Peach Chutney

I had never tasted chutney until my 20s, when I ordered curry at an Indian restaurant in the UK. I always associated chutney with Indian food from then on. I had no idea what else you could do with it.

Then I married the Sailor and he introduced me to a whole new world of chutney-related items. Earlier this month, I mentioned that my go-to roast these days included a bottle of Mrs Balls Chutney. I still haven't found Mrs Balls Chutney locally. 

What I did find was my mother-in-law's recipe book. Years ago, in a bid to learn more Afrikaans, and to help the Sailor's mother, I typed out her recipes and bound them together in a book. There are numerous typos (really, I didn't know any Afrikaans when I set out to do this project... and most of the recipes were scraps of paper written out by hand). I still need the Sailor's help to translate a number of the recipes, but the book is a wonderful reference. 


It's peach season where we are and it reminded me of South Africa. My father-in-law cultivates amazing peach trees -- you can read more about those peaches here and see another photo here from our last trip to the Southern Hemisphere. The Sailor reminded me this week that there is a peach chutney recipe in that book.

I've been wanting to try my hand at preserving food for a long time now, plus, I needed an excuse to use the giant stainless steel pot I recently scored at a thrift store.

 

I started off with a very small manageable batch -- only six jars worth. 

While the chutney simmered, the Sailor breathed in deeply and said it smelled like his family's house. It certainly did. When we left  South Africa earlier this year, my mother-in-law tried desperately to send us home with jars full of chutney. Baggage handlers and breakables don't usually go well together, so we declined the offer, but our taste buds regretted it the moment we got back to America. 

I'm beginning to realize how significant it is to carry on cooking traditions from both sides of my family. In January, I wrote a post on Family Kitchen Mergers -- you can read that here, in case you missed it. When I sent my mother-in-law a photo of the chutney cooking, her response implied she was over the moon. I think most families love to see a little of their history getting passed along.

We may have turned down importing my mother-in-law's stash of chutney, but I think she's just as pleased that we learned to make it ourselves. As per her instructions, we need to wait at least a week to sample the goods. Rest assured, I'll let you know the canning results.

Spring Blossom Score

We've been here over a month now, and every time I open the cabinet and see my vintage Pyrex I smile. (See more here.) Our last location barely had space for normal plates, let alone vintage pretties. 

Within a week of moving here, I began scouring the local thrift stores to see what was on offer. (You didn't actually think I was done collecting, did you?!) 

The first store yielded nothing (and was in fact quite a dump in general....) I began to wonder if I'd find any Pyrex, or if I left it all at my old thrifting haunts.

At the second store though, I saw this Spring Blossom Cinderella bowl (the pattern is often mislabeled as Craisy Daisy) -- lonely and on its own for only $3.

WHEW. 

There IS Pyrex here. 

You can read more of the story here at the Pyrex Collective III site, where I'm one of many bloggers. We buy Pyrex, we use it, we rearrange our displays, and in general, we swoon over vintage glassware. 

Knitting versus Crochet?

One of the best things about moving somewhere new is trying out the local flavor of everything. I was pretty stoked to discover a Local Yarn Shop (LYS) within a few miles of my new home. 

Previously, my LYS was about a 30 minute drive away. Admittedly, I usually purchased yarn at Michaels, Hobby Lobby, and Joanne's, which were all within a three-mile radius of my old home. I also ordered yarn online, on occasion. Every now and again though, I'd drive all the way to the LYS. The last time I was in there, I brought a friend. She wanted me to make a gift for someone else and we needed time to think about the yarn. (Read: we needed to browse -- without distraction.)

The owner would have none of it. She hemmed and hawed and hovered -- flat out telling me I was in the wrong section of yarn for what I planned to make (despite my pleas that I was simply BROWSING...) She carried on with telling me that no pattern would have me make anything out of two different weights of yarn (Oh really? Tell that to the sheep.) 

At this point, I had about $50 worth of yarn in my hand. It wasn't even for the project I  planned to make -- it was for myself! We still planned to buy the yarn for my friend's project. But the LYS was so bent on telling us what we couldn't make, that in the end, I got so annoyed with the woman, I pulled my friend aside, threw the yarn back on the shelf, and told her we were leaving.  

To this day, I've never been back there. (Note to LYS owners: please let customers browse.)

Thankfully, my new LYS is a little friendlier and they appear to be less bossy. I've been in the store several times already, and my wallet knows it. This week, I went in looking for yarn to crochet a bag. The older lady was super helpful -- offering me a range of yarns, and sensing my hesitation over the price, actually convinced me to purchase a cheaper range -- and then she let me continue to browse the rest of the shop. 

As I continued browsing, however, she and her young colleague embroiled themselves in a discussion over the merits of knitting versus crochet. I can't be sure, but I think what set them off was a knitting magazine that published a crochet pattern. 

Heaven forbid. 

Knitting versus crochet is a long-standing debate. They both serve their place in my crafting world. I'm always thankful that I know how to do both. (If you could see the ladies at my previous knitting club... some of whom had knit for YEARS, struggling to crochet, you'd understand.) 

But the young thing casting on what appeared to be a lace shawl, vehemently slagged off crochet, right as I stood behind her eyeballing the yarn for my bag. (Did I mention I was CROCHETING a bag?!) She made accusations that crochet garments are ugly (occasionally true... if you're looking at a 1970s magazine, but nowadays often false), you can't do cables with crochet (false), and that crochet takes up twice as much yarn (false - it takes up slightly more yarn than knitting, but twice as much is a gross exaggeration). 

While the conversation annoyed me, I can kind of understand. I made up my mind to relearn crochet before I ever wanted to knit. Frankly, knitting scared the pants off of me -- all of that talk about dropping stitches... and wielding two or even FOUR sticks? No thank you... I was going to crochet ONLY.  

My anti-knitting campaign was short-lived. I found a set of knitting needles at a thrift store only a few months later, and somehow I was so mesmerized by the thought of knitting that I decided to buy them on a whim. 

Knitting versus crochet? I couldn't tell you which I prefer. It depends on the season, the item I'm making, and even the yarn. Right now I'm knitting a shawl and crocheting a bag. Both give me pleasure (although the shawl less so at the moment simply because I messed up on it and it's taking me forever to figure out where the mistake happened.) 

But back to the LYS. The girl was actually so rude that I thought she must just be a visitor sitting there knitting with the employee, so I excused her behavior. However, she rang out my purchase! 

I almost said something to her. I almost said she should watch what she says... she could lose some valuable crochet customers. I've heard of LYS stores who are quite rude to crocheters -- and I don't understand why. Why would you alienate a craft that could easily spend more money than your average knitter on yarn? (You've already substantiated the claim that crocheting takes more yarn than knitting... so clearly we crocheters may end up plonking down more cash!) 

But I bit my tongue, made my purchase and smiled as she told me she liked the color I ended up choosing. I thought the next time she's working, I hope she'll notice my cool crocheted bag. Maybe I can teach her to crochet cables in the future.

Wellington Wishes

Ever since my 19th birthday, I have spent nearly every summer abroad. I was fortunate to attend a college that offered overseas programs -- I've never looked back since. Those programs opened the doors to summers in Scotland, Ukraine and England. After college, various other European outposts opened up, until I eventually ended up in Africa.

No matter where I found myself for the majority of the summer though, I usually made it to Scotland either before or after my travels. There, on the shores of Loch Lomond, friends and I converged for several weeks at a summer camp for teenagers. We worked hard. We laughed a lot. We ate pie. We drank. We sang. And more often than not, I cried when I had to say goodbye. 

Campers and staff alike refer to the place as magical. I don't believe in magic, but one night during my first summer there, several of us sat around a campfire, chatting. At some point, someone ran down the hill, and breathlessly asked us to help herd a few of the sheep back into their fenced-off area. 

We proved a sight. Arms flailing, a half dozen of us ran around a sheep field in the dark, trying to round up a few of the dumbest animals on the planet.

Later, my sophisticated and well-traveled older dorm-mate sat near me by the fire and said something poignant -- I don't remember exactly what -- but in that moment I do remember thinking, 'It's true... this place is magical.'

Year after year I returned to that sheep field. Rain, mud and midgie bites couldn't keep me away. I skipped a summer now and again when I was on board a ship, and I remember missing part of a summer because a boy I liked happened to be traveling through London in the middle of camp. 

But for the most part, I continued to spend at least a few weeks in Scotland, every summer.  

The wellies always changed, but the view never did. 

In 2009, the Sailor and I arrived from Cape Town to America to visit with my family during his study break. He returned to South Africa alone; I spent the next six weeks keeping a close eye on my mother, who had a few health issues at the time.

I had already made up my mind that I wouldn't be able to go to Scotland that summer; I figured I'd be spending the remainder of the summer with the Sailor in a wintry Southern Hemisphere. Instead, I spent the next six weeks hovering over my mother, driving her slightly crazy.  

She couldn't understand why I was so batty myself. She thought I just missed the Sailor, but in truth, we spend half of our life apart. I always miss him, but this time, I was also missing Scotland. I felt displaced.

On the night that my friends arrived in the sheep field, I toasted them from far away with a double shot of single malt, and I found myself feeling a little homesick for Scotland -- or indeed anywhere in Europe for that matter. 

It turns out it was the first summer since 1994 that I spent in America. Even when I missed camp in previous years, I was at least in Europe for the summer.

It wasn't terrible. But it was strange. I found myself looking at my cold-weather wardrobe a little wistfully. While locals lamented the rain that pelted Pennsylvania, I found it comforting. I wanted to wear my wellies, sit by a fire and listen to someone strumming a guitar. I learned to knit and the first real project I made turned out to be a sweater that I envisioned myself wearing on the sheep field. 

I made it back to Scotland in 2010, but the sweater didn't come with me. The sleeves turned out to be a little too short, and increasingly lower baggage allowances meant I left behind anything big and bulky -- except my wellies, of course.  

In 2011, I traded camping on the shores of Loch Lomond with boat camping on Lake Pend Oreille, Idaho with college friends. They had all been to Scotland at some point with me, yet despite their company, I couldn't help but feel a little nostalgic about missing the Bonnie Banks again. 

Last year, I made elaborate plans to return to Scotland. Afterwards, my itinerary included Ukraine for a writing project. When my brother took a turn for the worse, I cancelled all travel plans and wrote my regrets to friends I wouldn't be seeing again for a long, long time. Even after my brother recovered from his infection, and once he started to improve again, I was thankful I stayed. It turns out it was the last summer I'd have with him. No regrets, but I was still a little wistful about missing out on a summer in Scotland. 

I knew early on this year that I wouldn't make it to Scotland this summer. We just relocated to a completely new city. It seemed a little crazy to pack for camp in the midst of our moving melee. I told friends that the excitement of moving to a new place has slightly taken the sting out of not being in Scotland this year. The truth is though, I'm still going to miss it. 

So to all of my friends already there in that field, and to the many who have yet to arrive: Enjoy your summer... cherish the friendships you'll make and the memories you will create. Laugh (loudly) for me. I will be toasting you from across the pond, and wishing you well, in your wellies. 

Pyrex Casualty

My vintage Pyrex collection survived a 700 mile road trip (with a few extra days crammed in a moving truck, to boot). 

Tonight, I had my first casualty. I dropped a bowl. I have two more in this pattern so it wasn't a complete disaster - but I did find myself staring at the floor in a slight state of shock for a moment. 

I never need a reason to check out a thrift store... the hunt for unexpected objects is a thrill itself. But I suppose now I can add 'find replacement bowl' to the shopping list.