Red Currant Jam aka You did WHAT on a Saturday Night?

At the farmers' market at Borough Hall, these are what I found, so I pounced.

Perfect jewels.

Three kilograms, including some very good raspberries. I found jam jars at Tony's Hardware on Smith Street. He has everything.

When I realized how much fruit I'd bought, and that each red currant would have to be stripped from its stalk, I got nervous, and made a cup of tea.

Two hours later they were done (I watched two episodes of the BBC's Duchess of Duke Street). I had a glass of the pink bubbly to celebrate.

The boiling, foaming stage. I changed gears and watched Benicio del Toro's face being funny in the Way of the Gun. Fast forwarded during the worst bloody bits: enough jam spattered all over the apartment as it was. I switched to Australian shiraz and shepherd's pie made from the leftover anchovy and rosemary lamb (the story I never told...will fix tomorrow).

The scooping stage.

The I'm nearly done stage. Bloody hell.

And the best of all. The breakfast in bed on a Sunday stage.

Raymond Blanc's recipe here

What I wanted

...was a chopped red pepper salad. Not sure why. This one didn't quite hit the mark; I should have used fresh chiles. And I wanted it to be a bit sloppier. If I'd had them I would have added tomatoes.

So, one red pepper, half a red onion, one fresh garlic clove (these were still new, unpapery, crisp), a few slices of baguette, torn up; red wine vinegar, salt, sugar, pepper, chiles to taste. Parsley.

Method: Donder the pepper. That's a South African expression. In other words, chop the bleep out of it. Same with onion. Put in a bowl with the torn-up bread, shake over a couple of tablespoons of vinegar, add salt, sugar and pepper to taste, and mix. Add the chopped fresh chile. Then the parsley. Taste all the way. You need spicy/burny but balanced by salty/sweet. Slosh over a little olive oil. Think of it as solid gazpacho...

Or if you're in Cape Town just head to Anatoli on Napier Street - they still make a good one, to be eaten with the sublime ekmek: long bread puffed up with steam in its pocket, piping hot from the oven, carried gingerly in a napkin to the table.


It's good with this.

Oh, I also had a lamb, but that's another story.

Happy Fourth of July

Here's to you.

And you, and you. Oh, and to you. And to you...And to you. To you??? I don't know...: you'll drink to me if I drink to you? Well...maybe. Ok-fine, to you, too. And to you. And most certainly to you. And to you! And to yoooooooooooooooou...My God how could I have forgotten you!!!!! And you, whatever. And to you. Oh, and you both. And you.

And most especially of all: to you.

Another Country*

The lovely Marijke took these pictures on the pumpkin farm Vioolsdrif on the Orange River in South Africa. Stay tuned for pumpkin recipes. June is deep winter, of course, on that side of the divide...





You can also find Marijke in Cape Town, here.

*Another Country, 1991 novel by Karel Schoeman, set in the Bloemfontein of the 1870's.

"We live in such silence, Mr Versluis; have you ever noticed that? The silence of this country is so immense, the distances, the isolation so great..."

"This is no longer Africa, but nor is it Europe anymore. There are too many worlds existing side by side, and finally there is no single world in which one feels at home or in which one knows how to conduct oneself; that is what I wish to apologize for now. I either know too much or too little, never enough and never the right things; there is no hope for me."

Today

All the frilly pink Abraham Darby roses were open this morning, all about half their usual size, but still perfectly proportioned. Very pretty while I sipped my Cafe Bustelo.


Lilium "Eurydice" again.

And this one has opened, too, "Silk Road". Not the sort of lily I would usually go for, but it has been included as a bonus bulb in my order for the last two years running and I planted them. Six feet tall, flowers the size of my hand, richly scented. The sort of lily that would steal the silver. Or one's husband.


See what I mean? Rude.

Then it was off to work on the subway, which was fun today. A small pale brown boy was deep in conversation with a dark white man, side by side, and I thought they might be father and son, or Big Brother Little Brother, talking about a sport's story in the paper, and the man was explaining to the boy what an agent was. The boy was rivetted and reading along, asking questions. Two stations later a big guy wearing construction boots, sitting across from them, reached over, tapped the boy on the shouder and said in a kind way, We gotta go. Your stop? said the paper-guy, Yeah, said the small boy, smiling, Seeya! Take care, Buddy, said the guy. They gave each other a low five, initiated by the small boy, and parted ways, the boy trotting after his dad onto the York Street platform. Then a tanned lady in her late 60's or early 70's got on with her scooter. She was wearing knee pads.

I stopped to buy paint and a portfolio at Blick and looked with interest at 40 Bond Street, a design project we/I were/was (whatever) not awarded, and noted with satisfaction that the backbone of the garden concerned seems to consist of arborvitae. Ick. So I think we were deemed too expensive rather than not good enough. Which is ironic, given that address. But who knows.

At work I designed almost both sides of a townhouse renovation in Chelsea - two medium-sized terraces in full sun. I was given a reprieve - the presentation would have been tomorrow and it would have been a nailbiting finish. It's been put off till Monday. Phew. But: next week I meet four new clients, with four potential new projects, two referrals from previous designs I've done...The two weeks after that two big plantings happen: the one around the corner in Brooklyn, in-ground, and one very much above ground on the Upper West Side. I need three more days in each week.

So I took myself to Prune for lunch, something I have not done in a very long while. No, the menu has still not changed. Julie, the very sweet waitress sent over a tuna tartare with a small triangle of warm toast (no toast is not always warm!), as a present, and I had the Caesar and glass of Greek white which was warm and not wonderful. Otherwise it was very good to sit there quietly with my New Yorker and the white-bearded man with a big tummy who is a fixture there at his corner table. He ate something with the superlative French fries. Maybe the burger. Maybe the tuna club. Julie asked who cut my hair and I gave her Izumi's number.

And back to work.

Back at home new people have moved into the top floor of the brownstone across the way. It's so funny: their flatscreen TV is in exactly the same place as the last one, and their couch is in the same place, too. It's a little scary.

New York Summer: thunder clouds from Houston Street

Lilium "Eurydice"

Funny, all early evening long I was singing Que faro senza Euridice to myself, not remembering the name of the lily outside, just in bloom. Just now a quick visit to its parent-website reminded me. Sweet.

And I'll take Teresa Berganza's version any day over Andreas Scholl's. She's sex. He's...not. My language becomes rather limited when it comes to voices...But I don't suppose they allowed sex into hell. Except the Underworld sounded a lot more fun than hell.

OK, now I'm obsessed and shopping through YouTube: this is Marilyn Horne. All great except the swooping MIO BEN...

More serious old school. Janet Baker: if you can get over the block-of-wood-effect, Italian-massacre and game-show weirdness (just close your eyes), the voice is smoother and more effortless than my chocolate cream. One of my favourite singers. She could sing. The dress is brilliant.

It's all pretty silly, anyhow. Man singing like a woman who's supposed to be a man rescuing his girl from hellfire, or a woman singing like a woman but acting a man rescuing his woman from...hellfire.

And this is before closets were invented to step from. I guess in those days they didn't see a need for them.