House Spouse

Dudes! I didn’t even make it half way through my month of daily blogging! But, I have an excuse. A good one, I think.

So, at the very end of January, after three weekends in a row of out-of-state weddings, I decided to try Bikram Yoga. Yup, the crazy intense brand (and it really is a brand, from what I can gather). Ninety minutes of hot hot hot yoga. While I was totally nervous for the entire day before class, once it was over I felt great. I went to dinner that night with some friends and extolled all the virtues of the practice of Bikram. Seriously, it was the most energized and relaxed and happy I’d felt in, maybe forever. (It’s a tricky, nearly impossible feat for me to both chill out and revitalize.)

That sense of well-being was so sweet I forget all about the pull and snap I felt in the area between my neck and right shoulder during one of the poses toward the end of the class. I even went back to another class and didn’t remember hurting myself when that week at work, that same area begin to ache and burn. Like most people, I use my right hand to control my mouse. I figured it was a posture problem or an issue with my desk set up, nothing a good massage couldn’t fix. So I emailed a massage therapist friend. She was busy. So, I did something completely unMeghan-like: I ignored it. See, I like what I do at my job, and I need to be at work to do my job. I feared taking care of it would get in the way of this.

The pain came and went, with the periods of no pain getting shorter and shorter. When I started that monthlong challenge, it started hurting constantly. So by day 13, the last thing I wanted to do was get on the computer after being on the computer at work all day. I wanted to rest it. I also finally called the doctor and got an assessment and prescription for physical therapy. The diagnosis was vague: I probably did something (tore, strained, pulled…we don’t really know) to my levator scapulae. The prescription: a month of physical therapy.

Well, that sort of helped. But not entirely, because the pain kicked in again last week and then, while stretching in the morning last weekend (not like yoga stretching, but arms over the head with a yawn to take in the day stretching), I felt that pull again. No snap this time, just a pull. Then pain. I quickly laid back down and iced it. And that’s what I’ve been doing every night after work. I pope Motrin to get me through the day and I come home and apply ice. Life is awesome.

So that’s the sob story and excuse for my absence. I am not really sure what to do next. I’ve got excuses for why I don’t want to go back to physical therapy or the doctor, but I’d really rather write about pretty much the only thing I’ve been making this summer: sorbet.

If you don’t have David Lebovitz’s book The Perfect Scoop, you should probably go get it. I like to get creative with my ice cream and sorbet making rather than follow recipes, but this book is truly inspirational. He really covers all the basics but also includes recipes for sweet concoctions like orange-szechwan pepper ice cream. I’d actually not seen that one until just now, when I flipped through the book for a good example to share. I think I just found another weekend project to add to my already too ambitious list.

Anyway, we also have CSA box delivered to us every Tuesday this summer. I’ve just been using the produce from the box plus whatever else has ended up in my kitchen. I’ve made strawberry rhubarb sour cream ice cream, blueberry sour cream ice cream, rhubarb ginger sorbet, strawberry rhubarb sorbet, and blueberry lime sorbet. I haven’t managed to set aside any of the rasberries, cherries, or blackberries we’ve been getting. They usually end up snacked on or tossed into my morning oatmeal.

Since blueberries are in season (and limes are 15 for $1 at the market around the corner), I’m going to share the recipe for blueberry lime sorbet. The rhubarb ginger has been my favorite, but I’m saving that recipe for next spring.

Blueberry Lime Sorbet
Makes approx. 1 quart

Ingredients:
3/4 cup lime juice (from 5-10 limes)
3/4 to 1 cup sugar
1/4 cup light agave nectar (if you can’t find this, you could also use light corn syrup)
2 cups blueberries
1 3/4 cups water
zest of 2 limes

Stir the lime juice, sugar, and water together until the sugar is completely dissolved. Pour into a blender and add the rest of the ingredients. Puree until smooth. Chill for at least one hour.

If you’re so inclined, you can strain the mixture through a sieve to get the blueberry seeds and skins out. I don’t do this because it’s annoying to me. I also don’t mind the texture.

Freeze according to your ice cream maker’s instructions. If you don’t have an ice cream maker, this would be good as a granita. Just poor into a baking dish and put it in the freezer. Check on it after a half hour. If it’s starting to freeze, scrape a fork through it. Return every 15 minutes to do the same thing.

Store in a quart mason jar in the freezer.

A quick note about these photos: obviously, that’s not blueberry lime sorbet. It’s strawberry rhubarb and rhubarb ginger. See, in addition to not blogging, I’ve been pretty lazy about taking photos. I snapped the top one with my iPhone (the cause of said laziness). Andrew must have been motivated to shoot that second one.