By Mid-July. The week after the birthday. The land is in full midsummer. The corn is silking. The tomatoes are bursting. The peppers are heavy. The squash is more squash than two people can eat, which means I drive squash to neighbors most days. Three families up the road have my squash this week. I delivered to Linda Walkingstick at the cultural center two yellow squash and three zucchini. She said: you don't have to do this. I said: I have too much. She said: you say that every July. I said: I have too much every July. She laughed.
Tuesday I drove Hannah to Tulsa for a workshop she was leading. We ate at a barbecue place after — a chain place, nothing special, but the brisket was decent and the sweet tea was cold. We sat in the booth with the air conditioning blasting, both of us hot from the morning, and Hannah said: I'm happy. I said: yes. She said: I want to remember this. The chain barbecue. The plastic booth. I said: yes. She said: not the wedding. Not the cookouts. This. I said: yes. The unremarkable middle hours of a marriage are where the marriage actually lives. The big days are postcards. The Tuesday afternoon barbecue is the country.
The cohort fall registration came in. Eleven applications for eight slots. I went over them with Linda this week. We took eight. Two women, six men, ages twenty to fifty-eight. The fifty-eight-year-old is a woman who said in her application that she'd been wanting to learn welding for forty years and had finally given herself permission. I said: she's in. Linda said: I knew you'd say that. I said: she's in.
Caleb and Miriam Saturday. Miriam brought a watermelon she'd salted with chile-lime salt — a thing she'd learned from a Mexican friend in Stilwell — and which was the best watermelon I've had this summer. Caleb watched her present the watermelon to me and his face was again the face of a man who is happy. I asked him on the porch later: how are you. He said: I am very good. I said: that's the right answer. He said: I want to ask her to live with me. I said: when. He said: not yet. Maybe at the end of the year. I said: that's good. He said: I'm being careful. I said: be careful. He said: I am.
Miriam’s watermelon with the chile-lime salt stayed with me all week — that combination of cold, bright lime heat, and sweetness felt like the whole of midsummer in one bite. I wanted to hold onto that feeling a little longer, and this fast lime sherbet is the closest I could get in my own kitchen. It’s quick, it’s cold, and it has that same sharp lime edge that made Miriam’s watermelon the best thing I ate all July.
Fast Lime Sherbet
Prep Time: 10 min | Cook Time: 0 min | Total Time: 2 hrs 10 min (includes freezing) | Servings: 6
Ingredients
- 2 cups whole milk
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup fresh lime juice (about 4–5 limes)
- 1 tablespoon lime zest
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Dissolve the sugar. In a medium bowl, whisk together the milk and granulated sugar until the sugar is fully dissolved, about 2 minutes.
- Add the lime. Stir in the lime juice, lime zest, and salt. The mixture may look slightly curdled — this is normal and will smooth out.
- Add cream and vanilla. Stir in the heavy cream and vanilla extract until fully combined.
- Freeze. Pour the mixture into a shallow freezer-safe dish or a standard loaf pan. Freeze for 1 hour, then stir vigorously with a fork, breaking up any ice crystals forming at the edges. Return to freezer.
- Second stir. After another 45 minutes, stir again. The texture should be slushy and thick. Freeze one final time until firm but scoopable, about 30 more minutes.
- Serve. Scoop into bowls or cones. Optionally finish with a small pinch of chile-lime salt on top to echo the watermelon.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 210 | Protein: 3g | Fat: 8g | Carbs: 34g | Fiber: 0g | Sodium: 95mg