It's been a while since I posted...

but I have nothing exciting to report.

My sister found another funny site that I have begun to peruse. One is about graphs. One particular graph caught my eye for some reason...

So We Meet Again....

I'm feeling sufficiently bitter enough to catch up on some bloggin'.

Michael and I went to see The Cure, not last Friday, but the Friday before that. Admittedly, the concert was a great one and they played all but one of the songs I wanted to hear. ("Cut Here.") That said, I had a few problems with it:

-it was at the Patriot Center which, as Cartman would say ,"sucks balls." The sound is generally terrible (much like the school and it is my alma mater so I know these things). The worst concert I ever saw what White Stripes at the Patriot Center-I am not exactly sure how one can make exactly one guitar and old drum set sound bad, but the Patriot Center managed to accomplish exactly that). It is, as my friend Maria succinctly states, a frakkin' basketball court. It did seem very wrong for the majority of fans of The Cure, which I assume never before stepped foot on a basketball court. (I, myself, famously played basketball in elementary school in Bermuda, coached by a handsomely tall Canadian named Gary. I had my moment in glory when I stole the ball away from the other team and scored a goal. In my own team's basket. So yes, I was destined to enjoy The Cure. But I digress.)
-It was disheartening to see Robert Smith, seemingly on the verge of diabetes, have way more energy than me. See Michael's blog for a full set list. All I will say is that they played for over 3 hours and had 3 encores. And that I am old. And wished they would stop. And Robert Smith kept prancing on stage. Which made me feel older.
-Goth people. Nothing is worse than a person trying to emulate 2008-era Robert Smith (see diabetes comment above). That said, I spent the majority of the concert alternately sitting down (see "I am old" statements above) and glaring at the obese goth chick two rows behind me. When she was not yelling/slurring obscenities at Robert Smith when he didn't choose songs she liked, (in what I considered to be a fake British accent), she was twirling up and down the aisles (fire hazard) like some horrible goth dreidel. In fact, most of the joy I derived from the concert involved glaring at dreidel-goth-chick. And Skittles. I like Skittles.

In general, however, I was tired, but well-behaved. I am generally a homebody and see no use in most concerts-I can pay $65 for a concert ticket or stay home with a $10 CD-guess which one I get better sound quality out of? But this was a Christmas present for Michael, so I strived to not complain. And he got me Noodles & Co.

Then there was this past Friday.

I will start by saying that my typical bedtime is 10:30PM.

Notice I do not state that it is 4:30AM.

Michael and I, several months ago, bought tickets for Devotchka. We knew it would be a late night, simply because the concert is in DC and we, thankfully, live very far from D.C. We thought the concert would start at 9PM.

We found out the day of the concert that there would be two acts before Devotchka and that the headliner would not go on until 11:45PM.

I am way too old for this crap.

So I hemmed and hawed and finally decided that I wanted to see one of the preview acts so bad, I would go ahead and go. (Basia Bhulat, in case you are wondering.)

I would console myself with, alternately, copious amounts of coffee and vodka.

Michael, being the anal being he is, has a more complete timeline on his blog. I myself will not bore you with the details. All I will say is that we missed the first act, Basia Bhulat was everything I could have hoped for, blueberry Stoli is lovely, and Devotchka was pretty good, but most of their music sounded the same at 1AM in the morning.

I fell asleep on the way home and was grumpy for the next two days.

Too old for this crap.

It is very depressing at the ripe age of 27 to realize that you would rather stay at home and make JAM than to go to a concert.

sigh.

We didn't get home till about 4:30 AM and Tilda was up around 8:30 AM. It is Tuesday, and I think I am still recovering.

So, there, I am caught up.

GrainsnGrapes

Check out my new post on Grains N Grapes. I found watching There Will Be Blood so inspirational, I have decided to start hatin' on inanimate objects.

I be jammin'

So yesterday, I did something I have wanted to do for a VERY long time (talking years here, people).

I made jam.

I have wanted to learn how to can since I read about it in The Tightwad Gazette some 7 years ago. The idea of being able to not only grow my own food, but also store it has great appeal. It means one day I can live out on a farm in themiddleofnowhere and be closer to being 100% self-sufficient, thus also improving my chances of surviving in the coming zombie apocalypse.

I had also read that canning is a skill that can be used to save money-more on that later.

So for the past 7 years, I have been reading what I can about canning. A very useful resource for food preservation in general is Preserving Summer's Bounty, a book I was very excited to receive, but disappointed that, while it did include excellent and clear canning instructions, it pretty much discouraged it as the most efficient method of food preservation and tends to advocate the freezer as the most efficient method of preservation.

However, this does not take into account the cost of using a freezer or the inevitability of spending countless hours canning, only to have a major summer or winter storm take out your electricity and destroy your supply of stockpiled food.

So why did it take me so long to can? Well, I thought you needed special equipment. And my kitchen is small and lacking in counter space. And fruit is expensive. And jam is cheap. And I don't eat it that often. And then there's the b-word-botulism.

Then I came across a great article about canning in the June edition of Bon Appetit. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a copy to post it here, but I am sure it will be posted on epicurious soon. For the time being, I will just say that the author was so enamoured of making jam that she made the process seem almost pornographic. And she made it seem so simple.

This, combined with a nice sale on fruit at Giant this week (99 cents for a pint of blackberries!!!) made it seem worthwhile to give it a whirl.

Because I have been reading about canning for so long, I already had all of the materials on hand. It was just a matter of cooking up the macerated berries (raspberries and blackberries in case you were wondering) and putting it into sterilized jars.

It didn't take more than an hour, not including the macerating time and the result was amazing. It was so easy, I ended up making that night's dinner at the same time.

As you can see, it came out gorgeously. And I have NEVER had any type of berry-related thing that tastes as good as this does. This morning, I had it on toast with butter and jam. I am going to try to mix some with yogurt to make my own berry-flavored yogurt (and maybe freeze some later to make popsicles for the coming summer weather.) Even though I am not fond of pancakes, I am thinking about making a batch just to have my jam on top of them. And peanut butter.....can't wait.

So, was it cost-effective? While the blackberries were on sale, the raspberries were not-altogether, I spent $12 on the fruit alone. I ended up with 32 ozs of jam. I can buy 32 oz of Smuckers at Costco in bulk for 99 cents. So clearly, it did not save money.

That said, it is not yet berry season here in the mid-Atlantic, but will be soon. I have never really priced out cheap sources of berries here, but will be scouring farmer's markets and PYO farms soon. Even if it is not cost-effective, I have to believe it is healthier-the only ingredients in my jam are berries, lemon juice and sugar. No preservatives of any type. And it tastes 50,000 times better than any other jam I have ever had.

Furthermore, the author of the Bon Appetit article said it was easy to swap out the fruit. So talk to me again in July when Maryland's delicious peaches ripen.

The prospect of enjoying home canned summer fruit in the middle of January 2009 makes me almost look forward to the winter.

Oh, and by the way-I have been totally stoked about jam for the past 24 hours (can't you tell?) and have been mentioning my excitement to Michael constantly. This morning, (while I was enjoying jam and butter on wheat toast) he says "Of course you would make good jam-it's in your name. Jam-ee." And he grinned.

And people wonder why I constantly threaten him with divorce.