Attitude of Gratitude

This post was written in June but posted in July – and not even on the first of July – because June was the sort of month when the wheels came off. That was true literally, as with my hapless seven-year-old lawn mower, and in other ways as well for me, and perhaps for others too. Under such circumstances I try to cultivate an attitude of gratitude and to "knit on with confidence and hope through all crises" per Elizabeth Zimmermann. It doesn't always work, but it beats most of the alternatives.



So, in June, there was too much travel, of course. Which of course meant my Loopy Space Camp project for June, Tendril by Mary-Ann Mace, didn't progress very far – certainly not to completion. Perhaps it's in keeping with the space camp theme that instead of reaching Neptune (ie, a finished project of 800-999 yds (731-913 m)), it's become a UFO.



There was no June jamming for the FIJ Challenge either. Ah well. The July theme is stonefruit, and I really hope to get to can some. Meanwhile, Marisa was hospitalized with pre-eclampsia, which puts my woes in perspective. Here's hoping she and her twins pull through with flying colors.

On the bright side, the prize haul in June was quite handsome. I received a Sock Madness 13 prize, a beautiful personalized Party Palette from Belchickie, for improvising a crochet hook and knitting on with confidence and hope etc on my Demogorgon's Lair socks. My thanks to the Sock Madness mod team and to Belchickie!



And UFO or no, my Neptune swap partner, Cascott, sent a rich and lovely package: a sweet note; astronaut ice cream that I'm going to save for the big anniversary, July 20, 2019; a crochet hook/cable needle Handi Tool; Black Elephant Superwash Merino Singles, colorway Lights Out; stitch markers; and a space-themed project bag, lined and finely finished with a measuring tape scissors leash, sparkly pull tabs, and a rocket zipper pull (check out that planetary pattern-matching). My thanks to Neptune moderator UnravelingSophia and to Cascott!



While I was traveling Ravelry adopted a new policy banning expressions of support for the Trump administration as equivalent to hate speech, which rapidly became national news and inevitably national parody. The strong stand also provoked a backlash that involved threats against Rav staff, trolls and (possibly Russian) bots who mostly posted threatening and pornographic messages and images on the website, and DoS attacks. A few politically conservative groups closed and a few members quit. Some designers and yarn shops received threats and, curiously, some conservative knitters also received unpleasant messages. I have to wonder about the source(s). It's troubling to know Big Brother is watching, and cares enough to actively seek to create contention. Hm.



Also while I was traveling, one of my overwintered leeks started growing a bulb. I didn't think leeks did that, but there it is. I'm going to go with that bit of serendipity, and start a July project for Loopy Space Camp and spin a bit for Tour de Fleece, which starts July 6. More on both, and FIJ, later.

Wandering, Not Lost

So. I joined the Camp Loopy knit-along. This year's theme is outer space, in honor of the 50th anniversary of the first Moon landing on July 20, 1969, and blast-off was June 1. Which may not be the wisest move – joining, that is, not the choice of theme or the start date (or believing the Moon landing was real) – as my last blog post was ::cough:: eight weeks ago... and I haven't yet cast on. It's the usual, too much travel.

So. While I remedy both regrettable states of affairs, howabout a photo of the Moon, taken last night because I couldn't get an image of Jupiter and its moons, which were in opposition on Monday. It's handheld because the tripod had one leg ripped clean off during a chaotic night shoot in February. The damage is beyond duct tape, sigh. Anyway, I love how the lunar terminator, the divide between bright and dark, highlights the craters in light and shadow.



Sock Madness Round 7, the round of champions, starts tomorrow. I dropped out after Round 2 for the usual reasons, although I made scanty progress on the Round 3 sock, inky madness by Susan Gehringer. And I want to knit the Round 4 sock, Canon by Caoua Coffee and the Round 6 pattern, Swirlagon Socks by Kirsten Hall. So many patterns, so little time!



Somehow I got out of sync with the FIJ Challenge monthly challenges, too. June is jam month, so in the time remaining I'll try to put up some old favorites and try a new recipe if I can manage it. The big discovery from last year was tomato jam and I want to put up mass quantities for the lean times – last year's hoard was barely sufficient! But of course it's not tomato time yet and (of course) I have yet more travel scheduled. Well, the journey of a thousand miles starts with consulting a lot of maps.

Off to knit like the wind!

FIJ Challenge: Fermentation

For the February FIJ Challenge, Fermentation, I made sourdough starter. More accurately, a sourdough colony of yeasts and lactobacilli formed itself and I fed it until it was time for it to feed me. I'd never worked with sourdough starter before – it was like having a kind of vegetable garden, or perhaps the sort of pet that's fated for the table. Patience and respect are helpful. Here it is, hard at work in the mixing bowl.



At first the sourdough starter was very active, doubling rapidly and enthusiastically. On one fermentation cycle it burped hard enough to knock its waxed paper cover askew. (I assume its high activity is because my kitchen has lots of happy microflora floating about from making yogurt, which I started during the 2017 FIJ Challenge.) Eventually a thin layer of hooch formed, and as I wasn't interested in drinking it or using it to brew lambic beer, but did want the starter to calm down, I stirred the hooch in and began small starter maintenance. The alcohol should inhibit the yeasts and encourage the lactobacilli. Even so, the starter happily doubled at room temperature in less than three hours, as shown below. I switched from fermenting in a trifle bowl covered with waxed paper to Mason jars in anticipation of storing the starter in the refrigerator.

 

Tending a sourdough starter produces a lot of discard, which I put to work. First, I made Buttery Sourdough Sandwich Biscuits. Remarkably, I could feel the sourdough rising as I cut out the biscuits – and my nicely formed biscuits slumped during baking. Ah well, Dance 10, Looks 3 – the results are very tasty. I'd definitely make them again, although maybe next time I'd reduce the amount of butter.



At room temperature the small starter replenished almost as fast as I could bake. So I made a Sourdough Chocolate Cake (with brown sugar icing) for a church potluck. It's a heavy oil cake with a coarse crumb and a nice cocoa flavor, with a faint sourdough tang (super close up below to show the crumb). When I focus on the tang, it seems subtly different than that of a yogurt or sour cream cake, which are made with fermented milk, while sourdough is fermented grain. Both make food more easily digested, and the nutrients more readily available. Makes me want to try subbing coconut oil and rye flour in the cake, the coconut oil for flavor and the rye flour for both flavor and the yeasts carried in its bran. Rye flour is legend among sourdough enthusiasts.



One sourdough legend that I ignored was a ban on metal, reminiscent of tales of the effects of cold iron on fairies – I used stainless steel without ill effect. I imagine sourdough wisdom is a bit like dye lore, accumulated over time with careful observation but no modern technology. I can see how more reactive metals such as copper or aluminum might have dramatic reactions with sourdough, which after all is acetic.



To store my sourdough starter, I'm using modern technology in the form of a new-fangled refrigerator. But I'm also trying the old school technique of drying a smear of starter on a piece of parchment paper and keeping the resulting chips in a cool, dry place. The smear contracted as it dried, forming long curved pieces that turned the flat parchment paper into a rippled hyperplane. I'll try reviving it some time in the future.

So that's my fermentation February. I've noticed fermentation projects have a sorcerer's apprentice aspect to them – unless kept well in hand, they have a tendency to increase rapidly and become overwhelming (!), not to mention one project suggests another. (Or maybe something about fermentation appeals to the more obsessive aspects of one's personality. Huh, I've been trying to do some shadow work.) I'd like to try making kimchi, and may yet do so, but also wanted to post this wrapup in time for the FIJ deadline. So, onward to March and herbs.

February Is the Shortest Month

It's February, and so Black History Month in the U.S., and because of this and oh-so-many other reasons my book group is reading White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo and I'm Still Here by Austin Channing Brown, both excellent and worthy reads, particularly when read in parallel. Although the theme of the selections, a seasonal phenomenon, does tend to bring to mind the pesky question Why now? and the uncomfortable exchange:

Q. Why is February Black History Month?
A. Because it's the shortest month.

The barbed joke is not to suggest that black history lacks substance – far from it, the dual narratives of black enslavement and Native American genocide are foundational for the entire hemisphere and continue into the present – but rather to hint that white attention spans are so short that 28 days (or 29, in a leap year) is really all the time anyone could reasonably expect white people to pay attention to anything not featuring them in the starring role. A stereotype, perhaps, or put another way the ability to flit into and out of conversations on race and culture, and impatience at being confronted about the same, are prime examples of white privilege. Earnest explanations that the choice of February has something to do with the Great Emancipator's birthday could similarly be reframed as whitesplaining, centering the conversation on whites, and denying agency to blacks. It's all about perspective and point of view.

Whew! Time for a cookie photo of some yarn, a seven-color Find Your Fade kit from Neighborhood Fiber Co. -- an independent, urban, black-owned, woman-owned business. How's that for virtue-signaling? Although ::cough:: I bought the kit back in 2017, and while it still sparks joy, I haven't yet knit it up. Too much travel, sigh.



Sadly, and no surprise, retreat into fibery goodness provides no safe space from race matters, witness the turmoil propagating from a single insensitive blogpost about an international trip. It's a striking illustration of white tears that many crafters do not see the original post as problematic at all and instead lament that the blogger's dream vacation has been ruined by over-zealous BIPOCs. All that unspooled in less than a week in January, and continues to unspool. While I hesitate to dive into the controversy now – and have hesitated to link to the OP, not least because I think she's gotten quite enough attention – the topic is not going away anytime soon. So let me link the links and ruminate on my February reading and keep on keeping on.

Edited to add: this Vox article gives a helpful, non-judgmental summary of the controversy.



As last month was unexpectedly hectic (gusty sigh), I never did manage the January FIJ Challenge, citrus. I'm catching up now with some citrus jam (not marmalade) made from miscellaneous leftover Lunar New Year citrus – a lot of tangerines, two Meyer lemons, half a Cara Cara navel orange, and a couple segments from a red grapefruit. I'll never repeat the exact mix again! I mostly followed this recipe for Orange Cardamom Jam... except the fruits were so sweet and fragrant, I omitted the cardamom, used Pomona Pectin and only one-third of the sugar, and had a greatly reduced cooking time. It's my first time using Pomona Pectin, which does not rely on sugar to set, and I think I overdid it – the set is a bit rubbery. But the flavor is fresh and sweet-tart with just a touch of pleasantly bitter aftertaste. The yield is excellent: a scant three cups of citrus pulp turned into five quarter-pints of jam with an almost-full jar as the cook's share. I neglected to take any process photos; it was a little surprising how the intensely colored tangerines turned golden with cooking. Overall, I'm pleased, and the jam is my first official FO of 2019 – a little sweet to go with the bitter.

By the Light of the Super Blood Wolf Moon

Happy New Year, gentle readers, a couple weeks late! If the way January has started continues during the rest of the year, there will be much last-minute alarums and just-in-time scrambling in 2019. I sincerely hope not, I was hoping for a tranquil, prepared year. Well, onward.



Tonight there's a total lunar eclipse visible from the continental US, breathlessly dubbed a Super Blood Wolf Moon. It's the only total lunar eclipse of this year, so I'm going to stay up late, bundle up against the cold, and try to get a photo. I'll post the (possibly only blob-like) results above. (ETA: Only a little blurry, not too bad considering it was freaking cold outside and someone may have tripped over the tripod. Anyway, a beautiful copper eclipse moon.)

My first foot of the year is Invitation to the Dance by Caoua Coffee, which was the warmup pattern for Sock Madness 11 (2017). Although I enjoy her patterns for their beauty and erudition, and this one is proving similar to others, I didn't have time to knit it pre-SM and was only a cheerleader for the duration. Maybe this year will be lucky thirteen? Hm.



I'm excited that after a year away the Food in Jars Mastery Challenge 2019 will reprise the excellent 2017 experience, complete with hashtag (#fijchallenge), a presence on Facebook and on Instagram, and seasonal adjustments for participants in the Southern Hemisphere, who currently are awash in stone fruit, a heat wave, and the Australian Open. The (Northern Hemisphere) January challenge is citrus. I have a new marmalade recipe (a friend's family secret!), and I want to try candying citrus slices. In preparation I bought some crazy-expensive organic citrus because edible peel is a feature. So far I've ::cough:: eaten some excellent grapefruit and made some citrus peel vinegar cleaner. Apparently there are "18 Places You Should Be Cleaning With Vinegar" in the kitchen alone. I have a greasy oven (worse than #3) and a stinky Instant Pot sealing ring (#10) to tackle. No-longer-young-hopefully-not-yet-old fogey and neo-Luddite that I am, I don't quite get Instagram, so that's an additional January challenge for me.

Although my phone may be an impediment, and perhaps that's one more thing to remedy in 2019. Hm.

Amazing to relate, last year's last foot, Holly Jolly Cranberry Biscotti, won one of the prizes in the Sock Knitters Anonymous random prize draws for Nov/Dec 2018, a pattern from This Handmade Life. I'm thrilled. I've participated irregularly in SKA for 12 years, and this is the first time I've won a prize. Maybe it's an auspicious beginning to another lucky thirteen (even though the SKA calendar runs September-August)? Anyway, whee.

Sweets and Defeats

Happy New Year! It's unusually cold and unusually snowy roundabout Exit 151... and I'm starting 2018 with a catch up from the Old Year. There's 2017 sweets...

Food in Jars December challenge: Cara Cara Orange Pâte de Fruit. Cute, tasty, exotic, and too full of sugar and soluble fiber. I'm glad I tried making them, don't think I'll make them again.

... and 2017 defeats...

Singleton Socks of Shame 2017, left to right, oldest to newest: Meadowlands, Fawkes, Julesokker, Love Me Knot, Chain Link, Hanauma Bay, handspun Queen of Diamonds, Twisted Madness, Dropping Madness.

... and even a bit of culture.

Food in Jars November challenge: Yogurt made in a mason jar and cooler. So good, I may never buy commercial yogurt again.

There's so much more that could be said, but right now I'd rather not re-tread old soles. Instead, onward to the first foot!

The Pits

Oh hai. Happy... Halloween? All Saints Day? Where was I? Right, canning along and dealing with an abundance of pits, which made August, September, and October fly by bloglessly. I missed the U.S. Open. I missed Rhinebeck. While that's a sadness, there may be consolations. As gentle readers may know, when life gives you pits, sometimes that implies peaches or possibly cherries or possibly both, which is not so bad. But other times it's just the pits.

So. Back in August I canned peaches. The FIJ August Challenge was a twofer, low temperature pasteurization or steam canning. However, as both challenges require specialty equipment, impecunious renegade that I am, I just chugged along hot-packing peaches. It wasn't a good year for peaches, too cold during critical bloom times during the spring and too wet, flooded, and overcast when the developing fruits needed sun. Out of the various peaches I tried this summer – from New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina farmers markets – NJ peaches were the sweetest, which ordinarily is not the case.

Prepping peaches for canning requires blanching and peeling, slicing (halves and even quarters seemed too big, I tried sixths), then simmering until hot in canning liquid. It was a surprise to see that blanched, peeled peaches retain a lovely blush...



... that vanishes with simmering. More accurately, the slices lose their blush, but the canning liquid takes on a pretty pink tinge that eludes my poor digicam.



For canning liquid I tried recipes that use apple juice or heavy syrup (in the Ball Blue Book). My plan was to be able to eat the peaches and drink the juice, but some of the hungry peach-eaters at casa Jersey Knitter greatly prefer peaches in heavy syrup because they find juice pack too acidic. I wonder if a touch of honey would help smooth that out.

Processing is straightforward. I had some trouble with syphoning and fruit float, then read the former is caused when the contents of jars are either too hot or too cold relative to the water bath, especially with larger jars, and the latter happens when the specific gravity of the fruit is less than that of the canning liquid. Adjust accordingly. Eureka! (Alas for the peach-eaters, I think that means light syrup is more appropriate.)



The results were very good, far superior to store-bought canned peaches, which encouraged further production. Also a certain amount of backwards progress when the hungry peach-eaters helped themselves to the peaches in heavy syrup. For quality assurance purposes, of course. Only one heavy syrup pack jar made it to the class photo.



That is the most canning of one thing I've done so far, but not enough to see casa Jersey Knitter through the dearth of fresh peaches. I'd hoped to continue canning peaches through September, but the knowledgeable farmers market dude told me there's a magic moment that usually happens around the third week of August when peaches still look good, but no longer taste good. I'd never really noticed, but that is exactly what happened. Then other things happened, I was away a lot, and missed the FIJ September challenge, fruit butter, altogether. I was looking forward to trying a recipe for tomato jam... although this hasn't been a great year for tomatoes either, at least not in my tomato patch. Ah well.

I knit a loud sock for September Sockdown and was disqualified for being inattentive to the rules. Shrug. My DQ sock is a modified version of Socks on a Plane, and indeed was knit on a plane, and on trains and automobiles, too. Progress has been the opposite of speedy. I've been using a counting thread to keep the 3x3x7 cable crossings correct.



Carole fortuitously reminded me I had a bag of pitted Bing cherries in the freezer, prepped and set aside during the surfeit of cherry season for a purpose now forgotten. I decided to repurpose them for brandied cherries (recipe in the Ball Blue Book), to be used in festive cocktails and boozy desserts, except I substituted Amaretto for brandy as I find almond more sympatico with cherries. Freezing and canning were not kind to the cherries' texture, but otherwise the boozy cherries are incredible – sweet, dark, and quite alcoholic, definitely a consolation for missing the FIJ October challenge (dehydration or pressure canning). Indeed, the canning syrup was so good, I canned the excess too.



The trouble with any -along is too many inspirations/patterns/recipes, too little time. And boy howdy, do I have too little time at the moment. So let me just note these recipes (Fikira Honey Candy and Canned Lemon Curd) and the fond hope I can get to them later. November, November, that's how I'll remember!

Beyond Categorization

Per expectation, thus far the month of June has been a whirlwind of busy. If June were a mountain in a stage of the Tour de France, the term hors catégorie or HC – beyond categorization – would not be inappropriate. But there's no point in saying, "I told you so." Onward and upward!



A minor annoyance amidst all the to-ing and fro-ing has been the persistent clanking noises emanating from my tote bag, caused by divers things striking my fancy stainless steel water bottle. To reduce the noise and to prevent damage to its finish, I went over to the dark side and crocheted a water bottle cozy from some Lily Sugar 'n Cream acquired on the fly at a big box store. (The colorway is Lava Lamp. Really?) There's no pattern, just granny-ing along. It works pretty well. Ah, blessèd freedom from clanking!



The FIJ June challenge, jam, posed a vexing challenge at the beginning of the month: there's not a lot of fresh local fruit roundabout Exit 151. Thus the appeal of this unexpected recipe for Dried Apricot Jam. Although perhaps by now gentle readers know better than to be surprised that intrepid canners can put up almost anything. And although it's no surprise a plant-rich diet has a great impact on curbing global warming, according to the rankings in Drawdown, eating imported fruits and vegetables has less environmental impact than eating local beef. Put another way, a plant-based diet is so much better for the planet than red meat, transportation considerations become negligible. Also, while eating local seasonal produce is great taste-wise and it supports local farmers, it doesn't do that much environmental good. Huh.



Anyway, the jam technique is simple: dice dried apricots, rehydrate overnight, cook down with sugar and a bit of lemon juice until jammy. (That's a technical term.) My poor digicam could not capture how variable in color and texture the rehydrating bits looked – some bits were almost white, wrinkled, and tough, some bits were deep orange and very soft. In the pot the bits broke down and deepened in hue in a most satisfactory way, and the results were excellent in all ways: delicious, convenient, and a spot-on yield. I put up one half-pint jar to use in jam cake and three quarter-pints for other uses. Happiness.

Time passed, and lovely fresh apricots became available in the markets. So I did the obvious, bought some fresh apricots with the intent of doing a jam-off. Unfortunately more time passed, and about half the apricots went bad before I could do that (oops, food waste). Ahem.



The recipe for Simple Apricot Jam is as minimalist as it gets: two ingredients, chopped fruit and sugar in a 3:1 ratio by weight, let macerate overnight, cook down. That's it. The formula works for other peel-on, high-acid fruit, too. I neglected to take a pic of the chopped fruit, but the bits were deeply colored and firm-textured, with velvet skin. In the pot everything cooked down into a beautiful golden paste that was thin at first, but slowly thickened into jamminess. The odor was heavenly.



I started with 27 oz. (.765 kg) chopped fruit and 9 oz (.255 kg) sugar, and ended with four quarter-pints and some well-licked implements.



Initially I'd thought of a doing taste-off between apricot jam made from dried fruit and apricot jam made from fresh fruit. Now I know there's no comparison. Dried Apricot Jam is excellent; Simple Apricot Jam is early summer in a jar. I could tell by the smell when it was cooking down that it would be too good for putting in jam cake, so I changed the put-up to all small jars. One may as well call it HC Apricot Jam.

What They Were Thinking

It's been a cool and soggy Memorial Day weekend roundabout Exit 151, and I don't mean the uproar over a certain sportswriter's selective unease about the Indy 500 winner or the pushback to a certain First Blogger's let-them-eat-cake recipe. No, no, fluff-filled brain that I have, the observation is merely meteorological – the weekend was cool and rainy.

In between the raindrops I managed to visit the Presby Iris Gardens, which lived up to their nickname, A Rainbow on the Hill. And there were plenty of buds, so the display should remain lovely for at least another week.



Gentle readers may recall that last month's quick pickled asparagus disappeared fast, which prompted me to put up the shelf-stable version for the May FIJ challenge, cold pack. This time I used Marisa McClellan's recipe for Pickled Asparagus Spears, put up in 12-oz jelly jars. Compared with the quick pickle, the processed version (unsurprisingly) is wrinkled and softer, although not as overcooked as commercial canned asparagus, and the extra heat infused the brine with the color of the red pepper flakes. There was some siphoning, nothing too distressing, and the yield was perfect. All good, except it turns out the happy hope of preserving spring bounty was mostly foiled by the insatiable munching jaws at casa Jersey Knitter. As fast as the asparagus is prepared, just so quickly it disappears! That's mostly gratifying, only slightly frustrating.



Somehow Sock Madness 11 has managed to reach Round 5, leaving me far, far behind, even for a patterns-only non-competitor. After a personal best last year, there are too many distractions this year! And my wandering attention has wandered to June Camp Loopy (and the Tour de Fleece 2017). Here's my yarn for camp, Cascade Ultra Pima. I'm wavering (again) on the pattern. This year's theme is dinosaurs; I've been assigned to Camp Stegosaurus. Although my dino totem is a Velociraptor. Perhaps that bodes well for fierce and fleet knitting? Surely it doesn't signify much frogging and shredding?



Alas, cruel reality intrudes on these pleasant knitting musings: I expect to be crazy-busy in June (and traveling on the day of the TdF Grand Départ, July 1). What am I thinking???

Easy Refrigerator Pickled Asparagus

A tale of the quick and the slow.
The April FIJ Challenge is quick pickles, also known as refrigerator pickles as they are not canned and must be stored in the fridge (rather than on the shelf). Given nice asparagus is so plentiful in the markets these days and DH and I just planted some crowns in the fine hope of picking our own in a year or two, it seemed like good practice to try this recipe: Easy Refrigerator Pickled Asparagus.

It was a hit. From the cook's perspective, the recipe is indeed easy. There's photographic evidence, barely, of the results – this quart jar used to be full. Apparently the quick in quick pickles refers to more than just the speed with which they can be prepared. The asparagus pickles disappeared so fast, I didn't even hear the happy chomping. The only clue was an off-hand observation that the pickle flavor got stronger as time went by.



Aficionados of quick pickles claim they are brighter-tasting and crisper than their processed analogs, and can be put up in smaller batches. Considerable virtues indeed, although as my refrigerator space is limited I can't say they outweigh the value of preserving large quantities of the harvest in a shelf-stable way. Not to mention that when the happy chompers realized this, they began agitating for canned pickled asparagus in increasingly louder and grumpier tones. Also for tweaks to the pickling spices. Oh my.

Much of the fun, and value, of the can-along is seeing what others make. I'm enamored of the many examples of pickled hard-boiled eggs that triumphantly graced Easter sideboards in multi-colored splendor... but the once-happy, then agitated chompers at casa Jersey Knitter turned positively revolting at the prospect. Something about how HB eggs are a perfect food that must be spared hideous adulterants. Well, except for a bit of salt... or soy sauce... or mayonnaise... then there's potato salad... and HB eggs and gravlax (I made more gravlax)....

It's enough to drive a cook to slow knitting.



While the rest of Sock Madness charges along (Round 2 ends today!), I've been working on the second sock of the qualifying pattern, Twisted Madness. Slowly, because the pattern stitch makes my wrists hurt. Yet slow progress is still progress, and will do for now.

Lent Socks

Happy April Fool's Day! This is a post-factum post, a catch-all catch-up, and it would seem the joke's on me. In true Seussical fashion, after I made shrub (also known as drinking vinegar or switchel) for the March FIJ Challenge (jellies and shrubs), I started seeing it here and there, I started seeing it everywhere. I saw it at an Asian supermarket (the signs say it's a healthy drink)...



... in a deli refrigerator case...



... and at the Tait Farm Foods booth at the Philadelphia Flower Show. They were giving away samples, which tasted predominantly of fruit, sweet and tart, with that sour-funky vinegar flavor only at the finish. Quite nice, very refreshing. I bought a few bottles for research purposes.



Alas, after much judicious sampling I have decided shrub just isn't my thing. I can see why some FIJ Challenge participants match a mix of 3 parts red wine vinegar and 1 part balsamic vinegar with strawberries or Braggs apple cider vinegar with citrus, pairings that would not have occurred to me before. So I'm happy to have expanded my palate and learned something new, even if I don't think I'll re-visit the topic. It does tug at my imagination, though, in ways that soup base does not.

Speaking of re-visiting topics, one February Sockdown category was repeats, so I knit another pair of lovely Embossed Leaves by Mona Schmidt, this one in Opal Uni-Solid, 2600 Purple. They're the liturgically correct color for Lent, and they're finished, although one day past the Sockdown deadline. Oh well. I tweaked the pattern a very little: substituted 2x2 ribbing, varied the pattern by a half-drop, fiddled with the star toe for fit. Otherwise, it's a beautiful and truly repeat-worthy pattern!



For a second March FIJ Challenge project I made Wine and Herb Jelly by Cathy Barrow, using a Riesling Auslese instead of the Gewürtztraminer specified in the recipe. It was easy, pretty, and tasty, with a nice soft set and excellent yield; something to do at a time of year when there's not much fresh local fruit roundabout Exit 151. I put a sprig of thyme in the jars for decoration, but think the wine jelly would be equally good without it. The Auslese has such a luscious peach flavor, I suspect it might make an extra-luxurious and flavorful base for pepper jelly.



Obviously I'm having a lot of fun with the challenges. I'm particularly appreciative of the expertise and creativity of other participants, which leads to a phenomenon familiar from knitting: so many great recipes, too little time. It turns out almost anything can be made into jelly! Among the many recipes I'd like to try someday: Stout Beer Jelly, Grape Juice Jelly, Jalapeño-Confetti Jelly (in Preserving with Pomona's Pectin). As I don't much care for the massive quantities of sugar in so many traditional jelly recipes, I'd very much like to try Pomona's pectin, which would allow me to reduce the amount of sugar and let the fruit flavors shine.



I was down to one small jar of January's blood orange marmalade, so I made more. The January batch was rose-gold, but the March batch turned out ruby red. They taste about the same. Huh. I put up this batch in three 4-oz and three 8-oz jars to suit the excellent marmalade cake recipe – pity I don't have any 10-oz jars. Hm.

March Ado About Snow

Tuesday, Pi Day, was a snow day roundabout Exit 151. It was a typical March snowstorm, heavier than snow earlier in the winter, and it shut everything down. Fortunately, I had obtained turkey and stuffing pie and bangers and mash pie from The Pie Store a day ahead, so was very well-provisioned for the day's festivities. Unfortunately, DH was so grumpy and hungry after shoveling snow that there are no pie pix, just glowing reviews of both.



In between shoveling snow and feeding Hungry Man I mixed up a batch of Blueberry Ginger Shrub for the March Food in Jars Challenge (jellies and shrubs), using the cold process technique outlined by Michael Dietsch on Serious Eats. Stir, let sit in the fridge, sample. I'd never tried shrub before, which is an old-fangled blend of vinegar, fruit, and sugar, and I have learned something important. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, boasts (Act 5, Scene 1, and what a scene it is):

Woo't drink up eisel [vinegar], eat a crocodile?
I'll do it.

Not me. Shrub and the drinks based on same are not to my taste. The concoction is not meant to be drunk straight, but rather mixed with one's favorite mixer and an optional splash of booze for an old-is-new-again cocktail. I tried ginger ale and still found the mix overly acetic, YMMV. It did help the fruit flavors to let the drink breathe and come to room temperature, which makes sense for something originally developed pre-refrigeration. But, I'll pass on this one.



I'm also going to pass on Sock Madness 11. Sadly, between too much travel and a qualifier's pattern that made my wrists hurt, this is as far as I had gotten as of 2:45 pm EDT today. One sock, with counting thread and a long tail at the toe because I knit to specs but plan to undo the star toe and substitute my preferred wedge toe. That means I qualified for patterns, but not for competition... which may be the best for my sanity and my wrists!

Tomorrow I'm away again. Alas, the tales of my away adventures are piling up and I'm too busy/lazy to set them in order. Must try to address that soon.

Mark Bittman's Gravlax

The Food In Jars salt challenge is so wide-ranging, I had to try another recipe. Gravlax, or salt-cured salmon, seemed a natural. There's not much to say – I followed Mark Bittman's Gravlax recipe, using some techniques mentioned in the comprehensively informative Serious Eats recipe and essay, and a 2:1 salt:sugar dry brine. The required effort was minimal; some space in the fridge was needed. The results are excellent, luxuriously yummy.



For this recipe the most important comments have to do with food safety. Salmon sometimes carries parasites that can affect humans, so the fish MUST be sushi-grade, that is, commercially frozen to render it suitable for consuming raw. And as this type of salt-curing is a fleeting preservation method, the gravlax MUST be eaten within five days of finishing its cure. Given the wide availability of "previously frozen fish" and the tastyness of gravlax, both safety requirements are easily satisfied.

Bittman's recipe says a 3-lb (1.36 kg) piece of salmon will yield 12 appetizer servings. A quarter-pound per person initially sounds outlandish, but it does seem most people if given half a chance will happily gorge on this stuff until surfeited, so the part that's mistaken is calling this an appetizer. At casa Jersey Knitter, there were suspicious mutterings when the curing salmon first appeared in the refrigerator, hogging so much shelf space, followed by impatient mutterings as it underwent its three-day cure, then more suspicion ("You try it first, and if you don't keel over..."), a sudden change of heart after that first amazing taste, then the soft noises of very contented feeding.



A bonus happiness is I used some of the overly salty vegetable bouillon to wash the raw salmon as described in the Serious Eats recipe. I was wondering what to do with it! We ate the gravlax with my own pickled nasturtium pods, which are similar to pickled capers, except they taste like pickled nasturtium pods (duh), flowery-mustardy-cresslike. I really must put up more... which means planting more.

I am definitely making more gravlax. I'd like to try the basic recipe with other fish, substitute shiso, an Asian pickling herb, for dill, tweak the dry brine mix. I used gin for the booze, which added a nice juniper berry note, and wonder what adding juniper berries to the rub will do. Mmm... so many things to try.



Meanwhile, fibery progress continues. I'm wishing I had a not-too-big stainless steel mixing bowl. They don't have much appeal as mixing bowls for me, but for craft purposes they're da bomb. Hm.