SHOW OF A LIFETIME

I was dreaming when I wrote this...

Tonight Beck gets tick something off her bucket list. Her love of the P.R.Nelson knows no bounds so in honor of her super extraordinary purple circle day I've rounded up some Etsy finds that were inspired by Prince. The baby onesie is probably the least weird.

The Purple rain necklace I actually really dig (note how I used rock and roll speak then) and think Beck might like it too. But then things turn a little pear bowl shaped...

A vinyl Purple Rain bowl? Yeah ok I guess, not really making me want to party like it's 1999.

A zippy Purple Rain tape clutch with matching coin purse? I would die for you!

This original watercolor of Prince as a Purple Leopard is my favorite, so much so I'm not going to link to it Im going to buy it instead. This one is for you beckaroo! Dance yer ass off lady! RAMONA

Jam Sessions

Like I give a fig.

Well I'd planned for figtastic February jam session but nature intervened - maybe it was the weird weather (or maybe I just got my months wrong) but it seems that my local fig patch doesn't fully ripen up until late March. So be it. I made plum, pluot and ginger jam in February instead, then forgot to post it.

A shame really as it turns out it's hands down the best Jam I've ever made and I should have snapped up the last of the seasons stone fruit and made a truck load more - unfortunately I only discovered how good it was after I'd given away all but the last jar. Bugger. 

So for the last month I've been foraging like a demon checking all the local trees and finding out whose fruit is finest. I've discovered two things. One - the bottom of the pram is a fantastic fruit basket and two, I'm not alone on the foraging front.

It has taken quite a bit of skill, time and investigation to find top trees that are in little known alleyways and therefore left alone long enough to get fully ripened. Discovering that many of my favourite were prematurely harvested has led me to shout "STOP PICKING UN RIPE FRUIT YOU BLOODY NOVICES! " in frustration more than once. 

Anyhoo. I have made two batches so far, the first was a little over-reduced and so while delicious is a trifle difficult to spread. So, for batch number two I adjusted the lemon and sugar ratios.  

Unfortunately I overdid it on the lemon and under did it on the sugar... and batch number two while again delicious is a little runny... so officially its now "fig conserve" with serving recommendations that include stirring it into porridge and pouring it over vanilla ice-cream. As it turns out these figs are tricky people. So who's the novice now. BECK

JAM SESSION

plum in front

Jam session number two done and dusted. I know it's supposed to be one a month but hey the big storm last week brought down a lot of fruit in the neighborhood - most of it ripe, and in my urban forager book if its on or over the footpath its fare game. So here we have it Foragers Plum edition one.

I'd call it a medley but I hate that word and would rather stick a burning hot poker in my eye. Mostly its Damsons (thanks Pene the human iphone plum identikit app.) with lashings of sweet reds as seen below (Pen we might need your help again here)

and a few wee golden numbers thrown in for good measure just because they were there.

Sweet and slightly perfumy with a nice tart finish, and quite lovely to look at with its deep rosy hue.

Will be most excellent on scones methinks. Yes Ramona that's a call out to you and the womble to start baking! BECK

eat of the week

jam session 1.

Well, despite the fact that we lost half the tree this year and as a result didnt quite get the "bumper crop" we were hoping for, I still managed to make more jam than both past seasons combined. The trick? Picking early and often - and BEFORE the flying pests and weird summer hailstorms got to the fruit. Lucky really, because every year the list of "please can I have a jar" requests grows longer and longer. Ramona has already snaffled two jars, one for scones and one to whip together in her new fangled ice-cream machine to make apricot vanilla swirl which looked delicious NOT THAT I GOT ANY TO TASTE mind you!

I love making jam, its so easy one kg of fruit, one kg of sugar and the juice of two lemons... and it's especially delicious when you use locally grown in season fruit. So of course we've decided on yet another HML project for 2012, one we're calling The Jam Sessions.

Each month we're going to whip up some kind of jam, marmalade, compot or sticky preserve with whatever we can scrounge, barter or grow and let you lucky readers and listeners compete to win a 12 jar basket of the fruits of our labour...including a choice selection from January's Jam Session (as shown above). Over the holidays I've spied a number of excellent fig trees around the hood, as well as putting in dibs on my italian mother in law's trees... it appears that Feburary will be Fig month.

Oh and if anyone has an idea about what to do with a bucket of apricot kernals please let me know! BECK