I drink vinegar

 I've been drinking vinegar lately. 

And no, this isn't a weird pregnancy thing. 

Granted, my expanding belly & swollen ankles have made it pretty clear that my condition is nothing short of "delicate".  I've not been inclined towatrd any bizarre cravings.  In fact I haven't even been that hungry for about the past month since Bean's last growth spurt left him pressed beneath my stomach, significantly reducing the "eat, and eat NOW" signals to my brain.

No, "drinking vinegar" (as a noun) is an old-fashioned beverage called a "shrub".

OK, get it out of your system...


Done?

NPR recently did a story about shrubs, or drinking vinegars.  Then a friend of mine who'd heard the same story posted pictures of her concoctions on her facebook page.  Being pregnant, unable to partake of my nightly glass of wine, and highly susceptible to edible suggestions, I was game to try it for myself.

A little internet research on the topic revealed that I'm perhaps a little behind the trend:

• NYT wrote about them 4 years ago.
• Epicurious posted a recipe for a blueberry shrub in 2010.
• Marisa of FoodinJars included a shrub in a beverage theme week earlier this summer.

Granted, perhaps it's not a "trend", per se, if drinking vinegars have been around since Roman times.   This is the best resource I found on shrubs, both on their history but also on their preparation.

There are two methods to make a shrub: hot and cold.  Both are simple.  Hot is fast, cold is slow.  I happened to have blackberries that were rapidly deteriorating, and blueberries that I bought (unknowingly) past their prime.  Both are ideal for shrubs - save the perfect fruit for preserves.  I used raspberry vinegar that I'd made 2 years ago and had no idea what to do with... until now!

Blackberry Shrub (hot/fast method)
1 cup blackberries
1 cup cider vinegar
1 cup sugar

Heat berries & vinegar in a saucepan until boiling, boil for 10 minutes.  Strain out the berries and add the sugar.  Allow to cool.  Store in fridge.  Mix 1 part shrub syrup to 4 parts water or club soda (or make ratio to your taste).

Blueberry Shrub (cold/slow method), recipe from Epicurious
I recommend mashing the berries before macerating them in the vinegar for a few days.  Otherwise you don't get as much flavor from the berries in the syrup.  You will have to strain the mixture but the extra effort is worthwhile.

Still feeling adventurous?  Here are a few more recipes, these taken from cookbooks dating to the 1800s.

By now you're surely thinking: "Jenn, get to the point: what does it taste like".  I think that the flavor profile is a lot like a lemonade: sour and sweet at the same time.  It smells faintly like vinegar but not overpoweringly so.  It is, as reported elsewhere, very refreshing and addictive.  One person wrote that it they felt they'd found their first "true non-alcoholic beverage for adults".  I like it because it's not cloyingly sweet.

You can use it as a mixer for cocktails but be mindful of the acid.  Imagine a blended blackberry shrub margarita.  Oh yum.  Blueberry shrub muddled with rum and mint?  Yes, please.  Raspberry shrub and vodka over ice?  Yes yes yes!

The second time I had a glass - and I find myself drinking 2 glasses at a time - I poured more of the syrup than I thought I'd want.  It was better with more syrup!  It was sweeter and less tart.  Strange but good.

If you're looking for something new (but old), want to offer unique non-alcoholic beverages to your guests, or even are searching for a new cocktail mixer, try making a shrub.

Besides, it's kinda fun to see the look on people's faces when you tell them you drink vinegar.

What I've been up to

Recently hubbie and I were watching "Dances with Wolves".  There's a line in the movie where Kevin Costner's skeezy guide looks at a skeleton, which has an arrow in it, and laughs himself silly.  "Somebody back east is sayin' 'Now why don't he write?!?'".

That line made me cringe.  I bet you've been wondering that same thing about me.  I've been thinking about you guiltily, cringing that I haven't blogged.  Maybe I should have declared September an off-month, given how busy canning has kept me.

Well, I haven't been idle, that's for damn sure.  I'm in good company in feeling that I'm about sick and tired of canning for the season.  It doesn't seem fair that in the season when I have the most to write about, I also have the most to get done.  I've been working my arse off and I'm ready to kick back and read a book.  Or 7 books.

Lately I've been feeling like the ant in Aesop's fable.  My hubbie has suffered terribly from sleep apnea over the past few months and has been a walking corpse, whereas this is the season when I can barely hold still for the preserving that needs to get done.  I'm not mad at him - in fact he recently saw a specialist and is feeling better - I'm just plum tuckered out.

As you can see, I've gotten quite a bit of canning done.  I love walking into the storage area, a wall of our laundry room that we devoted to my canning, and feeling a sense of deep accomplishment.  The jars are so colorful and pretty, and hold such promise of homemade foods over the winter.

From top, L-R:

1. Various jams, Apricots, Peaches, Potato-leek Soup

2. Sweet pickles, Beef broth, Chicken broth, Corn

3. Asparagus, Curried carrots, Green beans, Tomato Sauce

From top, L-R:

4. Beets (gift), Dilly beans, Pickled yellow squash, various salsas, sauerkraut

5. Jalapenos, Roasted Red Pepper pickles, Pears, Dried tomatoes in olive oil (not canned), plain dried tomatoes

6. Dill pickles (gift), Whole Tomatoes, Boysenberry cobbler filling, Peach nectar, Peaches

7. Fermented dill pickles

See the little green labels?  I put those up so that I could send hubbie in for things and he wouldn't get frustrated by not knowing what's where.  In case you're wondering about the curtains, that's to protect the jars from sunlight, such as it is here in WA State.

But wait... there's more.  To the left of the shelves shown above is a set of narrow shelves.  The room is too small to get all of the shelves in one shot.

From top, L-R:

1. Chocolate-raspberry jam, Curds, Orange Marmalade, Low-sugar jams

2. Blueberry-citrus conserves, Fig preserves, Strawberry & Strawberry-rhubarb jams

From top, L-R:

3. Applesauce, Vanilla-Peach Jam

4. Cherries, Boysenberry syrup

5. Plum sauce, Red onion marmalade

From top, L-R:

6. Raspberry vinegar (never ever again will I need to make any), Tomato Jam

The greenish jar with the chunks is dill pickle chips.

Yet to be canned are:

• a fresh batch of sauerkraut
• tomatilla salsa (aka salsa verde)
• pumpkin cubes.

As I finished up this blog post I got curious, so ventured to the back porch to get an estimate of jars.

There are roughly 300 jars of food shown in these pictures.  Wow.

Amélie, artichokes, and vinaigrette

Please excuse my French today.  I'm blaming the artichokes & the head cold.  I had my first artichoke in France, so eating one always brings up lots of Proustian memories.  (I hated reading Proust in college.)

"Vous, au moins, vous ne risquez pas d'être un légume : même un artichaut a du coeur."

"At least you'll never be a vegetable - even artichokes have hearts."

- Amélie Poulain in the film Amélie

Have you ever seen the movie Amélie?  It's such a fantastic and sweet movie.  I saw it in the movie theatre in Paris after having spent the day strolling around Montmartre.  I had no idea what the movie was about, other than that my friend, Nathalie, insisted we see it.  It was a fantastic bit of kismet to have wandered Montmartre the same day, as that's the neighborhood where the movie takes place.  I had even gone through the subway station shown in the movie on the way to the theatre.

The line quoted above is when she's talking about the vegetable vendor, Collignon, who's a heartless jerk.  One of my favorite scenes in the movie is when the vendor's assistant is spouting off rhymes about what a jerk Collignon is, just like a little kid would do.  It ends with him calling Collignon a vas deferens (which sort of rhymes with Collignon in French). 

If you haven't seen Amélie, check it out.  It's utterly charming.  Unless you don't speak French and hate subtitles.  Then forget it.

Bizarre tangent, I'm sorry.  This damn decongestant is making me loopy. 

After 4 years of trying I finally picked and ate my first artichoke from my own yard.

Here it is before:

And after:

The French call artichokes "le plat des pauvres" (poor man's dish) because there's more when you're done than when you started.

Les artichauts, c'est un vrai plat de pauvres. C'est le seul plat que quand t'as fini de manger, t'en as plus dans ton assiette que quand tu as commencé ! (COLUCHE, French comedian)

Atichokes, now there's a real poor guy's food.  It's the only dish where you've got more on your plate when you're done than when you'd started.

The first artichoke I ever ate was in France with the Blanchet family.  I had no idea how to eat it.  Once I got to the choke Jean Claude said to me, "you won't like that part, give it to me".  Marie-Claude, my surrogate mom, shooed him away from my prize and showed me how to scrape the choke from the heart, the best part.

Délicieux!

That memory comes back to me every time I eat an artichoke.  Vous me manquez énormément, mes amis.

Here's a recipe for a traditional French vinaigrette to be used as a dressing for summer salads and a dip for artichoke leaves.

In a small bowl, mix 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard with 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar and salt/pepper to taste.  Slowly add 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil (not olive oil), one at a time, stirring well to emulsify.  Use immediately.

For variation, mix in any of the following:

• fresh chopped or dried herbs, such as tarragon, savory, or basil
• minced shallots
• roasted garlic paste.

Bon appétit!

The mother lode

Some time back I went to my cupboard to pull out the red wine vinegar only to find this:

What?  You can't really tell what that is?  How about a closer look.

It looks like something from a horror film, doesn't it?  And that's just my prune-y fingertips!

Most people would be totally grossed out at this and curse the vinegar maker.  Not me.  I'm weird.  I got all excited: I think it's a vinegar mother!  A "mother" is the bacteria culture that's used to convert a fermented liquid into vinegar.

My old office had several bottles of wine that had been sitting around in a hot closet for too long to be any good.  I brought it home and scrawled "vinegar" on the label so I wouldn't drink it.  Thank God for that because about 2 months later I went scrounging for some wine and nearly opened this.  Believe me - it's NOT worthy.

About a week ago I divided the wine between 2 jars, put a piece of the mother in each, and put them in my pantry.

A few days after I did this, the mother in one of the jars is floating.  I'm taking that as a good sign.

By the way, I found this website to be very useful as I was thinking about making my own vinegar.

Apparently it can take up to 6 months to turn white wine into vinegar.  I'll keep you posted.  In the meantime I'll have to prevent my hubbie from throwing away what looks like urine samples with some nasty goo in it. 

Ew.