Easy Does It

So these past few months has been crazy with work and work travel, so I am first apologizing for being all busy, and for being such a workaholic, my friends, and am instead offering up this Peach Bourbon Ice Cream as a token of my summer love to you all.

My re-entry into normal, civilized life is slowly happening.  I’m rediscovering what it’s like to take an hour to myself to read or think or just be.  I am also trying to worm my way back into my abandoned and forlorn kitchen.  I’ve found that said kitchen is more apt to forgive me if I come bearing gifts like Bell’s Oberon Ale, lemons, fresh lettuces, basil, and ripe peaches from the market.

Speaking of peaches, these days they are heaven-sent.  Piles of them at the market inspired a Sunday ice cream endeavor this past weekend amidst the birthday parties, brunches, and catchings-up with friends.  As always, I turned to David Lebovitz but thought the recipe needed a bit more than the plain old Peaches’n’Cream schtick.  So I used brown sugar and bourbon and voila, I now have Peach Bourbon Ice Cream at my fingertips and it is a lush, dreamy type of thing to have within reach.

Contemplating the power of thunder storms, the kindness of my friends, the support of my family and the dreams of a future seem all so much more lovely when scooped up and savored along with this ice cream.  If you are lucky enough to have an ice cream maker, go ahead and try your hand at this (feel free to omit the bourbon for my less alcohol-friendly readers), with perhaps a generous sprinkle of candied pecans or blackberries on top.  It’s an easy way to reacquaint yourself properly with the summer you might have been missing these past few months, and with friends old and new. 

A Funny Thing

Space is a funny thing.  Sometimes you crave it, a little distance from x-y-z, or sometimes it happens when you didn’t even mean for it to (ie, not writing on here for about 2 months now) and a lot of times, when you get exactly what you (un)intentionally wanted, it isn’t always rainbows and puppies.  (Case in point, I've missed you, Vagabond Table.)

But space is good, too.  It’s good to refocus, to reflect, to put all your energies into one or two things instead of 20 things, because sometimes just a few things require that much time to get through, or, in some cases, get over.   And, either way, or all around, or however you end up interpreting this, that distance is a great healer, encourager, and clarifier.  And lets you value yourself, and your relationships, and your goals in ways that you never quite had the time to do before.   Maybe it even gives you some good ideas for what you want to do in your 29th year of life, as you gratefully bundle up all the 28 years that came before and see what other adventures you can get lost in. 

Taking a step back also helps you realize that simple things somehow end up being most important.   Things like taking 5 minutes to just pause before the day even starts, when you’re still curled up in bed.  Or give a long, long hug to a Grandmother you never get to see.  Even just spending the night chatting about anything and everything with a soul-friend, celebrating a new life coming into this world, your brother’s new start at college, a good friend's wedding (in Colorado!) and remembering to never, ever, ever, sell yourself short of the good things in life. 

Coffee in the morning.  Being lazy on a Saturday.  Listening to summer thunderstorms (or hurricanes!) outside your window and watching the lightning electrify your walls.  Tostada and movie nights, homemade stovetop popcorn, curling up in the blanket your mom knit you ages ago, listening to records, and feeling the first break in heat as Fall starts creeping up.  Late summer peaches being turned into pies.  A gift or rosemary from a friend’s garden.  Simple things, good things.  

And sometimes space works to your cooking favor… for example spaces work most excellently on said Peach Pie, with the classic lattice-woven crust that lets the fruit caramelize while letting the steam out.   Maybe that’s all a bit of space is good for in life…letting things cool off, letting the steam out, letting things settle, and then, when it’s time to dive in, all that patience and space leads to something much better.

Use up those peaches and plums, my friends.  Put them in a pie, put them in a jar, just put them somewhere you get to enjoy every lovely bit of them.  And here's to allowing yourself to pause enough to focus on things you love, and to diving in.  Just like we dived into this Rosemary Peach Pie, but hopefully the benefits of that last longer than how long this pie lasted.  Which, between 3 people, was less than a day.