Apples

Done: caramel applesauce, ugandan vanilla appplesauce, tahitensis vanilla applesauce, saskatoon apple jam
In process: lime apple marmalade, mexican cure vanilla applesauce
To do: bourbon cure madagascar vanilla applesauce, spruce tip apple jam or marmalade, apple BBQ sauce

Food: an exotic piece and a next piece

The apples are a perfect template for how I think about the food I make.

I have an abundance of something, in this case apples. I want to use it to make a portion of my diet, across the year if possible, so more than just standing outside and eating apples after I get home from work and tossing the cores to the geese (which I also do).

Drying apples would be perfect, I could snack on them easily while doing other things, but it's too fiddly: my apples are small, and I don't have time to core and slice them, I only have one dehydrator, it's a low return for the amount of work.

Applesauce is easy: cut the apples in half (for a more efficient fit, and to see if there are huge worms in them or anything) and toss them in a pair of slow cookers. Eight to twelve hours later, come back and pour the pulp from the slow cookers into the chinois (does this thing have another name yet?) directly into my stewpot. Heat to boiling, with or without sugar or another flavouring, pour into jars, boil the jars 20 minutes, done.

But wait, this is kind of boring applesauce, I can't eat it that much. Does adding a couple vanilla beans make it into more of a dessert thing? So then I can eat it more? Or burning some sugar into caramel? Why yes, so I'll do that with some.

And adding more sugar and simmering makes it into jam, which I can then flavour with things I either don't have enough to make jam (the last saskatoons, a couple of limes) or that don't make good jam on their own (spruce tips).

But if I make jam, the next step is: can I eat it on anything I've made or obtained locally? Applesauce is good on my pork, or with my goose. Actually, the jam probably is too.

But if I make cornbread or some sort of hoecake from my corn, putting jam on that is a more satisfying experience. Then if I serve that with homemade breakfast sausage, that's even better.

So I'm always kind of thinking, is there an exotic flavouring I can buy to increase the value of what I have, like limes or vanilla? And then, where's the next piece down the chain where I can add something I grew or harvested to make this meal more completely from this place?

That's the basic philosophy underpinning the thought of raising 75% of my calories myself.

Tidal

First time I've driven home in the dark in awhile. It must be coming on winter.

The mama bear with her two cubs was across the street in the uncut ditch of the abandoned house when I left at 4:30. I honked the horn and she ran off. I was half expecting her and the babies to be in the apple trees when I got back, but Thea was there to greet me, looking nervous but determined, and I didn't see any moving shadows anywhere. All the geese were (and still are) on the driveway by the goosehouse.

Post-lockdown I need to remember that people become more comfortable, individuals become more comfortable, with continued exposure. Just because it's awkward in the beginning doesn't mean I won't be friends with someone.

Anyhow, nice evening with my coworker and his wife. I went for dinner there on the last day of school, and now on the last day before school starts (she's a teacher). I definitley need evenings like this in my life, but also probably only a handful of times a year. I gave them seeds for tomatoes; today we ate those tomatoes. This makes my heart, not sing, but ground. It makes it integrate into the entire world.

This weekend, and then driving home, I've felt... like I exist in the present. It becomes hard to plan but also it just feels nice, living at one tight moment in time as much as I ever can. I slow down and can do things like chop an entire pot of apples very fine, or pick beans and apples, and not feel pulled away halfway through.

Sometimes I think this is my personal balance: sore muscles and a calm mind, or pain-free and tangled up. Lately my body has felt rougher, but still.

Bedtime now.