Last April, when the madness of the pandemic was still new, yet still a little hopeful, and our little corner of the world was largely shut down, a friend bought the lot next door to her, complete with a teardown of a house and an overgrown yard. She graciously allowed me to come over and take a bunch of cuttings from the glorious pomegranate bush and camellias. Rooting hormone, soilless potting mix, carefully keeping them moist. but not wet … none survived.

Except the one branch that I didn’t attempt to root because it was covered in showy blooms that were too pretty to cut off (and didn’t think to take a picture). I just stuck it in a vase with water to enjoy the flowers, figuring the branch would eventually die, maybe after all the buds had opened. It didn’t. It bloomed all the buds and remained a happy little branch of green in a tacky red vase. I changed the water when I thought about it, and then late last year I saw little rootlets budding from the cut end. I changed the water more regularly and carefully after that, and the rootlets grew, slowly.

I had one scare when mold or mildew grew on the stem, but gently wiping the mold off seemed to take care of the problem. Still, probably a hint that it was time to move this little survivor from the vase to a pot so that it would have a chance to grow for real.

Actually doing this was daunting. I mean, it had survived for almost a year in the vase, and now I was going to move it to dirt, and all the other cuttings had died when I potted them properly, and what if I kill this one survivor, my pandemic survivor? Yes, I am emotionally invested in a branch. But a couple weeks ago I finally screwed up the courage and did it. So far, so good.

Making preserves, specifically marmalade, is one hip pandemic pastime I picked up well after it was no longer hip; the other is sourdough. I started growing my starter in May or June—the months kinda run together, ya know— of last year, following the instructions on the King Arthur website. It was slow getting started, dawdling along at its own pace. It hadn’t read the instructions apparently. But within a couple weeks I had a happy little yeast colony in a jar, and it’s been a low maintenance pet ever since.

The pandemic sourdough rules include naming your starter, and I was very late with that too. Not deliberately, just not feeling especially witty or creative during the fugue state of 2020. Right before Christmas we watched Guys and Dolls, because there was a reference to it in one of Kiddo’s graphic novels, and “while it doesn’t hold up,” it’s still one of the few musicals I can stand. Don’t get me started on Andrew Lloyd Webber. Anyway … while cringing through the awful messaging and singing all the songs in my head (mostly), I found a name for my reliable wild yeast pet: Nathan. As in “good old reliable Nathan.”

Mostly, Nathan makes pizza dough. I’ve adjusted this recipe a little here and there. Nathan lives in the fridge, and I usually feed him once a week and use the discard for the dough. Then the dough hangs out in the fridge for a few days until pizza night. Taking the dough out of the fridge a few hours ahead of time to come to room temp helps a lot with shaping it. The cold dough does not stretch as easily, at least for me.

Lately I’m getting sick of pizza every. single. Saturday. night. Kiddo likes her routine, but sometimes I’m just over it. But Nathan still needed a feeding, and throwing away the discard is anathema to me. I also can’t throw away a chicken carcass without making a batch of chicken broth first, but I digress. So instead I made pretzels with the discard, and they are almost as easy as pizza dough. A few adjustments: I subbed one cup of 2% milk for the water and nonfat dry milk, I skipped the diastatic malt powder because I didn’t have any and used sugar per the recipe, I sprinkled them with Diamond Crystal kosher salt because I didn’t have pretzel salt, and I brushed them with garlic butter at the end. My shaping skills are, ahem, inconsistent, and the recipe does make a dozen, but we ate some before I remembered to take a picture.

That avocado green, melamine cooking/serving spoon, made in Denmark, from the 1970s, with the perfect shape: squarish with rounded corners, that would glide across the bottoms and nestle right along the edges of my pots and pans. I never left it sitting in a pot of cooking food, never put it in the dishwasher, always hand washed it. An heirloom in the best sense. After 40-something years, the bowl of the spoon split.

I have been in mourning over a plastic cooking spoon. WTH?

But the Internet of All The Things has eased my sadness, mostly. The perfect spoon has descendents, not identical—slightly smaller and maybe the melamine isn’t quite as hefty—but close enough to fill the empty place in my heart and utensil drawer.

Of course I ordered a green one. May it survive as long as its predecessor.

The forecast is good—no hard freezes for the week—so the potted citrus grove was on the move today, back outside for an afternoon of sunshine, a chance of a good rain soaking tonight and tomorrow morning, and a mild week ahead. A $30 Harbor Freight hand truck has paid for itself many times over just for moving them in and out. The south-southeast facing corner of my back yard is its own little microclimate, always a few degrees warmer than anywhere else, and they are happy there. All three are blooming too, and when the bees and other bugs wake up hungry this week, they’ll be happy to find the flowers. Yay, pollinators!

I also potted up the new addition to the gang, my new little Meyer lemon tree. It arrived 10 days ago, right before the really cold weather hit, and I left it undisturbed in its nursery pot while it recovered from shipping trauma. Today was its day to graduate to a big girl pot and move outside.

In keeping with my picking up hip pandemic hobbies well after their hipness has expired, I turned this bounty into marmalade in November and December. Not that insipidly sweet stuff with minimal flavor that glazes green beans and gets smeared across biscuits in households other than mine. This is marvelous stuff—tangy-sweet with just a hint of bitter, LEMON in all caps.

That unassuming shrub in a pot grew enough fruit to make thirty half-pint jars of marmalade, with a few extra for a lemon custard pie at Thanksgiving. Christmas 2020 was all about the marmalade; I gave jars to family, friends, teachers, my yard guy, the letter carrier, my hair babe… I hope I made a few marmalade converts among them. I used this small-batch recipe with a couple minor adjustments I cribbed from other ones.

This month I made a test batch using store-bought fruit, and it just wasn’t the same. Scrubbing the food wax off the lemons was pain, even with all the tips and tricks from the internet. Too hard and you damage the rind, which defeats the whole point, because that’s where marmalade gets most of its flavor. Not hard enough and the wax is still there, hazing the rind and adding who knows what iffy flavor. Also, Meyer lemons are expensive. Nope, not worth it without a better source of fruit.

I inherited another potted citrus bush/tree a few years ago. I have no idea what it is, but it produces small, juicy, very thin-skinned, very sour fruit full of seeds. Satsuma? Whatever it is, it’s an old survivor. If the story that came with it is true, it’s at least 50 years old. Is that even possible? Anyway, this year its fruit are ripening in dribs and drabs, and the first picking went into the marmalade pot. I used the same basic recipe, but the rinds cook to tender much faster than the Meyer lemons do, maybe in half the time. 340 grams of fruit made two half-pint jars, plus a little extra for the fridge. Like its lemon cousin, this orange marmalade packs a flavor wallop. More (very) small batches to come as the fruit ripens.

(Yes, I need to re-caulk the counter/backsplash joint. I’ll get to it, eventually.)

Growing citrus in USDA Growing Zone 7 is a silly exercise, really. In the winter I leave them outside as long as the temps don’t go below 27F/-3C, but when the temperature roller coaster starts, I’m hauling them into the sunporch and back out again because they are much happier outside than in. So, after this winter’s marmalade successes, I ordered a second Meyer lemon, of course. I have a hand truck.

(More marmalade on the way!)

I bought this handknit cardigan at a vintage store’s retirement sale last week. It’s very simple, craft store acrylic/wool blend (itchy), but so beautifully made. The person who made this was skilled: the seams impeccable, the ends carefully woven in, the stitches smooth and even, except for a little laddering on the sleeves where she was probably using double pointed needles. There is so much care in the work, and I bought it for $3 at a used clothing store because I like the buttons.

I get it: I knit. There are people I will knit for and people I won’t, and the defining difference between them is whether they will appreciate the effort, time and, yes, love that goes into making something by hand that they will (hopefully) wear next to or close to their skin. When I took a second look at this little cardigan and realized it was a handknit, I felt simultaneously responsible for rescuing it and guilty for knowing I will snip those buttons off it and will never consider wearing it, even if it did fit.

It’s now a cat cuddler. To whoever made this, know that it is still appreciated, even if most likely not as intended.

We had pancakes for dinner and decorated the tree tonight.

German-style pancakes

Helping not-helping

Miss you, Mom

Bittersweet pretty

Bake sales. I assumed that with food allergies and fear of liability-related terrors they were no longer a thing. Color me surprised Monday evening to see on the PTA’s Facebook page that they are having a bake sale fundraiser on Wednesday. To be fair, the organizer did make the post that morning, but I am old (it said so on my medical chart when I was  pregnant) and do not allow Facebook on my phone, so I am partly responsible for being late to that knowledge, but still …

Anyway, in my best attempt at being a supportive PTA mom, I promptly started the pre-ferment for some basic bread dough Monday night, mixed up the full dough Tuesday morning and made my plan for a cool slow overnight rise in the chilly garage and the actual baking on Wednesday morning. Then Tuesday turned into one of those never ending days, and at 9:15PM I am in the kitchen shaping the loaves when I come up with the idea that I should bake some cookies too, because how long could that really take?

(Spoiler alert!)

Two and a half hours later it’s midnight, and I have 57 thumbprint cookies (with homemade cranberry sauce left over from Thanksgiving) cooling. No holiday-themed bags for them, but the paper plates left over from last year’s kiddo birthday party are festive enough, right? On my way to bed I checked on the bread dough in the chilly garage, and, holy crap, that’s some healthy yeast in there! The loaves were almost fully risen; no way they’re not going to overproof by morning, even with a 5AM wake up. Into the fridge they went in hopes of slowing them down enough to not be bringing baked bricks to the sale.

Wednesday morning baking bread after a semi-sleepless night went well enough, though I didn’t completely trust that the loaves weren’t overproofed. Nothing I could do about it at that point, except not bring them, but “not being able to do anything about it” has never stopped me from worrying.

The car smelled wonderful on the way to school. The loaves sold. The cookies sold. Maybe I did bring bricks of bread to the sale, not that anyone would say anything to me directly about that because that is just not DONE around here. I baked, and it was good.

Patching the grout in the shower, as one does. A section between the original 1963 floor tiles and wall tiles came out while I was cleaning it.