Rosemary Limeade and The Forgotten Post

Being a host for The Heart of the Matter, or any event for that matter, is a lot of responsibility. There are things that hosts are supposed to do. Like be on top of things, get their own entries done and up, make a decent round-up. People are expecting good things from you!

But sometimes you forget. You get wrapped up in your own life and doing your own things and let yourself get busy. Sometimes you choose your recipe and make something lovely in the beginning of the month, so that you won't have to remember in the midst of all the rest of the things going on to come up with something spectacular. It's not that you don't love being a host, or love the adventure of cooking around a theme, it's just that sometimes, life is busy. You take your pictures, edit them, come up with ideas for what you'll post about it.

And you feel proud of yourself and proud that you've done your duty and can just get focused on getting the rest of the entries together and up on the web site for the round-up. You go through the rest of the month thinking things are going great and you did what you needed to do, and then the round-up comes and you're putting it all together and posting pictures and doing small write-ups about all of the lovely people that joined in and participated in your event, and then as you that very last entry up, you realize... you forgot to post your entry.

Oops. I made a refreshing Rosemary Limeade for this month's Heart of the Matter, centered around the theme of dishes with herbs as a main ingredient. I took my pictures, I thought up a post (but I've forgotten it now...it's a shame), and I put it away to do a bit later on in the month. I thought I had lots of time - a whole month is quite a bit of time, right? Not always. Sometimes time flies by and you don't even realize that things have passed. I'm teaching now and the first time you teach a course (Introductory Biology, in my case), it is always crazy and you are always only a day or two ahead of your students, writing your lectures, grading their homework. Bet you thought teachers always knew all about what they were teaching, eh? I'll let you in on a little secret: Not when they haven't taught it before (or taken it for over 10 years - I think I'm studying harder than most of my students!).

Well, friends, and fellow heart-healthy eaters - I'm going to try not to let that happen again! See you at the round-up next month, and hopefully once teaching slows down (it'll be over the middle of July), I'll be able to write posts about all the pictures and dishes I've been storing up - of course I'm still cooking, one has to eat!

This could also be made with a bit of mint, basil or lemon verbena perhaps instead of rosemary, but the rosemary gives it an earthy, almost extra vibrancy. The only change I made was to add more rosemary and decrease the simple syrup because the way the recipe was written there was quite a bit of extra syrup and I wasn't quite sure what to do with it but add it to iced tea since I didn't have any more limes! I'm going to try the limeade base with a bit of coconut juice next time to add a different flavor, as this is definitely going to be a mainstay at our house through the "dog" days of summer. Make a whole batch - I promise it won't last long!

Rosemary Limeade, makes 1 gallon
Altered slightly from the great cookbook, With a Measure of Grace (more on this cookbook and the amazing women who wrote it, soon)

4 cups simple syrup:
3 cups water
3 cups sugar
2 stems fresh rosemary

4 cups fresh lime juice
10 cups water

Make the simple syrup. Combine water and sugar in a sauce pan, and bring to a boil. Stir until the sugar dissolves, and then boil, undisturbed and uncovered for 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and add the rosemary stems. Cover, and let steep for 1 hour. Add 4 cups of the simple syrup to the lime juice and water, stir and serve over ice. Delicious!