Hello from a plane zipping over the North Pole en route from Paris back to LA. What a week. I’ve been to Paris, London, and back to Paris again (for a brief hour and a half, during which I devoured an absolutely perfect salade au chevre chaud at the epitome of a Parisian brasserie near the Gare du Nord train station). More on Paris and London soon — I’ll have mini city guides and recipes inspired by my travel in the coming weeks — but for now, let’s play a bit of catch up. Plus, there’s hibiscus mint strawberry sorbet for you.
I spent the past month working on a piece of writing that felt nearly as intimate and important to me as the Kale & Caramel cookbook (which is also a memoir, in case you haven’t cracked it open yet). It started off, as most writing does for me, as a post that would live on K&C, but I quickly realized it was important to me that it live on a larger platform. It’s about cults, and the Netflix docuseries ‘Wild Wild Country’, and a book I’ve been very excited to read this spring, called Hippie Food.
And it’s also about my own past — ten years of my life I devoted to studying yoga and Sanskrit and meditation, and the decades leading up to that, too, which established the blueprint of my seeking mind. The essay said a lot of things I’ve been afraid to write down, and yet, with my primary professional desire being to tell stories that move you, too, to share the truths that feel most tender and terrifying, I knew it was time. Moreover, I saw in our Netflix bingeing obsession with cults a parallel to the way we consume health and diet fads. Our fragile identities are all too often caught up in how we eat.
All of which is to say, last week I was tremendously honored to have this piece go live on VICE’s Tonic. It’s been powerful to hear from many of you whose stories align with mine — those of you who participated in but chose to leave behind cultish thinking of all kinds, whether about your spirituality or your dinner plate. I hope, as we start to see our tendency to cultify, we free ourselves from that practice, and simply become more and more…sane.
I’d love for you to give it a read and let me know your thoughts.
This week, freedom from cultish thinking also looks like hibiscus mint strawberry sorbet. Last year, I received an incredible hibiscus mint tea blend with which I’ve taken to making large pitchers of iced tea. It’s exquisitely floral, fruity, tart, and refreshing from the mint leaves. Wouldn’t this make an amazing sorbet, with a berry base, perhaps? Yes and yes.
Here, I blend the fresh fruit with hibiscus-steeped honey and brown rice syrup, both of which keep the blend completely scoopable, even when frozen. After the blend is chilled, we blitz in fresh mint. A quick journey through the ice cream maker, and into the freezer for a final touch. You’ll want this on hand all summer, I think. Perhaps a hibiscus mint strawberry sorbet and hibiscus tea affogato?
At the very least, it’s the perfect treat to snack on while you’re reading about my wild roots on VICE.
HIBISCUS MINT STRAWBERRY SORBET.
Ingredients
- 1/3 cup hibiscus flowers
- 1/3 cup boiling water
- 2 pounds strawberries, hulled (stems trimmed)
- 1/2 to 1 cup honey, depending on the sweetness of your strawberries
- 1/2 cup brown rice syrup
- pinch sea salt
- 1/2 cup fresh mint leaves
Instructions
- 24 hours before you intend to make the sorbet, freeze the mixing bowl of your ice cream maker.
- Steep the hibiscus flowers in 1/3 cup boiling water for 5-7 minutes.
- In a medium saucepan, heat the honey and brown rice syrup to a very low simmer, then reduce the heat to low and add in the steeped hibiscus tea, flowers included. Let this mixture simmer and steep for another 5-10 minutes. The longer you steep, the more robust the hibiscus flavor will be (and the tarter the sorbet).
- Strain out the hibiscus flowers and discard.
- Place hulled strawberries in a blender and pour the hibiscus syrup mixture into the blender. Add a pinch of sea salt. Blend until smooth, then refrigerate until chilled completely (either in the covered blender container or in an airtight container).
- Once the mixture is chilled, return it to the blender and add the fresh mint leaves. Blend on low until mint is mixed into small green flecks throughout, about 30 seconds.
- Set up your ice cream maker and process the sorbet according to your machine's instructions. Transfer the frozen mixture into a freezer-safe container, cover with plastic wrap, and freeze for at least 6 hours or overnight.
- Serve with fresh mint leaves. Would also be delicious with hibiscus tea poured over — a hibiscus tea and sorbet affogato, if you will.
