Cucumber Lemongrass Soda

Lately there has been an overabundance of merriment amongst me and my friends, including a trip to the State Fair last week in which I ate enough to feed a small army. I spent 8 hours wandering around consuming corn dogs, cheese curds, saltwater taffy, beers, and mini-doughnuts (there's more, but really, that's plenty). I felt awesome when I was eating all of it like I was some sort of bottomless pit, but the next morning I had a pretty major food hangover.

The next day I tried to detox with some green tea and a nice salad which helped. However, due to sodium overload the day before I couldn't quench my thirst. I thought I'd whip up some sort of cleansing tonic for myself and came up with this citrus-laced, sparkling soda.

I've always liked adding cucumber slices to water which Martha told me to do years ago in an old issue of Living. It adds such a pure, fresh note. There were some leftover stalks of lemongrass in the fridge from the dish I made in last post. I steeped the stalks in sugar and water resulting in a fragrant syrup. A touch of lemongrass syrup, sparkling water, crisp slices of cucumber and lemon made for a perfect summer refresher. I felt better straight away.

For one drink:

• 1 tablespoon lemongrass syrup* (more or less to taste)
• Sparkling mineral water
• 3 thin cucumber slices
• 1 thin lemon slice
• 1-2 stalks of fresh lemongrass

Fill a highball glass with ice. Add 1 tablespoon syrup and fill with mineral water. Stir together. Add the slices of cucumber and lemon. Garnish with a lemongrass stalk and serve.

*In a small saucepan stir together 1 cup sugar, 1/2 cup water, and 1/2 cup lemongrass cut into 1-inch lengths. Bring to a boil and strongly simmer for about 3 minutes. turn the heat off, cover and allow to steep for one hour. Pour through a fine meshed sieve into a sealable container and store in the refrigerator for a couple weeks. Makes about 3/4 cup of syrup.