Wednesday, October 18, 2006

peace, jelly, acorns

"Quand on ne trouve pas son repose en soi-meme, il est inutile de le chercher ailleurs."
When you can't find peace in yourself, it is useless to look for it elsewhere. Le Rochfoucauld.

I work on the crab apples, which I cooked yesterday, and allowed to drip through the jelly bag all night. Now I have the pleasure of labelling. The scruffy little green apples have been transformed into four jars of translucent crimson jelly.

Crunching acorns under foot, I make the connection with the oak forests of the Andalucian sierra, and think of the pata negra, long legged Iberian pigs, which live up there, feed off acorns and produce the sweet, air-dried serrano ham, which you find in every self-respecting bar in Spain.

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