Cooking with(out) the Machines

There's a phrase in Allucquere Rosanne Stone's The war of desire and technology at the close of the mechanical age that has kept popping into my head lately: 'The machines are restless tonight'. Stone goes on to think through the implications for how we think about machines and their agency and the colonialist overtones of that phrase, while I, of course, was more concerned about the effects on my cooking when I had to go switch off the fridge alarm that went off for seemingly no reason in the middle of the night last night for the third or fourth night running. Detective work in the light of day (not by me) suggested that the freezer was over-full and so not sealing properly, hence the alarm and (just when I was craving it) very runny mint ex-sorbet. So I'm offering up the recipe to the universe in the hopes that the machines will fall into line and allow a refreeze for this evening.

Mint Ex-Sorbet

Chop and squish thoroughly two and a half cups of mint leaves (it helps to have mint bushes going feral in your garden). If you have a food processor and the machine are cooperating, use that - otherwise, resign yourself to a mortar and pestle and several batches of squishing. Stir mint into 1 cup of sugar syrup (make sugar syrup by adding 1 cup water to 1 cup sugar in a saucepan, heating until you create a supersaturated solution - or less geekily, until all the sugar dissolves - and allow to cool) and add juice from 1 lime. Pour into flat container and put in the freezer. If the freezer cooperates by working, stir to break up where the edges are starting to freeze after half an hour, another hour, and whenever you remember a few hours after that. The taste is pretty strong, so either eat just a little, use as a topping or accompaniment to something else (should go nicely with fresh pineapple), or dilute by putting a tablespoonful into a martini glass and adding vodka.