Strawberry milk forever

good stuff

I gulped down Mimi Pond's delicious graphic novel like a big, cold glass of strawberry milk. Total joy. Read the comments on this blog and you'll glean excellent recommendations for everything from blitz torte recipes to graphic novels. Thank you, commenters.

Over Easy is the thinly-veiled account of Pond’s job at an Oakland, Calif., cafe circa 1978. She captures the fleeting pre-AIDS moment when the hippies were disappearing (“the whole mellow deal was becoming pretty annoying”) and punk revving up (“everyone, suddenly, was pissed off, as though all those years of being agreeable had been just too much.”) She recounts with affection and bemusement the antics and (abundant) romantic entanglements of her co-workers and customers, a group that included sexy waitresses, crabby cooks, chatty drug dealers, and a memorably sweet and soulful restaurant manager. The book is saucy and funny, but also poignant and wise. It takes maybe two hours to read and if you haven't guessed, I highly recommend it.

more good stuff

Gabrielle Hamilton’s strawberry milk is yet more evidence that Prune, for all its idiosyncrasy and bitchiness, was the best cookbook of 2014. This strawberry milk tastes like something a farmer's wife might pour for a rosy-cheeked child in a nursery rhyme. Clean, pure, delicate, sweet. Owen would have drunk the whole batch in two minutes flat if I’d let him. I know the recipe doesn't look like it will produce something magical, but it does. I hope you'll try it. 

Strawberry milk from Gabrielle Hamilton’s Prune

1 pound super-sweet strawberries

1/2 cup sugar 

3 cups milk

1 cup buttermilk

1. Slice the strawberries into a bowl, add sugar, and macerate for at least an hour until very syrupy. Don’t proceed until the berries have exuded lots of juice.
2. Add milks and refrigerate overnight.
3. Pour into glasses. Serve with a straw.