OFF THE RAILS………..

Today is Sunday.  We usually go to church on Sunday.  But not today.  Because, you see, there is this “Letter” that was to be read from the pulpit in all California congregations.  Here’s the text of the last paragraph:

“We ask that you do all you can to support the proposed constitutional amendment by donating all of your means and time to assure that marriage in California is legally defined as being between a man and a woman. Our best efforts are required to preserve the sacred institution of marriage.”

Uh, no, thanks, as for me and my house, we will NOT be participating.  Please see the large sign to that effect in our front window.

 Just as we did NOT participate in the battle over Prop 22 8 years ago.  I walked out of meetings when this agenda was discussed over Prop 22, we resigned our callings and stopped going to church for several months.  I recently walked out of another meeting.  I wish I could eloquently express how strongly we feel about this.  

I will say this.  I work in a family law practice.  We do dissolutions, juvenile dependency and guardianships.  I could tell you stories that would make the hair stand up on the back of your neck how straight people have trashed the, “sacred institution of marriage.”  Trust me, the gay and lesbian population couldn’t do a worse job if they tried.  I’ve yet to have anyone explain to me how my marriage, or anyone else’s for that matter, will be harmed in any way if my dear friends who have been together for almost 20 years are allowed equal rights under the law for their relationship.  It’s fear mongering at the most basic level and I hate it.

We discussed walking out of the meeting today.  As I said, we’ve done it before.  Instead, my dear husband suggested that we simply opt out of the craziness and go over the hill to Gizdich Farms.  It’s an apple orchard and berry patch in Watsonville.  We went “the back way” through the oaks and reservoirs and ranches.  Then, through vineyards, Uvas canyon and into the redwoods.  Over Mt. Madonna and down into the coastal plain.  We’ve taken the kids there for years for apples (apple butter – how’d you guess?), strawberries, ollaberries, apple cider and pies in the summer and pumpkins in the fall.  We had a piece of strawberry rhubarb pie with ice cream.  

This seemed like a much better way to spend our day.  

Then, to Santa Cruz and Betty’s Burgers!  When you go off the rails, you might as well go all the way.  They have a fabulous veggie burger called “Tracks in the Grass” and to die for thin, crispy fries.  I meant to snap a photo, but when they came, I just dove right in!  We rarely do this kind of thing and I think I was just giddy!

 

 

There were even pugs to be seen on the outside patio!

 

 Into town and Chef Works for jam supplies (labels and a jelly strainer contraption) and then home.  All the while listening to A Prairie Home Companion and City Arts and Lectures.  We raged against the injustice, laughed and kissed and held hands and made crazy parking decisions.  We had a great day.

We will follow our consciences on this as we did before.  We aren’t sure just what this will entail this time, that remains to be seen.  

PATIENCE………….NOT QUITE ENOUGH

“Jam making, too, is the school of patience.”  Jean-Pierre Coffe  http://www.jeanpierrecoffe.com/

Today, I made the Spicy Apricot and Apple Jelly.  Apricots, apples, juice of lemon, orange, zest of orange, clove, cinnamon stick, gingerbread spice, grated ginger and Grand Marnier.  I also made a huge mess….

Chinois, cheesecloth, grinding anise seed, juicing, zesting. Finding out how hard it is to cut a cinnamon stick in half, and you must cut it because you cannot break it.  Try it for yourself.

These recipes do not make large batches.  Today, I got 5 jars. Small jars.  This is a lot of work (and expense) for 5 small jars. And, until you taste the final product, you wonder for a time if it is, indeed, worth the trouble.  The answer is ABSOLUTELY.

This jelly is like bottled sunshine.  It’s light and sweet and has a little citrus and spice bite.  It’s also more correctly titled, um, syrup.  The art of reducing fruit juices and sugar is exact and just because your brew reaches a temperature of 221 degrees f does not, in fact, guarantee it will set.  I know this.  I have small plates in the freezer for the ultimate test and yet……………I agonize that this elixir of the gods is evaporating before my very eyes and rush to capture it in the jars.  So, let’s just say that this is going to be the best damn syrup you ever ate, shall we?

And, isn’t that the cutest little bottle of Grand Marnier you ever saw?

By the way, I picked the first of the ripe blackberries today. But, even better, I ATE 2 figs from the tree, one of which was pictured in the last post.  It was delicious.  Really.

And, in passing, I will mention that, like all good women worth their salt, Fannie is a very high maintenance woman.  She likes to look her best at all times and this requires some effort on my part.  As I also love to just gaze at her beauty, this arrangement works out well for the both of us!

 

Summer’s Promise

 Rotate.  Why, oh, why won’t you rotate?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are 2 thornless blackberry vines in the backyard and one dwarf fig tree planted in a wine barrel.  Also, a plum tree that blooms like heaven but bears no fruit.  I don’t mind not having any fruit – it’s the blooms I was going for.  Picking blackberries without the threat of poison oak or thorns is one of life’s treasures. This I know because we used to pick wild blackberries in the Santa Cruz mountains and it only takes one round of poison oak to put you off that, particularly when you get the poison oak on both forearms 2 weeks before your oldest daughter’s wedding.  It was great fun, tho, finding the berries and eating as many as we put in the buckets.  Last summer, I picked enough backyard blackberries at one time to bring in and make jam that very morning.  And enough to make lots of jars for wedding favors for Jason and Staci’s wedding.   I am patiently waiting for the figs to come in season so I can stock up on spiced fig jam again.  

It sounds like all I do is make jam……well, I guess in the summer that’s pretty much what I’m about.  I have apricots from my boss waiting for the weekend when they will combine with apples and spices and turn into a spiced apricot and apple jelly. 

 Aren’t they ever so patient?  

At the farmer’s market tonight, there was a booth where all the fruit was $2 lb.  I bought white nectarines, pluots and donut peaches.  I just love those little flat peaches!  Support your local farmers! 

 

Note:  The layout of this post sucks.  I apologize.  

WE ARE MISSING AN “I” HERE……..

In the very unlikely event anyone who is not related by blood (or marriage) to me reads this blog, I want to say that YES, we are painfully aware of the spelling error in the title. Vieille in French means, well, old and can mean old woman, even without the femme.  At some point, we are going to correct this error and possibly change the title to vieille dame – which will, we hope, add some refinement to this dump!

Shee-shee Jam

A & J were over the other night after our Father’s Day Fete at the park with the hordes that make up our hodgepodge family.  (His, mine & ours = 7 kids, 18 grandkids.  Tho, only 6 of the kids and 14 of the grandkids were in attendance on this day.)  A & J came over to install their Father’s Day gift for Dad – a Wii! That’s a whole other story……….

Anyway, I had just made a batch of white peach with raspberry jam and the jars were cooling.  A looked at the jars and asked (with just a hint of derision, I think), “Is this your shee-shee jam?”  She was referring to my Christine Ferber recipes.  ’Yes, this is white peach with raspberry and the last batch was strawberry with raspberry juice and basalmic – want a taste of the strawberry?”  Ha!  The derision went directly out the window and did not pass go!’  

I don’t know if I can describe the taste of this particular jam, but without fail the look on the faces of those with jam-laden spoons in their mouths is identical:  a sharp intake of breath, eyes roll up in their sockets, followed by an exclamation of unbridled pleasure.  Well, something like that. The strawberry flavor is intensified by the raspberry juice and then the basalmic gives it punch.  I guess if it were wine, you could say the basalmic gives it, “legs.”  Also, there are ground Grains of Paradise in the jam, too.  GofP is like pepper, only not so sharp.  Not your ordinary strawberry jam.  When they left, she took with her the next to the last jar….

A also told me that of all the things I cook, jam was the only thing she’d like to learn to make.   Since I’ve been a vegetarian for 20 yrs, I guess that’s to be expected.  I mean, I’m not famous for my pot roast.  Still, a mom likes to think that she’s done something that her kids would like to emulate, and since I consider making jam to be one of my top 10 achievements, I’m happy one of the kids appreciates it.  C can’t even be bothered to taste it!

Now, to the story of Plum with Vanilla and Gewurztraminer.  Page 98 in the Shee-Shee book.  The ingredient list is deceptively simple:  

2 1/4 lbs of Nancy mirabelle plums – Christine Ferber lives and works in the Alsace region of France.  Kind of like the Garden of Eden.  We can’t get mirabelle plums in Northern CA to my knowledge.  So, I use plums given to me by my boss from a friend’s tree.  They are lovely in their own right:

4 1/2 C sugar

1 1/4 C gerwurztraminer:  So, I don’t drink (another story for another time) and as luck would have it, there is a bottle of Storrs gerwurztraminer in the office fridge.  My lovely owners are both foodies and wine snobs (and I say that with all love and respect), so they offer the bottle.  Lovely and appreciated and even I know that Storrs is a really good label.  You know that old saying, “A picture is worth 1000 words?”

Sorry I can’t rotate this!

See the little piece of paper just next to the bottle?  It’s shaped like a question mark?  Yeah, that’s the handle of the cheap ass paper bag from Trader Joe’s that pulled right off when I lifted it from the car.  I had put the bottle of Stohrs in the bag SO AS NOT TO DROP IT.  You should understand that it is quite possibly the hottest day EVER and after I’ve already made 2 stops at grocery stores, now I have to go back, hoping that Safeway carries Stohrs.  But first, I have to come inside and put things away and cool off. 

Whilst cooling (both emotionally and physically), I check the recipe and see that I need 3, not 2, vanilla beans. I will get another when I go, although I’m resenting that as I thought I paid almost $5 a piece for them.  And, now that I have to buy wine, well, shee-shee is beginning to fit.

Juice of 1 lemon

3 vanilla beans:  Back to Safeway in suffocating heat.  No Stohrs or gerwurztraminer, for that matter.  So, another vanilla bean.  Dear God.  When I bought the other 2, I realize now that I was looking at the price that belonged to the bottle to the LEFT of the vanilla beans.  Yes.  Well.  One vanilla bean is $11.  I refuse to buy another.  I’ll substitute some of my vanilla sugar for the 3rd bean.  I go a couple of doors down to a liquor shop and find a bottle of gewurztraminer for about $15.  Sheesh.  So, let’s just total this up, here, $22 for vanilla beans and $15 for wine.  Not counting the jars, sugar, fruit and lemon, we’re at $37. Um, ouch?  Want to see what $22 worth of vanilla beans look like? Strangely unrewarding…………..

So, the total result, while a stunning color and very sophisticated flavor, is 4 8oz jars and 1 4oz jar.  That’s 36 oz and so, yeah, about a $1 an ounce.  If that’s not shee-shee jam, well then, I don’t know what is!  And, I have to give 1 jar to my boss, 1 jar to the plum tree owner and a 4 oz jar to my other boss.  As the French say, “Pffsstt!”

 

Friday the 13th

I am not superstitious.  I am not.  I am not.  I am not.

I had a lot to do today, so I got up early and got started.  I dropped the earring I wanted to wear behind the chest of drawers.  Fine.  Not the first time.  Choose another pair.

Get dressed but can’t decide which pair of sandals to wear.

Leave early to go to the grocery store and bring back stuff and put it in the fridge.

Leave for work very proud of myself for being ahead of schedule.  The battery is dead in my parking garage remote.  Fine.  Stop the car out of the way of the light rail, go in the building, go in the garage and open the door.  Drive in and park.

Get out and for the first time notice that I never did make that decision about the sandals, and yes, I am wearing one of each of the contenders!

Big Laugh.  Fine.  Walk over to Starbucks for usual “tall hot chocolate, hazelnut, no whip.”  Walking back to the office realize whatever is in this cup, it is not hot chocolate.  Warm milk, maybe?  Fine.  I have gourmet chocolate at the office.  Stir it into the cup and put it in the microwave.  It boils over.

Fine.  Work for a couple of hours and leave to go see my oldest grandson graduate from 5th grade.  Cell phone rings – uh, the graduation starts at 10, not 10:30.  It’s now just a few minutes until 10.  OK, I’m late.  And I don’t have time to go by the house and change sandals.  Fine.

Parking……the Smart Car has so many things to recommend itself.  The graduation ceremony was really quite sweet and touching with lots of participation by the kids.  J will do a bang up job in her blog (Not Calm Dot Com – and as soon as I learn the incredibly basic skill of adding a real link, I’ll send you there.  Told you the learning curve was going to be steep) recount so I will save my comments for another post.  The craziness of the day was not over (by a long shot!) but I’ll save you the details except to say that things began to work out much better.

I finally realized that it was not, in fact, a Friday the 13th Curse, but that I had actually brought the cosmic toe-stubs on myself.  Because, doncha know, if you put something like, “I’m working on not sweating the small stuff,” you can be sure the Universe will laugh aloud and promptly shower you with, ahem, Small Stuff.  

Even Win You Are Somtims Crancky…..

There are a lot of young families in our church.  Seems like there are always new babies on the way.  Last Sunday, as Jim and I sat waiting for services to begin, a very pregnant young woman walked in front of us.  I said that I was surely glad that part of my life was over.  Jim said, “You were beautiful when you were pregnant…….but you sure were cranky!”  I told him it got crowded in there and he would be cranky, too. 

Towards the end, there is just no escape, no respite, no rest for the weary.  Of COURSE you get cranky!  And, then, I remembered a sheet of notebook paper that I have had tucked away in my red and white checkered Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook for what must be over 30 years, now.  

It is written in pencil and decorated with scattered hearts.  It reads:

“Dear Mommy,

I Love you very Much.  Even win you Are somtims crancky I Love you stil.

Love, Jennifer”

I still let things make me cranky.  I’m working on not sweating the small stuff.  Some days, I am more successful than others, and some days, I just fall flat on my cranky old face.  I do, however, have the blessed assurance that in spite of myself, there are those that love me still.  I am so very grateful for those people in my life and I try my best to love them, “even win they are somtims crancky.”  

To steal a line from James Taylor, “Shower the people you love with love, show them the way that you feel.  Things are gonna be much better if you only will.”

Our Last Best Hope ?

I heard on NPR last month that during Shrub’s Memorial Day address at Arlington, he said that our troops were our, “last best hope” for the future. I want to be careful, here, as I have nothing but absolute respect, gratitude and sincere concern for the safety of all our troops…….. AND………..I am horrified that Shrub (and his cronies and speech writers) think that the “last best hope” for mankind lies in the military system.  Seriously? Which, I am sad to say, has been my reaction to most of what Shrub has had to say over the last 8 years.

Not to mention that he’s killing off our, “last best hope,” with his obscene war.  Like that bumper sticker said, “If you aren’t outraged, you are not paying attention.”

Introducing: Fannie Copperpot

I am in love. With a pot.

There’s actually a long and probably very boring story coming your way, but if you’ve ever fallen in love with a cooking utensil, then you will appreciate this.

I make jam. I would happily spend the rest of my days making jam, and in my dreams, owning a berry farm and selling my wares by the side of the road. I’ve been making jam for years, now. I give it away to family, friends and co-workers. Strawberry, white peach, apricot, apple butter, pear, fig – all to die for.

I am also in love with all things French, so when I saw a link for a cookbook of Christine Ferber’s jam/jelly recipes on Paris Breakfasts, I bought it IMMEDIATELY. Now, if you are remotely acquainted with the French, you know that they are no slipshod cooks – this is serious business. My book arrived. I opened it with bated breath and began to read………….an equipment list! A chinois, OK. A wooden spoon used only for jams, etc., OK. A candy thermometer, check. A copper preserving pan. Uh, oh. Copper. Google: copper preserving pan.

O.M.G. It’s stunning! And expensive. It calls to me. I must have it. Well, there’s that tax rebate…..but being the shopaholic that I am, I continue surfing for a deal. And, I find one – the same beautiful Mauviel copper, $40 less than the going price and free shipping. Sold. And now, the wait. The interminable wait!

We go to the City to see the Annie Leibovitz exhibit and then to the Ferry Building. Sur la Table has an actual Mauviel copper preserving pan hanging safely out of reach above the check out center with all the other copper pans. They let me touch it, hold it, stroke it, kiss it, pray to it. Then they told me I had to leave. Fine. Just give me my new wooden spoon from the Mario Batali collection and I’ll go quietly.

Finally, after many days, it arrives. The packing was so elaborate you could have shipped a newborn in it! And, getting it out was like surgery. Finally, out. In my hands and all mine.

Next, the decision – what recipe will be first? Strawberry jam with raspberry juice, basalmic vinegar and peppercorns. All these recipes use either a homemade pectin (jelly made from green apples) or none at all. Each takes 2 days to complete. The strawberries, sugar and lemon juice mascerate overnight in the fridge. Raspberry juice is coaxed from the berries. What color. Liquid rubies. The next day the berry mixture is put through a sieve and the juices married in the beautiful pot, lovingly boiled, stirred, skimmed.

The fruit is added and basalmic and Grains of Paradise (in place of peppercorns) and brought to another boil, skimmed and finally ladled into steaming jars and sealed.

What luck – there is some left over after filling the jars! For about 30 seconds. I hear the reassuring “plink” of the lids sealing.

I dream about my pot. She must have a name. Fannie. Fannie Copperpot. Welcome to my life, Fannie. What beautiful music we shall make together….with the most grateful acknowledgment to Christine Ferber, the Jam Fairy. (That’s really how they refer to her in France.)

Next, pears with lemon and orange juice and bittersweet chocolate! That’s right. CHOCOLATE in jam. I.can.not.wait. But in the meantime, we found strawberries and raspberries at the farmer’s market tonight….scare up some jars!