M. Suzanne Terry

This month, y’all. It’s a wild one. I like my new job, but I miss my easy Octobers. Also, the world seems to be a little bit more on fire (proverbial and otherwise) than usual. I’m taking a couple of long weekends and some extra nights off this week, but I need a real break. And I need a breath to process all that’s happening so that I can actually wind down well enough at the end of the day to get more than 3-4 hours of sleep. Don’t know when that’s going to happen.

In the meantime, I am embracing the slightly cooler weather with all my favorite comforts. Soups, easy one-pot meals, and breakfast tacos are on the menu for the week. I’m also enjoying a near-constant intake of warm beverages.

Coffee and tea are my staples. Hot Tang is also a frequent visitor to my repertoire (although clearly, I’ve been doing it wrong by neglecting to add whiskey). I even drank a plain cup of hot water the other day. I love warm beverages.

Coffee brews all day at the farm and has for as long as I can remember. Mom doesn’t like it strong, so the caffeine release is significantly slower (allegedly). Tea was always iced unless you were sick (because Texas). I didn’t start drinking hot tea in earnest until I came to college, but now it’s my usual way to drink tea.

But there was one hot tea drink we had growing up that was an instant comfort to me. I’ve heard it called Russian tea and friendship tea, but to us, it was just spiced tea. Mom often made it around the holidays, and she made a lot of it because we gave it as gifts. She would mix all the ingredients together and fill pint-sized jars with a cross-stitched lid that read “spiced tea” with a picture of a cup beside it (I think – my memory of the picture is hazy at best). She would do the same with hot chocolate mix (I can’t remember if she mixed her own of this as well or just bought it in bulk) with another cute cross-stitched label that read “hot chocolate.”

I can’t seem to find the actual recipe, but I often helped with the mixing (even I could be trusted to stir). I think the proportions of a batch went something like this:

• 2 cups powdered Tang
• 2 cups powdered lemonade (always Country Time)
• 1 cup instant tea (always Lipton)
• 1 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Do yourself a favor – mix up a batch of this, pour hot water over a couple of heaping spoons in a cup, stir, and enjoy. Feel free to play around with the proportions. It’s very sweet, but that’s just part of its charm.

I’m on an Irish Breakfast Tea kick right now, but I may have to add these ingredients to my next grocery list so I can have this mix on hand. I may also dig around for the cross-stitch patterns next time I’m home. I know some people who need this mix and a cute jar in their lives.

A cup of Mom’s spiced tea may be just what I need to make this hectic October a little sweeter.

I’m writing about the recipes and foods that feel like home to me this month.