Lime-Mezcal Lick 'n' Sips

Plus: Easiest, chocolatiest chocolate muffins and actually useful life advice from a commencement speech.

This week’s recipes:

While I will have a new take on peach shortcake for you next week, for a variety of reasons (see below), all I could think about this week was what would it be like to dip a lime ice pop in a small glass of mezcal.

Do you think less of me?

Please don’t. For those that enjoy tequila, this pairing can be a magical end to a summer dinner outside with friends, or a really pleasant night with just you and the fireflies dancing about. It also involves about eight seconds of work and no oven. Hoorah!

I use Outshine lime bars, which aren’t too sweet and use real fruit juice. The combination of sour and icy cold with a hint of smoke from the mezcal makes me shiver happily

I also offer you a very simple chocolate muffin to make. Tasty with mezcal or a glass of milk.

Truth is, my daughter looked at me with big puppy eyes and reminded me I hadn’t baked anything for her in a while. The resulting baby chocolate muffins may shock you even more than my tequila-bathed dessert, as I used…please sit down…a boxed cake mix. A doctored box cake mix, but still.

Learn more about the real Mr. Duncan Hines here.

These muffins also happen to go wonderfully with tequila and lime pops, and were pronounced “perfection” by my daughter, and by my son “the cutest little muffin-cakes I’ve ever seen.”

And, that my friends, is why I bake.

Bosco bemoans the lack of cheese and bacon recipes.

Lime-Mezcal Lick’n’Sips

(and no, you really don’t need a recipe for this)

What You’ll Need:

Lime Ice Pops (I used Outshine braand)

Mezcal (Tequila blanco or anejo, if you prefer)

What You’ll Do:

Pour the tequila into a medium size narrow glass. Unwrap ice pop. Put ice pop in tequila, stick side up. Swirl in mezcal. Lick, slurp, dip, slurp, repeat.

Easy Chocolate Muffins

96.6KB ∙ PDF file

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Printable recipe.

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Easy, Chocolatey Chocolate Muffins

Makes 48 mini muffins, or 24 regular size muffins

What You’ll Need:

1 box Duncan Hines Devil’s Food Cake Mix

3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

1 1/3 cups buttermilk

1/2 cup vegetable oil

3 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/8 heaping teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 cup, or so, semi-sweet chocolate chips

What You’ll Do:

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray with Baker’s Joy, or grease and flour, either mini-size or regular-size muffin pans.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together the cake mix, cocoa powder, buttermilk, vegetable oil, eggs, vanilla and cinnamon until just blended. Fold in the chocolate chips. Fill the muffin tins halfway full with batter for flat tops or three-quarters full for muffins with a rounded top.

3. Bake for 14 to 18 minutes for mini-muffins; 16 to 20 for regular. The center of the muffin should bounce back if pressed with a finger (preferably yours).

4. Cool on a rack for 15 minutes, then decant to further cool on a rack.

5. I don’t need to tell you this, but if you served these with a scoop of homemade vanilla ice cream, some berries and hot fudge sauce…

This week’s high (school) and low (on the patio).

As the readers of this substack are only the finest quality humans, you all are aware that polite ladies in olden times never sweat, they glowed, leaving the perspiring for Men with a capital M and sweating for pigs.

Dear readers, this week in the Garden State, I glowed like the core of a nuclear reactor. The heat was unavoidable, but for the nicest of reasons: my son graduated high school. The 3-hour long event (one hour of which was spent sitting, waiting in the afternoon sun) was outdoors in a large amphitheater on the public school grounds. It is all very picturesque, even when it’s 98-degrees outside and your vision is getting hazy as you prepare to pass out.

People have asked me if I’m sad, and the answer seems to surprise. Nope. Sure, as I drove my son to school for graduation practice he reminded me it would be the last time I ever took him to school, my mind did race back to taking him to kindergarten for the first time and danced over the thousands of times I traversed back and forth to elementary school, middle school, high school, sports practice, day camp, to Target for last-minute science poster supplies, and sure, tears squirted out of my eyes like a cartoon character and I had a little sob.

Luckily, the happy outweighs the sad, and all that time spent with my kid was really a gift and most importantly, he is SO very incredibly happy to wave toodles222 to high school and head to college.

We live in that kind of town where the graduation guest speaker is often a quite well-known mover and shaker. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnston spoke a few years ago, and this year our guest speaker was long-time CNBC host and Emmy award-winner Tyler Mathisen. His speech was gold, and not just because he handily managed to engage the graduates (2 hours without use of their cellphones!) and their families, he also made us laugh and possibly best of all, avoided condescension at all costs. Another rarity for commencement speeches: Mathiesen offered genuinely useful advice, which I’ve paraphrased:

• Everyone will tell you to pursue your passions. Don’t pursue your passion, do something you’re good at and like doing, and the passion will come.

• The key is to invest in yourself. And probably Nvidia.

Now: What if Clyde gave commencement addresses?

Keep flexible and fluffy, while sitting on your enemies.

And, commencement advice from Calvin:

Bees are not your friends. Do not try to shake hands with them. d

The low point of the week was me stepping on a sticky ball from an evil gum tree in our yard as I walked down the stairs to the patio. That little damn ball caused me, three platters and a dozen English sausages destined for a Father’s Day mixed grill to go crashing to the ground. While the sausages were unscathed, the platters and I did less well. Stitches in my elbow and a sprained foot that is keeping me, a newly (re)minted Gym Beast, from her endorphins. Father’s Day spent with my husband at the immedicenter, however! Romance isn’t dead.

That evil sweet gum tree is in the background of this otherwise lovely photo.

A big favor to ask you all: Could you please also follow me on Instagram? Simply click here, then click the follow button! Insta is the home to photos of my food, pets, and observed weirdnesses, including my family. You see, even with so many followers here, I've got a cookbook proposal that is now out and about, and editors and publishers (Hi!) look at the # of social media followers first. I’ve been a bad social mediaite and focused more on Threads, Twitter and here and much less on Insta, so a boost there is needed. Thank you very much.

Do you remember who spoke at your high school or college graduation? Do you remember any commencement address advice? Tell us in the comments below. Also: The name “Lick n Sips” probably could use a revamp. The winning suggestion below will get a free year-long subscription to this substack.

Thank you and welcome to all my new subscribers! This substack is a reader-supported publication. I cannot do it without you. If you’re able, paying for a subscription helps pay for the groceries necessary for recipe-testing and recipe development. Also, it supports me—a freelance writer—and ad-free journalism.

The pay scale for journalists and writers has not kept up with the cost of living. That’s why having a substack newsletter has become such a terrific venue for so many writers. Best of all, it puts me, Bosco, Calvin and Clyde in touch with our readers like never before. And: Now Bosco has expensive rotisserie chicken habits.

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