Strawberry Filled Macaroons

I know, I know, “Deb, what’s up with putting up a summery cocktail recipe a day after a blissfully long holiday weekend?” Ah, but I think you’re coming at this all wrong; this drink is, in actuality, three days early for next weekend.

Or, perhaps, 365 days late for the last time I waxed clumsily poetic about this drink, denied access to it for the duration of a summer pregnancy. It’s nothing short of summer in a glass. It tastes like lemonade. It tastes like iced tea. There are crisp cucumber slices and a splash of 7-Up (for some low-brow fizz, you know?) in a tall glass with ice cubes and if that has not convinced you — and seriously, how did that not convince you? — hopefully its name will.

It’s call a Porch Swing and they make it at a the St. Louis/Kansas City/Memphis/North Carolina/Texas-styled barbecue restaurant called Blue Smoke. Back in the days when I used to work nearby and was not up at the crack of dawn and nodding off by 9:30 p.m. daily, sometimes we’d drop by on a weekday night just because we could and I’d order the iceberg wedge and a pulled pork sandwich and one of these. We’d sit back and imagine wrap-around porches with creaky old swings and overgrown lawns and hot weather that was somehow more bearable because it was chased by a breeze. I sort of can’t get over how lazy our lives were back then and I won’t lie, I miss it terribly some days. Just maybe not yesterday, a day which began with me cracking up over my husband completing his third Rescue Mission of the day as this tiny human that has been assigned to us had slid himself under a piece of furniture and gotten his 95th percentile head stuck again and ended with a heat wave-canceling Porch Swing reunion. It had been way too long.

Smitten Kitchen

This is one of my favorite blogs. She posts the most amazing recipes, combined with an extreme likliness that is makes eaach new post glimmer with adorning sugar so sweet that you could eat it. Don't believe me? Look at this post. She made rainbow cookies! Yes, it's so cute it's ridiculous.

"When your hobbies get in the way of your work - that's OK; but when your hobbies get in the way of themselves... well..."