Sunday, September 03, 2006

Life in the Countryside

The reason I've not been blogging is we've been making jam. We live surrounded by trees and vine, apples, grapes, jujubes, almonds, prunes, and olives. The past years there's been no one to harvest, so much of the the fruit had ended up rotting on the ground.

Now here Pierre and I are. Being extreme creatures, predictably we have transformed from free spirits to sensible country folk. Why, said these two budding paysans, we can't let all that good food go to waste!

So we take a kilo of sugar and a kilo of fruit, put them in a giant casserole and bring to a boil, stirring all the while. Once all sticky, the mixture is spooned into sterilized jars that cool upside down. (We've done this so many times that these days, when I sweat I swear that my armpits smell of something sweet and syrupy.)

After all our efforts, we have now in stock, in glass containers of various shapes and sizes, some 15 liters of preserved fruit. Last night we looked content upon our cupboards, imagining ourselves waking up with the sun, sitting down to cups of strong coffee and plates of warm bread that we top with slabs of butter and spoons of our delicious homemade jam, fig being our favorite. It would be the perfect way to start a day spent outdoors, him doing things like mending fences and pruning trees, me maybe harvesting late tomatoes.

Then his phone rang, a client calling. A reality check as we remembered: we roll out of bed at ten to work all day in front of computers, indoors. And we don't even eat breakfast.

10 comments:

haze said...

Wow sarap! You can also use ALSA Vitpris in making your jam it helps you to lessen the cooking time and preserve the jam longer! Penge naman :)

A said...

Pengeng fig jam! Pengeng fig jam! Pauwiin mo si Niks ng fig jam!

Teka. Ano ba lasa ng fig jam? Parang fig newtons ba itei?

Anonymous said...

Ati, di ako maka post sa non-beta blog daw, sabi ng Blogger. Si Kat O. itech.

Anyway, what a delicious entry! And such a sexy armpit allegory. Na visualize kita, Apol, in a French film haze.

Pahingi rin ng fig jam. Mahal yan dito. Paborito ko rin.

Apol said...

Hey, HAZE! Yes, I will give you a BIIIIIGGGGG bottle. We have plenty :) And the neighbor gave us a crate of melons from his garden so Pierre tried making a jam. Took forever to cook, pero success! Try mo din if you ever have too much of the fruit.

Fig Newtons na malagkit ABI. Sabihin ko kay Nicky, but baka mabigatan? Kulitin mo before he leaves. Oh, do you want more fleur de sel. P600 daw sa Rustan's???!!!!

KAT, pag punta mo dito next year, I will wake up early to serve you breakfast :)

Kiko said...

Jujubes! I dunno what it is but I like how it sounds :) Wagi!

Anonymous said...

apol, one day ill just knock on your door to have breakfast =)

Apol said...

KIKO, when you say it, don't forget to slightly pucker your lips at the end. Make a constipated O. Ganyan, perfect! Think siniguelas na matigas. Sarap siya.

TUESDAY, you're welcome any time :) We'll be taking a motorcycle trip to Morocco early winter. If Alicante is on the way, we'll be the ones knocking.

Noelle Q. de Jesus said...

Sarap naman! Like water for raspberry jam!

Anonymous said...

uy apol, we want to go on a motorcycles diaries trip in asia!!!

mcsister said...

Shucks I am supposed to knock off na to sleep, but am craving toast and butter and jam, and hot chocolate to dunk it in!