The Finest Dishes That Ever Held Pies
I’ve said frequently here that I’ve been avoiding the news a lot from the earliest stages of the pandemic (since around March 13th). I am generally a very calm person, but, like a lot of people, I found the thought of contracting a new virus that might make you very ill and might also, if you’re unlucky, kill you, a source of anxiety. It was important to me to try and regain some equilibrium and a key part of that was to isolate myself from exciteable voices and alarmist headlines and stories.
The accuracy of the stories wasn’t the issue, it was just that I didn’t need them in my head just then. And in many respects I don’t need them there right now, either. By this I don’t mean useful factual information, which I do try to keep up with; I mean the hystrionic and exciteable, the politically motivated, the simplistic takes on nuanced reality. I still have to identify stuff that I think I can trust, of course, but spotting the stuff I don’t want has become a pretty straightforward exercise.
We now seem to be in the early stages of a renewed flare up of infections, and, sadly, an increase in deaths. My aversion to chatter and wild speculation is intact.
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I made a batch of Apple, Ginger and Lemon jam this morning and I’m pleased with it. I started with 3.1 kilos of apples (840g Katy, the rest Cox’s Orange Reds) from the garden which, cored and peeled, became 2.9 kilo of fruit. I added the juice and grated rind of two large lemons, and 4 grated chunks of ginger, and macerated them overnight in 2kilos of preserving sugar. When I came downstairs this morning this had essentially become syrup.
All of the cores and peel went into a large stock pot with water and were boiled up for a while. I added a pint and a half of this to the mixture with an extra 0.35 kilo of sugar to give me a sugar:fruit ratio of around 45:55. I brought this to a boil them simmered for 2 hours.
Yield was 11 jars.
I made a loaf of bread too, so fresh jam and fresh bread 🙂
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Although it was chilly overnight (and we switched the heating on this morning), I was able to sit out front in the lunchtime sunshine for a while in my shirtsleeves, reading.
It was pleasantly quiet. Not as silent as April or May, but quiet nevertheless. For the most part this was due to an absence of airport noise. Apart from the occasional car on the street, the only sound was of brittle leaves from the plum and damson trees falling to the ground.
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Music: across on my 1970 music pages I’ve been musing a little on traditional folk music. While I was writing it, I thought of this, by Eliza Carthy, which I liked when it was released and like now. Herring Song.
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