Episode 28: In a jam

Tartas de mariposas,
or butterfly cakes!

As I said in the last blog, we're back to work in the school and I can't say that I'm thrilled about it. There's nothing wrong with the work you understand, but I was enjoying not having to think about work and bills and suchlike and now that reality has kicked me in the la-la's, I don't like it. So, instead of thinking about it, I have been doing other things instead. In the last week I've hardly stopped. Now, you would think that not stopping would be good for my waistline, but sadly my version of not stopping involves making jams/lemon curd, cakes and crumpets. I did break out into a small sweat when I upped and cleaned the place through, but that was only out of necessity because there was flour and sugar everywhere. And you might know that where there is jam-making, there's a saga, which I will now attempt to reproduce for you, so that you can live it as if you were there. 

Mitzi was in flatties until
1956, when she sold her eldest
child to buy some Dr. Scholl's

One of my favourite things when we go to America is grape jelly with my morning toast, so I decided to recreate it right here in Spain. Grapes are expensive here and as you know, we've not got two centimos to scratch our arses with at present, so we went visiting as volunteers to the local hospital in order to snaffle an adequate supply from patient's bedsides; half a dozen here, four there; no-one missed them. I also managed to bag a nice story CD about life as a disabled Jewish transvestite in Spain in the early 20th century (which was terrible for them if my Spanish is correct. Apparently they didn't get peep-toe sandals here until 1955). We also bagged a set of false teeth, a nice clock radio (well, she didn't look as if she was going to need it where she was going) and an invitation to Ramón and Vera's grandson's circumcision in two weeks, which we politely declined.

Grapes gathered, we regrouped in our kitchen and followed the recipe to the letter. Now, it said in the book that jellies (as opposed to jams) don't need as much boiling and that.....and I quote......"less is more". Well you might know that this turned out to not be the case. Having boiled the first lot for "less" time, we were dismayed to find that it was as runny as it had been the day before when we'd put it in the jar. We decided to try and boil it a little more, but one morning later it was still as runny, although made a delicious addition to some rather tasteless white wine we'd bought off a dodgy geezer called Juan Borneveryminute, behind the back of the local churreria. 

It's a washing powder and
apparently gets right to the
bottom of the wash

We boiled it again, although this time, we added some pectin; home made and natural you understand - none of this jam sugar processed muck! Actually we would have used it if we could find it, but this being a Third World country when it comes to supermarkets, they don't sell jam sugar here. I suppose with the recession and a 25% unemployment figure, there are lots more people with time on their hands to make their own pectin, thus leaving the shelves of the local supermarket free to sell other things like 86 different varieties of bloody olive bloody oil and something called Colon!  And do I need to point out that you can't buy custard here? We had to ship it from the UK and yes, I'm aware of how to make it from scratch, but there are some places where one just has to draw a line. 

When he put Doña Encarnación's
teeth in, José's transformation
was astounding

Where was I? Oh yes, the pectin. This time I only reboiled the one jar and the following morning, full of anxiety and trepidation, I noticed that some of the jam had actually started to set a little. Buoyed up by this minute victory, I got more apples (well, we were due another round of volunteering - and we took those teeth back as they didn't suit either of us....they made José look like Red Rum) and made some more pectin. Using the one jar that was half set, I poured pectin in with gay abandon and boiled it as if my life depended on it. The following morning, you'll never guess................yes, a jar of runny grape jelly; not even half set like the time before. Slightly miffed by this, we went to work, once José had wrestled the jar off me to save me from throwing it out of the kitchen window. Dejectedly the jar sat, unloved on the kitchen table all day.

That night when we came home from work, I moved the jar out of the way and let out such a yell that José thought I'd 'entangled' myself whilst waxing my tanga line. It was set! The jelly was set! So, after four lots of boiling, several kilo's of apples and goodness knows how much electricity, I have my own home-made jelly at only €23,50 a jar the way I made it. Yes, it's delicious; I had some on my breakfast this morning, which was a little strange as I have muesli on a Sunday. How on earth can that author say that "less is more" until I realised, it's not her fault but the fault of her husband!!!!!

This is just a shamelessly gratuitous picture of a tanga because it's mentioned in the last paragraph. If you think this is good, tune in next week for my blog about male nudity!!!

Until the next time my lovelies
xxx