May I recommend
Bloody Caesars, specifically, the ones in a can you buy at the liquor store.
Okay, I get that this one is controversial, and for non-Canadians, possibly a little confusing.
The controversial part is obviously the clams, which I’ll get to in a second.
The confusing part is the very existence of a thing called a “bloody caesar.” In many, many respects Canadians are easily confused with Americans. We kind of look the same, we often sound the same, we have the same—ish colonial history and the same-ish shameful treatment of Indigenous peoples. We’re so similar we often sneak in actors and singers who easily infiltrate American pop culture with most of the world being none the wiser… I won’t name any of these undercover stars , but I guarantee you that any Canadian reading this is already listing them in their head. WE know.
Despite these samesies, there are still a lot of things that differentiate Canadians from Americans. This long, holiday weekend (For July 1st — Canada Day, of course) I wanted to celebrate not the oft-cited (and smugly celebrated) universal-ish health care, decent-ish gun control, slightly-more-workable-parliamentary-system-of-governance and instead concentrate on a niche alcoholic drink that I enjoy in the summer.
A Bloody Caesar is basically a Bloody Mary, complete with a spicy salty rim, a celery stalk, a lime wedge, Worcestershire sauce and a dash of horseradish. There is, however, one key difference, and that is the clams
Yup, instead of plain old tomato juice for your fave hangover-chaser, Canadians add in a heaping serving of clam juice.
What is clam juice you might ask. Is it the juice that comes out of the shell when you eat a clam? Is it the blended up flesh of dead clams? The answer is, I do not know, and there is literally no way of finding this out.
All I can tell you is that in any Canadian grocery store, you can buy a big 1.5L thing of clamato juice, which is always sold right next to the 1.5 L thing of tomato juice (easily mixed up - shop carefully). They sell these at the grocery store so that people can make their own Bloody Caesars, which, when it gets really hot and I want to replenish my electrolytes after a hard day of trying to keep a single ray of the sunshine from touching my skin or readjusting the 45 standing fans in my house for optimal air flow, is exactly what I do.
It’s intensely counter-intuitive to think that a cold glass of what is essentially fishy tomato soup with a shot of vodka is going to be thirst quenching, so let me be clear: a Bloody Caesar is NOT thirst quenching. It’s salty, and tomato-y and when you hit a pocket of horseradish it’s suddenly VERY spicy, but it also feels vaguely nutritious and like you are a super tough Viking drinking the clammy blood of your enemies, and let’s get real, an aperol spritz just does not have the same vibes.
Look, I can’t explain it. I can hardly even defend it. I just know that a Bloody Caesar can really hit right, and the pre-made ones you can get at the liquor store are a quick and easy way to satisfy the urge, without having to buy a 1.5L thing of clamato juice, which will sit in your fridge until it goes off (and believe, me, when clamato juice goes off, it TELLS you).
Happy (Belated) Canada Day and (forthcoming) July 4th everyone!
Discuss Bloody Caesars in the comments below!
The She-Wolf of France
Queens of Infamy: Isabella of France
I flipping love of English royal history. Not the current stuff about Meghan and Harry etc (though I do enjoy some of that gossip) but I really really love hearing the wild stories of insanity that those inbred Euro nutjobs got up to back in the day. It gets less interesting when the prime ministers start having more power, but from the Saxons to the Tudors things are delightfully bonkers. I get most of my intel from my fave podcast, The Rex Factor, which I’ve raved about before.
Anyway, Isabella of France is a good story so if this whets your appetite, go find the Rex Factor episode about her. V. good.
In the late summer of 1326, a small mercenary army gathered in Dordrecht, Holland, preparing to cross the North Sea and invade England. This in and of itself wasn’t all that unusual — from the Romans to the Vikings to the Normans, it seems like all of the European historical heavyweights wanted a piece of that green and pleasant land. I mean, I get it! It’s a classic case of those itchy Julius Caesar fingers: A man sees an island, and he wants to take it. What set this case apart was that the person leading the army wasn’t a king or a prince or a red-headed upstart duke, but a woman who was already the queen of England — had been queen, in fact, for nearly two decades. And the king she wanted to depose wasn’t some usurper who had unjustly taken the throne, but rather Edward II, her husband and the father of her four children. As she stepped onto that boat, the 31-year-old queen would set into motion a sequence of events that would leave her forever remembered as Isabella the She-Wolf of France.
Also, side note, if I ever write a sequel to The Honeybee Emeralds, it will feature ANOTHER badass queen, Blanche of Castile, who was ALSO known as the “she wolf of France” - so…
Worms! Worms! Worms
My friend, Amy, told me that worms were invasive YEARS ago, but I still love seeing them in my garden. They are very very bad in the forest though.
Forests, which seem to be particularly appealing environments for jumping worms, can lose as much as 95 percent of their layer of fallen leaves in a four-month period due to these infestations, according to one study in Wisconsin. This means that the green carpet of forest understory, which includes tree seedlings and wildflowers such as trilliums and lady’s slippers, is quickly transformed into bare dirt.
Amazing muffins
Phantom Rhubarb Streusel Muffins
My brilliant sister-in-law, lovingly known as Siftie, gave me this recipe and it’s very very good. I have already made two batches. It’s not too late to pick a few stalks of rhube (But it almost is, because they need to keep their leaves for most of the summer to feed their roots to survive winter.) Quick! make these muffins!
Did you make ‘em? Tell us about it in the comments!
Summer Bucket Lists
I like the idea of a summer bucket list and I think I might make one. I stumbled across this one, but the Internet is full of them if you need a little inspiration. I think I’m going to write one today…
Maybe I’ll have “Make jam”; “Swim in at least five different lakes” and “Eat lobster” on mine… What will you put on yours?
Book news
Still MORE book clubs. Always so much fun. Here’s a photo from one a few weeks back where the host really pulled out all of the stops and I got sliiiiiiightly tipsy.
I’ve seen the new cover for my NEXT book (I know, I know, it’s kind of a lot - when it rains it pours, etc etc). SPEAK FOR THE DEAD is coming out in the spring of 2023 and will be a sort-of-sequel to The Foulest Things, except featuring none of the same characters. I am quite nervous about that little maneuver, because I worry that people will be mad that their fave characters from Foulest aren’t in Speak, but it’s too late now and we’ll just see how the cookie crumbles. Eeep. Anyway, the cover has been finalized and I shall reveal it in my July 17th newsletter.
Also, if you’re in the Ottawa area on July 16th swing by the Pinecrest Indigo (the one near the Ikea) and come and say HELLO to me. I will be signing books! I am worried that no one will come and I will feel like a loser (hidey ho, Grade 8 anxieties) so if you’re around pop by! There’s even a Starbies in there so you can grab yourself a decaf, iced, double shot etc.
Not as many tweets as I’d like because the Roe v Wade decision has made my Twitter feed a sad and depressing place. BUT here’s a few I managed to glean…
TikTok
The Caesars recommendation is already quite Canadian, but had to add this
Some of these made me guffaw
Your back is killin’
Okay, I don’t even like the Olympics and I was ugly crying at the end
Baby life hack
Swirling rainbows
It’s when he flips to his back…
Deer patch
Love this weirdo
Wither the Karens?
L’il businessman
Weaponized incompetence
Sometimes you have to make your own happiness
I’ve made that face for similar reasons
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Canned Bloody Caesars + Isabella of France + worms
I have never heard anyone call it a, “Bloody Caesar!” Except maybe, as in, “Get me a bloody Caesar would you!?” We just call them Caesars. And that mom commercial made me cry.
New Englanders in the States love a Bloody Caesar! But we aren't creative so we just call it a Bloody Mary with Clamato.