Campari Granita

Today is our eighth wedding anniversary. It's also the 11th birthday of this blog, the first day of our first-ever corporate tax audit, and the day that my mother officially moves to Seattle. It's a lot of Big Adult Stuff, and I have lots of feelings, including immense gratitude for our accountant. But most of all, I'm glad that these two wide-eyed pups, the ones in this shot circa 2007, decided to take the great leap that is marriage, that they've kept at it, showing up, cooking, eating, building, building some more, figuring it out, duking it out, and loving, loving, for eight whole years. And I'm glad that this blog made it all happen. Thanks for being along for the ride, everybody.

And now, for a properly celebratory cocktail:




Campari Granita
from Bitter, by Jennifer McLagan

The world does not need Campari Granita. It is enough, I think, that Campari exists, and that we can mix it with soda water and drink it. But the instant I saw this recipe in Jennifer McLagan's excellent book Bitter, I knew I had to make it, because the only thing better than straight-up Campari and soda (or a Negroni, or an Americano, or a shandy), is Campari and orange or grapefruit juice and the smallest splash of lemon juice, frozen and forked to the texture of a snow cone and eaten with a spoon on a sticky July evening, while you make dinner. Or more succinctly, in the words of our friend Michael Riha: this stuff is great. Cheers.

For the orange version:
1 cup (250 ml) freshly squeezed orange juice
½ cup (125 ml) Campari
½ teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

OR

For the grapefruit version, which is more bitter, and which I prefer:
1 cup (250 ml) freshly squeezed grapefruit juice
½ cup (125 ml) Campari
2 tablespoons (25 grams) superfine or caster sugar
½ teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

Stir the juice, Campari, and lemon juice (and sugar, if using grapefruit juice) together. Pour into an 8-inch square metal pan (or another pan of similar volume). Place in the freezer. Stir the mixture with a spoon every hour or so, to break it up into large ice crystals. I used a fork for the last stirring, to make the ice crystals finer and fluffier. It took about three hours for my granita to be fully frozen and to the right texture. If you forget to stir the mixture and it freezes solid, don’t panic: just break it into chunks and pulse briefly in the food processor. To serve, spoon the granita into chilled glasses.

Yield: 4 to 6 servings

P.S. A wonderful, and relevant, episode of On Being.
P.P.S. Pavement's Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain in the car on a hot, sunny day, with the windows down!