Most of my early professional work was ethnographic, having received doctoral training in anthropology. I later began crafting stories with materials, sounds and light to express what is beyond language. I still work in relationship with people but mostly, nowadays, with plants and soils whose lessons are far worthier of our attention.

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A Sort of Liquid Hope-Chest

We’re getting shipments in of beautiful Ohio Stoneware crocks + jugs so I took a moment to look up preserving recipes in an old 1963 paperback copy of The Joy of Cooking. Tutti Fruitti Cockaigne caught my eye. This also goes by the comparatively ho-hum name, Brandied Fruit. The recipe:

A sort of liquid hope-chest, the contents of which may be served with a meat course or over puddings and ice cream. Be sure that during its preparation your container is big enough to hold all the ingredients you plan putting into it and, just as important, that you can store it in a consistently cool place, not above 45degrees, to prevent runaway fermentation. Place in a sterile stoneware crock with a closely fitting lid: 

1 quart brandy

Add, as they come into season, five of the following varieties of fruit—perfect fruit only:

1 quart strawberries

1 quart seeded cherries

1 quart raspberries

1 quart currents

1 quart gooseberries

1 quart peeled sliced apricots

1 quart peeled sliced peaches

1 quart peeled sliced pineapple

Avoid apples, as too hard; bananas and pears, as too mushy; blackberries, as too seedy; and seeded grapes, unless skinned, as their skins become tough. With each addition of fruit, add the same amount of sugar

Stir the tutti fruitti every day until the last of the fruit has been added, securing the lid well after each time. The mixture will keep indefinitely. 

Marbles for Poetry

New spoons in cut from pecan, ash, cherry, maple, walnut, sycamore, and cypress.