By Emma found out the sex of the baby this week: a girl. She called me Thursday evening and said, "Dad, you're having a granddaughter." I sat down on the back porch steps and looked at the smoker and the sky and the yard where my kids grew up and I said, "A girl." She said, "A girl." I said, "Does she have a name yet?" Emma said, "We're thinking about it." I said, "Think hard. She has to live with it." Emma said, "You named me Emma." I said, "And you turned out fine, didn't you?" She hung up on me. But lovingly.
I have opinions about granddaughter names but I will keep them to myself because this is not my decision and I am a man who has learned — slowly, painfully, over many years — that not everything requires my input. I will love this child regardless of what they name her. I will teach her to season a brisket and roll a spring roll and cast a fishing line. I will teach her everything I know and everything Mai taught me and everything Mr. Clarence taught me. She will be the next link in a chain that started in Saigon and passed through a refugee camp and a shrimp boat and a smoker in Alief, Texas. She doesn't know it yet. But she's already part of the story.
Tyler called from Midland Saturday. Kitchen renovation is coming along — cabinets are in, countertops being measured. He sent photos. It looks good. The island I designed on a napkin is real now, granite-topped, with the sink under the window like I drew. Tyler said, "Dad, the kitchen looks like a real kitchen." I said, "It is a real kitchen." He said, "You know what I mean." I do. It looks like a kitchen someone designed, not a kitchen that happened by accident. I'll take that as professional validation.
Made a Vietnamese-Cajun crawfish boil this weekend. Houston is in the middle of crawfish season and the Vietnamese-Cajun fusion that Houston invented is my favorite food trend of the last twenty years. The technique: standard crawfish boil — salt, cayenne, mustard seed, corn, potatoes — but you dump the boiled crawfish into a sauce of garlic butter, lemongrass, and a splash of fish sauce. The butter-lemongrass-fish sauce combination on hot crawfish is so good it should be illegal. It probably is, somewhere. Not in Houston.
After you’ve dumped the crawfish into that garlic butter lemongrass sauce and the whole backyard smells like something genuinely wonderful, you need a drink in your hand — and not just any drink. A mojito made sense to me that evening: the lime cuts right through the richness of the butter, the mint echoes the lemongrass in a way that feels almost intentional, and it’s cold, which matters in Houston in crawfish season. I made a pitcher. It felt like the right way to sit on the back porch, think about a granddaughter I haven’t met yet, and let the evening be exactly what it was.
Classic Mojito
Prep Time: 5 minutes | Cook Time: 0 minutes | Total Time: 5 minutes | Servings: 1
Ingredients
- 2 oz white rum
- 1 oz fresh lime juice (about 1 large lime)
- 3/4 oz simple syrup (or 2 teaspoons granulated sugar)
- 10–12 fresh mint leaves, plus a sprig for garnish
- 2 oz club soda, chilled
- 1 cup crushed ice
- 1 lime wheel or wedge, for garnish
Instructions
- Muddle the mint. Place the mint leaves and simple syrup (or sugar) in the bottom of a sturdy highball glass. Press and twist gently with a muddler or the back of a wooden spoon — just enough to release the oils. Do not pulverize; bruised mint is fragrant, shredded mint is bitter.
- Add lime and rum. Pour in the fresh lime juice and white rum. Stir briefly to combine with the mint and syrup.
- Pack with ice. Fill the glass to the top with crushed ice. Crushed ice chills faster and dilutes more slowly than cubed — it’s worth it here.
- Top with club soda. Pour the chilled club soda over the ice. Use a bar spoon to give the drink one gentle lift from the bottom to distribute the mint without flattening the bubbles.
- Garnish and serve. Tuck a fresh mint sprig and a lime wheel into the glass. Serve immediately, ideally on a back porch, ideally next to a pile of crawfish.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 185 | Protein: 0g | Fat: 0g | Carbs: 16g | Fiber: 0g | Sodium: 12mg