I like milk. A lot. I
remember, as a kid, my dad going to the grocery store to get a gallon of milk
for dinner. He had to return to the store because the milk had disappeared
before it was time to prepare the meal. The taste for milk remained into
adulthood. Liz just laughed the first time she saw me pour Hershey’s chocolate
syrup directly into the half-gallon jug, instead of a glass.
When not using it for gravy,
or dunking a cookie into it, my go-to has normally been a large container
filled with Hershey’s syrup and milk. I say “normally” because I recently made
the mistake of looking at the ingredients. Now, I can look past some
less-than-natural ingredients in favor of some tasty flavors, but when the
first two ingredients I am adding to my beloved milk are high fructose corn
syrup and corn syrup, I have to take a moment to reassess the situation.
In an effort to find a more
natural flavoring for my milk, I spiraled down a deep, delicious rabbit hole
before emerging pumped to prep a simple strawberry syrup. While I wouldn’t
tout it as “healthy”, I would consider it more natural than its store-bought
counterpart. In fact, it only has 4 ingredients. Strawberries, sugar, water,
and vanilla. Ok, maybe a few more ingredients if you count those that made up
the vanilla - vanilla beans soaked in spiced rum. Nonetheless, when combined,
reduced, and strained the result is the beautiful blood red nectar of the gods.
When mixed with milk, and raised to the lips, the clouds open followed by a
chorus of hallelujah.
As Liz succinctly put it,
“Mmm, it tastes like melted strawberry ice cream”. “Try some more. The
strawberries taste like strawberries, and the snozzberries taste like
snozzberries… We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams.”
