Friday, September 14, 2012

Vegetable alchemy

"Wow, mom, you did magic!" exclaimed Little One as we left the farmers market this afternoon. And I did feel a bit like a medieval alchemist, transforming juicy fruit into root vegetables.

It started back in early spring, when we had a glorious stretch of sunny and warm. I looked out at the mass of bees and blossoms on the plum tree and thought to myself, "it's going to be a good year for plums (and apples)." As it turns out, I was right.

But it was also a good year for strawberries and raspberries, and somehow the finite resources of empty jars and shelf space dwindled long before we got to plum jam season. In our house, it's the last hurrah of summer when we pick the late-ripening plums and add foraged blackberries, a sort of bookmark on the jam shelf: once you get to the plum-based jams, you know that season has come to a close.

So what to do with the excess plums this year? It turns out the answer was staring us in the face, as we have joined an informal online group that arranges shared buys of various local produce. I put out an offer, and a few people responded. It's a perfect match: we still had plenty of fruit to use up every last jam jar, and the excess was magically transformed into a handful of bills.

Yes, the bills were the intermediary that I traded for the spuds, but it somehow felt direct, taking the same worn three bills that had been pressed into my hand only a few hours prior and pressing them into the hands of the farmer, so, yes, I agreed with Little One that it was indeed magic, transforming purple plums from the front yard into purple potatoes on the supper table.

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The post script to this, is of course, that money is a kind of magic, based on mutual trust in a system. In a time when we hear terms like mortgage-backed derivatives and bankrupt brokerage firms bantered about, it's a good reminder, seeing how those leathery slips of paper can represent real value. It's pretty easy to follow the trajectory of those dollar bills, but how much of our economy is that firmly based in the real and tangible? Yet another compelling reason to keep it local.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Single shot

It crept up on me slowly, a mere dash of instant coffee from a leftover packet of instant for a bit of a lift one brisk autumn morning. And before I knew it, my morning cocoa had morphed into full-on mocha. Rich and creamy with coconut or soy milk, tasty syrups adding a little kick. Mint and eggnog prevailed over the holidays, and caramel, vanilla, and salted caramel flavored my summer.

At first, I didn't pay any mind to the syrup, just checked the label to make sure that the mysterious concoction was made of sugar rather than the evil corn syrup. But after a while, it seemed I was seeing a lot more of the fellows at the Cash and Carry, and lugging increasing numbers of bottles out the door. Not to mention chucking a couple of empties into the recycling bin every month.

And then, bent over the u-pick herbs at our CSA farm few weeks ago, Little One called out, "Mom, can I pick some mint?" Sure, I say, even though I have no idea what to do with it. But while I'm making my mocha the next morning, Darling Husband sidles up and starts making cocoa for the aforementioned boy, spiking it with mint syrup.

I look at the label on the green concoction. The main ingredient is sugar, which I have plenty of. I am after all, a jammer and a ten-pound bag sitting on the counter from making blackberry-plum jam last night is staring me in the face. I race to Google; sure enough, those fancy coffee syrups, the ones that cost about $3 a bottle? Simple syrup.

Simple syrup is about the easiest thing to make in the world. It's just sugar and water, heated until it dissolves. So I do, boiling it with a handful of mint for a few minutes. Voilà, homemade mint syrup, and it isn't bright green. If I caramelize it a bit first, I have caramel syrup (predictably, if I add salt, it becomes salted caramel syrup). A drop of vanilla extract is all it takes to make it into vanilla syrup.

So there it is, easy-peasy, homemade coffee syrup. Icing on the cake, it only costs about 86 cents to fill the bottle that gets reused now instead of thrown away.