Like today.
But posting on G+ is a lot like checking in at the office every day, while blogging is a lot like freelancing. The freedom and free flow of freelancing is nice, but when you're working at or from home, you need ritual, accountability, and instant contact with other human adults.
Well, I do. Specially now that my constant companions are a one year old and a wiener dog who are engaging, enlightening and amusing in their own ways, but no substitute for peer interaction.
The past few months have been totally mundane in most ways and totally extraordinary in others. Through many days of career fatigue, from both the working and parenting perspectives, I've somehow managed, or perhaps was forced, to be still enough to allow a broader and deeper scope of purpose to appear to me.
Because in all honesty, this focus on food was starting to stifle me a bit. Not that I haven't always loved food. Not that I don't love it now. And not that I won't always love it. Because I have, I do, and I will...
But spending pretty much every day of the last two years producing food-related content has made me realize that this is not all I'm about. More importantly, it's not all I was meant to do. And I really do believe we each have a true calling that awaits us when we're ready to recognize and accept it.
As we all are, I'm a human being on a journey - to be a better version of myself than I was the day before, and to leave Earth a better place than I found it. And to endeavor to do that with a sense of joy, humor, fun, intelligence, humility, integrity, passion, compassion, sensibility, balance and gratitude, in a full expression of my own uniqueness, and within my means, whatever they may be at the moment.
The food has been, is now, and always will be, a great vehicle for sharing this journey with others because it's such a huge part of all our lives. And by sharing the food, I've been able to create a little hub of commonality in this little corner of the interwebs where more than a few of us have come together to break bread, relate, cooperate, commiserate, laugh, co-conspire and co-inspire one another to improve our lots in big and little ways.
The privilege and honor of having been able to build this platform has been weighing heavily on me - in a good way - and has strengthened my resolve to make the best use of it possible while being true to myself.
Which is why I've been working harder to make each post matter - whether it be to share a recipe to make our days more delicious, or to remind us of a great song we haven't heard in a while, or to share a pearl of someone else's wisdom or the beauty of their words, or to inspire thought and discussion about issues that affect our lives, or to help preserve Earth for our kids and their kids and their kids' kids, or to magnify all the good little things to be found in each day, or just to elicit a little chuckle, or better yet a hearty cackle, to make the day go faster.
And I really do hope it shows.
This doesn't mean that I'm swearing off all self indulgent vents or Bravo TV related posts or that I'm not going to dispense the occasional GFY when I think it's called for...
But it does mean that I'm really trying to make this little hub in this little corner of the interwebs a better place than it was yesterday. I want you to come for the food, and stay for the community, the laughter, the little things, and a sense that we can all cooperate and commiserate while making some thing, any thing, better today than it was yesterday.
Like if you don't have any of this scrummy Gingered Fig Jam sitting in your fridge at the moment, you could make this today, and your tomorrow will certainly be better for it. (Well, if you love figs, that is...)
GINGERED FIG JAM
Makes roughly 16 ounces
Takes anywhere from 60 to 90 minutes depending on the water content of the fruit, the weather, and how thick you like your jam.
- 1 pound very ripe Mission Figs, stemmed and quartered
- 3/4 cup sugar to start (you may like it sweeter - I tend to like my jams a little less sweet than the average storebought)
- 1/2 cup water
- 2 Tablespoons maple syrup or honey
- 1 Tablespoon lemon juice
- a pinch of kosher salt (a little less than 1/8 teaspoon)
- 1 to 2 Tablespoons grated fresh ginger, depending on how ginger-y you like things. I find 1 Tablespoon to be subtle but easily detectible.
Since I don't can for long storage, I don't go through the usual canning sterilization rigamarole. I just wash a lidded bottle or plastic container with dish soap and hot water, thoroughly rinse and dry, and place the cooled jam in the container for refrigeration. It should keep at least a couple of months that way.
1) Place all the ingredients but ginger in a large saucepan, give them a couple of good stirs and place on medium heat until all the sugar melts.
2) Let the mixture come to a very gentle boil for 2 minutes or so before giving the jam a few good stirs and turning the heat down to not quite medium low.
3) Let the jam very gently simmer and reduce (that means barely detectible movement on the surface with the very occasional slow bubble), uncovered, for anywhere from 45 to 60 minutes, depending on how thick you like your jam.
4) At the halfway mark (about 20 to 25 minutes into the simmer) mash the jam with a potato masher or a fork to the desired consistency, and stir in the ginger. Continue to simmer another 20 to 35 minutes, stirring occasionally - every 10 minutes or so should be good.
Never let the heat get so high that you can scrape solids from the bottom of your cooking vessel. This will result in an oddly iron-like flavor to downright burnt flavor if the heat is way too high.
4) Give the jam a taste, remembering that it'll always taste slightly sweeter when thoroughly cooled than it does warm. If needed, add a little more sugar or maple syrup or honey for sweetness, a tiny bit of salt if the sweetness still tastes flat, or a teaspoonful of lemon juice if you want a little more tartness. Let the jam cook another 5 minutes after you adjust the seasoning, cut the heat, give it a few good stirs, and let it cool thoroughly, uncovered (you don't want condensation to water down your jam, which will also make it more likely to spoil faster), before putting it in a container to refrigerate.
Enjoy with yogurt, over cheesecake, with cheese and crackers, or cranberry orange scones, among other things.
And thank you so very much for the privilege of sharing my journey with you. :)))
shinae
The past few months have been totally mundane in most ways and totally extraordinary in others. Through many days of career fatigue, from both the working and parenting perspectives, I've somehow managed, or perhaps was forced, to be still enough to allow a broader and deeper scope of purpose to appear to me.
Because in all honesty, this focus on food was starting to stifle me a bit. Not that I haven't always loved food. Not that I don't love it now. And not that I won't always love it. Because I have, I do, and I will...
But spending pretty much every day of the last two years producing food-related content has made me realize that this is not all I'm about. More importantly, it's not all I was meant to do. And I really do believe we each have a true calling that awaits us when we're ready to recognize and accept it.
As we all are, I'm a human being on a journey - to be a better version of myself than I was the day before, and to leave Earth a better place than I found it. And to endeavor to do that with a sense of joy, humor, fun, intelligence, humility, integrity, passion, compassion, sensibility, balance and gratitude, in a full expression of my own uniqueness, and within my means, whatever they may be at the moment.
The food has been, is now, and always will be, a great vehicle for sharing this journey with others because it's such a huge part of all our lives. And by sharing the food, I've been able to create a little hub of commonality in this little corner of the interwebs where more than a few of us have come together to break bread, relate, cooperate, commiserate, laugh, co-conspire and co-inspire one another to improve our lots in big and little ways.
The privilege and honor of having been able to build this platform has been weighing heavily on me - in a good way - and has strengthened my resolve to make the best use of it possible while being true to myself.
Which is why I've been working harder to make each post matter - whether it be to share a recipe to make our days more delicious, or to remind us of a great song we haven't heard in a while, or to share a pearl of someone else's wisdom or the beauty of their words, or to inspire thought and discussion about issues that affect our lives, or to help preserve Earth for our kids and their kids and their kids' kids, or to magnify all the good little things to be found in each day, or just to elicit a little chuckle, or better yet a hearty cackle, to make the day go faster.
And I really do hope it shows.
This doesn't mean that I'm swearing off all self indulgent vents or Bravo TV related posts or that I'm not going to dispense the occasional GFY when I think it's called for...
But it does mean that I'm really trying to make this little hub in this little corner of the interwebs a better place than it was yesterday. I want you to come for the food, and stay for the community, the laughter, the little things, and a sense that we can all cooperate and commiserate while making some thing, any thing, better today than it was yesterday.
Like if you don't have any of this scrummy Gingered Fig Jam sitting in your fridge at the moment, you could make this today, and your tomorrow will certainly be better for it. (Well, if you love figs, that is...)
GINGERED FIG JAM
Makes roughly 16 ounces
Takes anywhere from 60 to 90 minutes depending on the water content of the fruit, the weather, and how thick you like your jam.
- 1 pound very ripe Mission Figs, stemmed and quartered
- 3/4 cup sugar to start (you may like it sweeter - I tend to like my jams a little less sweet than the average storebought)
- 1/2 cup water
- 2 Tablespoons maple syrup or honey
- 1 Tablespoon lemon juice
- a pinch of kosher salt (a little less than 1/8 teaspoon)
- 1 to 2 Tablespoons grated fresh ginger, depending on how ginger-y you like things. I find 1 Tablespoon to be subtle but easily detectible.
Since I don't can for long storage, I don't go through the usual canning sterilization rigamarole. I just wash a lidded bottle or plastic container with dish soap and hot water, thoroughly rinse and dry, and place the cooled jam in the container for refrigeration. It should keep at least a couple of months that way.
1) Place all the ingredients but ginger in a large saucepan, give them a couple of good stirs and place on medium heat until all the sugar melts.
2) Let the mixture come to a very gentle boil for 2 minutes or so before giving the jam a few good stirs and turning the heat down to not quite medium low.
3) Let the jam very gently simmer and reduce (that means barely detectible movement on the surface with the very occasional slow bubble), uncovered, for anywhere from 45 to 60 minutes, depending on how thick you like your jam.
4) At the halfway mark (about 20 to 25 minutes into the simmer) mash the jam with a potato masher or a fork to the desired consistency, and stir in the ginger. Continue to simmer another 20 to 35 minutes, stirring occasionally - every 10 minutes or so should be good.
Never let the heat get so high that you can scrape solids from the bottom of your cooking vessel. This will result in an oddly iron-like flavor to downright burnt flavor if the heat is way too high.
4) Give the jam a taste, remembering that it'll always taste slightly sweeter when thoroughly cooled than it does warm. If needed, add a little more sugar or maple syrup or honey for sweetness, a tiny bit of salt if the sweetness still tastes flat, or a teaspoonful of lemon juice if you want a little more tartness. Let the jam cook another 5 minutes after you adjust the seasoning, cut the heat, give it a few good stirs, and let it cool thoroughly, uncovered (you don't want condensation to water down your jam, which will also make it more likely to spoil faster), before putting it in a container to refrigerate.
Enjoy with yogurt, over cheesecake, with cheese and crackers, or cranberry orange scones, among other things.
And thank you so very much for the privilege of sharing my journey with you. :)))
shinae
No comments:
Post a Comment