My father was the sole bastion of masculinity in our family. Despite a powerhouse wife and three headstrong daughters, he managed to hold his own witthout being the least bit tyrannical. A relentless tease, he could often convert an estrogen meltdown into a laughing fit. (Though occasionally, I'll admit, it did backfire.) He never expected to be waited on but, with all those women around, he didn't spend much time in the kitchen. In fact, I don't think he ever made anything more complicated than toast. He wasn't picky, though. Pretty much anything you served him, he ate with gratitude. There was just one thing he couldn't stomach: lumps. He balked at cream of wheat. Especially if you forgot to stir and it formed those mealy lumps. He would take a tentative bite and then, quite literally, gag. We all found this hysterical. I only saw it happen a few times, but the memory is vivid. Forty years later, it came to mind as I made a big batch of tapioca pudding. Perhaps not quite my dad's idea of a celebratory dish but I'll eat it for him today, on what would have been his 88th birthday.
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I lived in Madrid in my twenties, and it was there that I took up the habit of drinking Schweppes tonic water over ice as an afternoon refreshment. I think I considered it a sophisticated alternative to the Fanta Naranja that I enjoyed there as a child, plus the European version is more citrusy with a nice bitter edge. Now that I am more careful about what I put into my body, I prefer to create my own refreshing eilxirs without high fructose corn syrup or other strange additives. So I've been meaning to make my own tonic syrup, ever since I saw a recipe in T magazine last fall. And now that I've begun to do my own carbonation (stay tuned for the details), I figured it was time.
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Winter citrus: it may not be exactly local, but it's American and it's in season now. Just when you couldn't possibly feel more desiccated, chapped, pasty or vitamin-C deprived, there is a burst of juicy refreshment in the form of tart-sweet oranges, grapefruits, lemons, limes and kumquats. Peel some grapefruit segments and toss them into a salad with thinly sliced radicchio, toasted walnuts and pecorino. Grate some orange rind into your morning oatmeal. Or make grapefruit brulée by dotting a half with brown sugar and chopped fresh mint and sticking it under the broiler for a few minutes. Add some zip to your fizzy water with lemon-rosemary syrup. Or make lemon curd and spread it on store-bought shortbread or a piece of sourdough toast or your finger. Toss sliced kumquats with arugula and toasted almonds. Squeeze fresh orange juice and mix it with good tequila and a little pomegranate molasses. Make some clementine granità. If you're really lucky, you might come across some wild (kaffir) limes, like the ones I brought back from LA (see above). I've been doling them out to make them last longer—their tropical perfume is so fantastic. Squeeze just a quarter of one into a glass of water and it becomes an exotic elixir. I just used the last one in a pineapple sorbet. Snow? What snow?
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