Enough with the proselytizing, how about some actual cooking?
You’ll be pleasantly surprised at the complexity of flavors that develop. There’s a subtle heat, but it’s very well-balanced with the bright sweet and sour notes of plumped up apricots and tangy vinegar. I ate some right away with a couple of nibbles of a fantastic cloth-bound cheddar leftover from Thanksgiving. I’m psyched to plop this on a ham-filled biscuit, and excited to create some gift baskets with a jar of chutney, a nice piece of cheese and some homemade crackers.
Taking the long way: Pepper Jelly…so six weeks ago
It was September, and the local farm and farmer’s markets were exploding with late season produce, so once I got that canner boiling, I was determined to stock my pantry with summer in jars. And now here it is, 3 months later, and I’ve found something or other to put up just about every weekend since.
C’est moi qui l’ai fait: The hand-made’s tale
I’ve thought long and hard about it, and my theory around this behavior points to a deep craving for producing a tangible good, faites a main. At the end of a long week of conceptualizing, ideating and general arm-waving around various forms of digital ephemera, I long to face a mountain of apples that need peeling and coring, to push a hunk of lamb shoulder through a grinder and then form it into rounds, to have dough under my fingernails and flour in my hair. I long to MAKE.
