Apple and Ginger Infused Water

Week 496, and the apples arriving, the squash at the farm stand, the light turning golden, the kitchen shifting to soups and stews. I am 68 years old and the days have a rhythm now — the morning writing, the afternoon visits to Cedarhurst, the evening cooking, the weekly blog post — and the rhythm is the structure, and the structure is the sanity, and the sanity is required because the rest of it, the losing and the loving and the carrying, requires a sane woman at the helm, and I am sane, mostly, except when I cry in the car in the Cedarhurst parking lot, which is not insanity but its opposite: the specific, targeted release of emotion in a contained space, which is the most rational thing I do all week.

Second book discussed with Sarah; considering; blog about what comes next. These are the facts of the week, the data points, the things I would put in a report if I were writing a report, which I am not — I am writing a life, and the life includes the facts but is not limited to them, because the life also includes the way the kitchen smells at six in the morning when the coffee is brewing and the challah is rising and the house is quiet and the quiet is both the grief and the peace, simultaneously, and the simultaneous is the condition, the permanent condition of a woman who is 68 and alone and not alone, who is a grandmother and a wife and a writer and a cook and a caregiver and all of these things at once, always at once, braided together like the challah.

I made chicken soup this week — because it was what the week needed, because the week always needs something and the something is always food, and the food is always the answer, and the answer is always the kitchen, and the kitchen is always mine, and the mine-ness of the kitchen is the one thing that has not changed in sixty-seven years of living, from Sylvia's kitchen on the Grand Concourse to this kitchen in Oceanside where I stand every morning and every evening and many of the hours in between, making the food that is the chain, that is the love, that is the thing I do when I don't know what else to do, which is always, and especially now.

I brought food to Marvin at the usual time. The visit was what visits are now — quiet, steady, the feeding by hand when necessary, the reading aloud always, the holding of the hand that may or may not know it is being held but that is warm and alive and present, which is the definition of love in this particular year: warm and alive and present. He ate what I brought. He received what I gave. The receiving is the relationship. The receiving is the vow. In sickness and in health, in recognition and in forgetting, in the recliner and in the kitchen, the receiving is the marriage, and the marriage continues, one container at a time, one visit at a time, one day at a time, at two o'clock, every day, because the chain does not break.

The chicken soup was the centerpiece this week — it always is — but it was this apple and ginger infused water that I kept coming back to, glass after glass, all week long, because the apples are arriving and the ginger is warming and sometimes the body needs something that is not a meal but is still nourishment, still intention, still the act of saying: I am tending to myself, too. I started keeping a pitcher of it in the refrigerator on Tuesday and by Friday it felt like part of the rhythm, the same way the soup did and the challah did, and the rhythm is the thing, always the rhythm.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 0 minutes | Total Time: 10 minutes + 2 hours chilling | Servings: 6

Ingredients

1 medium apple (such as Fuji or Honeycrisp), cored and thinly sliced
1 (2-inch) piece fresh ginger, peeled and thinly sliced
8 cups cold filtered water
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice (optional, to brighten flavor)
Ice cubes, for serving
Fresh mint sprigs, for garnish (optional)

Instructions

Prep the fruit and ginger. Core and thinly slice the apple — no need to peel it; the skin adds color and mild tannin. Peel and thinly slice the ginger. Thinner slices release more flavor.
Combine in a pitcher. Place the apple slices and ginger slices into a large pitcher or glass jar. Add the lemon juice if using.
Add water. Pour the cold filtered water over the fruit and ginger. Stir gently to distribute.
Chill and infuse. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or up to overnight. The longer it sits, the more pronounced the ginger warmth will become.
Serve. Pour over ice and garnish with a fresh mint sprig if desired. Refill the pitcher with water once; the second infusion will be lighter but still pleasant.

Nutrition (per serving)

Apple and Ginger Infused Water — The Kitchen That Has Always Been Mine