Frozen Margaritas

February gray. The week before Mardi Gras. The whole city is preparing. Anatomy lab three days this week. The cadaver work is what they say it is. I am holding up.

Drove to Baker Saturday morning. MawMaw Shirley was at the stove already. We made gumbo. Thirty-five minutes of roux. The lesson keeps unfolding. Kayla showed me a graphic design project Tuesday. She's at BRCC. The art is hers.

Crawfish étouffée Sunday. Crawfish from the boil. MawMaw's recipe. Dark roux. Rice underneath.

Sat on the porch with iced tea. The Louisiana evening.

The apartment kitchen is small but it cooks. Two burners. One pot. A cutting board balanced on the counter because the counter is too small for both the cutting board and the toaster.

Daddy sent me an Amazon receipt accidentally Sunday. He bought a power tool I do not understand. Standard. He texted twenty minutes later, "wrong thread, sorry baby." I told him don't worry about it. He said thank you. The exchange was the exchange.

Driving past the Scotlandville house Sunday afternoon, the one Daddy rebuilt after the flood. The house is solid. The house is the house. I see the watermark from the flood every time I look at the foundation. We do not paint over it. We let it tell the story.

Tanya's tomatoes were in this week. She brought a sack. I made a sandwich for lunch every day for four days. Heirloom tomato, white bread, mayo, salt. The summer lunch. The simplest pleasure of summer.

Tanya brought a casserole over Wednesday. The Tanya casserole. Half went into the freezer. The other half fed me Wednesday and Thursday. Mama's casseroles are the silent backup of my entire adult life.

Reading something light at night. A novel by a Louisiana writer. The voice was familiar. The voice was home. The book ended on a small kindness. I appreciated that.

I sent MawMaw a photo of my gumbo Tuesday. She replied, "too light, baby, keep stirring." She has not changed the critique in twelve years. The critique is the love.

Crawfish boil at a friend's place Saturday. Twenty-five pounds. The shells filled three trash bags. Standard Louisiana spring. We sat at the picnic table for four hours. The corn was the best of the boil. The corn always is.

I drove past the gas station where DeAndre died. I do not stop. I do not avoid it either. The drive past is the drive past. He is twenty-eight in my head. He stays twenty-eight.

Daddy called Sunday afternoon. He is sixty-something and his knees are still bad and he still has not gotten the second one replaced. I am working on him. He is working on me to stop working on him. We are at an impasse. The impasse is the love.

I went to the gym Tuesday and Thursday this week. Twenty minutes on the treadmill. Standard. The body is the only equipment I have for the rest of my life and I am trying to maintain it.

Friday night Darius and I watched a movie I have already forgotten. We fell asleep on the couch by ten. The dog (we got a dog last year, did I mention) slept between us. Standard.

Anatomy lab three days this week. The cadaver work is what they say it is — not gross, not romantic, just human. I went home after Friday lab and made gumbo because the only thing that quiets the body after a day in the lab is the slow stir of a roux.

DeAndre's birthday came around again. I made his favorite — andouille and chicken in brown gravy. I ate two bowls. I called Aunt Renee. We did not say much. We did not need to. The food was the saying.

Twenty-five pounds of crawfish, three trash bags of shells, four hours at a picnic table — that Saturday called for something cold in a cup that wasn’t just iced tea. MawMaw’s porch has the tea covered, but a crawfish boil with friends in Louisiana spring has its own drink, and this frozen margarita is the one I keep coming back to. Simple enough to blend in a small apartment kitchen, strong enough to sit with the weight of a full week, and festive enough to honor what that afternoon actually was: the best kind of ordinary.

Prep Time: 5 min | Cook Time: 0 min | Total Time: 5 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

6 oz silver tequila
3 oz triple sec or Cointreau
4 oz fresh lime juice (about 4 limes)
2 oz simple syrup (adjust to taste)
3 cups ice
Kosher salt or coarse sugar, for rimming glasses
Lime wedges, for garnish

Instructions

Rim the glasses. Run a lime wedge around the rim of each glass, then dip into a shallow plate of kosher salt or coarse sugar. Set aside.
Combine ingredients. Add the tequila, triple sec, lime juice, simple syrup, and ice to a blender.
Blend. Blend on high until smooth and slushy, about 30–45 seconds. If the mixture is too thick, add a splash of water and blend again. If too thin, add a few more ice cubes.
Taste and adjust. Sample the margarita and add more simple syrup for sweetness or more lime juice for tartness, then give it one final blend.
Serve immediately. Pour into the prepared glasses and garnish each with a lime wedge. Drink cold, outside if you can manage it.

Nutrition (per serving)

Frozen Margaritas — The Crawfish Boil Toast We Never Skip