On Friendship

Here's what Ben gave Ava for her birthday. He spent ages on the Cape looking for the perfect stones and shells. It was the counterpoint to her Christmas present to him, which she'd made from rocks she'd found on a beach in Ireland.

Ben and Ava, 2012

Ben and Ava, 2005

There's nothing quite like a long friendship, is there? They're like a pair of old slippers. With teenaged feet inside them. Sigh.

Meanwhile, there are some other things I've been enjoying in these last days of summer.

This summer pasta with corn, zucchini, lime, and mint, for one. Not to be immodest, but it is just insanely fragrant and summery and delicious, and so perfect for nights when you've got a couple zukes, a couple ears of corn, and loads of fresh herbs.

Wild grapes, which, if you live in New England, are happening early, as in now.

This lip balm, which I've now given to a couple of people too. The color is perfect; it's fragrance-free but smells great; it's very nicely moist; everybody loves it.

This book, which is like a classic quietly apocalyptic middle-school coming-of-age story crossed with a more loudly apocalyptic global-warming story. I know. It doesn't sound good, but I absolutely loved it, and then Michael loved it too. Don't worry--it's not at all like those urban end-of-the-world stories where everybody's lurking around a burnt-out New York in the dark with guns and rabid dogs. It's more like everyday misery refracted through the end times. Hm. Still not sounding quite right.

And this book, mostly because Tracy Clark is such a gorgeously inspirational photographer and writer, and also because I have a teeny little thing in it.

We've been watching Arrested Development with Ben every night, late, and while I'm not exactly recommending it, boy, are we laughing a lot. Come on!

Ben, who starts middle school next week. I will be catatonically depressed about the end of the summer. Please stand by. Dear friends, do. Stand by me.

xo

camping / granola

What? That doesn't look fun to you? Sleeping damply under a parking-lot-sized piece of blue plastic while the rain hurls itself from the clouds like giant clots of wet, suicidal lemmings, even though it has, to date, been the driest summer on record? Well aren't you strange! Because it's especially fun in the moment right after it starts to pelt water, when you and your partner are out in the rain stringing the tarp to the trees, because that's just the kind of situation that lends itself to a kind of absolute harmony: a oneness of vision and purpose that brings everyone closer, like putting together an IKEA futon frame or putting up wallpaper or cleaning up your barfing kids in the night, if you know what I'm saying (and what I'm saying is: lack of harmony).There was a moment when we had the edge of the tarp draining onto a boogie board that was propped up against a plastic bin that was set up on another tarp right by the ditch we'd dug with a miniature plastic beach shovel to encourage the water to drain awaywards rather than towards.

Campfire under a tarp: good idea or not?

And yet. It was fun, even during the worst of it, and I'm not even sure why. Maybe it was the game we invented--the one where each person takes a turn standing up with a hand to their breast and making up the national anthem of a made-up language? (This only became unfun briefly, when I realized that our Russian neighbors were looking over at us offendedly. "Oh no!" I said. "I think they think we're making fun of them!" And Birdy said, "Well, we did get the idea from listening to them talk." Which was, I'm ashamed to say, true. But as you know, I khev Russian blood in my veins, so ees okay, yes?) Or maybe it was all that cozy reading in the tent. Or the wet day at the bay.

Or the excuse to clam-shack it for dinner. Or the game that we bought for $1.50 at the Brewster Library book sale. 

I'm Sorry! Did we steal your game idea? What an Aggravation! So Sorry. (That's a photo I lifted from ebay, lest you thing we brought a metal-framed bed camping.)

Or the fact that we still didn't miss a single day of pond swimming.

Our own private pond.

Or the fact that when the weather did turn, and turn glorious, nobody could have appreciated it more than we did.

Much intrepid boogie boarding was boogied.

Of course, we ate well, because that's what we do. Classic camp dinner (see the last photo here), to which I added diced zukes; goat-cheese and basil and cucumber sandwiches at the beach; tuna and pickled banana pepper sandwiches at the beach; fire-melted Raclette with tiny boiled potatoes and cornichons (because it's a longstanding tradition); fried scallops; 

Us at Arnold's, where the scallops make my eyes water with happiness. Also: a giant stuffed quahog, like chowder crossed with Stove Top, in a good way.

dip cones; birthday cake;

Are you dying a little because our tablecloth is so nice? Me too. I splurged on two yards of this fabric. I didn't even hem it or anything. It's so lovely.

and, for breakfast, a beautiful bass, caught, gutted, and fried in bacon fat by Ava's dad, Jonathan.

Right?

And lots of granola. I am republishing this recipe for two reasons: 1) because it's awesome and I still make it all the time, and 2) because I've changed it the slightest bit with the addition of bran cereal. I always add it now, but it is especially great for camping, in that keeping things moving along way, even though you risk spending less time in the fascinating insectarium of the bathroom. So that might be kind of disappointing.

2008. The granola still looks the same, though Birdy doesn't.

Granola

If your family doesn’t share a titanic aversion to sunflower seeds, please feel free to add them here. Along with cinnamon, which is another normal granola additive that I don’t like and don't add. If you want fruit—raisins, those date rolly things, or dried cherries—wait until the granola has baked and cooled, then stir it in. 

6 generous cups old-fashioned rolled oats

1 cup bran cereal, ideally the twiggy kind that looks like something a guinea pig would eat (I use Trader Joe's High Fiber Cereal)

1 ½ cups coarsely chopped raw nuts (I use a mix of pecans and sliced almonds)

1 ½ cups shredded coconut (mine is the sweetened kind)

¼ cup each pumpkin seeds, whole flax seeds, ground flax seeds, and wheat germ

½ cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon kosher salt (or blah as much blah blah blah)

1  stick butter

1/3 cup mild-tasting honey

1 teaspoon vanilla

Heat the oven to 300. Mix all the dry ingredients together in a very large bowl (hands are nice for this, as are children), then melt the butter and honey together in a small saucepan, add the vanilla, and stir it into the dry ingredients, mixing with a wooden spoon (preferably one that doesn’t hold an aromatic memory of garlic or cumin) until everything seems well moistened.

Now spread the granola evenly on two very large rimmed baking sheets (I think mine are called “jelly roll pans,” and they’re 12 inches by 17 inches) and bake for 15 minutes. Now take the pans out of the oven and use a spatula to stir the granola around—the edges may have started to brown a bit, and the idea is to move it often enough that all of it browns without any of it burning; be especially wary of the wheat germ, which likes to hide out at the bottom of the pan where it can char in peace. Put the pans back in the oven (switching their positions), and bake another 10 minutes, then stir them around and return them to the oven. After another 10 minutes (35 minutes altogether), evaluate the granola for doneness: it should be fairly golden and toasted-looking; if it’s not, return it to the oven for a few minutes at a time, stirring at each checking until it’s done; bear in mind that it will continue to toast a bit in the hot pans after you remove them from the oven. Allow the finished granola to cool completely before storing in a large, lidded, airtight container or, if you're camping, in a gallon-sized ziploc.

Any-Fruit FroYo or Ice Cream

This version was made with peaches and 2% Greek yogurt.

I make tons and tons of ice cream and frozen yogurt all summer long. Sometimes. It’s like doing yoga or making mozzarella or taking fish oil capsules: a passion that I get all evangelical about—until I forget about it for months or years on end, and you’re like, “Do you want to go to that hot yoga class you totally forced me to become addicted to and now I’m obsessed and broke and exhausted all the time?” And I’m like, “What? Nah.” But this has been a big ice-cream summer for us, and we've loved it.

If you put out healthy toppings, such as fruit, toasted coconut, and slivered almonds. . .

. . . then you can let everyone top their bowls just how they like. . . 

. . . and it will be delicious. . . 

. . . and you can call it "dinner"!

I’ll make a custard base for vanilla or chocolate ice cream. But for fruit, I pretty much always use a version of the same, super-easy recipe: "Any Berry Ice Cream" from the late, great Barbara Tropp’s scrumptastic China Moon cookbook (longtime readers: this is the cookbook whence comes the famous, mandatory green vinaigrette). I love it because it’s perfect, it’s fast, it’s not obscenely rich, and it’s a lovely, light showcase for gorgeous, fragrant summer fruit. Plus, you don’t have to cook anything, and once you get the gist of the formula, you really can use pretty much any fruit. Okay, maybe not really any fruit. But any berry or stone fruit will work--peaches, apricots, nectarines, plums, cherries, raspberries, strawberries, etc.--or, even, flavorful melon or very ripe pears. Or you can also use citrus juice and some grated zest, boosted with extra sugar, to make incredible sherbet. Earlier in the summer, I made tons of strawberry ice cream and cherry ice cream. For the cherry, I whapped some of the pits with a hammer (like this) then included the kernels for their divine almondy flavor. Yum. I am planning to make raspberry ice cream later in the week.

We buy big bags of cheap, burstingly ripe scratch-and-dent peaches (aka "utility" peaches) from a local orchard and use the rest for jam.

photogenic detritus

If you don’t have an ice cream maker, and you have room in your freezer, at least during the summer, to store the inner container (it needs to be frozen before you use it), then this is the ice cream maker I recommend. Otherwise, I'll bet that Googling "how to make ice cream without an ice cream maker" would get you some pretty helpful ideas. It goes without saying: homemade is a much, much cheaper way than buying it to end up with a quart of fabulous ice cream.

Any-Fruit FroYo or Ice Cream

Make 1-plus quarts

Adapted from China Moon. This is a very flexible recipe: you want a shy 4 cups total mixture, but you can vary the amounts of fruit and dairy. You can use all yogurt, for excellent frozen yogurt (use whole-milk or 2%, since lower fat starts to get a bit thin and depressing), all half and half, for excellent light ice cream, or a combination. Or, for a more sherbety situation, you can use more fruit overall and less dairy. Barbara Tropp recommended sieving the fruit mixture to get rid of the seeds. Guess whether or not I do.

Enough very ripe berries or stone fruit to make a shy 2 cups pureed (about ¾ pound berries, weighed after trimming, or around 5 peaches, or around 1 pound of melon flesh, etc.)

½-1 cup sugar (to taste)

1 or 2 teaspoons fresh-squeezed lemon or lime juice

1 or 2 optional tablespoons of a complementary liqueur (Amaretto goes beautifully with peaches)

2 cups half and half or plain (whole-milk or 2%) Greek yogurt or a combination

Pit, hull, or seed your fruit, skin it if necessary, and cut it into pieces, as needed, to smash and measure it. If your peach skins are thin and not to fuzzy, you can simply scrub them and not worry too much. But if they seem like they're going to make a nuisance of themselves, then you can halve the peaches, and use a juicer to ream the flesh from the skins. This is untraditional but effective. If you're measuring soft berries, such as strawberries, smash them down in the measuring cup with a potato masher to get a better read of the amount. Melon can simple be cut from its rind and chunked.

In a blender or food processor, whir together the fruit and sugar until smooth. Add the lemon or lime juice, optional liqueur, and yogurt or half and half and whir again. Now taste. The flavor should be rounded and just a bit too sweet so that it will taste perfect when it’s frozen. Add more lemon juice and/or sugar, whir, and taste again.

Ideally, chill the mixture, covered, for an hour or longer before freezing. But I usually don’t leave myself time for this. Freeze according to the directions of your ice-cream maker. If you can’t get it firm enough, scoop into a glass container, cover, and freeze until firm.

I use the untraditional juicer method for peaches, which works just fine.

And I use either blender or food processor, depending on which is clean.

I like to give it a bit of time to firm up in the freezer.

Ben has to taste it before deciding exactly what balance of toppings he wants.

Purslane Quesadilla

If you have ever ogled someone’s jade plant, and imagined yanking off one of those succulently fleshy leaves and popping it in your mouth—have I got a weed wild edible for you! It’s purslane, and it may well be growing in your garden, yard, or sidewalk cracks. If you think it might be, just do a Google image search to check—it’s pretty distinctive looking. I have a lovely patch that recurs by our back steps, and the children call purslane “Chapter 1” in the Crazy Shit Our Mother Ate memoir they’re plotting.

I must add here that the person who taught me to eat purslane in the first place was my own mother. So maybe Volume II can be Crazy Shit Our Grandma Ate.

Pretty much every morning in the months of July and August, I dart out the back door to pick a handful for my breakfast quesadilla, and I love it. It’s crunchy and lemony and slippery, like a cross between okra and sorrel and the way you think it would be to bite into one of those juicy-looking seaweed pods you see washed up on the shore. (“Chapter 2” of the kids’ book is Seaweed, which I am always surreptitiously nibbling at the beach—especially those chartreuse ruffles that look like how you would draw lettuce if you were tripping.) 

Birdy with lettuce seaweed, circa 2007. Picture courtesy of Uncle Barbara, aka Michael's lovely step-mother.

I just asked Birdy to describe purslane, and the adjectives she picked were slimy and leafy. Hm. Wikipedia describes it as mucilaginous. Sure. That—and more! Because you should know this: purslane is a superfood. One day, everyone’s going to be eating it for its insane concentrations of Omega 3, vitamins, and minerals—and you’re going to say you knew it when.

There might be a moment when you notice that your quesadilla is covered in little black specks, and you'll think Fuck, it's caterpillar shit. But it's not. It's purslane seeds, and they're really good for you.

This quesadilla is my very favorite way to eat it, although I would like to try putting purslane in potato salad, which I think would be fantastic, and cooking it with pintos, which I’ve heard is good. I have tried pickling it, which was oddly disappointing, and when it’s very large and the stems get thick, I stir-fry it, which is good. It is surprisingly bad in smoothies. A friend in California once made me a fattoush salad of purslane, torn pita bread, and tomatoes, and it was once of the best things I ever tasted. Birdy eats lots of it plain, while she stands contemplatively by the back steps. And we just ordered a lovely salad from the Sunbird fish taco truck in Wellfleet, and I got a high-five for identifying the purslane leaves. Rock on, wild things.

Purslane Quesadilla

Makes 1

I know you don’t need me to tell you how to make a quesadilla. And yet it’s funny that I never have, given that we eat them morning, noon, and night. When purslane is not in season, I use kale, spinach, dandelion greens, or slivered cabbage.

Butter

2 corn tortillas

Sliced or grated cheese (Monterey Jack, pepper Jack, or cheddar)

1 handful purslane stems and leaves, rinsed if necessary

Hot sauce, etc. for topping

Heat a little butter in a small pan over medium heat. When it is hot, lay a tortilla in a pan, then top it with cheese, then lay another tortilla over the top. Now watch. At a certain point, not only will the bottom tortilla be beautifully golden-brown, but you will see the whole little package steam and swell, which means that it will be crisp and puffy, rather than dry and leathery. Flip it and cook the bottom side until brown.

Remove the quesadilla to a plate, open it up to add the purslane and hot sauce, then sandwich it all back together and cut in quarters. Divine.

waterlogged

Great Pond, Race Point, Herring Cove, Head of the Meadow, Marconi, synchronized swimming, cans of lemon-lime seltzer, striped bass crudo with "jalapeno water." Birdy's splash-ball question at the pond: "Can you play monkey in the middle, you know, professionally?" Cape Cod.

Hope you're all cool, damp, and thriving.

xo

Herbed Goat Cheese / car trips

I know that sprinkling goat cheese with herbs and oil does not make me a rocket scientist. But this is in such heavy rotation for us that I am sharing it anyways. Bread and Cheese: brought to you by the Pizza Toast People.

When Michael is working, this is what the kids and I eat for dinner (when what we're eating for dinner isn't fro-yo). We think it's goat-rific! He thinks it's goat-errible. Goat cheese tastes to him like a log of sludge that's been left to marinate on the floor of a barn where various farm animals took turns pissing on it. Fair enough. But to us it tastes like an edible lace valentine that a friendly goat has sealed with a kiss. During the school year, it's what I pack the kids for lunch as often as not. On day 1, I send a piece like this in a short mason jar. And then on day 2, if we haven't finished it, I mash it all up with a fork (picture Boursin) and send a little container of it for spreading. It's great both ways. It's also grand for picnics, for company, and for potlucks.

We get these lovely ginormous Vermont Butter and Cheese logs (log!) from Trader Joe's, where they are $4.99. Just slice it up into rounds. Or thick oblongs. Or whatever.

I typically use a knife, which makes for messy slices, but since I knew you were coming over, I sliced the cheese with dental floss, which worked like magic.

Then smear each slice with a little mashed garlic (you can just stir it into the oil, if you prefer), and sprinkle them with all grated lemon zest, freshly ground black pepper, and herbs. 

Here, I'm using a mix of lemon thyme, marjoram, and rosemary. But you really can't go wrong, herb-wise. Lavender makes it very fancy-seeming, although my kids call that "bubble bath cheese," and not in a good way. Juicy leaves such as mint and basil will go dark and unappealing quickly, so leave them whole or plan to eat it all up immediately. But parsley does well, and all the woody ones too. Then you just glug some olive oil over all of it. Plenty of good-tasting olive oil, because now is not the time to get parsimonious.

If you're not eating this immediately--and it will taste better if you don't--then cover it and leave it at room temperature up to a few hours, or refrigerate it if you must, for as long as you like. Then grab your handy loaf.

Now I'm just showing off.

And feed your people.

A bowlful of cherries or sugar snap peas makes the perfect summer side dish for a perfectly balanced meal.

*

We are heading out to Cape Cod today, and I wanted to leave you with another audio book recommendation: The Star of Kazan, by Eva Ibbotson. We are halfway through it, and just completely on the edge of our seats: it's funny and heartbreaking and suspenseful, but you have to make sure that Patricia Conolly is reading it, because she's just crisply perfect. We also listened to the end of the delightfully vast James Herriot series. I know I always say this, but seriously, if you're looking for a book on tape that everyone will enjoy, he's the man: if there's anything more entertaining than a handsome young English vet up to his armpit in cow vagina, I'd love to know about it.

Have a great week, my lovelies.

Black Cherry Jam

Hello, dear ones! We’ve been all over New England, visiting friends in New Hampshire, Maine, and Rhode Island. Oh, vacation! I love it. Motor boats, sailboats, and ferries. Lakes, oceans, and salt ponds. Lobster, lobster, and ice cream. Heaven on earth. Lobster.

 We came home to so much laundry that I don’t understand how it even fit in the car.

And also, to cherries, so good and so cheap that I had to make jam even before we’d finished unpacking. I’ve never made cherry jam before, even though it’s one of my favorites, because I can’t get sour cherries, and I’ve never really seen the point of Bing cherry jam. But I was wrong. 

My goal every summer is to make enough jam to last us all year. Peach, strawberry, grape, raspberry, plus some weird ones like autumn olive or ornamental quince jelly. And now: cherry! Elegant labels, no?

Because this jam? It is black and sweet, tart and bitter, fruity and almondy and gorgeous. I recommend bothering with the pit kernels, because that’s what will give the jam its incomparable almond flavor, and because it’s fun to crack the pits with a hammer—but if you really have too much laundry, then try adding a half teaspoon of almond extract. And if canning the jam just gives you a total heart attack, make freezer jam instead. Peach here, any-berry here. Those are especially good, because the fruit tastes better if you cook and sweeten it less than you need to for canning. But cherries and grapes lend themselves to long cooking and lots of sugar, I think.

Ours came out a tiny bit runny, which is perfect because we mostly eat it on waffles and pancakes and ice cream.

Black Cherry Jam

Makes 5-6 half-pint jars

Takes forever

Adapted from the beautiful, canningly pornographic The Blue Chair Jam Cookbook. This recipe is crazy involved, but the kids wandered in to help, and we really enjoyed ourselves. I can’t say I fully understand the whole rigmarole with the cooking of some cherries separately and straining out their syrup, but since I’d never made cherry jam before, and since I wasn’t in a hurry and the only extra washing-up it added was a sieve, I did it. I used the spent cherries to make dark and wonderful popsicles, which I recommend.

3 pounds plus 1 pound pitted cherries, pits reserved

1 ¾ pounds (3 ½ cups) plus 7 ounces (1 cup) white sugar

¼ cup water

5 ¾ ounces (2/3 cup) freshly squeezed lemon juice (Optional: stir 2 tablespoons maraschino liqueur into the lemon juice.)

Figure out how you’re going to deal with your jars and lids and set up a clean canning station with a clean dishtowel, a paper towel for wiping jar rims, a clean funnel, and a clean ladle or measuring cup for transferring jam to jars. I sterilize my jars either in the dish washer (leave them in there and pull them out, still hot, when the jam is ready to can) or in a large pot of boiling water for half an hour. However, Rachel Saunders has this really cool method of sterilizing her jars in a hot oven: Place the perfectly clean jars and clean, unused lids on a baking sheet in a preheated 250 oven and leave them for 30 minutes. Remove them when you need them. (If they’re too hot—which you’ll know because the jam will bubble or boil in the jar, let the cool for a few moments before filling.) After you have filled them, leaving a quarter inch of head room wipe the rims with a clean, damp cloth, put the lids on and screw on the rims until just tight, then replace the jars in the oven for 15 minutes to ensure that they’re sterilized. Put them on a cooling rack; don’t jiggle them around; they’ll seal as they cool. If they don’t seal, freeze the jam or store it in the fridge and eat it. Now, that explained, I have never tried this method. I use boiling-hot jars which I pull out one at a time for the pot of boiling water and dry briefly with a super clean dish towel. I fill a jar with the funnel and wipe its rim with the damp paper towel, then I put on the lid (which I put in the boiling water for just a minute, and which I fish out with a magnet stuck to the bottom of a ladle) and screw on the rim. IS THIS TOO SCARY? First of all, it’s not. But second of all, feel free to scoop the jam into clean jars, leaving plenty of headroom, and then freeze it. {note:  You will still need to follow some other instructions, as I do not take this to be a thorough explanation of the canning process, and I don't want you to somehow manage to be the only person on earth to ever get botulism from jam. Also, just because my English mother doesn't process her canned jam doesn't mean you don't have to.}

Now make the actual jam. Put a handful of cherry pits inside a clean dish towel on the floor. Use a dish towel you’re happy to stain! Now tap them gently with a hammer, through the cloth, until you hear them crack. This is oddly satisfying. Open up the dish towel and remove the plump almond-like kernel from inside each pit and reserve; discard any shriveled ones and shake out the shell fragments. Do this in batches until you have 1 ½ tablespoons of kernels, then tie them up in a small piece of cheesecloth or put them in a fine-mesh stainless-steel tea strainer and set aside. (Note: in lieu of all this pit-cracking hoo-ha, you could stir a half a teaspoon of almond extract into the finished jam after you take it off the heat.)

Put a saucer with five metal teaspoons on flat place inside your freezer for testing the jam later.

Combine 3 pounds of the cherries with the larger amount of sugar in a large heatproof mixing bowl.

Put the remaining cherries and sugar, along with the water, in a very large heavy-bottomed non-reactive pot. It will boil up, so the pot really does need to be larger than you might think. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly with a heatproof rubber spatula (or a wooden spoon!) and inching the heat gradually up to medium, until the mixture boils, then cook 7 minutes more until the liquid has become thick and syrupy and the cherries look greatly the worse for wear. Immediately pour the cherries through a metal strainer so that the syrup drains into the bowl with the raw cherries. Press down on the cooked fruit to extract all of the juice. “Discard the cooked cherries” if you are clinically insane!  Otherwise, blend them with 1 cup of limeade, then freeze to make popsicles.

Add half the lemon juice to the cherry mixture, stir well, then scrape it all back into your pot, and add the pit-kernel bag.

Bring the mixture to a boil over medium heat, gradually increasing the heat to high. Boil rapidly, stirring every minute or two, for “10 to 15 minutes.” How will you know which? I didn’t, so I went for 12 ½ minutes, sensible girl that I am. Monitor the heat closely as you stir, and turn it down a little if the jam feels like it’s sticking. Between stirrings, use a stainless-steel spoon to skim the foam carefully off the top of the mixture. Again, maybe I don’t get out enough, but I find this oddly satisfying. Also, I always eat all the foam.

After 10-15 minutes, turn the heat off and let the mixture rest for a minute without stirring. Scrape all the rest of the foam off of it, then stir in the rest of the lemon juice.

Return the jam to medium-high heat and continue to cook, stirring frequently. Lower the heat as needed to prevent scorching. After 5 more minutes, you should start to test the jam for doneness. To do this, turn the heat off and fill one of your frozen teaspoons half full of jam liquid. Return it to the freezer for 3 minutes, then test it: tilt the spoon vertically to see whether the jam runs; if it is reluctant to run, then it is done. If it runs very quickly, cook it for another few minutes, stirring, then test again. Repeat until it’s done (mine took another 5 minutes), then turn off the heat and remove the pit-kernel bag.

Pour the jam into sterilized jars and process as above and according to the manufacturer’s directions.

We still have black fingernails from the cherry juice.

Pit Boss Birdy. Smashing pits is so much fun! Better even than punching an inflated clown.

The pit kernels in a bag. Please don't mention in the comments about how they have cyanide in them and we're all going to die.

Lemon juice.

Boiling jam, pre scum-skimming.

Our very huge canning pot.

Spoons in the freezer.