Death by fruit, part 2

The mountain of fruit in my kitchen has threatened to topple several times, but I am determined to prevail. 

So far, I've put up nine quarts of tomatoes, six pints of brandied peaches, four pints of ginger peach rhubarb jam, four pints of raspberry jam, god knows how much blackberry jam, 1 pie (gone in 24 hours; mostly Jack), several pints of plum basil jam, millions of cups of blackberries frozen and vacuum-sealed for the deep freeze and this morning created a roasted ginger-plum jam with a hint of vanilla and a splash of Cognac.

It's been both delightful and exhausting, but mostly, just a beautiful exercise in planning for the future while avoiding waste.

prepping plums for jam; #nofilter; incredible, yes?

prepping peaches to be brandied; #nofilter; incredible, yes?

ginger peach rhubarb jam

I believe this looks familiar, yes? Progress though, y'all! Progress!

When kids should be neither seen nor heard

There are days, and today was such, I could stand to do without spending much time with the boys.

They are loud and messy and uncouth. They whine and argue and burp lyrics to songs. They scratch their butts and chew hangnails. They hide their clean and folded laundry instead of putting it away. They negotiate, futilely but aggressively, for dessert at breakfast. It is tiring to argue about nonsensical things before 8am.

We got to the camp bus stop and because Oliver insisted on bringing a robot, derby cap and walkie talkie in the car, he’d accidentally left his lunchbox at home. I knew where I’d find it: near his closet where he put it down to fetch the houndstooth cap from its hook. Another sandwich bites the dust.

Home later after the gym, I found and unpacked the lunchbox and saved what I could. I surveyed their rooms and saw dirty underpants crotch-out on the floors. Open boxes of now-stale anything littered their desks and the dark spaces under their beds. The sink looked as if they'd tried to frost a porcelain cake using toothpaste. A Jackson Pollock had been crafted on the wall with rebounding pee.

“This is what ‘I know you can do it by yourself! Independence, darlings!’ gets me,” I mused aloud.

The sheer number of crumbs that Hansel & Hansel had dropped on the breakfast table and then along the path upstairs was staggering. Surely it could wrap the Earth. The dustbuster’s battery petered out before I sucked the crap away.

I was so glad they were at camp. I was so grateful for their lengthy day away.

So I caramelized shallots...

Days like these sometimes blindside me although I'm starting to think that if I carefully mapped my life, Mondays would really be off the chart in terms of the kids being annoying and my tolerance, or lack thereof, for it. 

Weekends are anything but Sabbathy. Come Sunday night, Tom and I often look at each other askance and ask, with both worry and hope, “Will this ever be less depleting?”

Although it is exhausting to be an at-home mom of little ones, I watch Tom leave each weekday morning and think, “How the fuck does he do it?” On, on, on. All the time on. I try to give him down time when I can because, if only for a few hours, I get a taste of that most days; if you count errands and laundry and wiping pee walls and vacuuming up the Earth’s belt as down time which I often do because at least I don’t have to be on.

Or dressed in any quasi-professional way.

I hit a wall today. Was it the training run on Saturday? The play dates + produce + family get together over the weekend? Was it being awakened well before 7am for oh, nine years now? Was it latent anxiety that just wears and erodes?

I dunno but come this evening, when Ol wouldn’t pick up the Legos that he’d cycloned throughout his room but wanted to get out the Halloween bag-of-bones (and naturally cyclone out and then not pick those up either) and then cried and went boneless over my refusal to unearth said bag-of-bones without first seeing a Lego-free floor, I just wanted to quit.

When Jack came down again and again and again from bed, despite the years we’ve spent talking about what bedtime means, I just wanted to quit.

I wanted to finish making dinner for T and me, to try and connect in the thirty minutes during which we’re both just awake enough to talk.

for this tart that actually came together...

Another hug, another kiss, another sad glance at the newspapers that will be recycled instead of read.

“Tomorrow is anothuh day,” I intoned a la Scarlett.

It is.

I think it is.

Is that a good thing?

I think so.

I hope so.

I’m tired.

and really hit the spot.

Tom has banished me, with all the love in his being, to the basement; our secret hideaway. I accept!

Death by fruit

"Honey, what the...? How much fruit is this?"

"Uh, about 60 pounds," I replied, sheepishly happy.

****

In no real way have I "taken it easy" this week. That was my personal dictate, and I have failed. That said, I've had a ball. 

Said ball culminated with a spontaneous pilgrimage to Larriland Farm yesterday. It's a fantastic, sprawling, organic/IPM (integrated pest management) farm in Woodbine, MD, which is about an hour from NW DC. 

Each day, Larriland posts what you can pick that day, and yesterday's options just got me too excited to stay home: Shiro plums, peaches, blackberries...

Unlike my maiden voyage last year (which resulted in A Case for Thorns, a post that was so popular I felt like a real blogger!) for which I planned not at all and thus ended up out at Larriland with dirty teeth, a desperate need for the bathroom and gas, and no food, I this year took the time to ready myself: water, snacks, full gas tank, walked and fed pets.

First to the peach fields for a quick-and-easy 22 pounds. The birds chirped, the bugs buzzed, and I had visions of peach jam, peach pie and brandied peaches floating through my head. Cute kids wove through and around the grove, blissed out as I was. Except for that crying baby. Grr, crying baby. I jest. A bit.

People- seriously(!) on the iPhone camera. Impressive. #nofilter

"Girl, you are rocking this trip!" I told myself as I paid for the peaches and headed to the plum orchard.

Peaches! #nofilter

Once amidst the plum trees, I felt a sting of disappointment: where are they? But then I remembered that not looking up and under is a rookie mistake, and so I did. Shiros everywhere! 

That yellow-flesh varietal is one of my favorite for jam-making. So, as you probably suspect, I picked and picked and picked and then threw in some little purple ones too: Methleys (not my favorite) or Rosas? Not sure but lovely.

Plums! #nofilter

Back to the cashier. New box. On to blackberries and to beat my sixteen-pound pick of last year. Why beat 16 pounds? Well, because Jack's very favorite jam is blackberry and what I made from the non-eaten berries from 2014 didn't last us past this January. This year? 21 pounds.

Blackberries or caviar? #nofilter

I fully intended to go home after blackberries, but the cashier said that raspberry picking was actually pretty good and since I was all the way out in Woodbine, I decided to forge ahead because y'all, I am not lying, little is more magnificent than homemade raspberry jam.

Quick handful of almonds, bunch of water, burst of AC and to the raspberry patch. At this point, many hours in, I was really starting to tire. It was hot, not a cloud in the sky. Gorgeous day but now 1:45, I thought, "Girl, almonds aren't lunch but raspberry jam." Easy calculus and so I fetched another box.

Raspberry plants are thorny, dense and underwhelming from an aesthetic perspective. But the "up and under" mantra will repay you in spades, so I jumped right in. Bees and other beneficial bugs were everywhere but I just said, "Thanks, bugs" and we respected each other's personal space. 

That's the great thing about being in nature when no one has tried to kill anything. You see what a beautiful balance is struck when Earth is left to her own devices. You realize that we needn't fear buzzing, flying, leggy things. Spending time outside is one of the greatest educations, in my opinion; one of the greatest ways to inspire a deep wonder and appreciation for our world. Get out there, get dirty, pay close attention, sweat, give thanks.

Lucky me, both red and black raspberries were there for the taking, and take I did. Just about four pounds but enough for 6 pints of jam or so. (I know because I made some at 9pm last night out of wild-eyed fear that my beautiful, delicate bounty would go bad). 

****

Once home, I quickly moved everything inside, ran to pick the boys up from camp, told them they could be as lazy as they wanted to until bedtime, let them eat as many blackberries as they wanted and got to work making jam and a pie and dinner for everyone.

grilled peaches with mint, olive oil, grilled bread and either homemade ricotta (left) or mozzarella (right)

After dinner and the raspberry jam, I said, "T, put a fork in me. I'm done!" and went to bed.