Grape Jammin'

Few things are as easy as making grape jam. Truly. You've heard the adage "as easy as pie," an old saying I could easily argue against from my own experience. Jam is not only simple to make but a long way from the annoyance of the fuss and extra steps of jelly bags. If you have a good pot and a countertop and a ready supply of grapes, you can make jam. But be warned, I didn't say making jam is not without a certain degree of mess but once you get organized, the process develops its own smooth rhythm. However, the unbelievable sensory experience of color, fragrance, and taste ~ as well as the satisfaction of lining a cupboard with jars of jam for gift-giving and family use ~ will make you glad for any bother. Kids will enjoy helping too ~ ours couldn't wait to be involved in each step. Everyone seems to love jam and remember that even Tom Sawyer had to whitewash his Aunt Polly's fence because he'd been caught eating jam in her pantry.



MY HUSBAND TEMPLE UNDER HIS ARBOR

Several years ago our friend Bill told us that you couldn't make grape jam (he and his wife were prolific jelly makers). It was a challenge I was happy to take. My husband, several years before we married, installed a grape arbor along two sides of our barn. He constructed it with slender granite posts that he cut himself and cross-pieces of wood above. It is a work of art. At first he planted a variety of New York grapes which proved too fickle in New England winters. He replaced them with the Concord, a reliant and hardy stalwart and true native fruit (along with the cranberry and blueberry ~ both equally easy to transform into luscious jam or conserve).



OUR FRIEND PETER HELPED PICK

For several years we have not had many grapes due to damp summers, improper ventilation or whatever the reason. Last year my husband cut the vines back rigorously and this year we are enjoying the fruits of his labor. Bushels and bushels of them. There are probably still a few left on the vines but we are truly graped-out. We gave some away and still we had three big 5-gallon buckets full for ourselves. I made two into grape jam and had hoped to make a third but between being sick, having my pantry book galleys back to review and attend to (more about those later), there just wasn't enough time. This is my first major grape-making attempt in almost ten years when we last had a great grape year (a few since but often not able to find the time so we have given them to our Shaker friends in Sabbathday Lake, Maine or let others come pick).



FEW THINGS IN THE KITCHEN ARE MORE LOVELY OR FRAGRANT THAN a SIMMERING POT of JAM

The trick of any jam is to make it in small batches. Grapes have natural pectin and you can utilize that to its best advantage if you don't cook too much at once. I've learned from experience that as tempting as it is to quadruple your efforts into a large stock pot, it is best to go no more than double on a recipe. I've found my small blue Le Creuset is the perfect size for a double batch and contributes to a a good thick blend. Have your kids help with the mouly-ing! [My husband is an expert picker and de-stemmer, too.]



GRAPE JAM

4 cups grapes (free of stems--no need to wash them if you don't spray)
3 cups sugar

Mix grapes and sugar in a sturdy stockpot. Bring to a boil on medium heat while stirring occasionally (make sure there are no pockets of sugar to stick to the bottom). Once boiling, turn down to low and cook for 20 minutes. Pour grape mixture into mouly and work through into a clean pot (the blade will turn and push at the same time). Mouly the mixture until pulp is pressed through: you will be left with a lovely and sticky goop of seeds and skin. Discard. Stir the thickened jam (the consistency of a heavy syrup or molasses) and pour into clean and sterilized jars (a dishwasher works great for this). Can in hot boiling water bath for 15-20 minutes according to canning instructions. One batch makes about 3 1/2 cups and the jam will thicken up as it cools.

The rich, full grapey taste will be like nothing you've ever had from the store. You see, easy as jam! Now, to better learn that pie crust so I can make a grape pie...another delight (but one that involves de-seeding the little pulpy things). Maybe next year.

Red, Ripe Apples

A VARIETY of APPLES from a SEASONAL HAUL at GOULD HILL ORCHARDS

Last week it was "Apple Day" at my children's school. As our youngest is in first grade this year, it was particularly special for him to participate. The day is devoted to the wonders of the apple! The kids make apple pies to bring home, play games with apples, even write a newspaper about apples. A few days later I went up to one of my favorite fall destinations: Gould Hill Orchards in Contoocook, New Hampshire. They had not only saved a bushel of Winesaps for me but I was able to pick up some Rhode Island Greenings for pie-making (my friend Rosemary is planning to teach me her perfect crust technique--I am a miserable crust-maker but can make a sublime apple crisp). I forgot some of the chestnut crabapples and will just have to go back to get some for Thanksgiving stuffing.

With grape jam-making behind me (see separate entry), I can now focus on putting up quarts and quarts of applesauce! My boys won't eat any applesauce except the kind we make together. I can think of no better compliment.

Here is an excerpt from a recent article I wrote for the October 2006 issue of "The Occasional Moose", a monthly publication of The Monadnock Ledger-Transcript:

GREAT-GRANDMOTHER's APPLES MAKE A COMEBACK

A few years ago we discovered Gould Hill Orchards in Contoocook while on the hunt for the Stayman Winesap (a small, crisp and spicy October apple—my favorite for sauce or pie). The orchards grow nearly 100 types of apples and other fruits, including many with endearing and old-fashioned names like Sheep Nose, Rhode Island Greening, Roxbury Russet, and Blue Pearmain—even the diminutive and lovely Chestnut Crabapple. Now called heirlooms, these once prevalent apples were grown on American farms for different uses and have been revived for specialty markets today because of their distinctive tastes, color, and form.

In the farm stand each apple variety is described by taste and suggested culinary use and you can readily assemble a sampler bag of heirlooms to bring home for your own apple tasting. Gould Hill Orchards also press and sell an intoxicating cider blend. More familiar apples are also available and you can pick your own while overlooking a beautiful sweep of orchards and a panoramic mountain view to the north. Children, especially, will enjoy The Little Nature Museum in the large barn of this historic farm. Not far up from Henniker near Routes 202 and 89, you can call or consult their website for directions.

Writer's "Blog"

Let's call it writer's BLOG instead of block. I haven't blogged much this summer probably because I've been writing and editing--working on the revisions for IN THE PANTRY and also on assignment. It is exciting to have the book come together and now it is in the hands of the graphic designer, to be returned by Halloween. I can't wait to see what they come up with for font, book "look" and layout. So far the editorial process has been far from daunting. On my initial rewrite in June I was concerned that the concept was not being understood (it is by nature a history/design book with lots of quotes and footnotes) but I have not had that feeling at all in the pre-layout revisions. The editors have been a pleasure to work with--even though we are separated by thousands of miles. E-mail has been a salvation for remote accessibility--and for firing text and images back and forth. [I think Emily Dickinson might have published had she had e-mail and a computer--she certainly would have been an even more prolific letter writer! I am convinced she also would have avoided the phone, as I tend to do.]

Once over this odd-uneven transition time into the autumn I plan to blog more than I have been. It is still a week until our two boys return to school. Their private school, while lovely in so many ways, believes in late returns. I'm all for the day after Labor Day: late August is too early and mid-September is too late. This is about the time we get ready to ship our children off to the nearest bidder! [Or perhaps it is the time of year to plan on booking a long weekend somewhere, just the two of us.]

So I relish the time ahead when I will have at least six hours a day uninterrupted. But with our youngest child going off to first grade and his first full day, the time will indeed be bittersweet. Our oldest has already begun her senior year.

For all of us it will be a year of transitions in many ways. I have always regarded September as the beginning of the new year: even when we no longer have children in school, September begins a more inward journey, a more contemplative time. Even the earth has begun to pause and retreat into itself. The days have shortened considerably since mid-summer, the air is cooler and the leaves are beginning to change their color. The crickets are in a full-throttle 24-hour chorus, singing their lives to their conclusion. [There is nothing more fun than to have crickets come into the house, still chirping, holding on to what little life they have left--we always leave them to sing and find their way around.] Now I have begun to think of woodpiles, and filling the pantry, and being more domestic. I could have easily been a squirrel--scurrying about, bringing nuts back to the nest, organizing them and preparing for a long winter.

And there is nothing like donning a flannel night gown or pajamas and slipping into cold sheets piled high with blankets and the wind whistling around the loose old windows of an ancient draughty farmhouse. I miss that time when we heated with wood and you could warm yourself comfortably by the fires downstairs but know that you'd have the best sleep of your life in the chillier bedrooms. Old New England farmhouses were always like that: the kitchen or keeping room was the center of the home, providing warmth and light for working or sitting. Now as a culture we are separated by computers and remote pockets of media throughout households--some children are even allowed computers and televisions in their bedrooms. Houses, like people, are meant to converse and are meant to breathe: to expand and contract, to have some life in them. Like the rhythm of a year, a good house has its own dynamic and routine. It is the keeper of the flame, of the family spirit. And it really does all begin at home. I would not have made a very good pioneer woman or nomadic wanderer. I do enjoy travel, but less so than I used to. Mostly I'd just rather be at home.

Cricket Song

Yesterday I heard it--the first cricket of August and it is still July.

The cricket sound is mournful. It reminds me of the end of summer, when school or routine looms large, and the days are once again waning towards the inevitable shortest day.

Crickets are good luck--in the fall we allow them to come in the house and let them stay with us. They sing for several months in odd, unexpected places. And then they go away again--perhaps they sing because they know they only have a short time before dying.

Peepers herald the end of spring and the warmer days ahead. Fireflies are the silent beacon of midsummer, although we don't seem to have them around much anymore--not as when I was a child when they glimmered across the suburban lawns of Ohio and hovered over the new mown farm fields in New Hampshire.

Crickets announce that fall is near. Somehow this year it seems too early for crickets.

Keep Steppin'

I get the "urban word of the day" emailed from the Urban Dictionary and recently "keep steppin" arrived in my in-box. Its timing was pitch perfect. The term is defined as, "to move on from something bad" or, as used in their sentence, "Yo homie, don't worry '‘bout her, keep steppin!" It has become my new mantra as it helped provide clarity to a recent event and will now be my reaction to things that bother.

In July we went to a large family reunion in the Midwest. As my husband likes to say, "we drove almost 1,300 hundred miles for dinner," because the next day we turned around and came home. No sooner had we arrived when we discovered that our daughter, left back home with a friend so she could work at her summer job, got into a car accident and totaled her car. Speed and a cell phone were the cause. Fortunately the car did its job, the airbags deployed, and she only suffered a broken wrist. It could have been much worse as she just missed a large pine tree and had she gone over on the other side of the road she would have been airborne and launched into a pile of granite rocks—and more trees. The car was totaled but it was just a car and we are grateful to it. Our daughter is fine and her wrist will heal. (And I should have insisted that she come to the reunion with us.)

But the "push out the door" happened because, before the reunion had even begun, we were snubbed by a certain relation. We were to discover that this person had been informed about something to do with the other side of my family, not directly their own—a faction of the one back in New England. Ironically, this simple gesture from a person not even involved, and for whom I've always held in the highest regard, brought closure for me on a difficult few years. We realized that our family issues had morphed into more than the sum of their parts and that we were powerless to change that. "Keep steppin!"

A week after the reunion I attended a writing workshop sponsored by the New Hampshire Writer's Project. Its topic—Writing about Family—was as timely as that relevant word-of-the-day in my in-box. I learned that when one writes "creative non-fiction", or a memoir, that it shouldn't be motivated by revenge or self-serving purposes. Not that I have such intentions but I can imagine that nasty little "R" word all too easily creeping in if not left checked in the cloak room.

Annie Dillard wrote that "while literature is an art, it is not a martial art: no place to defend yourself from an attack, real or imagined, and no place to launch an attack." Contentious family issues are a simmering broth of emotion, upset, envy, and misunderstanding. To place all the blame on one person or event would be wrong. In our case, the unresolved issues from several generations, marriages, and unspoken expectations or wants all fell down in our laps. Did we contribute to the dysfunction of what likely can not be resolved or overcome? Of course we did—but that does not make us solely responsible.

It is not an easy thing to learn: to write with objectivity, perhaps with humor, but also personal experience and insight. All families are nuts in their own way and we all share our joys, our sorrows, and our battle scars. Perhaps that is why non-fiction out sells fiction now: people are fascinated by real lives. Memoirs by ordinary people are the literary equivalent to the "reality" television genre.

So now I'll just try to "keep steppin" over and around the stuff of life that tends to get in the way of really living it. And one day maybe I'll write about it: not dwelling on the bad but the good, the best of what resonates: what is clear, what is muddy, what was and what might have been.