Pepper Jelly

A couple of week-ends ago at the Hillsdale farmer's market I bought four pounds of jalapeno peppers to make pepper jelly with. Pepper jelly isn't the kind of thing I would normally gravitate to. In fact, when Lisa E. said she wanted to make pepper jelly I'm pretty sure I stated that nothing on earth would induce me to eat a jellified pepper flavored nastiness. She assured me that my head was up my bahookie and I need to try some new things.

The only thing that's true in the statement above is that I was highly suspicious of pepper jelly and that Lisa E. did make some. Lisa is an incredible cook and I will try things that she's made that I might not try at the hands of a less stellar cook. She served pepper jelly with crackers and cream cheese. Yeah, I couldn't believe how good it was. I also couldn't stop eating it. I may even have dreamed about eating some more a couple of times and woke up in a panic because pepper season is done.

Well, I was lucky to have found the peppers. Unfortunately they sat around for over a week and some had to be tossed. However, yesterday, I finally got around to making the jelly. I have never made jelly before. I generally prefer jam. I'm really not sure how it turned out. I made seven half pints but they haven't set up yet. I wonder if they will? They are fully cooled now and still liquid. I used my pretty "Elite" series of Ball canning jars for this jelly. They are so pretty but so expensive! They would make the perfect gift but I feel selfish. I like to see pretty jars in my pantry.

The Hillsdale market was very busy and still had lots of vendors present. A couple of them indicated that they won't be back for a while though. Only one vendor had celery so I bought eighteen pounds of it. The lady who took my money looked like she thought I must be feeding a very large bunny at home.

I don't know what has happened but yesterday I got a sudden swarm of fruit flies in my house. Bigger than the last time. I don't understand where they all came from...the peppers that had gone bad? I didn't think fruit flies liked things like cabbage, leeks, and jalapenos, which were the things I had out on the counter. They aren't just in the kitchen, they are flying all over the house. Like a swarm of biblical locusts. Is this a sign that Armageddon has begun?

Speaking of Armageddon... it seems to me that if a person wants to be largely self sufficient, one should have a nut tree on their property. When things get dark in this world, when depressions hit hard, when economies crash, things like veal and steak are a lot harder to come by. Even milk could be hard to come by. You should always have more than one source of protein on your property. Eggs are one, nuts are another. Instead of making meat balls in lean times, clever cooks make things like walnut and cheese croquettes. So, we are trying to figure out what nut tree to plant. We have clay soil which basically means no nut will be at it's absolute best here, except filberts...WHICH I HATE. We've narrowed it down to three possibilities: pine nuts, walnuts, or almonds. We most particularly are interested in pine nuts.

What would you grow if the end of the world was nigh and you needed to batten down the hatches and be sure to grow food that will keep you alive?

By the way, I don't really believe in Armageddon or other end-of-the-world theories. I do believe in the end of crude oil, and that might turn out to be similar. By the way, has anyone given thanks recently to the dinosaurs for dying in such a convenient way and leaving their carcasses for us to discover and base our entire modern world around? Is it possible for dead people to turn into tar at some point? Would people be willing to continue to drive cars if it meant they'd have to somehow rely on our own dead to supply our fuel to us?* (And how far would one dead person turned to crude oil get a car? Would dead Great Grandpa Vinnie= 1 day trip to Vegas?)

Wasn't the world going to end in the eighties? Also, the San Francisco Bay Area was supposed to be under water by now. At least that's what my mom told me back in 1987, and she used to stay pretty tuned in to end of the world scares.

My one concern about getting a pine nut producing pine tree is that pine trees are susceptible to the kind of diseases that the Ribes family of fruit carries and spreads to them and I just so happen to be planning on getting lots of gooseberries and currants. Is that just asking for plant plagues?

By the way, last night I didn't have dinner planned in time so I whipped out two frozen pot pies and guess what? THEY WERE SO EFFING GOOD I ALMOST CRIED. That was a successful experiment. You cook them for an hour at 375 degrees and they are perfect. I cannot believe I only have two frozen ones left in there. Obviously I need to make some more while I can. This reminds me of my quiche project. I wanted to see if I could make some quiches that freeze well. My girls are kind of slowing down their egg laying so I may actually have to buy some eggs for the first time in a year. Wow, I have not bought eggs in a year! Hens rock.

I have to go do battle with the swarm of fruit flies and do some house work, do some work-work, and eat some delicious 99% local ingredient soup with a big giant spoonful on non-local Parmesan cheese. I hope you all are going to eat good food today too.

*Yeah, I know it took thousands of years for those huge beasts to produce tar pits, smarty pants.

Tell me when I stop falling

(Sincere Apologies to my mother and Angeleen.)

I have just finished sewing a cobbler apron for myself. That's not entirely true, I finished everything but the pockets because by then I had tried it on three times and each time I saw myself in it my heart beat just a little faster and my blood pressure was either rising or dropping, I'm not actually sure, but it feels lighter in my head right now. And not because I've junked all the crap that hangs out in there. I didn't finish the pockets because, well, why bother? I sure as hell am not going to get caught dead wearing that garment. Another five hours of my time completely wasted in the effort to spruce myself up.

An effort that has been making me feel increasingly worse about myself. I can't do it anymore. I can't dress the part of my own store because I don't FUCKING FIT IN A GOD DAMNED THING. Oh, and it isn't just a question of how I look in them, because how vain would that be? Anyone who's been seriously overweight knows what I mean when I say that nothing feels right. Nothing is comfortable.

I don't know how to come back down this road. The one that got me in this awful physical place. My doctor would like me to return to therapy, and I want to. I do. I need to, because right now I have no retreat. Every effort I make to help myself feel better about how I look endlessly rebounds on me, makes me want more beer, more cookies, more cheese, more potatoes. Which makes me fatter. And fatter.

Oh my god. This path is going to turn me into a six hundred pound woman unable to get through her own front door.

You know, when I weighed 155 pounds and was trying to get used to the fact that that was twenty pounds more than I was used to carrying around on my body, I didn't know I could feel this much worse about myself. Back then I just made myself new clothes and because my body was still an average size, I was able to change my clothes and that was it. I felt so much better. I didn't know a person could hate their own body as much as I do right now. I don't even have the words to tell you how much I hate it because the words are so ugly I almost made myself retch just thinking them in my own head.

It isn't that being heavy is so unattractive, because I don't actually see it that way. I see other women who have the same body that I do and none of the same thoughts come to me. I only see all the things that make them attractive. Except for in myself.

It's impossible for me to love my own body when it has so deeply disappointed me. It let me down first by breaking in a stupid fluke of a fall that shouldn't have even bruised anything, let alone fractured my hip socket in five places. It's been down hill ever since. Now it disappoints me every time I try to rectify the damage I did to my body while lying around in bed unable to walk. All that cheese. All that beer. All that sugar. I try to get back into the exercise routines and my body fails me. My joints hurt. My back goes out. My feet hurt.

I am so angry at myself for having let things get this far that I just want to punish myself. So instead of treating my body like some kind of fruity temple, I just keep trashing it. But now it's totally out of control. I can't seem to get the reins back into my hands. It's like the Devil is driving this truck of a body and all I can do is watch this long slow motion wreck careen itself off of a cliff.

How much farther do I need to fall before I hit the bottom of this personal quarry?

I am supposed to be dressing the part of my June Cleaver dream. But I can't. I just bought more fabric and patterns yesterday to sew some new clothes, so that I will look cuter. More vintage or retro inspired. I was depressed choosing my patterns because I knew what waited for me on the other end of the project: disappointment. But I went ahead and started with a cobbler apron in hopes that it would be more comfortable and attractive on me than the cocktail aprons that either have to be tied just under my boobs or completely underneath my belly because they won't stay tied where they should be tied around my "waist".

I just can't do it. It's killing me inside. I need to wear black, I need to wear indistinct clothing that I couldn't care a rat's ass about because if I try to go ahead and wear the kind of clothes I actually like then I will constantly be reminded of my disappointment, my anger, and my shame that I used to actually look good in these same styles.

I was a plus size twenty pounds ago. I was a plus size forty pounds ago. So it's not like I'm a size 8 person freaking out because I'm almost a size 10. Throughout my life people have always been surprised to find out what size I am; no matter what size I am people always think I couldn't possibly be that size. The reason for this interesting phenomenon is (in my opinion) that I don't dress in things I know I can't pull off at whatever size I am. Style is something I have been avidly interested in for my whole life. The fit of clothes, how they look best on people is something I know a lot about. As subject to personal taste as style is, there are general rules to follow if you want to look nice and I know what they are.

There are only two things I can pull off right now and neither of them look cute, stylish, cool, retro, or remotely memorable.

I'm not saying this to be mean to myself. This is just the way it is. Anything else would just be an attempt to massage a very bruised ego. This is useless because inevitably I run into a reflective window or a mirror and it speaks very plainly.

Measurements don't lie.

I suppose it would shock everyone to know that the life I'm leading is quite unhealthy for me. It's much to busy. Much too stressful. I have an entrepreneurial spirit but a rather unstable nervous system, the two do not coexist easily. I've worked so hard to build what I'm building and it has reminded me of how much better my life was as a housewife/stay at home mom. My kid has suffered. My spouse has suffered. And I am suffering from the constant attention our business requires. Attention that is taken away from our home, our quality of life, and our well being.

Having a store is not the reason I'm fat. It's just the reason I feel incapable of doing anything about it. I have no time to plan for exercise, to have quiet reflective moments in which to calm my nerves, to bake bread, to fold my laundry, and to cook nutritious food. The best years of my entire life (so far) were the ones I spent staying home. I never once felt trapped by staying home. I didn't have time. I was just as busy as I am now, it's just that all my busyness added so much to our quality of life. I got a sense of deep satisfaction from it.

Unfortunately I can't stop what I'm doing because it's not as though there's any other income options on the horizon. We can't pay the bills on nothing. We already know that.

I will go make a couple of head scarves and I promise to wear them every day to work. I will keep on wearing make up and trying to look nice for my store. But I am not going to keep trying to figure out a way to wear stylish clothes a la June Cleaver, because I am now deeply depressed over it and I don't think digging myself a deeper hole is a good idea.

I'm so sorry mom and Angeleen.