I think Dave put it well when we were out to dinner on Friday night. We needed a weekend where we didn’t need to make any decisions. Friday during the day our bathroom renovation passed its final city inspection. Hooray! Our beautiful bathroom is now really done for real.

We spent the weekend doing only fun things to celebrate. On Saturday, we got our butts kicked in boot camp yet again (and yes, I consider that fun). We went out and got the finishing touches for the bathroom – rug, soap dispensers, what have you. We went to the Timbers game, which had a TOTALLY INCREDIBLE finish. Today we tasted wine with my friend/boss, Sarah, and we went to yoga. And I napped and read more of “Consider the Fork,” which is totally fascinating. It was excellent.

I also finally had time to use the last of our raspberries from the yard for syrup. We ate it this morning on pancakes, with sparkling water for lunch and Italian-soda style for dinner, which basically is like drinking a carbonated raspberry creamsicle. In other words, it is totally delicious.

Here’s what you need:

For the raspberry syrup:
2 cups raspberries
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup water

Pour the berries into a 2-quart saucepan and mash with a potato masher until they are broken up. Add in the water and sugar, then stir to combine.

Turn on the heat to medium-high and bring to a boil. When the mixture reaches a boil, keep stirring constantly to make sure that it doesn’t boil over (I wouldn’t know from experience 😉 ) and allow to boil for ten minutes. Remove from the heat and allow to cool to room temperature. If you are planning on using it to put on top of pancakes or something similar, you may wish to leave the pulp in. If you are planning on using it for Italian sodas, cocktails, etc., I recommend running it through a fine mesh strainer before storing. Store in the fridge for several weeks.

For Italian sodas:
1 oz. raspberry syrup
14 oz. sparkling water (ish)
.5 oz. heavy cream

Add the raspberry syrup to the bottom of a pint glass, then pour the sparkling water over top. Finally, top with the heavy cream.