Not Summer Funtime Drink, but still PDG

My mom might be the only person who remembers how I used to make mint lemonade out of the gold Better Homes and Cookbook binder over and over every summer. I think I was really into growing mint for a while as a kid. It's really not good for much more than making drinks, is it? Anyway, I found a recipe that was the same or similar and made it this Fourth of July weekend and it made me nostalgic and happy, even though I used lime instead of orange and Pellegrino instead of ice. 

Mint Lemonade

2 cups sugar
2 1/2 cups water
Grated peel of 1 orange
Juice of 2 oranges
Juice of 6 lemons
1 cup mint leaves

Cook sugar and water to make a simple syrup. Cool. Add fruit peel and juices. Pour over mint leaves, cover, and let stand 1 hour. Strain into a pitcher. Serve 1/3 cup syrup in each glass with your preferred combination of ice and water.

Happy Fourth of July!

convincing all to love Independence Day

will not make it on a cupcake next year

Collect them all!

The same part of me that likes picking up prayer cards in Catholic churches, having baseball cards in my closet, and sorting stamps on coffee tables is sort of thrilled by the most recent campaign strategy the local PPD. What better way to get the whole populus involved in the elections? Right now some local kid is wondering whether his Falconi was really worth two Mother Teresas and a Pikachu or if nonna ripped him off. He'd totally be voting if he could.

Euro 2008 - Thanks anyway

This makes we wonder, is it really called the "Mexican wave"? And why do I just know it as "the wave"? Am I Mexican? 

Secret allegiance to the flag

Many Germans, it is safe to say, have a bit of a complex when it comes to patriotism. It seems they have a real or imparted instinct to self-censor any feelings of pride for country, to carefully exercise emotional restraint. International sports competitions, therefore, are a welcome relief, a time when it is okay to put out flags, wish for victory, have some pride. At a viewing of the Germany-Spain game on Sunday night, this pride was cheerfully on display. Even those without jerseys or flags managed to find something that approximated some combination or red, gold, and black.

As we walked around the beer garden, my observations about German patriotism soon became observations about US patriotism, which, shortly after that, became observations about myself: the inevitable progression. I'm not sure, but I think that most Americans would still have a special response to these flag uses (or abuses, as I teased my German friends). I myself am not a particularly patriotic person, but I found myself obsessively chronicling flag etiquette violations like some freak patriot.

For many Americans the flag is a sacred symbol in the religion of patriotism. I'm not really sure what this piece of fabric means to me – patriotism is certainly not my religion – but I have the same ambivalent feelings about it that I do about using proper grammar and wearing formal clothing – that somehow it is both silly and important, outdated and useful, ingrained in me and a choice. (ahh... Germans are not the only ones with a complex.)

As I realized during a conversation with friends about taxes and healthcare this spring, we cannot really live modern, integrated lives outside of a country; wherever we are, we are stuck behind a border, a flag above us. For better or worse. So the question is: Do you have a flag?