Sunday morning, hot

Our temperature is now officially in the too hot for me range. High 90s is what it feels like. Just right for Handsome Son and his regular shore runs. He's picked up his season pass to his favorite shore location. Me, it's a season pass on a cool sofa except for early morning walks.

Between the early heat and torrential rain everything's growing beserkers. I used to have a wonderful English teacher who still spoke in the accent of an earlier age, clergy pronounced clargy, berserk pronounced bersark. So she comes to mind when I encounter those words.

And the ginger plant you had to squint to see a few days ago is now leaping up

The review of the canteloupe ginger jam, speaking of ginger, which is really a sauce, follows.

Here's the first trial. Even though the recipe said jam they also said great on meats, ice -cream and in general more of a sauce than a spreadable jam. 

I'd agree. The taste is way more than a sweet jammy thing. The salt as well as the ginger make a terrific combo, much more interesting than jam. I used it in breakfast oatmeal and, well, I may need a second bowl.

I really recommend you try this. One regular sized canteloupe makes four cups of dice. I added a couple of tablespoons of diced ginger. Not much sugar, just one cup. It is pretty sophisticated. 

It needs a bland partner such as plain bread or meat or, as here, oatmeal. I tried it on cornbread and there was too much going on. They were in competition. 

Speaking of the best, June is Pride Month, and happy month to our blogistas who celebrate. And to us who are proud to call them our friends and neighbors. I wonder when we'll rewrite Paul to include "neither gay nor straight" in his list of how we're all one in  love, nothing separating us. I think he got it, so long ago.  As well as all the  expressions of gender. And if you don't know why June is the month, look up the history of the movement and learn about the courage and suffering that have paved the way to this day.

Couple of important birthdays coming up: sister Dogonart on the 11th, well into her tenth decade and following this blog still.

Later will be Handsome Partner, who left us ten years ago but is still very much with us. We'll do a strawberry shortcake, his favorite birthday thing, in his honor.

Leaving now to continue fiddling away at Mitered Squares while the sun shines.

But not before I come back to remember that not only did I vote early in our primary, I got an acknowledgement from the County Clerk. Or Clark

Winnowing, jamming, baking, botanizing

Here's a wild spiderwort, tradescantia virginiana, named for John Tradescant, Elizabethan plantsman to the stars, along with his son.  Tradescant swiped a lot of American continent plants for European propagation for his wealthy bosses, including the queen.

This one's started by my path. See that tiny blue flower?

Then there's a cultivated variety growing down the street.

This is a handy illustration of the term "common or garden". Mine's the common,  wild one, my neighbor's is the garden, cultivated one. It refers to plants seen both wild and cultivated. Around here the daylily is another, both common and garden growing all over.

Then to the serious business of the day.

Lunch. Which consisted of heating up frozen carrot cashew red lentil soup. And it occurred to me that the seven minutes it took in the microwave could be employed to do a kitchen job that's been annoying me for ages. 

Namely the cabinet where I keep, well, stuff, bags for freezing. Far too many, and many too small anyway. So I thought I'd pull the lot out, sort, recycle and put back.

No before picture, too depressing, one of those doors with bags sticking out on all sides. 

I recycled a large number of small bags, retrieved pieces of foil and parchment paper which I reuse, restored order, and, bonus, found the container of  tools and caulking compound I thought I'd lost. That's it on the shelf.

I can find everything now, and it literally took only as long as the time to heat the soup. Very smug about this.

 Then came cornbread. I needed some breadesque item and had just enough cornmeal and sugar available to do this.

I used my new Polish tool and it's great. Mixes fine, doesn't just shove the batter around, great buy. It's a lovely piece of engineering.

But your overachiever was not done yet.

Then I thought I'd cook the Misfits potatoes ready to use. Microwave for another seven minutes, that seems to be today's unit of time, then cool, peel, freeze. 

In the background you will see an added reason for this activity. A sink packed to the gunwales with dirty dishes. Postponement. It amazes me how one person can generate so many dishes.

And then the next featured performance.

Canteloupe and ginger jam happened. This involved a bit of pectin because I wasn't sure about the natural pectins, if any, in canteloupe. 

I added in ginger chunks because I like ginger with fresh canteloupe, so why not. And the recipe I (sort of)  used, involved seasalt, so I thought fine, I'll go for that.

I just squeaked out enough sugar for this. And I boiled it for quite a while before it seemed to gel. At one point I thought the chunks were a bit big, so I used the stick blender for just a few seconds to reduce them. 

Blending boiling jam is not for the faint of heart, but it seemed to work. I'll remember this for future reference.

We'll see how this comes out when it's cool.

Meanwhile I'm going to read and snack.

I've earned a bit of repose.