Friday 5 August 2011

Where's yer Mama gone?



... Picking Blackberries. Far, far away.

This morning Lebowski and I took a stroll to the Corpus Christi Playing fields, over the railway tracks.


We spotted lots of blackberries. I've been meaning to pick some all week and keep forgetting to bring out a punnet to collect them. All I had on me was a 'poo bag' (without poo, I hasten to add!)


There were some lovely bushes full to the brim with ripe berries, ready for the picking. I managed to collect 1.5 kilos of them, however, I made sure I left some for the wasps and birds and spiders too.
Whilst picking the blackberries it made me think about fairy tales - the use of brambles and thorns and overgrown forests. It all seemed quite enchanting and peaceful... until Lebowski started barking that is!








According to folklore legend, on the 10th October the Devil pees on the blackberries and they become unfit to eat.


Lebowski was rather impatient and continued to whine and bark at me every time I stopped at another bush. I did try to explain that she wouldn't be complaining when she's having toast and jam!



We discovered a plant which seemed as if it was related to Lebowski...



We also spotted the places where the deer had been lying the night before. I really like the different directions of the flattened grass, it seems to possess lots of movement.




When I got home I rinsed the blackberries and left them to drain on a clean tea towel, ready to turn into jam. I have been trying to find an interesting blackberry jam recipe, and thought about adding vanilla. We'll see.....





When I got home the smell from the blackberries reminded me of when I was a child, picking blackberries with my Mum by the cemetery. I remembered all the little worms crawling out of them when she left them to soak before making them into jam.


Jam recipe ideas:

http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/8075/beautiful-blackberry-jam.aspx


http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/8112/blackberry---apple-jam.aspx


http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/8450/seedless-blackberry-and-elderberry-jam.aspx


http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/9293/blackberry-chilli-jam.aspx


Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney
Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots
Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
We trekked and picked until the cans were full
Until the tinkling bottom had been covered
With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.
We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair
That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.

Thursday 4 August 2011

Foxy Loxy Jam



Label for the jams designed in Photoshop. Might change the fox illustration in the middle though.







Next stop...making a Mr Foxy glove puppet from handmade felt. I'll keep you posted. Till then watch out for the sky falling in!

Wednesday 6 July 2011

Jam, more jam, a different jam...



FOXY LOXY JAM





I have recently got into Jam Making. I have a fine collection of books on preserving and making jams and cordials etc. I decided to start off with something simple, and opted for the Strawberry Jam.
I went to the Pick Your Own at Binsey Farm, near Port Meadow in Oxford. It was a rainy day and there was just me there, all alone in the fields collecting my 2 kilos worth of Strawberries.
I rushed home and set to on my alchemy!
After preparing my own pectin from cooking apples I eventually made about 8 good-sized jars of jam. It was very nice, so definitely something which I wanted to try again and experiment with.



Binsey Farm strawberry field, from the car

So off I went, back to the PYO. This time the sun was shining and the strawberry fields were much busier, so I opted for the lonesome gooseberry field.

The deserted gooseberry field. Just me and the gooseberries.


and raspberries...
I even wore my special strawberry belt and polka dot top!


The punnet of gooseberries ready to go in the pan!









To me, jam making and preserving is like alchemy. The equipment, the colours, textures, smells and of course - the taste.
I have always had a love of old fashioned laboratories and would love to have worked in a perfumery. All the bottles, raw materials, and the imagery of a certain magic evolving within the glass conical flasks and pipes!
Well, if I can't have that, jam making will have to do.
I would love a copper preserving pan (one which I could spend hours polishing), but until then I found this rather nice aluminium one in the Oxfam shop for a mere £15. It does the job, plus it has a rather nice old hammered handle with a nice curl on the end, so it satisfies my aesthetic need too.
So, without wanting to bore you with the facts of jam making I will whip through the different stages and try to illustrate them with photos instead.


These are the gooseberries softening in the water. Apparently gooseberries contain a high level of pectin so there is no need to add any extra to this recipe. Look at my thermometer, lovely!




When the gooseberries have softened you throw in the raspberries and just when they start to bleed you add the mounds of sugar. This is one of my favourite stages. I love the way the brilliant whiteness stands out from the colour of the fruit.





So once all the fruit has been added, you have to get it up to the right temperature and to a rolling boil.






220F





The next stage is to check for the setting point. It is important to remove the pan from the heat each time you do this.




a chilled plate used to test the setting point...





The setting point is reached...




I like using a funnel to ladle the jam into sterilised jars.




Sealed and ready to be labelled and packaged.




oh, and eaten...with toast or homemade scones.





and a pot of tea.




Someone else likes toast and jam too!

The next job is creating the labels. That will be my next post!

Who Killed Cock Robin?


A few weeks ago I went out into my back garden to find a dead Blackbird. It wasn't savaged and looked almost as if it was just sleeping. I rolled it over to find a spot of blood on the underside of it's wing. I thought of this poem.

Who Killed Cock Robin?

"Who killed Cock Robin?" "I," said the Sparrow,
"With my bow and arrow, I killed Cock Robin."
"Who saw him die?" "I," said the Fly,
"With my little eye, I saw him die."
"Who caught his blood?" "I," said the Fish,
"With my little dish, I caught his blood."
"Who'll make the shroud?" "I," said the Beetle,
"With my thread and needle, I'll make the shroud."
"Who'll dig his grave?" "I," said the Owl,
"With my pick and shovel, I'll dig his grave."
"Who'll be the parson?" "I," said the Rook,
"With my little book, I'll be the parson."
"Who'll be the clerk?" "I," said the Lark,
"If it's not in the dark, I'll be the clerk."
"Who'll carry the link?" "I," said the Linnet,
"I'll fetch it in a minute, I'll carry the link."
"Who'll be chief mourner?" "I," said the Dove,
"I mourn for my love, I'll be chief mourner."
"Who'll carry the coffin?" "I," said the Kite,
"If it's not through the night, I'll carry the coffin."
"Who'll bear the pall? "We," said the Wren,
"Both the cock and the hen, we'll bear the pall."
"Who'll sing a psalm?" "I," said the Thrush,
"As she sat on a bush, I'll sing a psalm."
"Who'll toll the bell?" "I," said the bull,
"Because I can pull, I'll toll the bell."
All the birds of the air fell a-sighing and a-sobbing,
When they heard the bell toll for poor Cock Robin.


I buried the Blackbird underneath the rose bush.

Baker Born and Bread

Seeing as I've been making jam, I thought I'd better bake some fine bread to accompany it. So here it is!



Soft Egg

My neighbour recently got two chickens. As they started to lay their first eggs, a couple came out with either no shell or a very soft shell. I took these photos.


Mint Cordial

After having at go at Elderflower Cordial, I decided to try my hand at this mint recipe.
I used over double the amount of mint leaves for a stronger mint flavour.





This recipe is from the DK Preserving Book http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/images/1405356286/ref=dp_image_z_0?ie=UTF8&n=266239&s=books

Pounding the mint leaves with the sugar

Because of the amount of mint I was using, I had to gradually add it to the bowl in small amounts.
I used a wooden rolling pin to grind the leaves down to a pulp.

The more you pound the mint leaves the sugar gradually changes colour, from light green...




... to dark green



When the water was added to the pulp it resembled a dark mysterious swamp water.

Tuesday 5 July 2011

Lace making and crochet





I have been experimenting with crochet to see if I can achieve similar results to lace making. A few reasons for this 1) lace making is extremely time consuming 2) I want to include some crochet in my 'Pram' project.

I intend to make a blanket/quilt which is inside the pram and extending out onto the floor. At the moment I am imagining it to be a combination of patchwork and quilting, crochet, lace and maybe felt and knitting. I like the idea of it trailing off into a delicate lace thread ending in an umbilical cord like structure. So it's good to experiment with different densities of threads and techniques at this stage.

I also want to include a drawing which I started some years ago. It was a panoramic narrative, based on fairy stories (see older blog). The pram which I got off Freecycle recently is almost identical to the one which I drew in the picture. I envisage using enamel paint on the pram metal work to depict the sense of being in an overgrown forest. I also thought I would include some images from some old screen prints which I did on my MA.
Images to follow.