Established in 2001, Jazz Appreciation Month celebrates the rich history, present accolades, and future growth of jazz music. Spanning the blues, ragtime, dixieland, bebop, swing, soul, and instrumentals, there's no surprise that jazz music has endured the test of time from its early origins amongst African-American slaves in the late 19th century to its growth today.
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When berry picking last weekend, our eyes were bigger than our stomachs. With our overstock of berries, I decided to make strawberry jam for the first time.
One problem. They don’t sell pectin by itself here in German grocery stores. It comes mixed with sugar, so none of my American cookbooks would help me much.
Another problem. The recipes on the back of the sugar/ pectin packages required a metric scale, which I didn’t feel like buying. Problem #3 since the pectin and sugar are mixed together in a proportion I couldn’t decipher, I couldn’t very well figure out how to control the sweetness factor, which is a big thing for me. Too much sugar drowns the flavor, I think.
And finally, I have no canner or Mason jars, no space to store them, and even if I did, they don’t sell them here. Or so I’ve heard.
So, I decided to wing it with my own made up version of freezer jam, tasting and hoping it would all turn out.
Luckily it seems to have worked. Sorry I can’t share a recipe, since I didn’t measure anything. It involved berries, sugar/pectin, lemon zest, and lemon juice.
In other news, I did a double-take when I encountered this under my computer desk:
Aaagh! Then I realized it was just a scrap from a current sewing project. It’s almost like I did it on purpose, right?
Tomorrow the European chapter of the Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) is doing a cool bloggy thing. Members across Europe (including me) have signed up here, where we’ll be sharing sketches and scribbles all day. It’s called the Summer Solstice Scrawl Crawl. Check it out.
Also, check out this totally simple but genius craft (below) at Holly Ramer’s stitch/craft. Perfect for keeping the kids entertained while traveling this summer. Why didn’t I think of this?
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We are thrilled to introduce the tiny and beauteous Phoebe Pearl, who was born on Friday morning, November 30, at 11:04 am, weighing in at a petite seven pounds, and is practically perfect in every way.
So far, she is a very good baby who looks, and behaves, an awful lot like her big sister (which is funny to think that my husband and I have the capacity to create just one kind of baby, and this is it).
Favorite note from the hospital: the first day the girl came to visit. She seemed not terribly interested in the baby, so we went for a walk around the halls. We were sitting in an alcove by the window, talking about her day at school, and every time someone walked by – a nurse, a doctor, another new mother – the girl would say, very quietly, and not addressed to anyone in particular, “Big sister.”
Sometimes the passer-by would overhear and remark upon it (“Oh, are you a big sister?”), and sometimes they wouldn’t hear or wouldn’t respond, but it was just funny to hear her do it.
Favorite Fran story.
Mother (eying breast pump suspiciously): How can you just attach yourself to something without even reading the manual?
Me: That’s what she said.
Mother: What?
Me: Never mind.
Mother: Is that working?
Me (randomly punching buttons): Not sure. I’ll keep you posted.
Mom (fumbling for glasses): It says there’s “stimulation” mode and “let-down mode.” I don’t know what any of that means. When you guys were kids…
(Pump suddenly lurches into action. Loud noises. Violent spraying.)
Me: Agh! Get it off me! Get it off me!
Mom (laughing): This is like a Charlie Chaplin movie.
Me: Stop making me laugh! It hurts!
Favorite night note: waking up three in the bed for the four a.m. feeding our first night home and seeing Wendell curled up in the baby’s brand-new Papasan-style bouncy seat.
I looked at the dog. Then I looked at my husband. “Is the dog in the bouncy seat?”
He squinted through the darkness. “Yes. Yes, the dog is in the bouncy seat.”
Then we both looked at Wendell, who looked back at us from underneath the dangly sheep mobile as if to say, “What? You got a problem with this? It’s a dog. In a bouncy seat. Deal.”
Of course, we tried to take a picture but by the time my husband got back upstairs the dog had regained a measure of his manliness and repaired to the pink and brown polka-dotted dog bed.
