In a jam and the making thereof

I always marvel at those little old ladies and their canning, they are so dedicated and fastidious and patient, none of which I am possessed.  Then I look at the economics and logistics of doing likewise myself, but as I don't have a vegetable garden, am not overly fond of most vegetables, and have no knowledge or equipment concerning the process, it really doesn't make much sense.  So I continue to gaze in wonder at their carefully stored, beautiful jars or jam and preserves, sauce and so forth, but never give into the affectation myself.  Then I saw the peaches.

My mother once made a peach freezer jam and it was delicious, and as it was kept in the freezer until needed, there was no canning necessary.  So I bought a half dozen of those beautiful peaches and thought I would give it a try.  Having neither knowledge nor pectin is a very dangerous thing, but that's what google is for, right?  I found a site that seemed to offer the ideal solution and there was no peeling involved (even better!), so I gave it a try.  They did mention not buying your fruit at the grocery store, but as I already owned the fruit, it was a little late, besides, they were so pretty, what could go wrong?

I followed the recipe on the site, save that I pureed the peaches before I began the process, and it was something of a disaster and the result tasted only of lemons.  Grocery store peaches indeed!

I tried again, with some mushy, ugly, half moldy fruit someone at church gave me, which at their prime had been beautiful, juicy, sweet things but now looked as if they should be moldering on the compost pile.  I did the exact same thing, except there was no peel in this batch as it was too nasty to include.  I'm not sure if the peel makes that much of a difference in cooking the jam, but it was a much milder boil this time around without molten droplets of sticky peach ooze spattering all over everything, including the stirrer.  Ugly or not, they were very nice peaches, as was the resulting jam.  So there you have it, how not to make jam like a professional.

Stone soup?

The old tale goes that the village had nothing to eat, but one ingenious fellow proposed making soup with nothing for a base but a rock.  He plopped it in the caldron and asked all his friends and neighbors to contribute a bit of this and a little of that, whatever they had.  So it was everyone added a little something and voila: a hearty meal!  Not much has changed to this day, the next time you have 'nothing in the house,' why not make stone soup?  A recipe you say?  Where is your sense of adventure?

First, assess what you do have, leftovers are perfect, also consider your frozen and canned inventory, even a boxed rice mix can be a starting point.  What you need:

A base: this is the liquid part of your soup.  Think 'cream of something' soup, tomato juice, leftover turkey gravy, bouillon, milk, cheese, potato water, whatever you have.

Protein: leftover hamburger, fajita meat, canned chicken or ham, cheese, a frozen chicken breast, beans…

A starch: think that two pounds of potatoes starting to get soft in the pantry, noodles, rice, barley…

Vegetables: a jar of salsa, canned or frozen whatever, leftover stir fry…

Spice it up: worchester sauce, chili sauce, herbs and spices...

Something to go with it: tortilla chips, crackers, biscuits, bread, hot dog buns broiled with cheese…

Toppers: cheese, sour cream, lettuce, crackers, nacho chips…

You are only limited by your sense of taste and your imagination, there is no wrong way to make a hearty, tasty concoction that may just become a family favorite!

Of cabbages and kings?

I don't really understand what the world loves about cruising, we just got back from a trip to Alaska's inside passage and it was beautiful, but having to share the experience with 3000 other people was a little crazy!  But then I'm something of an antisocial introvert so maybe my ideas are of fun are vastly different from those of the general public.  I love Alaska but can live without cruising, especially when your meal choices are either an insane buffet with the ambiance of a Chucky-Cheese or an upscale restaurant where snails are always on the menu.  Isn't there something in-between?  How about a nice family style sit-down restaurant that is neither circus nor gourmet?  Yes, it was fun to dress up and pretend to be fancy for one night, but night after night when you don't order the lobster or the $400 bottle of wine, it gets very old.  But besides for the cruise, it was a great trip!

Life lessons from an old guitar

I thought I could afford $5, but it only cost me two, so I took it home, smiling wryly and wondering just what sort of an adventure this would be.  I'm not musical, at least that's what I've always thought and believed, so what was I doing with an old guitar?  I found it sitting forlornly in a corner at a flea market and the lady was only too happy to be rid of it.  I know nothing of guitars, period.  I could tell it was missing a couple strings, but that is the extent of my knowledge of stringed instruments of any sort.  With the help of the internet, I discovered it was a mass produced but popular instrument from the middle of the last century without much value, but if I could make it functional it would be adequate to learn on.  Also with the help of the internet (there is strangely little information on this particular instrument for some reason, I can't imagine why, didn't they have google in 1963?) I discovered it is missing a bridge, but as its design is nothing like any other guitar, ancient or modern, it will be rather difficult to replace the piece, at least if I don't want to spend $50 on ebay for the original, which is quite a bit for a $2 guitar.  I found something on amazon designed for a jazz guitar, but it will hopefully suffice and it was only $4, thereby tripling the value of my find, if only it will be functional.  Now I know more about guitars than I ever thought possible, and I still don't have a clue how to play one.

How often do we stumble into these little side quests and adventures?  We find little bits of joy and interest strewn about like leaves in the autumn.  I really don't want to learn how to play the guitar, but neither did I want to take up piano or get up front and sing, but I just sort of stumbled into it, when there was no other choice, and next thing I know, I'm loving it and finding, much to my horror, that I may be just a tad bit musical.  But sometimes we get so busy, we don't have time or energy or focus to see these little gems when they crop up in our lives.  We'll get to it 'later,' but later never comes and eventually it is forgotten, if it is ever seen at all.  But it is these little adventures that lend all the color and interest to life: the darts that make the garment more than a shapeless bag.  It isn't that we need to be good at it or spend a ton of money or time on something, but rather just to try things, learn things, view life from another perspective, that is what living means: ever curious, ever discovering, eyes full of wonder and interest.  Otherwise we merely exist.