the heat is hot

It is punishingly hot.
85F/30C (that sounds so much pleasanter to unaccustomed ears: 30 degrees, if only)
60% humidity
heat index 91

Ow.

Clearly it's time for buckets of iced tea. Here's how my Mom made it, by the gallon, with a syrup. Never cloudy, always bright.

In a small saucepan,
2 cups (or so) tap water.
No real need to measure, but you want to avoid boiling over.
5 tea bags
(Plain old black tea from the grocery store -- Tetley, Red Rose,
Salada -- whatever's on sale in the 100-count box)
10 tablespoons sugar
(ah, those were the days, and even so, Dad added MORE sugar
to each glassful he drank )
Have ready:
1 lemon
1/2 lime
ICE and cold water
1-gallon vessel

Bring the tea and sugar mixture just to boiling. Stir while heating to be sure all the sugar dissolves. Turn off the heat, let cool on the burner (or not).
While the syrup is working, squeeze lemon and lime juice into the vessel. Fill halfway with cold water. Add the syrup, ice, and more water to make one gallon.
Mom used to make extra syrup and freeze or refrigerate it, so as not to be stirring hot stuff when it was punishingly hot. And so as not to run out.

I make a 2-quart version with 4 teabags, 3 packets of Equal, 1/2 a lemon and 1/2 a lime. I just boil the teabags and add everything else after. I also keep extra brew in the fridge, mostly so that it's already cold when needed.

We always dumped the rinds into the tea, the oil in the rinds adds flavor. Back in the day, we didn't wash the fruit first, but these days I do.

We didn't fuss with greenery, mint and such, or with bush or tree fruits, but feel free if you like that sort of thing. And fool with the ratio of tea and sweetening until you find the balance of strength and sweetness you like -- which, now that I think of it, is pretty good advice for much of life.

Boil and bubble. A note of appreciation

I haven't been tagged -- and I'm not complaining about that -- but I thought I'd share a not-so secret thing about me. I love soup.

I love soup so much that I have considered starting a take-out soup business. But I also know from experience that I am not as entrepreneurial as a business needs its founder to be, so instead I play with the idea of the thing, and have a good old vicarious time of it.

I credit Sally Nirenberg with launching this wholesome preoccupation. In 1990, Ms Nirenberg published Recipes from the Night Kitchen: A Practical Guide to Spectacular Soups, Stews, and Chilies which just may be the best book of recipes of any kind ever. (The Night Kitchen was the name of the wholesale soup business that she founded and ran in Massachusetts.) She makes having a soup business sound achievable and idyllic; and her recipes for the home cook are, in fact, Practical and Spectacular -- this is not hyperbolic press puffery. I've never met her, but I am profoundly grateful to her. I've never had a bad meal from her book, or a sour moment while pretending that maybe I could have a business like that too. Ongoing food for the body and the imagination is a good return from a $10 investment amortized over 18 years. The book is still available -- new and used -- so go get one.

Meanwhile as winter taps ever more vigorously at the panes, I thought that, from time to time, I might share some of the treasures from my travels in the realms of broths and report on the many goodly stocks and consommes seen. (apologies to Keats) To wit, my variation on Ms Nirenberg's Carrot-Fennel soup (she calls for fennel seeds; I thought "why not an actual fennel?").
1 tablespoon olive or canola oil
1 Spanish onion, coarsely chopped
1.5 to 2 lbs carrots, peeled and sliced
8 cups chicken or vegetable stock
(I use half stock, half water; all stock is too chickeny for me)
1 small fennel bulb. with or without the feathery bits, coarsely chopped
(or 1 teaspoon dried fennel seed, for all you originalists)

I don't use the oil. I just toss everything into a crock pot and let it cook on low for 6 (or so) hours, then run it through the food processor. I used to use a blender but the processor doesn't completely liquefy everything the way the blender does, so the soup has a nice, very slightly rough texture.

If you don't have a crock pot -- YOU DON'T HAVE A CROCK POT? HOW CAN YOU LIVE? -- then put the oil in a 3-quart pot and heat it gently. Add the onions and carrots (and chopped fennel, if using it) and cook, covered, over low heat until the vegetables are tender.
Add the stock and the fennel seeds (if using those -- one or the other, vegetable or seeds, not both) and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for about 20 minutes. Then run it all through a food processor or blender.

This yields about 2.5 to 3 quarts. It's also good cold in the summer. Which is one of the few good things about summer. In addition to my birthday, which is the only official holiday in August.