Elderberry gelato. 

It just seemed like such an obvious thing to do, given who I am. So I got my finger-staining on and carefully de-stemmed until I had a full quart of elderberries, which came from the same spot as the ones I used in my hurricane jam and the rest of my elderberry projects. This base has some lemon zest and juice in it. The color is so beautiful that it’s obscene. I’m going to let it freeze overnight before deciding how much I like the finished product. But oh! the color…

There are many food preferences that I can deal with without any grumbling or judgements, but I just do not understand people who don’t like Pie. During a drive from the Thousand Islands region back to Brooklyn a couple years ago, I delivered a diatribe that lasted for probably twenty minutes about Pie. It may have featured my belief that baking a cake is all well and good, but if you want to tell someone you love them, you make Pie. Even if the situation isn’t as extreme as that, Pie is still more meaningful. Pie is sincere, heartfelt, comforting, unpretentious, and delicious. Pie is the best dessert treatment for most seasonal fruit. Pie makes people happy. My father called my mother the Pie Queen, possibly his highest compliment. This is a man who never gave false praise, especially when it came to food. 

Today marks six months since my father died. It is cold and rainy and my driveway is still not usable. I’ve spent hours listening to Ray Charles and then switched to Richard Thompson, all while wearing my apron and doing the one thing that is most likely to make me feel better: baking. 

These apples may not be the prettiest and most perfect, but they are fresh and real, grown without anything strange ever done to them: I picked them at my mother’s house. And when I was done picking apples, I walked behind the barn and harvested elderberries. 

The apples and elderberries together made an amazing color— the berries started to stain the apple slices almost immediately, and this intensified after I added the sugar and stirred up the filling. Because this filling is a mix of apples and berries, I used a combination of cornstarch and tapioca granules as thickeners. The only other ingredients in the filling are the juice of one lemon and some cinnamon. 

This is not an I Love You Pie, it is a Thank You Pie. Yesterday morning a friend went to Whole Foods in Boston with a list, then drove to Vermont and delivered groceries to me. He was coming up anyway, but his grocery shopping for me was a huge help. He even bought parrot food for my mother. Beginning to restock my fridge after having to throw out so much food because of losing power for days feels great. I once again have dairy, which means I can make some gelato base and begin to build up my inventory.

So here I am, in the woods, on a cold, rainy, and sad day. But I have pie. It’s a start. 

Today I finally finished dealing with my two latest syrups: elderberry and blueberry. These were in two of the pots on the wood cookstove. They’re an excellent use for that stove; you can let them cook down slowly for hours without really paying attention to them, or using up all of your fuel. 

These will be used in cocktails, added to seltzer to make classy sodas, and potentially added to grain alcohol to make liqueurs. Oh, the possibilities….

Also: it’s so very convenient that I love Bulleit, because the empty bottles are perfect for refilling with my syrups. And they look great, too.

Hurricane Jam!

My version of hurricane prep was to pick a shit-ton of elderberries. My mother had been telling me they were ripe, and I didn’t bother to go check until Saturday night. She wasn’t kidding. So I had all of these berries in my fridge, and then I lost power. For days.

I don’t usually take these weather warnings too seriously. Why? I’m from Vermont. Weather is just a fact of life, out of our control, and the extreme stuff generally happens during the Winter. I check the forecast constantly, so I can wear appropriate layers and avoid icy roads. But my house isn’t in the flood plain. Neither is my mother’s. I stayed up late enough on Saturday night that I know the rain started at 1am. On Sunday morning, after the power went out, I drove to my mother’s house and to town. Then I came home, the power was restored, and I started sewing. I spent all of Sunday sewing, streaming video while pinning, and being terribly productive in general. The power flashed off and then on a couple of times, and then it went out again around 3:30. That’s when it didn’t come back on right away. It’s also when I spoke to my mother, who told me not to even try to drive anywhere, that the roads were washed out in both directions. And to my friend David, who was moving things to the second floor as the water approached his house, watching the water rise higher and higher until it was eventually 2’ deep in the first floor of his house. I spoke to another friend; he was hanging out with his mother, playing drinking games— every time a tree went by in the river, they had a drink. Meanwhile, I hung out in the dark and used my landline until that, too, cut out. And then the cell tower went.

On Monday morning, Rochester, Vermont, was a new and unknown place. Roads and bridges were gone, some houses had collapsed completely, others were flooded, debris was everywhere. Electricity, telephones, cell phones, and all roads in and out of town were gone. But the people in this tiny little town that I’m from stepped up and helped each other out and have managed to stay in surprisingly good spirits. It’s an amazing thing to see, and does wonders for ones faith in humanity.

Me? I made jam. And pickles. I may not be good at manual labor, but I’m excellent at restocking pantries.

I received this from a friend of mine in Boston who was getting the daily updates I sent out by going high enough on a mountain to pick up a signal from another tower:

I have decided to make “Vermont” a verb.
I’m going to “Vermont” all crazy-ass bad situations from now on = sense of humor, self-sufficiency, community, optimism, being pro-active, making the most fun with what you have and can do.

I think Amy summed it up pretty well.