would emerge from our windowless room, cram ourselves into the elevator, and then emerge at the corner of St. Paul and Lexington, blinking against the too-bright sunshine of the late afternoon, at the height of rush hour to crawl our way home.
Of all the things that stuck in my mind that week, one in particular stands out. Whenever the lawyers had to gather something or find something that meant the action had to pause briefly, they would say, “Court’s indulgence,” and the judge would nod, indicating that she was cool with the wait.
“Court’s indulgence.”
I don’t know why, but I love this saying. It’s a respectful request for permission to pause while you gather your thoughts, something we could all use every now and then.
One day when I came home it was stuck in my head like a mantra, playing over and over as I fed the dogs and made dinner. On that night, it was hot outside and the back door was open, letting in a feeble breeze (and lots of flies, which drives The Black Dog crazy, an admittedly short trip). It had been an especially long day, nine to five listening to a case about rape and gun violations, and I wasn’t particularly interested in making something complicated for dinner or turning on the stove.
Court’s indulgence: I remembered my preserved lemons, which were ready and waiting.
Court’s indulgence: There were some small, sweet yellow, red, and orange peppers in the crisper, along with half a red onion and some arugula that I wouldn’t even need to wash.
Court’s indulgence: A bomb shelter’s worth of canned beans in the coolness of the basement.
Et voila. Dinner, eaten with the court’s indulgence, on the balcony in the back of the house as the evening wore on and the sun sank low.
White Bean, Sweet Pepper, And Arugula Salad With Preserved Lemon Vinaigrette
Ingredients
2 tablespoons minced preserved lemon (rinse to remove salt and also strip away the squishy flesh)
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup best-quality olive oil (it matters)
1 heaping teaspoon minced garlic
1/2 to 1 teaspoon black pepper (I like a lot of pepper)
1 15-ounce can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
One large red pepper, chopped, or five small multi-color pepper, chopped
1/2 large red onion, sliced
Handful of arugula per salad
Method
Make things easy on yourself and mix this all in the same bowl. I used a medium-sized round white Corningware bowl.
Place first five ingredients in bowl and mix together. Add beans, peppers, and onions and stir to combine.
To serve, place a large handful of arugula in a bowl, then top with beans. If you feel the need, you can drizzle with more olive oil and a squeeze of lemon, but mix it all around and taste before you do that.
Beans are even better the next day, chilled and then brought to room temp before serving.
Especially when the thing you are starting is somewhat of a secret, kept that way so it can be a big surprise when it’s all done.
But it starts today, no foolin’, and already I am stuck.
Anyone who reads even a blog or two of mine knows that motivation and I have not always walked well together.
This reminds me of the story about Jesus walking with someone on the beach (two sets of footprints) and when times got tough there was only one set of footprints because Jesus was carrying the person. This story makes me a little nauseous (and only a little nauseous because I would like to have a long conversation with Jesus, for real, not praying, like hang out with the man and say what the fuck, Jesus.), but it would be super awesome if motivation would just swoop down and cradle me in loving arms.
Motivation for me is more like a sharp, pointy stick. Or a cattle prod. And that’s no day at the beach.
Especially perceptive people who have read even a blog or two of mine might even recognize that this here blog post itself is really just a clever avoidance tactic. Or maybe not so clever.
Regardless. Here we are. At an impasse.
Sometimes, as right now with The Secret Thing, the issue is just too many choices.
I could literally go in 100 different directions with This Secret Thing, but if I commit to one, 99 of them fall away and become impossible.
And I am on a deadline, so I have basically this weekend to commit.
And anyone who knows me well knows that commitment and I are also not always walking together on the beach either. And commitment is too fucking lazy to pick me up. And super heavy for me, even with all of the yoga.
The answer to this is very, very simple: off to market.
Not only does this allow me to procrastinate, but it also gives me a great excuse to check out the new MOM’s that opened up this very morning in The Rotunda in Hampden. It was, as expected, a madhouse, so much so that any designs of leisurely strolling the aisles looking for inspiration fell away when the doors opened.
The samples. And the fresh mozzarella. And Greek yogurt. And bulk section. And the sheer number of people who really should all be at work and not shopping right now so that I can have the store to myself. #OtherPeopleRuinEverything
But THE STRAWBERRIES.
If we were still in Georgia, I would have already been harvesting the first tender shoots of asparagus and small, juicy strawberries, but here in Maryland not much is coming out of the ground beyond greens and brassicas, and even then only for really good garden planners.
These strawberries weren’t local, but they were organic and sweet and deep, ruby red and sexy as hell.
And on sale.
I bought two clamshells, planning something with the aforementioned Greek yogurt (so thick like vanilla-scented crème fraiche) but then came home to other choices.
Quickly staled gluten-free bread, optimistically baked a couple days ago and not consumed. Four egg yolks leftover from the bread’s mother, also still quietly growing delicious in the ‘fridge. Vanilla beans to spare. Almond milk, bought for another purpose and then forgotten, but still good and unopened.
Sophie’s choice: strawberry bread pudding. Christ on a bike, this was good. The perfect bridge between the sunny, spring-like weather of this morning and the 30-degree temps and flurries forecast for Sunday night. Dollop of the Greek yogurt on top.
Perfect for ignoring the other choices I am avoiding. You’re welcome.
Strawberry Bread Pudding
Hey, man. This is totally unfussy. I am putting amounts here, but really, go with what you have. Leave the strawberries out, or add chocolate chips and a touch of cinnamon. Or maybe dried fruit. Or no fruit. Or whatever. Regular milk. Less sugar. Two eggs instead of just yolks. Whatever. No real choices need to be made until you are damn good and ready.
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups milk (cow, almond, soy. Whatever. Whole milk is the more reliable choice, to be sure, but don’t let dairy hold you back.)
1/3 cup sugar (or more. Or less.)
1 vanilla bean, scraped (or 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract)
pinch of salt (or 1 teaspoon if you like to measure)
2 T. butter
2 eggs (or 4 egg yolks if that’s what you have in the ‘fridge)
one leftover loaf of gluten-free bread, cubed into maybe 3 cups (or stale, gluten-filled french bread, brioche, challah, or….)
1 cup chopped strawberries (or a handful of chips, or nothing)
Method
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and butter a ceramic baking dish big enough for your bread and berries. Set aside.
Heat milk, sugar, vanilla bean scraping, salt, and butter until the butter is just melted. Cool if you have that kind of patience, or, if not, slowly, slowly, slowly – whisking constantly – drizzle the hot milk into the eggs in a large bowl. If you do it too fast, you will have vanilla-flavored scrambled eggs. Drizzle slowly, slower than you think, while whisking frantically.
Place bread and strawberries in the buttered dish (I used a high-sided white ceramic baking dish). Pour milk-egg mixture over the bread, soaking thoroughly.
Allow the bread to sit in this mixture for 30 minutes in the ‘fridge. Longer, if you like. This is to soak up some of the liquid so the custard does not “break” (scramble the eggs) in the heat of the oven.
Bake for 30-45 minutes (seriously. Big range), until the custard is just a little tiny bit wobbly (but not raw. GROSS). For more gentle cooking, cook the pudding in a bain marie.
Again, cool slightly if you can, or grab a spoon and eat IMMEDIATELY with unsweetened whipped cream, crème fraiche, or super thick Greek yogurt.
As I emerge, blinking, into the March sun from the deepest recesses of the hell that is February and look around, I realize that my house is decidedly not in order.
It happens this way, sometimes.
When the earth begins its long march away from the sun, starting in June but accelerating in earnest as we move through November, I can feel myself retreating, hibernating. I may join humanity for a holiday party or three, but fuck it.
Bears don’t clean.
So the house gets a basic wipedown to prevent it from looking like a truckstop and to keep us in clean clothes and toilets – a whore’s bath of housecleaning, if you will – but other than that the baseboards grow furry, as do the underneath parts of nearly every surface in the house.
I was gifted a year’s worth of cleaning lady for Mother’s Day one year, and after the lady’s first visit she remarked, “It looked good until I started cleaning.”
This is nearly every winter of my life.
But the other side of this is that I cannot function well in a house that is filled with dirt. Metaphorical or otherwise.
Everywhere I look there is grime.
#BadFengShui
I feel like Punxatawney Phil (the only groundhog. #FuckOffGeneralLee). Of course he is going to see his shadow. They wake him up at the crack of dawn and shine lights on him, and all he can think about is whether or not he has crumbs on his chest from lying on his ass all winter, binge-watching Nurse Jackie while eating dry chocolate Chex because milk is superfluous and they are GLUTEN FREE now. He just wants to waddle back to his hole and go back to bed for six more weeks until someone comes in and cleans his house for him.
Or maybe it’s just me.
So here we are, early March.
It’s time to clean up our act. My act.
Whatever.
I feel a massive wave of cleaning energy coming on. It’s slow, to be sure, but I have finally thrown out the Galentine’s Day flowers and the Christmas tree is near the back fence, ready for a kindly neighbor who may or may not be heading to the dump sometime soon (#TrueStory).
I have changed my sheets and located new ones so they can be changed more frequently.
I bought glass shower cleaner and two rolls of paper towels.
I am getting ready to take various books to the Little Free Libraries located around Hampden, and I am ready to give away and reorganize many of the various things we have accumulated over the less-than-one-year we have been in this house.
It’s time to go top-to-bottom, left-to-right on this bitch.
Usually when I clean like this, I leave directly afterwards so I have the wonderful experience of walking into a house that looks and smells good.
But sometimes people suck and I just don’t feel like venturing out into the world beyond a long walk in the woods, where food is to be found but not easily and not in quantity.
I can’t order pizza in, and although my gluten-free variety is easy, still too much effort after a day collecting ALL THE DOG HAIR IN THE WORLD.
Enter salad.
What the fuck, you say. Or WTF if you are a millennial and #JustCantEven.
Not just any salad.
This time of year the farmer’s marker basket is overrrun with hearty greens: arugula, kale, spinach et al. You can’t juice them fast enough. You can’t put them in soups fast enough. Your kids hate them sauteed, no matter how much you talk about Popeye who’s strong to the finish ’cause he eats his spinach.
Side note: My brother and I used to stuff wads of spinach in our cheeks, call them chew, and spit the juice out on the patio for hours after dinner was over, finally divesting out distended cheeks of the desiccated spinach remains when the novelty wore off. Maybe my mom thought we were absorbing nutrients through our cheeks, or maybe she was overrun with greens herself and didn’t give a rat’s ass at that point.
But back to salad.
This salad is delicious, easy, filling, and versatile as hell. The basics are there, waiting to be supplemented by what you have. Chickpeas leftover? Toss them in. Grilled chicken or steak? Yup. Other types of fruit? Have at it.
After hours of scrubbing walls, baseboards, and stainless steel, this salad makes very few dishes; I tend to eat it with my fingers out of the bowl I made it in.
Kale/Arugula Salad With Apple Cider Vinaigrette
Ingredients
Kale or arugula or whateverthefuck greens you have (but no iceberg. #KeepinItReal)
One small bulb of fennel, sliced (optional)
One crisp apple, sliced thin (optional)
One handful of blueberries (optional)
One handful of strawberries, sliced (optional. Are you sensing a trend? Do what you like)
Squeeze of lemon, if using apples
1/2 cup toasted pecans (or any other nut you like, or no nuts if they make you swell up)
1/2 cup apple cider
2 T apple cider vinegar
4 T olive oil (or other oil, whatever you have)
1 tsp. honey
grind of black pepper
squeeze of Dijon mustard (optional, but it helps the other ingredients emulsify and gives the dressing some heft)
pinch of salt
Method
Place greens and other additions (apple, fennel, nuts, etc) in a large stainless steel bowl.
In a Mason jar, combine cider, vinegar, oil, mustard, salt, and pepper.
Shake like hell.
Wait until you are ready to eat, then shake the dressing and pour it on the salad. Eat it all up.
And hey…don’t wait all winter to clean your house.
