Beverage Break

It's Friday. We're on vacation soon. I'm thinking about summer beverages, both leaded and unleaded:

Mojitos - I make mine with vodka instead of rum (seems smoother) as well as homemade simple syrup, fresh lime juice, and fresh mint. Splash in the club soda and serve over lots of ice.

2 parts vodka 1 part simple syrup 1 part lime juice, fill with club soda and add mint springs.

Sun Tea - This is a tough one - plop some good Irish tea bags in some filtered water in a glass container and leave in the sun for an hour or two. I like to put in some green tea bags with that mix as well. And I squirt in agave syrup as a sweetener, as well as fresh lemon or orange slices and more fresh mint.

6 black tea bags (I use Barry's Irish breakfast) and 2 - 3 green tea bags in 1 1/2 gallons filtered water

Serve those with some more fresh stuff - homemade magno salsa (cut up mango, cut up cucumber, lime juice, fresh cilantro, dash hot sauce, some fresh garlic and / or red onion) and flour tortillas, cut up and put under the broiler for a minute. You can squirt those with fresh lime, too.

Put on your comfiest muumuu and enjoy the fireworks.

PS - That sun tea's not bad with a shot of vodka. Just saying.

The Greatest Books I'll Never Read Again

Some novels are crafted so wonderfully that I want to read them more than once. Plainsong by Kent Haruf is one of these - the style is spare and lyrical at the same time. Plus, the way Haruf creates a strange little family from such an ill-assorted crew of characters is breath-taking. Jane Eyre is another, simply because I love Jane so much. Born plain and penniless, she is still one of the strongest women in fiction. 


There are some books, however, that are incredible and wonderful and yet I will never reread them. These are the top three of that list:


1.The Road, by Cormac McCarthy - When I started reading this book, everything else disappeared. I got sucked into the story of the man and the boy traveling across the face of a strange, post Apocalyptic America with only a shopping cart, and I had to find out what happened to them. Of course, what does occur is dreadful - McCarthy offers no comfort in his work, as anyone who read No Country for Old Men knows. As the boy keeps saying, there are some things you can't unsee.

2. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini - I finished this novel at three in the morning because I just couldn't stop reading. Even though it was so late, I had to go and see my daughter and give her sleeping face a big kiss after reading Suns. I wouldn't call this a classic; it's not in the same category as The Road or Plainsong, but it's very good fiction nonetheless. Hosseini is famous for The Kite Runner - also addictive reading - but I much preferred this book. The dream scene where Laila buries her daughter alive is vivid and shocking. It's why I had to go and kiss that face.

3. My friend just lent me The God of Small Things, and I read it in a few days. After I finished it, I was in despair - hack writer that I am, I will never, ever, be able to write like that. Arundhati Roy reinvents the way a story can be told, turning it inside out like a Moebius strip, with beautifully reoccurring images (the time "ten to two" comes to mind) and an ending that breathes horror and beauty in one word. And it is dreadful, too - what the Orangedrink Lemondrink man does to little Estha is terrible - and then it gets far, far worse. 

It takes courage, I think, to write books as terrible and wonderful as these - it's much easier to write simple, fun little stories like mine. My books might be pulp fiction (and I'm okay with that) but I can still appreciate works of pure artistry and genius, unsettling as they are.

Crunchy Bars, or, The Expats

Next week my cousin, who lives near Dublin, is coming to visit the States. I know what this means - he'll be bringing me a supply of Crunchie bars from Ireland. For those of you who have never tasted a Crunchie, find a way to get your hands on one. They are a literary treat - Crunchies are described in National Velvet.

My cousin deserves to be showered with praise for bringing me my Crunchies, and so he shall be. I wish he could bring me some other stuff, though, that's impossible to put in a suitcase: a loaf of Brennan's bread, a barm brack, a cup of Bewley's coffee with foamed milk, but above all - a dish of Irish potatoes, served with Kerry Gold butter. 


Kerry Gold really is gold. The butter that I buy here is white in color, but Kerry Gold is a deep yellow with a unique flavor. When it's melting on top of boiled Irish potatoes, there's nothing better in the world. Heaven is going to plates of those spuds, and no calories to worry about. I have it all planned out.


Of course, there are things here that my cousin misses just as much in Dublin. When he comes to the US, we all have to go out for a root beer and potato skins (what is it about potatoes?) And I send him back with packs of Mint Milano cookies.


I just thought of something else I'd like him to bring me - the smell inside an Irish chemist's, or in the hallway of an Irish house. I don't know what it is - some combination of Fairy Liquid Soap and Kerry Gold, perhaps?

I don't suppose he can bring me those, either, nor the wind that blasts down the Dun Laoghoire pier, nor a Teddy's 99 ice cream at the end of the walk down that pier.  I will enjoy those Crunchies, though.