Toward the end of last month, a close friend ordered me to sleep more in 2017. Which I agreed would be a good idea, so I am hitting the hay in a few minutes instead of seeding kumquats for marmalade. But I have sterilized some lids and put the pint jars in the dishwasher, so "guessing game jam" may be on the horizon.
(Madeleine Kamman: "Practiced at home, the technique [of making preserves with a sugar syrup] is awkward for modern minds used to blindly following recipes, for it is you, the cook, who must establish the recipe, basing your calculations for the amount of sugar and water to be used on the weight of the ready-to-cook fruit and its water content. It is no more complicated than doing an elementary school sum, but we are no longer used to it. The preparation of these preserves at home is to a point experimental; I remember my great grandmother calling them 'guessing game jams.'")
The kumquats, Meyer lemons, and grapefruits (plus an orange) are from the New Orleans backyard grove my big sis shares with her ex. I made sorbet last night with some of the lemons (using a Mark Bittman recipe as a base, with the advice of several blogs on making ice cream sans machine), and spiked a pitcher of water with slices of lemon and ginger.
Today's attempt at dinner was passable, even though the BYM later commented that the salad "smelled like feet." Really, the preparation of everything is experimental. I'm going to sleep on that. :)
This entry was originally posted at
http://zirconium.dreamwidth.org/139173.html.