Sunday Morning Black Currant Jam

If you have a purple thumb, does it mean that you have a talent for jam making?

I launched into a quiet Sunday morning jam session, just as daylight was yawning and stretching away the sleepiness of night and making it's own way to the kitchen (no doubt drawn by the smell of freshly-pressed maple-sweetened Sunday morning coffee----a delightful tradition here).  The first jam of the season happened to be black currant, hand-picked by a Vermont farmer, grown on his multigenerational farm, and sold to me as a humble half-pint at farmers market yesterday.

I fell in love with jam making last summer, when, never before having boiled fruit or known about testing setting consistency, I cooked up small and lovely batches of rhubarb and rosewater, spiced peach, blueberry honey, and beautiful apple jelly the color of amber honey, to my satisfaction.  Disappointed in my apartment rental's glass top stove and it's apparent inability, by design, to heat a large canner full of jam jars to proper consistent sterilizing temperature (Does anyone know anything about this?), I played with freezer jam like a mad scientist, coming up with my own concoctions of flavors and subtle levels of sweetness, knowing that using less sugar wouldn't cause spoilage on the shelf.

Actually, it was more like art than science; imagining what beauty might taste like and performing the gentle kitchen dance of weaving in flavors from my culinary palette while absorbing their sensual qualities through sight, taste, and texture.  The results came in the form of beautiful colors to be painted on toast, and eaten with relish, moved by the rich, subtle, and complex flavors that artists of nature's bounty manage to create for their grateful audience:  the observant tongue.

I'd never tasted black currants before, despite having grown up in the Vermont countryside, the daughter of a jam maker and resident of a state where numerous types of berries abound.  'The berry' is perhaps even my favorite fruit; small, aromatic, and decorative morsels, delicate and fleeting, and often potent in medicinal qualities.  Black currants themselves are rich in antioxidants and anti-inflammatories, which may help prevent cancer and reduce the effects of arthritis.

But, if I wasn't aware of their particular taste and unusual scent, which floated on the wave of coffee aromas wafting through my kitchen this morning, I fell in love with their color, both whole in the basket, stained bright purple on my white morning clothes and deep purple into my fingers (thumb included), and in the jam pot, half-mashed and mixed with honey and a touch of lemon juice and cinnamon.  The color and flavor combined, made for the most lovely breakfast of summer Sunday toast and pleasant lickings of aromatic sweetness off sticky thumb and fingers.

Forget-Me-Nots

Simple beauty.

Black Raspberry Season: Dollie Jam

When I was a kid, there were many a summer when we packed up the car and drove to NY State.  It was there that we had the most wonderful time playing with cousins and visiting my grandfather Pop, who lived around the block in the most mysterious house full of nooks and crannies and an attic full of olden toys.  The house was fun to explore, with the most enchanting things to play with: an electric organ on the first floor, old dolls in the bedrooms, and electric trains in the basement.  I guess Pop had the quintessential grandparents' house in some ways, and I'm certain my love of trains, (and making of) dolls, and all things delightful came, in part, from my experiences there.

But this post is about jam making.  And, as I was about to say, getting together with the cousins sometimes meant black raspberry picking.  There was a wooded area along the street that stretched between the cousins' and Pop's, and it was there that we sometimes filled little containers with seedy black berries, which we then popped into our mouths with stained fingers.  I seem to recall some baking of the berries into pies, but that may be a distant memory from when I was older.

It was no surprise that when seeing some brambles along my walking route this week, I immediately recognized them as those wild summertime edibles------unripe red, and black berries accented with the characteristic foggy white "bloom".  

Serene has been wanting to make jam, so immediately this morning, she went picking, and brought back to her kitchen a couple baskets full!

After washing the berries, she filled her copper pot and made jam using her very own recipe.

(I recommend heating this in a proper human-size pot, and storing leftovers in the fridge for short-term use.)

Since there was such a small amount of berries with much flesh and seeds and little juice, Serene wasn't concerned about it setting perfectly.  Therefore, there is no additional pectin in the recipe.  

Finding Maine Again

We can't afford to vacation in Maine this year, but sometimes ya just gotta get away.  When we went to Maine late last summer, to a quiet spot tucked away from heavy tourist towns, in a little cozy cottage/cabin that met so many of our desires for rustic, wooden, olden atmosphere, it was pure heaven.

For a whole week, we spent our days looking out at the green blue sea, and at night, the cabin light turned golden against the wood that surrounded us from floor to ceiling.  It only rained once, and the cabin became a comfort haven for pulling out olden board games from the closet to play while propped up on pillows, surrounded by heaping bowls of oil-popped corn, our hands cupped around mugs of hot chocolate while the rain tap-danced on the roof above us.  Warm homemade casserole for lunch baked in the vintage-style kitchen, and seafood leftovers and roasted winter squash took us into the golden evening.  I loved cooking in that Populuxe peach kitchen, the stove with its streamlined knobs for warming up the local chowder and turning over omelets by the sea.

I had my new camera then.  With its ability to store hundreds of photos, I clicked madly to capture every corner of the cabin, every angle of the view from the beach, every wave that came crashing onto the rocks where we sat most days soaking in the sun, so that I could return again when I couldn't physically be there.

This is one such spot, where the approaching sea filled tidal pools below our rocky perch that stretched veins of shimmering quartz beneath our feet, where the breeze blew peace and calm through our hair and we savored the sun's warmth with closed eyelids, the spot where we could feel like sweeties while silently taking in the vast and shimmering sea, each absorbed in our own thoughts or ponderings, and  sometimes wander off to explore the variety of lichens or magnificent rock formations that had turned themselves upward or outward through geological time and begged to be wondered about.

I found myself recalling this morning, the peace and rejuvenation found in such a spot as this.

Rustic Summer Cooking

I love rustic food.  Its unrefined earthiness is forgiving and it connects me to the small local farms which produce many of the ingredients I prefer to cook with.

Recently, I acquired such an unusual (to me) treasure as a can of sour cherries.  Canned sour cherries are unpretentious, containing plenty of delicious tart flavor, but are drowned in appearance, due to their harvested life spent swimming in a water pack.  They are not elegant stars of the dessert plate, so baking them within a flaky pie crust as a freeform galette seemed like the perfect way to enjoy them.

So, on a sultry summer evening, I turned on the oven and braved the rise in kitchen temperature to produce one of the most delicious desserts I've ever tasted.  And simple----no dyed red gooey pie filling here.  Just the drained sour cherries and a sprinkling of sugar and cornstarch all packaged lovingly within a butter-rich pastry and baked until golden brown.

My recipe for a single pie crust produced nearly twice the amount needed for the galette, so I began to ponder the idea of making a savory version.  With so much summer produce available right now, I imagined combinations like zucchini and mushroom or tomato basil or potato and rosemary.

I opted for  Cate Farm tomato and Vermont Butter and Cheese chèvre layered with caramelized onions and plenty of salt and cracked pepper.  (I was delighted to find a small container of crumbled chèvre for about half the price of a log of the cheese, making it more affordable to me.)  I baked it in a 375-degree oven for close to 45 minutes, or until golden brown.  It was so delicious, and made a lovely lunch on this sunny picnic kind of day!

My Sweetie's lucky I'm the kinda girl who likes to share-----------I could have easily munched the whole thing down while he was away ; )

Happy baking : )

Queen of the Sun

Here is another excellent food film-------a documentary about the disappearing honeybee and its importance to the survival of the human race.  You can watch the trailer below.

Some interesting links:

Here is a Wikipedia article about types of beehives. Here is the website of Vermont beekeeper Kirk Webster and his attempts at treatment-free beekeeping.  Here is an article from Honey Gardens about apitherapy and the benefits of beautiful golden honey.  Here's the blog Mud Songs by a couple beekeepers in Newfoundland---------remarkable photos tracking their beekeeping adventures.  And here's a fun list of honeys (lavender, tupelo, etc.) and their characteristics.

Honey and beekeeping are important to me as cook and gardener.  They appeal to my old-fashioned sensibilities and attraction to a slower way of life.  The social structure of bee colonies is mighty fascinating.  And, of course, the bees are necessary to humans, for providing a large part of our food supply through pollination.

Please take a look at what's happening to these remarkable creatures, whom we depend upon.

Big Night

What better way to beat the heat in the Northeast than to cozy up by a fan and watch a delicious food movie : ) I have seen Big Night at least a few times------I love the humor and the sweet and down-to-earth characters brother Primo and Ann the flower lady, and never get tired of watching the fantastic party---------most especially the gorgeous timpano. Someday I'm going to make that amazing dish. If you're not sure what a timpano is, here is a lovely little blog post about it on Proud Italian Cook.

When Dale Conoscenti had a restaurant in town,  he served a mini version of the timpano, which he called a timballo (There seem to be regional names for it.).  Dale served the most authentic and fresh-tasting Italian food I've ever had, and that timballo was unforgettable.  That restaurant was a class act, and I miss it terribly!

Big Night is one of those visual feast-type movies, with Tony Shalhoub playing the role of chef (Primo), preparing food with such sensitivity and passion that you can believe anything coming out of that kitchen would make your knees buckle, like falling love.  I wish I could learn those recipes from Primo himself!

I highly recommend it, even if you've already seen it once or twice.  Just make sure you've got a plate of warm bread and olive oil or sliced ripe tomato sprinkled with fresh basil to go with it, or it may leave you wanting...

Serene in the Country

When I was a kid growing up in the country, I loved picking wildflowers from the roadside and open fields around my neighborhood in the Northeast.  Buttercups, clover, purple vetch, and orange hawkweed were common. And there were others-------white campion, milkweed, Queen-Anne's Lace, and daisies. 

I love being able to observe the waxing and waning of the seasons by nature's subtle changes; sunlight appears more golden toward late summer and autumn and the crickets get noisy.  And there are the wildflowers. Dandelions arrive in the spring, and when the asters start in, you know fall is around the corner.  

Serene went to the country today and filled her basket with these July blooms------fleabane, bedstraw, and what I think is St. John's wort.  What a marvelous bouquet they make.  

I really love fall, but I'm glad she didn't find any asters yet : )

Romantics Anonymous

This film is so sweet and funny-------and feeds my dream of becoming a chocolatier : ) It's French, currently available for streaming on Netflix. I loved it!

Puppet Bouquets

Look for these magical characters in the shop : )

Leopard Slugs

I found these while on a walk this week!

The mating process of these creatures is unusual and extraordinary.  Please visit this link to see a four-minute video of David Attenborough explaining (and showing) the acrobatic feat!