Now Norma Knits

Am I A Jam Fool?

What is up with me and the jam this year? I don't know, but I'm having fun, so let's not analyze it any more than that, k? I feel like I could be Wallace, The Next Generation:  "Jammm, Gromit, more jammmmm."

I created two new jams.  One's a definite keeper, the other just a qualified success. 

I know you want to hear all about them, in painful detail, (or maybe not -- maybe you want to skip to the end to hear about the yarn in the photo...) so I'll start with the qualified success first.  When I was trying to imagine unique and interesting jam recipes, I said, "Hm, I wonder if there is such a thing as carrot jam."  Crazy me.  Well, it turns out not so crazy, because yes, indeed, I found a couple on the 'net. Seems it might be a Canadiana kind of thing.  Maybe I knew this all along; maybe it was something from my youth that I had forgotten.  I'm not sure. But I found two recipes online.  I took the elements I thought I liked from each one, and then I made it my own by combining them and then adding my own special touch -- a stiff shot of cognac.  It just so happens that right after I made it, we were invited to dinner at the home of some Canadian friends, and the guy who received it as a host gift said, "Cool. I'll get a buzz off my morning toast."  (not really -- all the alcohol is long since boiled off and only the added flavor dimension remains.)

Spiced Carrot Jam With Cognac

1 pound carrots, peeled and grated (about 4 cups)
2 juice oranges
2 lemons
1 lime
3 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
scant 1/2 cup cognac
1/2 teaspoon each of allspice, cloves & cinnamon

Have 4 one-cup jam jars and lids prepared (wash in hot soapy water and scald in a pot of boiling water; keep hot)

Remove zest of citrus fruits, then juice them. The original recipe said you should have about 1 cup juice total from this.  (I did not.  That's when I decided to bring out the cognac bottle. I figured it couldn't hurt. Thus -- BAM! -- the recipe became my own.)

Combine all ingredients and heat them together over low heat until the sugar has dissolved, 3-4 minutes.  Raise the heat to medium and cook, stirring often, until thick like jam.  The recipes I found say "about 30-40 minutes."  I say "for 20 days."  At least that's what it felt like to me.  I am quite certain, although I did not time it, that it was more than an hour before it was the right consistency.  This is why I prefer jams with pectin added -- they're cooked for only a couple of minutes, which better suits my impatient nature.

Spoon jam into containers.  This will keep for months in the refrigerator, or process for longer-term storage.  If processing, leave 1/4 inch headspace in jars.  Wipe rims with a clean damp cloth, put on rings. Process in a boiling-water bath (place the jars in a large pot, cover with hot water, making sure the water is 1-2 inches OVER the lids.  Bring to a boil.  Turn down heat a bit, and simmer for 10 minutes.  Remove from hot water and place on a towel to cool.  As the jars cool, you will hear little melodic "pop" noises as the lids seal.)

Why is this only a qualified success?  I found this jam almost too sweet -- at least when I tasted it while it was still warm.  One of the recipes says this jam's flavor improves with age, and that seems logical, given the citrus and spices and especially now, with the addition of cognac.  That combination of ingredients lends itself to a mellowing and maturing and blending of flavors after a few days.  This jam is really intended to be served with meat, and I am sure it will be wonderful as a condiment with roast duck or turkey, or marinated swordfish, or a good ham -- even a nice marinated, grilled tofu.  I could also envision it served as an appetizer with a strong cheddar cheese or goat's cheese and crackers.  It has a lovely spicy, festive quality to it.  I would have to choose my audience for serving this, but it is really good, has a fabulous aroma, and could be appreciated by the right people, for sure. 

My biggest complaint is it is very labor-intensive.  The grating of the carrots (I did mine by hand to get the size I wanted -- my food processor would have made long strings, and I wanted shorter grated pieces), the zesting of the fruits, the juicing of the fruits, the endless STIRRING, and the recipe only yielded three jars, not four, for me.  I was exhausted when it was all over -- too exhausted to make the two other jam recipes I had intended when I began my day.  So. Not a complete success, but an interesting bit of jam, anyway, and sure to be appreciated by the right people.   

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Now for the one I'm really proud of.

Spiced Plum Jam With Grand Marnier

6 cups pitted and chopped plums (about 4 pounds)

3/4 cup Grand Marnier

1/3 cup water

1 T. lemon juice

1 package powdered pectin

7 cups sugar

zest of one orange

1/2 t. ground cinnamon

1/2 t. ground nutmeg

Combine plums, Grand Marnier, water, lemon juice and pectin in a large sauce pot.  Allow to macerate* for a few minutes while you are washing and sterilizing the jam jars (you need about 8 half-pint jars). 

Bring plum mixture to a rolling boil over high heat, stirring constantly.  Add sugar all at once; return to a rolling boil.  Boil hard 1 minute, stirring constantly.  Skim foam off and discard.  Pour into hot jars, leaving 1/4-inch headspace.  Put in lids and screw tops tightly.  Process 10 minutes in boiling water bath as described in recipe above. 

With plum jam, it is desirable to turn the jars upside down and right side up a couple of times during the cooling process so the chunks of fruit are dispersed relatively evenly throughout. 

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*macerate [MAS-uh-rayt] To soak a food (usually fruit) in a liquid in order to infuse it with the liquid's flavor. A spirit such as brandy, rum or a liqueur is usually the macerating liquid.

This one is very special and very delicious.  So pretty -- tart and sweet and spicy and orangey all at once. It has a Christmassy feel to it.  I can imagine this on buttermilk biscuits or toast or scones -- and also as an accompaniment to meat dishes. Or, if you're like me, you'll just eat it straight from the jar off a spoon or add it to your plain goat's milk yogurt.  Run, don't walk, to the store to get the plums before they're out of season!  I already got eight pounds more for my next two batches. 

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About that yarn:  A lady five or six miles from me raises Clun Forest sheep and sends her fleece out to a "wool pool" to be processed/dyed/spun, and once a year has a two-day sale of this lovely yarn in her living room.  I bought some two years ago and went back this weekend and got 20 skeins.  It's too good to pass up -- very special and a very good price. I've got plans for it all.  David has been making noises that "he's only ever got a pair of wristers" from all my knitting. I think he is suggesting he needs a sweater.  I chose the blue for him.  The green, I have another idea for, and the plum too -- and it won't be made into jam -- I promise! 

How Will History Judge Me?

I can't think of any good way to say this, so I'll just come right out and say it. This scarf was begun with good intentions to go to orphan.org for the Red Scarf Project.  When I was about two-thirds done, I came to the  realization that I'm keeping it for myself.  I love the yarn -- mustard gold GGH Via Mala (discontinued, I believe) that I over-dyed red. The shade of red it is, with such wonderful depth and character and russety tones, is a shade I doubt I'd ever be able to find  anywhere, and I could probably never replicate it. It's not perfect -- you can even see the lines of demarcation where I joined in the three different skeins, but it is so soft and so lovely and has such depth of character, I love it too much to give away.

There is nothing fancy about this scarf, but then, my taste doesn't lean toward the fancy. If I had known I was going to keep it, I might have knit it a different pattern, but then again, maybe it was the marriage of pattern and yarn and color that made me love it so.  Who knows.  It's simply 3.75 inches of garter stitch on each end, with twin rib for the rest of the scarf.  I knit it 60 inches long, but it grew quite a bit when I washed it to rinse out the rest of the dye that was coming off on my hands during the knitting.   

A promise to knit more for the orphans sounds contrived. But I will. I promise.   

Here -- let me show you another shot of me camouflaged in the autumn leaves. I really didn't mean to look so happy.

Autumn in Vermont provides perfect weather for wearing my Chamomile sweater.

Jammin'

First of all, a huge, loud, boisterous THANK YOU, woohoo, whackadoo, and a joyful rendition of "We Are The Champions," to my wonderful readers for coming to the rescue with the cable answer. After getting reassured by several brilliant computer geek-types that yes, Virginia, they DO make a USB-to-parallel printer cable that will indeed work, I made a quick trip to Best Buy. I now present you the circumstantial evidence.

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

Exhibit C

Don't mind the crumple at the top of the page. After I printed the test page, I threw it in the wastebasket, but brought it out to reenact the Moment Of Great Joy for you. 

I LOVE YOU GUYS. I LOVE blogging. WHAT did we do before blogging? Really. 

P.S.  They only had ONE such cable, and I had to do a bit of searching to find it.  It was 36 bucks - a bit more expensive than some that people linked me to, but I figured a bird in the hand, and also....THIRTY-SIX BUCKS!!!  Not however-too-much it would be for a new printer.  I was actually making quite a spectacle of myself in the store. You may see something about it in the national news.  Or not. 

More purchases:  I bought my first box of DVDs for burning.  Hey, allow me my moments.

AND I bought the only case in the store that would accommodate a 17-inch laptop.  It's a Targus, pretty fancy, sort of urban-hiking chic (not exactly my business style, but do I CARE? No.) and happily, very lightweight.  It has a little pocket on the side for a cell phone and various other doohickeys. It's a messenger bag style, not a backpack like I had before, and I hope it doesn't do a number on my shoulder.  If it does, the wheeled cart will come out more often, I suppose.   

In between all the computer dramas around here, I've found some time to make some jam. Rather, it was because of the computer dramas, really.  At times, I just need to get away from stress like that and do something domestic. Which, in my lingo, means cooking or gardening. Never the cleaning. Never. Ever. (but don't worry should you be the recipient of a gift from my kitchen -- the kitchen is always cleaned meticulously before I cook.  It's just another one of my inconsistencies.)

I missed out on the berries of summer for jam-making -- I'm not really sure what happened there.  But in the last two weeks I bought some kickass Pennsylvania peaches (sort of at the end of the season for them, but they were very flavorful for the jam) and some even more kickass New York organic pears at the peak of perfection, and did me some jam-makin'.

Recently Anj sent me some of her peach-ginger jam, and mmmmm, was that good. I ate it off a spoon and it was gone in three sittings. Yes, I am a glutton. In my defense, it was a nice less-sweet jam, and it was soft-set as well, so it seemed like a wonderful sauce on my spoon.  Mmmmmm. It got me inspired to look for interesting combination jam recipes. 

For the peach, I found this recipe for Peach-Rum Preserves.

Oh, my.  Is that good.  The rum flavor is extremely subtle.  If someone didn't tell you it was there, you might taste it and say, "What is that flavor I'm tasting?" and not until someone said, "rum" would you get it. But as soon as the person said it, you'd brighten and say, "YES! That's it!  Rum!"  Well, at least that's my little fantasy scenario.  I give this recipe a big thumbs up, both as something I want to eat and as very appropriate for gift-giving.  I'm only sorry that I discovered the recipe at the tail end of peaches season, so I could only make one batch of six lonely jars. 

Then came the pears.  Last spring I made plain pear jam, and it was lovely.  I still have two jars left, and I could have eaten them already, but it's weird -- I love it so much I don't want to eat the last two jars. 

But with the inspiration Anj gave, I thought I'd look to see if there was a pear-ginger jam recipe out there.  There were some that didn't look reliable to me -- the ingredients were all wrong (canned pears?!), and/or they were freezer jam recipes -- not a good choice for gift-giving, either.  But then I found this one (which, interestingly, can be used for either pears or peaches) and it seemed like a good choice.

The verdict?  To.Die.For.

Well, for me, anyway.  It is not for the faint of heart; not for someone who doesn't really love their ginger. (I do.) It is very, very gingery and oh, so, so good.  It is exotic and wonderful and it jelled up beautifully. I'm not sure WTF they're talking about when they say "mashed, peeled & chopped" for the fruit.  I'm pretty sure they meant, "cored, peeled & chopped," which is what I did.  I chopped it pretty fine.

I would worry a little bit about it for gift-giving, though, in that it is so assertively gingery.  For a British or Australian person -- not a worry. (I'm saving a jar for you, Alison.)  For your average American who's only ever had grape jelly or strawberry jam and doesn't like to try new things....a slightly risky gift.  Which is really just my way of saying that I'm NOT SHARING.  It's mine!  All mine!

Stay tuned for other out-of-the-ordinary jam combos coming up. There are hints in the basket.

 

Everything Happens for A Reason

John Locke ain't got nothin' on me.*  Well, except a really kickass acting job filming in Hawaii.  Besides that.  And John? I know I've been going on and on about Jack and Sayid and Sawyer, but I would totally go out with you, especially now that you got rid of the comb-over. Jack has not been returning my phone calls much, anyway.

An odd thing happened when the computer kerfizzled (thanks, Kristen). I mentioned that I bought a new one.  Little did I know that my older computer (not very old; just two years - still under warranty) was killing me.  And it took getting the new one to realize it. 

It's the eyes.  I have written a few times about problems with my eyes, which, now that I look back, have been entirely coincident with the acquisition of THAT computer.  But after working with the new one for an hour, it felt as if I had a new set of eyeballs.  They were loosening up and releasing and there was a huge "aaahhhhh" feeling all over my head, neck and eyes. And over the four days I've used it, it has only gotten better and better and better. No more headache, no more constant straining, no struggling to see right, no (well, ok, LESS) ADD.  I'm reading faster and more accurately.  In the two years since I bought the IBM, I have been to see the eye doctors a bunch of times, I've gotten new trifocal lenses, I have given up my contacts except during yoga or other exercise, I have even contemplated surgery for narrow-angle (pre)glaucoma. And it now seems it was all about the computer screen.  WTF?

So some big decisions have been made. I am going to have to make the new, bigger laptop work as my most-of-the-time (a/k/a work) computer, and I will use the IBM (after repair) as my other computer, with an external monitor. My only "issue" with the bigger laptop is all the lugging of equipment I have to do. But I'll figure out something, whether it's using the wheeled cart more often or something else.  That has its own issues, too, because not every place I go has a ramp or elevator, and in the winter here, with the snow and slush, the wheeled cart is more trouble than it's worth.  But I'll learn to deal with it somehow. My head and eyes are more important.

Of course, nothing is ever easy, is it?  I went to hook up my long-time-trusted friend (you have no idea how close a relationship a court reporter has with her heavy-duty printer -- we sometimes print a thousand pages in a day, and we can't be having no printer slow-downs or wimp-outs or hissy-fits), the HP LaserJet4 printer, which has never given me one second's problem or worry in the entire 10 or 12 years I've owned it, and the new computer does not have a 25-pin port.  Fuck. More money.  (I have not looked into it, and many of you can probably tell me the answer, but I am doubtful that it is a simple matter of an adapter for the cable, is it? she says very wishfully...) 

But I can't stick around here any longer.  As one of the final acts of use of this eye-and-head-torture device, I am writing this entry on it while I'm printing out my last two pending jobs. 

Pain. Pain. Stress and strain.  Who knew it was literally killing me?  I have moaned for the longest time about how much my productivity has slowed down. I have blamed it on my age (I even worried about a  brain tumor), in addition to the distractions of the blog.  Wrong.  It was the damn computer screen the entire time.  Ouch.

*John Locke is a character on LOST who believes "everything happens for a reason."  (I guess there are still people out there who are not avid fans of LOST. This is for them.) 

Have you seen The Last Knit?  Thank you to Saralyn of Seattle for the link.

Pumpkin Watch and a Short Garden Stroll

100% Pumpkin-Colored.  We did it!  Up next:  Pie!

Pumpkin Guy has a chill.  He is being warmed here by red and green woolens in progress.

Now let's take a short stroll through some of the fall garden, shall we?

The Autumn, she is so photogenic, we must not waste the opportunity.

Strawberries mulched for winter.
Freshly planted and mulched bed of garlic. I've never been so on top of things with the mulch before, and it just warms the cockles of my stone-cold heart, it truly does.

The broccoli is still going strong.  The Swiss chard is beginning to falter in the cooler weather. The tomatoes.....well, a few are still hanging on.

Please note how well the green beans are.....what the..?

 

Hey! It's Red Scarf Mania!  Have YOU put the Red Scarf Blog on your Bloglines (or other feedreader) yet? Go on, then. Do it right now.

Living LARGE

I still remember the first time I went to Costco.  It had just opened up in our area, and it was the biggest thing (no pun intended) that had happened in this area in... well, since the Interstate went in in the -- well, whenever the hell it went in -- sometime when I was a little kid, I guess.  I can't really remember a time when it wasn't there, but then again, when I was a little kid, we didn't get off the island much.  Who knew there was a big world out there, with roads and hills and buildings and such.

A few years ago, I read in Esquire magazine some spoof Mapquest directions from the entrance of Costco to the dog food. It made me laugh out loud and I will always remember it. I tried to find it via Google, and I couldn't, but I found this at this site, which is similar:  (I'm not sure who stole from whom, but I certainly won't claim it as mine....)

COSTCO ENTRANCE to DOGFOOD

Directions:
  1. Start out heading EAST past the silos of sauerkraut.
  Distance: 2.6 miles
  2. Head NORTH past the woman giving out copies of John Grisham's THE KING OF TORTS.
  Distance: 3.1 miles
  3. Pass the PYRAMIDS OF 9-VOLT BATTERIES.
  Distance: 1.9 miles
  4. Turn LEFT at the WATERMELON PARTY PACKS.
  Distance: 6.7 miles
  5. Make a U-TURN at the PIZZA SHOP.
  Distance: 1.2 miles
  6. Dog food will be on your RIGHT, seven stacks up.

Total Estimated Time: 11 hours, 9 minutes
  Total Distance: 15.5 miles

(I seem to recall the distance given in the Esquire one as being 1.6 miles, but ...hm....that might actually be plausible and therefore not a spoof.)

Yes.  So.  I'll just cut to the chase here.  First time in Costco, I bought a bale of fresh spinach, five kilos of mixed salad greens, a steamer trunk full of fresh mushrooms (cleverly disguised as a regular clear plastic grocery-store package), and an entire flock of chickens, cut up and placed on one styrofoam tray.  The thing I didn't realize until I got home is that everything there is Edith Ann Scale:  Me pushing the Costco grocery cart = Edith Ann sitting in her chair.

Anyhoo, the rotted remains of the produce we could not eat ended up in the composter.

This is what happens with me and big-box stores. And every time I think I've gotten savvy to the Edith Ann Effect, it happens again.

For example, this is what I came home with yesterday. Take a gander at the new "little" laptop.The old one is sitting on top of it.

Lap dancing. (apologies to the disappointed googlers who end up here on that)

I truly can't manage this. I keep bumping stuff with it.  It doesn't fit in my carry case. It's HEAVY(ish). It's made for a bigger lap.

Yeah, it's got a great screen that is much MUCH easier on my eyes. It's got bells and whistles up the wazoo. I love it but I hate it. It's the SUV of laptops. It's got a whiz-bang DVD burner, it's got....

Ahhhh, hell.  I love it.  It's Large.

Meet the new blogging/home/desktop/not-very-portable laptop computer.

I'll get the IBM Thinkpad fixed for work.

P.S.  I had to reinstate the code thingy on the comments.  Too many spammers.

Oh, Here We Go Again

Weekends don't count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless. -- Bill Watterson

TypePad maintenance this Saturday night

TypePad's been growing by leaps and bounds, and it's time for some housecleaning. 

This weekend between 10:00 pm PDT Saturday night and 2:00 am PDT Sunday morning we will be taking the TypePad application offline to perform routine database maintenance.  During this time blogs will be available for reading, but you won't be able to log in to TypePad to manage your blog, and readers won't be able to leave comments or send TrackBacks.

Good thing there's knitting to be done.  Oh, yeah, and there's that buying a new laptop (and replacing fried accessories) thing.  Sigh.

And maybe I'll plant the garlic.  One can never have too much garlic.  I got two varieties from Seed Savers Exchange -- Siberian and German Extra Hardy, and the farm down the road has some for sale -- I'll go get some of theirs, too.

 

Bitter

If you have some time on your hands (and of course you do) you will enjoy reading this story.

Grover Is Bitter.

It's Thursday

1. It's Carole's birthday!  Go wish her a happy-happy.

2. You remember Hank? 

It looks like he's been gardening.  (or are those gnome droppings?)

Enjoy that photo.  It's going to be the last one for a while, it seems.  And this might be the last blog post for a while, too. The laptop is ailing, more specifically the USB port into which I plug my camera.  I am choosing to believe it is just coincidence and not that I prophesied my own computer demise just a few short days ago when I said I was feeling brave enough to connect the camera. Things are not good. Two devices essential to my work life were, well, "fried" when hooked up to that USB port yesterday. Also, although I am using the computer right now and things "seem" to be ok, nothing will copy or back up onto CD -- this after two lengthy sessions with the software techs.  The verdict is possibly the motherboard is biting the dust.  In fact, rather than write this, I should be trying to get my work out before it all crashes.  I might have said my signature word in a professional setting in the middle of my deposition yesterday when the computer went black. Did I say I might have?  No.  I definitely did. The attorneys took it well.  I later said to them that I thought I had kept my nervous breakdown very well-contained -- didn't they? Thankfully in this instance, the deponent (the person whose deposition was being taken) was a lawyer himself, so I know everyone in the room can handle the eff word without getting their feathers too ruffled.

3.  Have you visited the Red Scarf Blog lately?  There are some good happenings reported over there.

4.  I must bid you a hasty adieu. 

Well, I Learned Something

I made a complaint submitted a help ticket to Typepad asking why, when I put in the HTML to center stuff, it shows all nice and centered in my preview, but then it's NEVER, EVER centered.  Well, not NEVER.  Sometimes yes, most of the time no, which makes it all the more frustrating.

This is the response I got from very nice, very helpful Jen:

The code you are using to center items in your post is outdated and does not work with all applications.

On the Edit Post page, click on the Edit HTML tab and add
the following code so that it brackets the parts of post
you want to center:

<p style="text-align: center">Text & Image</p> 

(Norma's Note:  It took me a while to realize that one should substitute one's ACTUAL text and one's ACTUAL image for the words "Text & Image" in the code. WTF.)

We'll be looking at adding this function to the Rich Text
editor so it won't have to be coded by hand. Thank you for
letting us know you'd find that helpful.

I've never been much of a squeaky wheel, but I am beginning to see the advantages to being one.  Aside from the fact that the HTML I'm using is outdated -- but they are the ones who gave it to me, I am quite sure -- because otherwise I know I would have no other place from which to get it, the question does pop to mind, "How could they not have thought we would like that feature?" It's even standard in Word now.  But whatever. It'll be very nice when we get it.  I responded that it'll be lovely, and that I despise HTML with the heat of a thousand suns (well, ok, I left out the hyperbole), and that's indeed why I use Typepad, so, yes, thank you very much, I would like that feature.

*deep bow*

You may all line up to kiss my ring later.  Well, the Typepad users, anyway.  Everyone else might not be that impressed.  Shit.  I'll have to work another angle for that. 

I have watched all of Season 2 of LOST on DVD. The disappointing fact is that out of all of Season 2, it turns out there were only two (possibly only one, but at least the 2nd one was fuzzy in my memory) that I had missed.  All that waiting and worrying for nothing! WTF? But they have been almost as good the second time around - especially the final episode -- and they have been good for another thing:  I have been knitting on something and making great progress. It's almost time to share with you.