the glob

Last year, TG made some mindbendingly good ice cream by combining the recipe for vanilla with 2 pints of hand-picked raspberries from a batch of plants that we have growing in several places in our yard. Somehow, we managed to get both raspberries of the red and black variety, and the combination of the two plus ice cream makes for something quite delightful.

It’s currently harvesting season, so for the past week or so, one of my nightly chores has been to take the little plastic container down out of the freezer and add whatever ripe berries I can to our ever-growing stash. Judging by the rate at which they’re ripening, we should have more than enough to do up a batch of ice cream in the next 2 weeks. I have a weakness for certain flavors of store-bought stuff, but let me tell you that nothing comes close to the three batches (Meyer lemon, raspberry, and mango sorbet) we’ve made for ourselves in the past year since we bought our ice cream maker new in the box at a yard sale for 5 dollars.

As a young bachelor fresh out of college, I lived on a meager ration of burritos, chili, and random other things that were easy to fix. There were lots of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and raw vegetables, which were all pretty good for me but not very adventurous (eating Chinese food was considered going out on a limb).

Eventually, I met some friends who liked some different food, and they got me interested in different things like Indian food, etc. Then, I met my wife and she introduced me to the joys of even more great food, including Thai and Greek (real Greek, not just gyros). For our first Valentine’s Day together, we ate at an Ethiopian place and it felt like I had discovered some new, insanely exciting realm of food that I didn’t even know had existed before.

At any rate, along the way I discovered that sushi was really indeed quite good, despite nearly a lifetime of people wrinkling their noses and exclaiming “raw fish!” whenever the word was mentioned. Other than Ethiopian food (of which there are no local restaurants), sushi has become my single favorite food to eat. TG and I try to get out and eat it once every couple months if we can afford it, and usually end up gorging ourselves a bit silly on it, coupling the meal with a Sapporo or two, some blasts of wasabi and slivers of pickled ginger for good measure. Oh my, I’m drooling just thinking about it.

So yeah, the plan is for sushi this weekend in celebration of my friend Ryan’s birthday (happy birthday, yo!). Sushi will be purchased, Sapporo’s will be imbibed, and I will go home with a bulging belly and a smile on my face. I can’t wait.