recipes from Considering us

In Jenn Bouchard’s novel Considering Us, Devon Paige is a successful personal chef in Boston whipping up hearty, tasty meals for professional athletes and rich WASPs alike. That is, until mixing work and pleasure leads to scandal, costing Devon all but one of her clients. Luckily a friend knows of a job as the Dining Services Director at a prestigious New Hampshire boarding school with scandals of its own, including vandalism and an underground newspaper. Devon takes on the job, then finds figures from her past cropping up, putting her love life right at the center of campus gossip. Can she find a healthy relationship, meaningful work, and salvage her reputation?

Considering Us is a delicious read: a sweet, satisfying tale of personal growth and love lost and found. 

The booktail recipe derived from this novel is a riff on the smooth and foamy whiskey sour, Devon’s absolute favorite drink. It’s made with Angel’s Envy, her preferred whiskey: in LA, Devon meets a very classy bartender who selects the same when he serves her an upgraded whiskey sour, with Meyer lemon juice and demerara syrup. This recipe likewise calls for Meyer lemon, and enhances the classic simple syrup with fresh apple and rooibos tea. Apple harkens back to an apple-picking school field trip while sweet, caramel-y rooibos adds a vanilla note, a nod to Devon’s absolute favorite food, Vanilla Toffee ice cream. As is traditional, the drink is garnished with a cherry: Luxardo is Devon’s choice for a cocktail, while dried cherries feature in her much-beloved white and milk chocolate chip cookies.  

Considering Us

Ingredients

2 oz Angel’s Envy bourbon

1 oz apple rooibos syrup (see recipe)

1 oz Meyer lemon juice 

1 fresh egg white or 3 tsp aquafaba (the juice from a can of chickpeas)

Cherry garnish 

Instructions

Prepare the syrup. Once cool, add to a shaker with ice, along with the bourbon, lemon juice, and egg white or aquafaba. Agitate vigorously for about one minute, until thoroughly foamy. Strain into a rocks glass with ice, if desired. Garnish with a cherry. 

Apple Rooibos Syrup

Ingredients 

1 c roughly chopped apple, skin on 

1 c organic sugar

1 c water

2 tea bags rooibos

Instructions 

Mix the apples, water, and sugar. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Turn off the heat and add the tea bags to the warm syrup. Cover and let sit on the warm burner until completely cool. Strain and discard solids. Store in a glass bottle or jar and keep refrigerated.