One recipe: mixology (virgin), the other: a recipe for relaxation.

A few months ago, Hanne made a huge quantity of greek style candied orange peels.

I keep forgetting that it’s there, even though it’s in this huge 2 quart glass jar.

Anyway, apropos of my enduring love for blackcurrants, Hanne’s also been occasionally getting me jars of “Just Black Currant” juice.  And while I love the taste, pure unsweetened black currant juice is really fantastically tart. Sometimes I like it just diluted with water but other times I like to sweeten it. One nice thing about citrus and black currants is that they love each other. By which I mean the combination can be glorious.

So today I’m working on my second quart (a quart-size ball jar is the right size when I’m really thirsty AND there’s measuring ticks on the side of the jar, convenient!) of a combination of black currant juice, greek style candied orange peels and syrup, water and ice.

In a quart ball jar I like:

• 4 oz of Just Black Currant juice (room temperature or colder)
• 2 – 4 oz Greek candied orange peels (room temperature or colder)
• add water to fill the jar 3/4 full
• stir now, not when you add the ice
• enough ice to bring the drink up to 1/2″ under the brim of the jar

If you’re feeling snacky when you’re done with the drink part, use a pair of chopsticks to pick the leftover peels out of the jar.

I forgot to mention something I never really think to articulate. Dad just taught this to me as a matter of course as a chemist and I learned it too, but I don’t know if non-chemists think about this a lot. Miscible liquids (like sugar syrup and black currant juice) mix better if they’re warmer. So mixing liquids at room temperature is going to work better and go more quickly than mixing liquids that are cold. This is why I suggest adding ice after mixing. They also mix better with vigorous mixing. So get a chopstick in there and really mix it around with the syrup and the blackcurrant.

If you wait to add ice after you get everything mixed the ice will stay in cubes longer because mixing ice causes it to melt faster. Some of that is that it is exposed to more of your drink, but also mechanical mixing contributes to ice melt.

If you end up using just dry sugar instead of a syrup, keep in mind that you’ll be best off dissolving the sugar in some warm water first (thus making a syrup) and then in the juice. It shouldn’t take a lot of warm water and if you have plenty of ice cubes, you’ll have a cold enough drink in no time.

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The other recipe is one of self-indulgence. Now, I know most of you reading my journal are femmes and I know I’m known to be very femme friendly, very kind and gentle and supportive. This doesn’t necessarily mean that I know a lot of femme lore and sometimes when I let myself go, it takes a good femme like Hanne to remind me to take care of myself. Today I remarked that my skin in between my toes and on my ankles was getting a little ashy.

Hanne told me to do this:

• Sit in a clean tub with bare feet (you can wear clothes – like a kilt – as long as you sit on the rim)
• Rinse feet or clean them with warm water
• Scrub feet thoroughly with Scintillating Smooch! exfoliant, focusing on the dry and ashy areas
• Rinse feet again with warm water
• Get out of tub and gently dry your feet
• Once feet are mostly dry, use Scintillating Whipped! moisturizer/lotion. Let the lotion sink in (maybe have a nice conversation with your sweetie)
• Finish up by putting on a pair of clean, dry socks
• NOTE: Also clean the tub when you’re done. Give it a good rinsing with good hot water to rinse out the oils in the Smooch! scrub.

Now seriously, butches and men who may be reading this, LISTEN to your femme who tells you to do this sort of thing. She knows what she’s talking about. Your toes will thank you for it.

Incidentally, Hanne says that she’s really happy with the cost and quality of the Villainess product line. It’s cool to find a good quality, cruelty-free, relatively inexpensive personal care line for these kinds of products, I think.