We're Jammin'

I eat grape jam about four times a year, other family members eat much more of it, but it is me who plans the annual trip out to the u-pick to fill our buckets with grapes.
We got up early on Sunday as planned, slapped on the sunscreen and big hats, had a quick bite and were out the door as the fog was burning off, which meant we were leaving just a little later than we should have.
At the vineyard, there were two other families already there, one, clearly early risers, were leaving. As we exited the car the farmer started pulling out the picking buckets for us. He directed us to the variety that most jelly makers prefer Ison, rather than Black Fry and we headed out to the vines. Muscadine grapes are different from any other grapes I have ever seen. They have the dark skin and gelatinous insides like the Concord, but they are almost the size of a small plum. Every year I marvel at their enormity.
We each took our bucket and we headed for the far end of the vineyard, hoping that the fruit would be less picked over since it was a longer walk. There was plenty of fruit, some of it had already gone by, but there still was a huge amount of perfectly ripe fruit left on the vines. We started to pick. Knowing that the fruit hangs down below the vines where you cannot see it, I crawled underneath. I checked for fire ants, finding it clear, I kneeled on the ground. The grapes were just above my head, as I tried to ignore the thoughts of the giant Florida spiders as the leaves brushed my hair. I began to pick, just barely touching the ripe ones as they fell into my hands and then into the bucket.
I picked some and then tossed one into my mouth. Immediately, I was transported back to 1970’s Massachusetts, to the grape vine alongside my grandparents’ driveway with my cousins running around with my sisters. The flashes continued for the rest of the day as the scents, sights and smells nudged my memory.
My daughter ran amongst the vines, picked a few grapes, studied the bugs and chattered more than the squirrels. Between the three of us, we picked two and one half buckets of grapes, weighing in at 16.06 lbs. They were a bargain at $1 lb.
We brought them home to begin the jam and juice making. The scent of the grapes in the big stock pot as they warmed was my time machine back this time to my mom’s steam filled kitchen in Rhode Island, with newspapers spread all over the table, with the food mill, big pots, pans, ladles and spoons and boiling mason jars. My kitchen right down to the style of the food mill was the same, except we used a dark colored towel instead of newspaper to catch the drips, because we read the news on-line. The cutting board turned a glorious shade of splotched purple, just as I remembered.
My daughter clearly enjoyed extracting the juice from grapes, “Squish this!” was an instruction I did not have to repeat or encourage, it just happened. I filled the mill with hot grapes, she rotated the pestle until the skins were dry and the pot underneath was filled with thick juice, and then requested more to squish. She seemed to know when the next batch from the stove was ready to squish, because she would disappear for a while, but as soon as the food mill was prepped for more she was right there, purple pestle in hand.
The whole hot, steamy, messy affair tangibly produced six pints of jam and three quarters of a gallon of juice, which will probably end up as jelly, since none of us drink much grape juice. The intangible products will have to wait thirty or so years, when my daughter craves connection to her past and the past of the women before her,and buys herself a food mill.

I use a cone shaped mill with a cone shaped pestle, there are many types which can be found in antique shops for about $40,or in the church thrift shop where my mom socializes weekly for about $3, I understand that she practically dove across the room to get it for me when it came in.

Janet's Grape Jam
Adapted Recipe from Ball Blue Book:

2 quarts Muscadine or Concord Grapes
6 cups sugar

Wash and de-stem grapes.
Place in a stock pot and cook over low heat until the grapes begin to burst.
Place some in a food mill set over a large pot. and process until the grape skins are nearly dry and the juice ceases to flow. Repeat until this procedure until all grapes are processed. (I don't have the patience for the process in the book of separating the skins and pulp and processing separately, apparently my mom doesn't either, because I know she has never done that)

Add sugar to the pot of juice. Bring slowly up to heat, stirring to dissolve sugar. Then bring to a boil and stir frequently until it reaches the gelling point, the spoon that you stir with will cool and it will gel on it, then it is ready. Skim foam. Pour jam into sterilized canning jars leaving 1/4 in head space and process 15 minutes.

Subversive Goat Milk

I've just completed my subversive activities for the week, I bought a gallon of goat milk from a farmer. I've found a new farmer, who sells me "pet quality" milk to meet the local laws. My cats drink a gallon of it a week and I make cheese--for them--of course. I just happen to have an allergy to cow's milk and can't process the stuff through my body without my immune system torturing me with extreme fatigue, itching and respiratory distress. So, I drink some of the very freshest milk available, no, I mean my cats drink the very freshest milk available. This morning I saw the milk coming directly out of the goat into a very clean stainless steel bucket and then be filtered into the jar that I had provided. It was still warm.

I give my money to farmers and their families, which for milk is often illegal. We all have our faults and little secrets. mine is I buy fresh milk, ummmmmmmmmm, for my cats, of course...pet quality milk....

The nasty liquid that they sell in supermarkets as goat milk seems as if it is designed to convince people that cow milk is vastly superior...but it isn't. The American goat taboo does seem to be weakening somewhat in the last few years, since goat cheese has been a regular supermarket item since the early nineties, but people are still leery about goat milk and meat. I can understand their leeriness if their goat milk is the ultra-pasturized cartons in the market that contain a liquid that smells like a male goat in rut, I cannot call it milk. The creamy, sweet flavored liquid in the glass jar in my fridge is goat milk, from goats with names, personalities, personal relationships, lots of space to roam and someone who really cares about them.

I'm looking forward to next week when I can take my daughter to go buy milk, so she can meet the "girls".

Dinner tonight? Maybe something with panir (paneer)? Greens (collards), onions, hing, and paneer with toasted mustard seed, sesame, cumin, garam masala and after I've separated out some for my kid, chiles. The "cats" will love it.

Dumpling Dogmatism

We made jiaozi, savory boiled dumplings, last night. The recipe came from Beyond the Great Wall Recipes and Travels in the Other China by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Dugiud, which I have on Interlibrary loan, this book may end up being purchased, because I'm going to hate to part with it.

I like the recipes in this book because the authors stressed that there were as many ways of making noodles and dumplings as there are cooks who make them. Often, I find recipes about regional cuisine dogmatic, "This is the only way that these are made!" This always puts me off, I have an Italian cookbook with perfectly good recipes in it that I rarely use, because of the "my way or the highway" tone of the author. Even within my very small family there are numerous versions of the basic family recipes, each person adds their own personality to it.

The dumplings (pork and leek and pork and carrot) took quite a while to assemble, but they weren't difficult. Next time, I will set up to make them at the kitchen table instead of standing at the counter. (Who decided that ceramic tiles for a kitchen floor are a good thing??? They kill my feet and legs, and they are slippery when wet...but, I digress.) I substituted green onions for the leeks in the recipe, because they were what I had on hand, otherwise I followed the recipe. They were very good, but a tad salty, which for me, can be a plus.

Peer Pressure

My daughter was starving when I picked her up at the bus stop after school yesterday. The children in the cafeteria had decided to target her because she was different.

It was all my fault.
I had packed a chicken leg in her lunch. She loves chicken legs, and had been looking forward to lunch because of it. She said that the girl next to her pointed it out to some others and an older child decided to make an issue of it. Everytime she reached for the chicken leg, which had been long marinated in a ginger/onion and Indian spice paste, the raucous laughs and finger pointing commenced.

I'm sure that those childen had food that had been well processed in a factory somewhere and hermetically sealed in plastic or were eating a tray of food with five items, which had a cost of $0.94 to meet Federal standards. Poor things, they may not have recognized real food. My child, who does not like to be the center of attention in large groups, ended up throwing the chicken away and coming home to tell the tale of peer pressure and processed food.

She asked, with a hopeful tone, if there were more chicken legs. That's my girl.