Creamy Lemon Popsicles

Week 482, and the tomatoes ripening, the corn arriving, the garden in full production, the heat in the kitchen. 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.

Sandra stepping back from group; Doris leads; peach pie for transition. 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 peach pie 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 peach pie was for Doris and the group, for the transition and the gratitude and the handing-over of something sweet when words aren’t enough—but for myself, in the Oceanside kitchen with the heat coming through the window and the afternoon still ahead of me, I wanted something cold and uncomplicated and bright. Lemon popsicles are what I make when I need the kitchen to be simple, when I need a task with a clear beginning and a clear end, when I need something that will be finished and whole and waiting in the freezer like a small, cold promise. This recipe is for those weeks when you have already done the hard thing and now you get to do the easy, good thing.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 0 minutes | Total Time: 4 hours 15 minutes (includes freezing) | Servings: 8 popsicles

Ingredients

2 cups full-fat Greek yogurt
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice (from about 3 large lemons)
1 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt

Instructions

Whisk the base. In a medium bowl, whisk together the Greek yogurt, heavy cream, and sugar until the sugar is fully dissolved, about 2 minutes.
Add lemon and flavorings. Stir in the fresh lemon juice, lemon zest, vanilla extract, and salt. Taste and adjust—add a little more sugar if you want it sweeter, or more lemon juice if you want more brightness.
Fill the molds. Pour the mixture evenly into 8 popsicle molds, leaving about 1/4 inch of space at the top to allow for expansion. Tap the molds gently on the counter to release any air bubbles.
Insert sticks and freeze. Place the popsicle sticks in the center of each mold. Transfer to the freezer and freeze until completely solid, at least 4 hours and preferably overnight.
Unmold. To release the popsicles, run warm water over the outside of the molds for 10—15 seconds, then gently pull the sticks to slide them free. Serve immediately or wrap individually in plastic wrap and store in the freezer for up to 2 weeks.

Nutrition (per serving)

Creamy Lemon Popsicles — Something Cool for the Week the Kitchen Carries You Through