Recipe request: Agua de Jamaica

When Mom-in-Law Ilana was visiting, we braised a pork shoulder with tomatillos and made yummy tacos with all the fixings. To drink, we brewed a Mexican tea, agua de Jamaica -- a strong infusion of hibiscus calices with a brilliant magenta color. It has a light, tart, tangy, yet earthy, flavor that makes a really refreshing iced tea.

Ilana asked for the recipe, so I'm sharing it here. You can find the hibiscus "flowers" in large cellophane bags sold in the spice sections of Latin grocery stores and with the Mexican ingredients in other supermarkets. Look for the label "flor de jamiaca."

To make the tea: Add 1/2 cup sugar and 8 cups water to a non-reactive pot. Stir to dissolve sugar. Bring to a boil. Add 2 cups of the hibiscus calices. Return to a boil and stir for one minute. Cover and remove from heat to steep from one to two hours. Strain the tea into a pitcher or jars, squeezing the remaining liquid from the "flowers." Serve as a strong tea over ice or dilute by half for a lovely lighter tea.

Worth noting: Hibiscus is a mild diuretic and is high in vitamin C.

Macrocrastination: Rainy Wednesday

I should be cleaning house for mom-in-law Ilana's visit, but instead I am in the garden, in the rain with my macro lens, taking pictures of raindrops on spiderwebs.

Macro Sunday: Arugula seeds

We let some our arugula go to seed in the garden. Arugula is a great little re-seeder and a second crop of our peppery and tender arugula is already blooming. Here are some macro photos I took of the tiny seeds, pods and flowers. The pod above is about one inch long. Each pod has two seed cases separated by a translucent membrane. In the above photo, one seed case is opened and emptied, revealing the seeds in the unopened case. Below, the unopened pod. Bottom: Seeds in the opened pod.

Grape harvest 2011

Val took in our grapes yesterday. The day was mild and under the green canopy of the vine, you could smell the sun-warmed fruit. A mild and rainy spring meant a smaller harvest this year, but we still got about 20 pounds of grapes. Soon, I make jam to preserve the California sun for the winter days.

END OF LINE Project

Times change and so must we. After more than 10 years running our own little web hosting service, katehost.com, Val and I are finally giving up the servers. The last paying client has migrated to her new host and for our own sites, we are leaving the self-hosted world and moving to hosted services -- like this one at blogger.com.

This move saves money; these days, we just don't need to pay for so much publishing power. Since I've left the web design business, the hosted CMS services provide for all our current publishing needs. The time is right to make the move.

So, you'll see visual changes in all the Kate-hosted sites -- including this one, katecohen.com and declareyourdisbelief.com -- and you may even encounter some of the dreaded "under construction" pages as we move things around and customize templates over the next few months.

Regular NightNote sidebar features are still here at the right.

If you are looking for recipes from the original NightNote site, click here.

Thanks for your patience as we change.