lorenius

Typical Northeast summer has finally arrived – it’s hot and humid. Oh yay! Well, not really.

Yesterday evening my friend and I rode almost 10 miles through Lake Hiawatha and Montville. It was much easier than I expected and my ass doesn’t hurt from the seat like I expected it to. I was drenched when we got done…had to ride up the hill to get home.

Anyway, on to the fun part, my bedroom is on the 2nd floor of the house. It’s actually a converted attic and it gets very hot in the afternoon/evening. On warm days it’s easily 10-15° warmer upstairs. We also have casement windows so putting in an AC is a bit of task. We have a system worked out but it takes a fair bit of time. It hasn’t been hot yet so I haven’t bothered putting it in. That is going to change today.

Last night my room was so hot and sticky that I couldn’t sleep. It didn’t help that one of the cats decided she needed to sleep with me and lean against my leg.

So I headed downstairs to the living room, but unfortunately the biggest couch is a loveseat. After 2 hrs of trying to get comfortable on that I gave up and decided to see if it had cooled down upstairs, and thankful it had a little. Enough to make it bearable.

Today I am a bit cranky, with big dark circles under my eyes. But at least it’s friday!

Tonight was one of the first hot, sticky nights we’ve had this summer. So it was so nice to have a refreshing Italian Ice after dinner.

I was trying to replicate the flavor of the ices they sell at the Hackensack Pastry Shop. My mom grew up in Hackensack and whenever we’re in the vicinity we stop for ices, but we haven’t been for years. I don’t know if I quite managed to duplicate the Hackensack Pastry Shop’s Italian Ices, but my mom loves it.

I really enjoyed making ices. It’s quicker, cheaper, and easier than making ice cream. And it really hits the spot on a hot day. Next I’m going to try making watermelon.

Here’s the Recipe

Lemon Italian Ice

ingredients

2 cups sugar
5 cups water
4-5 lemons juiced and finely zested
fresh mint for garnish

yield: about 6 cups

instructions

1. Combine the water and sugar in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Let it simmer, uncovered, for 5 minutes.  (Note: Congrats, you just made a simple syrup!)
2. Stick the sugar water mixture in the fridge for a couple of hours until it’s cold.
3. Add the lemon juice and zest to the sugar water. If you like your ices super lemony, like me, then use 5 lemons. Otherwise go with 4. Not sure? Add the juice and zest from 4 and give it a taste.
4. Pour the mixture into your ice cream maker and use as directed by the manufacturer.  Check the capacity of your ice cream maker. If it can’t do 6 cups you might need to do this in 2 batches.
5. Once the ice cream maker has made you ice into a semi solid, scrape it into a freezer safe container and cover. Freeze it until hardened.Garnish with fresh mint.

notes

If you don’t have an ice cream machine, I have read that you can freeze this in a pan then break it up and stick it in a food processor or blender before serving. I’ve never tried this though. I highly recommend getting an ice cream maker. My first one cost $20 at Target and worked great.

I finally got around to watching this and it’s amazing – both driving and camera skills.

I thought they only did this stuff for Playboy & Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition. The CEO is one of the baggage carriers and everyone else are Air NZ staff.

Here is the making of:

Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film As ‘Fun, Watchable’

I put together an afternoon tea for my mom. It was great but a fair bit of work. I made two types of tea sandwiches – waldorf chicken salad and prociutto and asparagus with cream cheese. Vanessa, my oldest sister, made vegetarian ones. She had cucumber, radish, and goat cheese ones that were my favorite.

The next course was cream scones. I made adorable mini ones that I served with Devonshire double cream, raspberry preserves, and sweetened whipped cream and marscapone cheese.

Dessert was citrus poppy cake with cream cheese frosting and cream filled strawberries.  They were filled with the sweetened whipped cream and marscapone. I had some left over after filling all the strawberries and figured it would make a nice scone topping.

I served two kinds of Rishi Tea – Earl Grey and Golden Yunnan. It was perfect weather for an afternoon tea as it was on the cool side while still being comfortable enough to be outside enjoying the sunshine and the late spring garden.

I also managed to score some sweet tea cups and dishes at Homegoods. I got 4 cups and saucers for $7 in the clearance section. I bought 2 sets.

It was supposed to rain all weekend, but yesterday it cleared up mid morning and was nice all day. I was hoping for the same today, but it was not to be.  The cold, damp day called for some scones.  Reader, I made them.

Cardamom scones with Lemon icing and Cranberry and Walnut Scones.  I’m eating a cardamom scone right now with some Rishi Earl Grey. Perfection.

Apparently these public group dance/sing things are popular in Europe.

This time it’s Beyonce’s Single Ladies in Piccadilly Cirucs in London.

Apparently I’ve decided to get some culture recently. In a recent one week span I went to a Devils game (they got destroyed by the Leafs), Avenue Q with Lincy, and a Nets game (they won).

I thought Avenue Q was pretty cute.  We didn’t quite get the logic as to when someone was a puppet. I thought maybe all the monsters would be puppets, but Princeton wasn’t a monster.

Before that we went to Marseille for brunch. It was really good and definitely recommended if you are looking for someplace in the theater district. I would make reservations though because it was packed. We had them and still waited 15 minutes.

If you ever wondered what the difference between American and Canadian hockey fans was…well here’s a visual example. Hey there Iginla.