How to make chutney

1. Steal apples from a wild tree growing on the verge of a highway.

2. Procure further apples from ancient farm tree belonging to one’s father.

3. Google ‘spicy apple chutney.’ Find this recipe. Write it out in scribbly greylead on the back of an envelope.

4. Neglect to inventory pantry contents until imminent departure to market. Hastily weigh apples (4kg) and multiply recipe by factor of 4. Buy everything x 4.

5. Later that afternoon, start dumping things in a pot. Sugar x 4. Sultanas x 4.

6. Start chopping apples. 1kg. 2 kg.Put ’em in the pot.

7. Realise that you are a complete dunderhead and read POUNDS as KILOS in hasty pre-shop weighing. Realise this means you only have 2kg apples. 2kg of apples now mingled with twice the amount of sugar and sultanas required. Curse that you didn’t just chop apples first.

8. Think about dashing out for more apples. Consider that this means more chopping.

9. Pick out all the little bits of chopped apple. Scoop out sultanas into sieve. Try to shake off as much sugar as possible. Spill sugar everywhere until floor is good and crunchy and the bench is sticky.

10. Start again.

11. Remain quite relaxed throughout because you’re on a 5-day public holiday spree from work and everything sparkles with autumnal sunshine and work-free goodwill. No wuckas, mate!

12. Boil for hours. Bottle. Look forward to months of spicy sandwiching.

Recipe x 4 x 2 with tweaks to adapt from foolish imperial measurements

• 4 kg 2 kg of cored apples (with peel on. Peeling is booooooring.)
• 1 kg onions
• 250 g sultanas
• 700 g sugar
• 2 heaped tbsp of each: paprika, mixed spice, salt and ground coriander
• 850 mL malt vinegar

Chop, chuck in pan, boil until vinegar vapour is peeling the paint in your kitchen and curling the hairs in your nose. Bottle in sterile jars.

Zombie plums

No, I’m not talking about the balls of the undead. I’m talking about these demonic fruits we spotted at the market yesterday:

Do these not look like the flesh of something long-demised? In the rigors of mortis?

Who would want such unholy drupes to cross their thresholds? Although, it might be fun to pop some in a bowl with some passionfruit and watch the fruity good vs evil battle.

Mmmmm, yummy.

Did you know about Lissy’s excellent blog, The Hungry Ataxophile, in which she details one woman’s journey to cook from each and every one of her 311 cookbooks this year to justify their existence to her cruel, judgemental husband?

Well, Lissy put out an open call for people to give her more cookbooks. So when in the wild, wild west of Melbourne, I stumbled across this little BEE-YOOTY, I had to procure it for her.

As if the cover’s face collaged from meat, fish and pickles in homage to Arcimboldo is not enough to convince you of the book’s true and rightful place in her cookbook collection, behold these lurid photos of Goose Liver (cold) and Fisherman’s Soup:

Doesn’t that just make you want to go out and strangle a goose for its tasty cold liver? And milk a fisherman for his soup?

To stomp all over my triumph, the Curmudgeon quietly observed that Lissy’s fella is of the vegetarian persuasion. So perhaps he will not covet the Jellied Carp, Pickled Scraps of Suckling-Pig or Pancakes with Calf’s Brains but will choose instead Asparagus in the Hungarian Way (Hungarian Way = breadcrumbs, sour cream, butter and paprika), Stuffed Kohlrabi or Cooked Lettuce.

I can’t wait to deliver this tome into her hands next week. Ooooh! Boiled Paste with Curd Cheese!

Carbohydrate crusader. Caped, perhaps.

I baked a big fat loaf of bread a couple of days ago. Huge. Larger than my head. Denser than my head. We ate delicious, cakey toast at every opportunity until it was gone.

I marvel at gluten. I would like to defend its honour, too, since it gets such a bad rap. I feel really sorry for anyone who can’t eat it for medical reasons, but I do think it’s become The Bad Guy, like a cartoon villain. (He’s behind you!!). I think I’ll form an advocacy group called ‘Gluttons for Gluten’ and promote this maligned molecule’s millennia of fine work in the fields of cake, biscuits, bread and pizza. Who’ll join me?! We can make t-shirts and chant, “High-gluten flour power!”

In my garden

I think my smugness is justified. These thumbs are so green they’re viridian, baby.

Volcanoes and mushrooms

Long weekends demand lazy, longweekendy sorts of activities. We went to see Guilfoyle’s Volcano at the Botanic Gardens. Squid led the way.

She was unafraid to stare into the abyss.

On Saturday we set off flea bombs to kill THE MOTHS FROM HELL and bundled into the car to go see Ma at her country manor. Oh, look at that, it’s autumn. Mushrooms come up in autumn. The Curmudgeon loves a wild mushroom. Thusly:

We fried ’em up for Sunday breakfast and lo, it was good. Ma sat this one out. She does not trust a mushroom that isn’t pure white and wrapped in supermarket packaging. Of course, those are grown in horse shit so pine mushrooms that spring up in her very own front lawn might actually be a little less disgusting. Hehe.

Keeper

For no particular reason, other than because he’s a Very Nice Man, the Curmudgeon cooked a surprise überdeluxe dinner for us last night incorporating a few of my favourite things:

• roast cauliflower soup
• bread rolls with secret stash of gooey melty French Gruyère in the middle
• ratatouille, but not just any ratatouille. The recipe from the movie Ratatouille
• fancy pants matchy-matchy wine
• pear tarte Tartin with creme anglaise (AND HE DIDN’T SPLIT THE CUSTARD. WHAT A GOD.)

I like him. I think I’ll keep him.

I’m good. Just ask me.

This bottling/domestic thing is becoming a weekly event. It seems terribly appropriate to gloat about the latest batch – fig and walnut jam – given the vernacular meaning of the acronym FIGJAM. It’s true. I am. But I’m also very, very, sticky because there are bits of jam all over the place, such as my inner elbow and the top of my boots. How did it get there? I just don’t know. My grandfather used to claim that marmalade walks up the spoon handle. Maybe fig jam does too.