So when I announced that I was giving up caffeine for June the other day, my friend SW sent me a note, telling me that she was playing the world's tiniest violin for me.
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| And here it is... |
Okay. Maybe I deserve a little ribbing for my woe-is-me-I-want-caffeine 'tude. SW, like many of my friends, chose to give up caffeine during her first pregnancy and lived through 8-9 months of limited caffeine intake without any major whining. The idea of forgoing caffeine for that long truly makes me shudder and shake, so I realize that my month of going without caffeine is a relatively small sacrifice.
Still, when I caught the fragrant aroma of CW's coffee yesterday at breakfast, I felt this wave of melancholy wash over me as I thought nostalgically, Remember when you had a cup of coffee at breakfast too? And last night, at my monthly writing group meeting, when the host cracked out the Vosges chocolate bar, I was nearly overcome by the beauty of those rich, dark chocolate squares. Cue the tiny violin.
If I can put my chocolate and coffee coveting aside, I am actually faring rather well without the caffeine. Sunshine helps, and Seattle was blessedly sunny over the weekend. Today is more of a struggle, with blah overcast skies. It is almost 2 PM and I don't feel like I've really waken up yet, despite doing my AM yoga, doing my 10 daily hops, going for a run, showering, and working.
The sleepy-day situation is not helped any by the fact that it's pledge drive week on KEXP. (Give, y'all!) Pledge drive means less music, and rocking out sometimes helps me wake up. So I need some tunes, some really great wake-up tunes. I'm asking for your support: please send me fantastic, fun wake-up song suggestions for my Who Needs Caffeine? playlist.
Put your song suggestions below, or email them to me. Please do not send me song suggestions in the following categories: death metal, Katy Perry-style pop, anything with Auto Tune, or country. It isn't that I don't occasionally enjoy songs in those categories, but they're more likely to annoy me, and they just don't get my engine going first thing in the morning. I'm looking for happy, upbeat, feel-good songs, a la John in the Morning's Friday song selection, "Show Me" by Mint Royale:
Isn't that a happy upbeat song? I will post my compiled wake-up song list later this month, so you all can get your spunk on without the caffeine too!
Now that I've moaned about not consuming caffeine this month, let's talk about what I'm adding more of this month to my life. It's cold, it's sugary, it melts... Yup, I'm talking about Ice Cream.
My first notable frivolous purchase after my budget-focused May was this:
Now is an electric ice cream machine really, bought off of craigslist for $10 really a frivolous purchase? Given the fact that I already have a beautiful old-fashioned hand-crank ice cream maker with a robin's egg blue-painted tub, yes. Given the fact that said old-fashioned hand-crank ice cream maker won't turn right now, and getting it fixed will likely cost more than $10, maybe not.
So I ran out and nabbed this big, loud, electric baby to keep me in ice cream through the summer Friday morning and whipped up a batch of custard-style strawberry ginger ice cream for dinner that night. I referred to the ginger ice cream recipe in David Lebovitz's cookbook, The Perfect Scoop, which is much like this one from his website, except without white chocolate. Meanwhile I let the strawberries macerate in lime juice and sugar--I added those right before mixing the whole thing in the machine.
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| This is a "Day After" photo. Look how big that 4-quart can is! |
The results were DELISH.
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| This bowl was for breakfast on Saturday. |
My goal is to make ice cream every week this summer, when I'm not on vacation. After looking at Lebovitz's cookbook and website, here are a few flavors I'd like to try:
Dried Apricot-Pistachio Ice Cream
And the list goes on and on.
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