January Green

Today we have snow (or at least it snowed last night and now it's melting), but yesterday, while I was trying to take pictures of the three little black lambs (who would not cooperate and behave like little dervishes and always run away at the very first sight of me), I noticed there is green grass amidst the mud outside the barn.

And by the driveway where Smart Duck likes to relax is more green grass. A rather anemic green, but nevertheless it's definitely green grass in January.

I am drawn to the color green, and bought these fibers last Saturday at the St. Distaff Day Spin-Off. I bought the lavender and mint green silks (the shiny fibers on top) from Barbara Seeler, which will be my first experience with silk spinning, and the Autumn Vineyard blend is a color mix I have been obsessively fantasizing about, but not actually dyeing myself. I also brought home some natural-colored black llama that is phenomenally soft, and from Alice Lake's llama, Joey that I met when I visited her. I hardly ever buy fiber, with my own sheep producing a consistent fiber supply for me, but I just couldn't resist any of these, and I am so excited to spin them.

Kiwis are one of the very few foods on my 'I don't eat it' list. Not that I don't like them, but my allergy reaction to them is strong enough I studiously avoid them, unlike the bajillion other foods that I allergy test positive to, but tolerate. Nevertheless, I have not been able to stop thinking about a kiwi jam a woman named Karen, who was from Hawaii, gave to my husband, when they worked in a lab together in Portland right after we'd graduated from college (yes, that long ago). I thought it was so incredibly pretty and exotic at the time. I read recently that kiwis, like pineapple, contain an enzyme many people react to (this is different than an allergy), that is denatured by cooking. Maybe it's the enzyme thing and not the allergy thing? Maybe cooked kiwis are different than fresh kiwis?

The only way to deal with my kiwi jam fixation was to make some. In between the recent complications of Life (a teen who hasn't learned to drive a manual shift + the car with the automatic transmission has a cracked head + classes at three different locations), I made this jam a few nights ago using the kiwi jam recipe from cooks.com (click here), 9 California kiwis bought at the grocery store, and a packet of Certo I had in the back of the cupboard. This morning I ate some of the kiwi jam on my toast (it is both the enzyme thing and the allergy thing with kiwis and me). I liked the jam well enough, but I was not WOWed by the flavor -I think adding some lime juice and/or crushed pineapple, using homemade pectin and better quality fruit would be an improvement. And I still think it makes a very pretty jam.