Hot Spiced Green Tea —rsquo; The Cup at the End of a Long Cold Week

Cold week. Ten below at six in the morning Tuesday. Wind from the north strong enough to push a bullet sideways. The cattle in tight against the windbreak, all facing south, ice in their whiskers. The trough froze at the surface in eight hours. I broke it twice a day, and at lunch, and once at midnight when I went out to check and the wind was knocking pieces of metal against the calf shed and the cold was the kind that gets into your wrists between the cuff of the glove and the cuff of the coat and stays there for an hour after you come inside. Real cold. The kind that makes the trough cracking sound like a gunshot in the dark.

Patrick had two falls this week. Both in the house. Both not bad — he caught himself on furniture, no break, no head — but both within five days. The medication is shifting. Mom called the neurologist Wednesday and we are going up Tuesday next week to adjust the dose. The trajectory is what it is. The falls are the first sign. The wheelchair is six months out, maybe a year, maybe two, but the wheelchair is in the house's future and that is a fact I am sitting with this week. I do not let Mom see me sitting with it. Mom is sitting with it too. We are sitting with it separately and together. The household is a quiet household this week.

The Mountain West Award ceremony is in Boise three weeks from Saturday. February seventh. Tara is due February ninth. The math is what it is. Sarah at the press has reassured me that I do not have to be there, that they will accept the award on my behalf if I am not there, that Boise will understand. Mom said, Go. You have earned it. I said, What if Tara goes early. Mom said, First babies are not early. I said, Sometimes they are. Mom said, Yes. Sometimes. We will manage. Cole and Tara said the same thing. Go. Be there. We will hold the baby for you. I am going. I am going to fly out Friday morning, attend the ceremony Friday night, fly back Saturday morning. Twenty-four hours. I will be in Bozeman by Saturday afternoon if Tara goes early, which she will not, but if she does, I will be there. I will fly. I do not love flying. I will fly. The award is not the point. The being there is the point. The press has worked hard. Sarah deserves to have me in the room.

I shod two horses Friday in fifteen-degree weather with a wind. The work was hard. The horses were patient. The clients tipped me. The clients always tip me in cold weather. I drove home in the dusk and Mom met me at the door with a bowl of soup and a sandwich and made me eat at the kitchen table before I took off my coat, the way she has done since I was eight and would come in from chores half-frozen. Some habits do not change. Some mothers do not stop being mothers. I am thirty and I am still being fed at the kitchen table by my mother in my coat. I am grateful for it. I am noticing it. I am sitting with the fact that there are not infinite years of this kind of meal.

Cooked Sunday a beef chuck pot roast. Three pounds. Three hours in the Dutch oven with carrots and parsnips and onions and broth and rosemary and a sprig of thyme. The kind of meal that warms a kitchen for an afternoon and that warms three people through the night. Patrick had two helpings. Mom had two. I had two. There were leftovers for the week. Saturday cookout was nine men. Marcus made one hundred fifteen days. We had stew. The fire was banked against the wind. The men sat close. We did not stay late — the cold drove us in by ten — but we were there for three hours and we ate and the talk was good. Tom Whelan said, on his way out, Patrick okay. He had asked twice during the night. He noticed. The men notice. I said, He is having a hard week, Tom. Tom said, Tell him I asked. I said, I will. The fire helps. The chuck helps. The fact that other men are watching for Patrick helps most of all.

The pot roast carried the house through most of the week — leftovers in the refrigerator, the smell of rosemary still faint in the kitchen on Tuesday — but what I kept coming back to in the evenings, after Patrick was settled and Mom had gone to bed and the wind was still going at the eaves, was something small and hot in my hands. Not another bowl. Just a cup. The spiced green tea has been a winter habit for a few years now; it takes five minutes and it warms you from the inside out in a way that is different from food, quieter, and after a week like this one, quiet is what I was looking for at eleven o’clock with the cold pressing against the windows.

Hot Spiced Green Tea

Prep Time: 5 min | Cook Time: 5 min | Total Time: 10 min | Servings: 2

Ingredients

• 2 cups water
• 2 green tea bags
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 3 whole cloves
• 2 cardamom pods, lightly crushed
• 1/4 teaspoon fresh grated ginger
• 1 tablespoon honey, or to taste
• 1 thin slice of orange or lemon (optional)

Instructions

1. Warm the spices. Combine water, cinnamon stick, cloves, cardamom pods, and grated ginger in a small saucepan. Bring to a gentle simmer over medium heat and let steep for 3 to 4 minutes. Do not boil hard — a rolling boil will make the spices bitter.
2. Brew the tea. Remove from heat. Add the green tea bags and let steep for 2 to 3 minutes. Green tea turns bitter if overbrewed, so pull the bags promptly.
3. Strain and sweeten. Remove tea bags and strain the liquid through a fine mesh strainer into two mugs. Stir in honey while the tea is still hot. Add a citrus slice if using.
4. Serve immediately. Drink hot. This does not improve with sitting — make it fresh and drink it while it’s warm.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 30 | Protein: 0g | Fat: 0g | Carbs: 8g | Fiber: 0g | Sodium: 5mg