Dustpan Alley (OLD)

It's Just As Bad As You Think

Finally! Definitive proof of alien life right here on earth! Yes, my friends, that is an alien emerging from the skin (the SKIN) of a regular farm tomato. This leaves me wondering why the hell the aliens are always honing in on farms? What is it with them and corn patches, farmer's barns, and probing all those poor rural folk? Don't they know there is plenty of strange city meat folk to experiment on?

This appears to be the first ever tomato live birth. I find it just as fascinating as I find it distressing that what is supposed to be a piece of highly coveted fruit has just given birth to itself three or four times. This is not a reasonable fruit.

Today I acquired far more produce than I will have time to process. It still isn't officially tomato canning season here because tomatoes are very late this year, however, I managed to get enough to make a big pot of tomato sauce for eating this week. I also got tomatillos to make tomatillo salsa with, plus some jalapenos, eggplants and squash for ratatouille, and I finally picked a bunch of the yellow plums that are overhanging our yard. We didn't have to go far to forage for those!

The plums don't have a strong plum flavor but they do have a pleasing sweet/tart fruitiness that will lend itself well to being a glaze on things like fruit tarts and other fancy dishes if the jam I made with them doesn't thrill us. I still have more and my friend Chelsea suggested making a plum sauce with them and I am going to do it! Most Asian style plum sauces are made with red or purple plums but the golden color of these plums will look nice too. I will use more sugar than the regular recipe calls for so that I can use this sauce like a sweet and sour Chinese dipping sauce. You know the kind I'm talking about? Bright pink syrupy sauce that has a sourness that tastes so good when spring rolls are dipped into it? I'm going to attempt to make a golden version of that.

So, that's a lot of work cut out for me. Luckily the kid has a friend over and so I can putz around in the kitchen all I want. Til my back falls off of my bones.

I want to say right here, right now, that I have not been overly sympathetic to my friends and family members who have deep aversions to yellow jackets. I have been followed around by them but generally found that if I didn't freak out they would eventually buzz off. Today I saw a different side of those wasps. I experienced the side that makes people quiver in their shoes and piddle on their carpets.

I was in my kitchen, pretty much minding my own business and not bounty hunting innocent flying creatures when, while trying to wash out my small enamel canner, I felt an intense sting in my arm. I looked at my arm and saw a yellow jacket attached to me by it's nasty syringe-size stinger and started swatting at it. I guess wasps don't like it when people swat at them so it starts lunging in at me trying to attack. Yes, it tried for my hip and I could almost feel the sting before I brushed it off again at which point it made for my chest. I'm thinking this dude had female issues.

Obviously I dropped my canner on the floor in this age old scuffle between people and nature (I'm thinking a Jack London style movie could be made from this epic saga) and ran screaming outside. My kid and his friend came to see what the big deal is. There's nothing like a couple of partially toothless skeptical seven year olds to make you feel foolish.

What I really wanted to do was leave the brave little men alone in the house and hightail it down to the pub to drink my shivers away and not come back until the natural life span of this evil winged beast was over. Naturally I'm not allowed to do things like that as a parent. So I had no choice but to show those two kids that I am a woman not to be messed with by some puny hairy looking punk.

So about two false entries into the danger zone I finally faced my foe like a man and caught him in a glass jar and released him outside in the front of the house.

I'll be damned if he didn't wing his way back to my porch within forty five minutes.

All this is to say: I understand now. I won't mock you guys any more. I promise. My sting still hurts and while it hardly compares to having given birth on the pain-o-meter it is a memorable moment.

I'm off to make sauces. I will be the sauce queen. Another time I'll tell you about how Max is teaching me to play chess and how scary it is how good he is at it for a seven year old.