My Word!

Thankfully, the building that the festival was in did NOT flood (how it managed to stay dry given the photos of Franklin shown on CNN last night is a mystery to me), so my goods and everyone else's were fine. A kind neighbor-vendor brought my jewelry back to me today (after he spent hours yesterday trying to find a non-flooded route from Johnson County to Bloomington), but I still have to return to fetch my canopy once the flooding is done with. But today I can relax a bit.

The several varieties of mint I orderd a while ago arrived at long last, and now I have only to find decent places to put them all! I got: banana mint (actually smells much more like banana than I had expected), mojito mint (from Cuba!), Kentucky Col. mint (super-spearminty), Hillary's sweet lemon mint (a lemon mint-apple mint hybrid that I find much more pleasant than plain lemon mint), pineapple mint (a pretty white and green variegated plant with soft leaves), and wintergreen mint (guess what that one smells like?). Add that to my chocolate mint, peppermint, marshmallow mint, berries n cream mint, and apple mint, and what you have is someone who is going to be drinking a lot of mint tea this year. And also having lots of juleps, mojitos, minted lemonade, minty fruit salad, mint ice cream, mint sorbet, and probably lots of leftover dried mint to give as presents. I have this thing with variations on themes, and when an herb I like has multiple hybrids, I go a bit crazy. And if my yard becomes overgrown with mint (as it surely will, as I am a madwoman who has recklessly planted it directly in the ground), well. There are worse things to have happen.

My favorite thing to do with mint (or lemon balm, for that matter) is to make a mint-infused simple syrup. Take equal parts suger, water, and mint springs, snip up the mint, mix it in a little pan, and bring the whole thing to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Once it's boiled, turn off the heat and let it sit there in the pan for a bit. Then strain out the greens, and use it in iced tea, over fresh berries, in mixed drinks, etc. etc. YUM.