By Ryan started at Engine 12 on Monday. He came home after the first shift and said the crew was good, the house was good, he had cooked dinner for everyone in his first week which is apparently the tradition for new officers, and he had made a pan of something that he described as "pasta situation" which sounds like him. He settles into things quickly because he decides to. I have watched this his whole life and it still impresses me every time.
The twins are thirty months old, two and a half, and the language explosion that started at twenty months has become a full-scale renovation of their inner lives into something communicable. Owen explains his building projects now in sentences I can follow completely: "the base needs to be wide or it will fall, Mama, you have to make the base wide." He is two and a half. He is explaining structural engineering. Nora writes things. The Nora letters have become the Nora books: she staples paper together and fills the pages with her marks and reads them aloud to Owen and sometimes to me, and the stories she reads from these pages are detailed and involving and have recurring characters who I have come to know.
I have been reading. Not for the blog, not for school, for myself: a stack of books from the library on special education, on learning differences, on the neuroscience of how children learn to read, on intervention methods. I have been thinking about Darius and about the student in September whose file I have been carrying in my head. I have been thinking about what I don't know. I have been thinking about going back to school.
Not decided yet. Thinking. This is how I make decisions: I read around the edges of the thing for a while before I look at it directly. I have done this with everything that has changed my life. I bought the slow cooker cookbook four months before I bought the slow cooker. I am doing the same thing now with whatever comes next.
I bought a slow cooker cookbook four months before I bought the slow cooker, so I know what it means when I find myself reaching for something simple and cold and a little joyful while the bigger question sits on the back burner. These orange cream pops are that recipe for July: nothing to tend, nothing to watch, just a few minutes of mixing and then the freezer does the rest while Owen explains load-bearing architecture and Nora adds another chapter to her current book. They are very good. They taste like the part of summer that doesn’t ask anything of you yet.
Orange Cream Pops
Prep Time: 10 min | Cook Time: 0 min (6 hr freeze) | Total Time: 6 hr 10 min | Servings: 8 pops
Ingredients
- 2 cups fresh or store-bought orange juice
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 1/3 cup granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1/4 teaspoon fine salt
- 1/2 cup sour cream or full-fat plain yogurt
Instructions
- Mix the base. In a medium bowl, whisk together the sugar and orange juice until the sugar is fully dissolved, about 1 minute.
- Add the cream. Whisk in the heavy cream, sour cream (or yogurt), vanilla extract, and salt until smooth and well combined. The mixture will be pourable and slightly thick.
- Fill the molds. Pour the mixture evenly into 8 standard popsicle molds, leaving about 1/4 inch of space at the top for expansion. Insert sticks.
- Freeze. Freeze for at least 6 hours, or overnight, until completely solid.
- Unmold and serve. Run warm water over the outside of the molds for 10–15 seconds to loosen. Pull gently on the sticks to release. Serve immediately or wrap individually in plastic wrap and return to the freezer for up to 2 weeks.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 148 | Protein: 1g | Fat: 11g | Carbs: 12g | Fiber: 0g | Sodium: 45mg