10 best, and 10 worst, things about summer
BEST
1. Blackberries that don't taste like battery acid.
2. Daily popsicles, you know, for hydration.
3. Inviting friends to the beach, then eating their snacks.
4. Backyard barbecues, followed by s'mores around the firepit.
5. Cobbler, buckle, crisp, betty, veronica.
6. Lemonade, iced tea, Arnold Palmer.
7. Agreeing to accept your friend Liz's CSA share when she's in Europe, especially when the strawberries taste like candy (score) and she gets the optional flower subscription (double score).
8a. Tomatoes/gazpacho/salsa.
8b. Corn.
8c. Watermelon.
9. Realizing that ultrapasteurized cream, while less revered in certain culinary circles, actually lasts far beyond its expiry date, and makes perfectly good banana pudding when your son announces he wants banana pudding instead of cake for his birthday. Oh wait, that really has nothing to do with summer.
10. Getting to the farmers' market late and buying a huge flat of organic strawberries for $5.
WORST
1. Finding blackberry juice on your shirt.
2. Acknowledging that the popsicle molds you buy every year completely suck, even though every magazine and website extols the virtues of creatively-flavored "adult" and "gourmet" popsicles. If someone has found good popsicle molds, leave a link below with the manufacturer/details. If I buy them, but hate them, I'm sending you a bill. (No, I'm actually serious. I'm invoicing you.)
3. Inviting friends to the beach, and not bringing anything homemade because you don't think it's worth the effort, and then finding your friend Stacy made chocolate chip cookies and everyone just goes on and on about how great they are, and you're like, I totally should have made cookies, too, but instead all I brought were peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and tortilla chips, and no one's impressed in the least.
4. Gathering around the firepit after a backyard barbecue only to realize the only marshmallows you have in the house are mini ones. Who ate all the damn normal-sized marshmallows?
5. Waiting for the cobbler, buckle, betty, veronica to cool before digging in, losing patience, eating it anyway, and singeing the roof of your mouth with molten peach pulp.
6. Suffering a pounding iced-tea-withdrawal-headache 24 hours after a 5-glass bender.
7. Bringing home your friend Liz's CSA share only to discover you never ate the bok choy from last week, and the produce drawer is so full you can't jimmy it open anyway.
8a. Realizing that heirloom tomatoes are really expensive, but you can't resist them, so now you're poor.
8b. Realizing that the corn guy at the market is funny, but kind of arrogant and annoying.
8c. Realizing that watermelon is unbelievably good when it's good, and a horrorshow when it's mealy.
9. Discovering that if you forget to shake your expired ultrapasteurized cream before pouring it into your recipe, it's chunky. Also, the thick cream that sticks to the side of the carton smells kind of bad. Also, people will judge you for using ultrapasteurized cream, not to mention expired ultrapasteurized cream, and you could really do without all the negative judgments thank you very much. What did I ever do to you?
10. Getting to the farmers' market late, and finding that all that's left are spent corn husks, bruised cherries, squished apricots, and hot, man-handled plums. There are very few things that are worse than hot man-handled plums. Cold man-handled plums can possibly be forgiven, if you're feeling magnanimous, but not hot ones.
And that's just the way it is.
