Author: Suzannah Kolbeck

Foraging A Cocktail: Blue Spruce Tip Simple Syrup

Presenting the Tipsy Forager. Props to KWeeks for the name.

So you may have noticed very little (any?) food content here on this blog lately, a so-called food blog that has been o’er taken by poems and links from other people and merely passable iPhone pictures of the woods and the water.

Sometimes it’s all I can do these days to put my feet on the floor before I begin to feel ALL OF THE FEELINGS. It’s my watery Pisces nature, friends. I cannot shut it out, and sometimes feelings just get in the way of other things.

But I have been writing and painting and (sort of) working on a website re-design and teaching myself how to draw and either going for a long walk or doing yoga (and sometimes both) every day.

I have also been in the kitchen doing a variety of things. First, creating recipes for the incredible human behind Full Moon Acupuncture for her seasonal Renewal that will launch sometime in September. I will post individual recipes in the fall, in support of her work and to just share what is going to be a delicious group of ten dinners and five lunches (plus some bonus sauces/dressings). But recipe development is not always the most exciting blog topic.

I have been making cookies out of the freezer – big, glorious, crunchy/chewy chocolate chip cookies that I eat (at least) three at a time. These are lifesavers, especially since I am dedicated to staying out of stores and only pick up groceries through PeaPod once every ten days or so.

And because I am technically still writing and illustrating a book on foraging that may or may not be a go in 2021, I am wandering fields and forests and gathering food. Sunday’s expedition was to Cromwell Valley Park, for a bonanza of blue spruce tips.

Blue spruce tips are exactly what they sound like: the vibrantly green new growth that occurs at the very end of pine branches in the spring. Each pine has its own specific flavor, some of which are a bit too resinous and astringent for eating straight out of hand. Blue spruce tips, especially when young, have a bright citrus-y flavor with endnotes of pine – it is astringent and perhaps not a taste that everyone will love but still milder than many others.

Medicinally, blue spruce tips are high in vitamin C, potassium, and magnesium. They are used for coughs and sore throats and help to transport oxygen to the cells (which speeds healing).

For my little foraging haul, I made a cough syrup that won’t be ready until October, and a big batch of blue spruce tip simple syrup. I have a few ideas of how I will use it, but our first stop is cocktails.

Kudos to KWeeks for his adroit naming of this. I never know how cocktails will hit my system – some days I can have three and feel nothing; others I have one and feel a little loopy. It just took one of these for me, so the name is apt.

The Tipsy Forager

This cocktail is light, with a fragrant, botanical taste and bouquet that comes from the gin and the simple syrup. To taste more of the blue spruce simple syrup, use a cleaner, less complicated gin. I used Bluecoat because it’s what I had, and the resulting cocktail was dangerous. Refreshing and not too heavy, perfect for warmer weather.

Ingredients

2 ounces of your favorite gin

.5 ounce (or more, to taste) spruce tip simple syrup (see Recipe Notes)

Seltzer

Lemon for garnish

Method

Pack a rocks glass with artisanal ice of your choice (just kidding. Plain old cubes are fine. Let’s not get precious.). Add gin and blue spruce simple syrup and stir to get very cold. Top with seltzer and garnish with lemon.

Recipe Notes

To make blue spruce tip simple syrup, dissolve one cup of sugar in one cup of water. Add one and a half packed cups of blue spruce tips (more’s the better), cover, and remove from heat. Let blue spruce tips steep overnight, then strain and add 1 1/2 teaspoons of lemon juice. Makes almost two cups of blue spruce tip simple syrup.

Sunday Poem: Elegy by Aracelis Girmay

Morning coffee, and the sky above.

Friends, this poem is incredible and timely. It almost made me cry, the last stanza, especially as we are in such an extraordinary time of avoiding human contact. I did not know Aracelis Girmay’s work before this poem, and now I want to know all of it.

Elegy

What to do with this knowledge that our living is not guaranteed?

Perhaps one day you touch the young branch
of something beautiful. & it grows & grows
despite your birthdays & the death certificate,
& it one day shades the heads of something beautiful
or makes itself useful to the nest. Walk out
of your house, then, believing in this.
Nothing else matters.

All above us is the touching
of strangers & parrots,
some of them human,
some of them not human.

Listen to me. I am telling you
a true thing. This is the only kingdom.
The kingdom of touching;
the touches of the disappearing, things.

Thursday Links To Love: May 14, 2020

I have a line on instant yeast, instant success, and gallon jugs of Tapatio if you’re running low.

This past week has proven quite fraught, emotionally speaking. I blame the full flower moon in Scorpio for my big, deep feelings.

How has it been for you? Are you still locked down, or are you making bad choices? Let me know.

Here are this week’s links.  I’ll be honest – this week was a bit of a stretch to find something to share that seemed relevant and valid and not likely to prompt a slide into a deep depression. So I just have three, and one’s not even really a link. Take whatever you like and discard the rest.

SEA MONKEYS. I wanted them to work so badly. I was the child who saved her pennies and mailed away from the back of a comic book to receive a clear Zooquarium and a small packet of Sea Monkeys. After filling the cylinder with water and shaking the packet gently over the top…nothing. A lump of deceased Sea Monkeys drifted to the bottom of their tank and lay there, unceremoniously. I believe it was at that point my parents said something about wasting my money, but this writer is proving that Sea Monkeys do exist, they do spring to life. WANT.

An article in HuffPo lays out two men living a mile away from each other, one white, one black, and how their lives came together and split back apart. It’s not what you might think, and it’s an excellent read about race and our assumptions about it. It makes the connection between two seemingly disparate worlds inhabited by D. Watkins and Daniel T. Hersl, one a published author and university professor, the other a convicted felon who robbed drug dealers to turn around and sell the drugs and confiscated guns. Take some time to read this one if you have it in you this week.

Wednesday Khristian and I went for a little meander through Gwynns Falls/Leakin Park. This is less of a link, I suppose, as it is an urge to go out and explore whatever is in your own backyard, especially if you are starting to get antsy and lean towards doing dumb stuff like going out to eat or not practicing social distancing. Pick up some carryout from your favorite spot and go have a picnic. Bonus of the Leakin Park meander? It was the site of my first date with Khristian almost 4 1/2 years ago, and it was a lovely way to connect to that time again. Plus, we had been making plans to drive waaay out of town to go hiking, but there are tons of trails through the park that we can explore. Tomorrow we will bring a picnic and relax in the sunshine, safely away from anyone else enjoying the park.

That’s it for me. I hope you are all steeling your resolve and keeping safe at home. The virus continues to get more complicated as time passes, and we are not even close to knowing when this will end.

What’s your best tool for coping? How are you doing?

Sunday Poem: To The “Bad” Mothers by Aaminah Shakur

Left to right: a dog I don’t remember, my mom, me, and my older brother sitting on the stone wall outside the house I grew up in, circa 1972 or 1973.

Let’s face it: Mother’s Day can be problematic. It posits an idyllic relationship where none (or a difficult one) might exist. It pits women against each other in subtle ways (childless? GASP. You must be selfish. Same goes for those women who only have one child. Women with many children are consuming too many resources. Breastfeeding? If you don’t you’re a failure. Disposable diapers are for wasteful mothers who don’t care about the environment. If you don’t make your own baby food you obviously don’t care. Go back to work. Stay home. Do both. Miscarriage? When will you try again? Don’t wait. Too late. And so on).

Here is to everything that is difficult, sacred, horrible, joyous, and beautiful about mothers. Here’s to lifting mothers up; here’s to letting women choose to not be mothers. Here’s to making peace with our mothers and their mothering; here’s to finding people who nurture us every day, mothers or no.

Finally, here’s to the bad mothers. Now, read that like Samuel L. Jackson said it. That’s what I mean.

To the “Bad” Mothers

To the “bad” mothers
Mothers who are told plenty often
all the ways they ruined
everyone’s lives
To the mamas
who kept their kids
worked double shifts
set boundaries
couldn’t buy name brands
didn’t get an X-box
to be told they are bitches
To the moms who had
their kids taken from them
maybe it was the best thing
maybe it was a racist system
set up against them
maybe they were taken away
by drugs or prison
but they tried, they really tried
and every day they think
of what they lost
and hope their child is
better off
To the mothers who gave up
sent their kids away
at birth or after they tried
their very best
either way worried they
would fuck their kids up
more than abandoning them would
who believed someone better
would pick up the pieces
and give everything they
could not
To the “evil” stepmothers
and adoptive mothers
and foster mothers
who will never be enough
because they aren’t
“real”
and can’t explain why the real ones
can’t be there instead
To all the bad mothers out there
who ruin lives
by trying to love
the only way they know how
who save lives without credit
by loving what others
couldn’t be bothered to try
who are just trying to live
themselves
who never get a Mother’s Day card
Today is your day too
every day you are still
a mother
and there are no
perfect mothers

The reflection. The mirror.

I keep coming back to the idea of being at home in the muddy water, this notion of being ok with uncertainty. Understanding that the most beautiful things come from the murk (people. lotus flowers. Sea monkeys.).

Today, though, I am struggling with the murky depths of my own self. That dark place that is hardest to peer into. The place that is fear-filled and hidden.

I have nothing to offer today. I am trying.