Five Things I Learned Today…

My friend Alan P. Scott taught me the word “bildungsroman.”  I have spent the whole day looking for a chance to use it in conversation. Try as I might, though, it will not be lessened to fit the things I have to talk about: what I am–or rather am not–going to cook for dinner, whether or not the dogs needed yet another walk on this muggy summer afternoon, or which font would look best on my husband’s business cards.  If it’s going to be of any use to me at all, it will probably have to be over coffee at the Blue Moose with someone else from the English Department.  That’s how it is with all the best new words I’m learning these days.

Jam can be remade if it doesn’t jell correctly.  For every quart, just add ¾ cup sugar, 2 tablespoons bottled lemon juice, and 2 tablespoons liquid pectin and bring everything back to a hard boil for 45-60 seconds.   Voila.  And to think I was going to dump it all down the sink.

I have learned the details of the procedure known as an “icepick lobotomy,” and the particulars of the procedure as it was peformed on Howard Dully, author of My Lobotomy.  I have also learned that there is a reason people read trash during the summers and not deep, ponderous tomes.  It is a beautiful day and all I can do is sit inside and grumble about injustices.  If only I weren’t allergic to trashy novels, I might be at the pool today, growing bronze and fit.  See what books can do to you?

Nasturtiums are better in theory than in salad.

George Carlin is dead.  Apparently, there really are some things that you can’t be clever enough to talk your way out of, and death is one of them.  This means I can stop worrying about saving up enough money to retire forever, which is good, because as it stands I can afford to retire until exactly lunch the following day.   That is, as long as I don’t put any gas in my car.  Which, of course, I will have to do sooner or later.  See?  Some things are inevitable.

Sour Cherry and Kumquat Jam

There was a farmer selling a healthy crop of sour cherries at the farmer’s market this morning.  We don’t see them often–the birds and squirrels like them too well. 

When I was a child, my grandfather and his brothers all had gentlemen’s farms (that phrase tickles me) in the part of the state near the Greenbrier Hotel.  I can remember going to the Asbury farm when I was very, very small.  Too small to have many specific memories of those trips at all.  I remember the peacocks, and the caretaker’s son, who told me it was bad luck to bring the feathers inside.  “It brings in the evil eye,” he’d said, and then for years I wouldn’t touch peacock feathers because I thought they caused pink-eye.  I remember pitting cherries in a scratchy, red wool sweater with my mother and my cousin Lynnie.  Those two memories are all I have of those summers. 

So, home from the market, I’ve made two batches of jam this morning.  One, the traditional sour cherry that tastes like pie filling.  The other, an experiment, is made of sour cherries and kumquats.  Sort of half-jam, half-marmalade.

It tastes wonderful coming out of the pot, and so far (an hour into the jars), seems to have set up well.  Here is the recipe for anyone feeling adventurous and lucky enough to have a good supply of sour cherries.

Sour Cherry and Kumquat Jam
Makes 7 half pints

 

• 4 cups sour cherries, pitted, stemmed, and coursely chopped
• 1 cup kumquts, very thinly sliced
• 4 3/4 cups sugar
• 1 tsp butter (to prevent foaming–optional)
• 1 packet Sure-Jell liquid pectin

Process the jelly jars for preserving.

Put fruit, pectin and butter into a non-reactive pot.  Bring mixture to a rolling boil, stirring constantly.

Stir pectin into fruit and add butter, then bring the mixture to a rolling boil. Stir in sugar and return to rolling boil for one minute. Using a canning funnels, ladel into prepared jars.