And if before the days grew rough We once were lov’d, us’d—well enough, I think, we’ve far’d, my heart and I. -ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, “MY HEART AND I” Hardball: one of the stages of sugar syrup in the preparation of candy, which occurs at 250 to 266 degrees Fahrenheit. Nougat, marshmallows, rock candy, gummies—these are all cooked to the hardball stage, when the sugar concentration is very high and syrup will form thick ropes when dripped from a spoon. (Be careful. Sugar burns long after it comes into contact with your skin; it’s easy to forget that something so sweet can leave a scar.) To test your solution, drop a bit of it into cold water. It’s ready if it forms a hard ball that doesn’t flatten when fished out but whose shape can still be changed with significant pressure. Which, of course, leads to the more colloquial definition of hardball: ruthless, aggressive, competitive behavior; the kind that’s designed to mold someone else’s thinking to match your own.
